BLURG

This blog is at a temporary stand still because, even though I have completed several dessert recipes, and taken pictures of them, I've been too damn lazy to post anything about them. Please stand by.

HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE PUDDING

Making your own pudding is so easy, that if more people took the time to do, they would never buy pudding from their local mega mart again, and Jell-o's stock would plummet. But..... even though this particular recipe is easy, I feel the flavor needs to be tweaked a little. If you're into dark chocolate, you're going to love this pudding. Me, not so much. I know that dark chocolate is good for you, and that it's very hip to be into dark chocolate right now. But, I really don't give a shit, because I like milk chocolate. Give me the creamy, full sugar blast of milk chocolate anytime. And if saying that makes me sound less mature,and like less of a foodie, then so be it. I also have another food confession. When it comes to pudding, I actually LIKE the skin that forms on the top. Yep, I'm a weirdo, but don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

Let's talk about pudding for a minute. If you're a Generation X'er like me, then most of your pudding memories consist of Jell-o instant pudding that your mother threw together and poured into drinking glasses for consumption after dinner. Or, if your family was well off, you had pudding packs in the school lunch your mom packed for you. So there's a chance that many of us only have memories of pudding that originated from a powdered mix, which is really a shame. Because pudding you make yourself has a bold, chocolatey taste that can never be matched by anything that is shilled by Mr. Bill Cosby. If you have an extra 30 minutes on your hands, making your own pudding is completely worth it. I recommend everyone take time to smell the chocolate in life.

MY AWESOME APPLE PIE

The picture turned out pretty well huh? Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.


If you've read this blog before you know that I don't really get excited about pie. I think it's overrated. Especially that All-American behemoth, the apple pie. Often apple pies are made with canned, apple pie filling, meaning that you really can't tell one person's pie from another. Or you get an apple pie that is made from scratch where the crust and apples are not only overly mushy, but there is a substantial gap between where the top layer of crust ends and the filling actually begins. Even though I don't care for pie, I do care for my Father-In-Law who happens to like apple pie, and because of that caring I set out to put together my own apple pie recipe that would live up to my high dessert standards.


I've always tinkered with pre-existing recipes, and on a few occasions I've made up my own recipes, so this wasn't going to be that hard for me.


It calls for eight large apples ( 2 each Granny Smith, Braeburn, Gala and Golden Delicious). You then peel core and dice the apples. Then toss the apples with about 1/4 cup of lemon juice and 1/2 Tbs. of salt and then let the apples sit in a collander over an empty bowl that the juices can run off into.Let the apples drain for approximately one hour. Take the drained apple juice in the drainage bowl and whisk it together with two Tbs of cornstarch. Put your diced apples into a large bowl and then toss the apples with two Tbs. granulated sugar, and two Tbs. dark brown sugar. Add one cup crushed pecans, and two tsps. finely diced fresh ginger. Add apple juice and corn starch mixture to your apple mixture, stirring until mixture coats apples. Pour mixture into a store bought, bottom pie crust, level out apple mixture, and top with second pie crust. Bake at 375 for one hour.




This pie was freaking fantastic! I don't remember the last time I was so proud of something that I had made, and it had very little sugar in it to boot. You could really taste the apples, and the fresh ginger gave it a little something special. I rock.


It turned out so well the first time I made it, that I decided to make it a second time for my FIL's birthday barbecue last weekend. It was even better on the second try.


Up next....homemade chocolate pudding, and believe it or not, another pie. Cherry this time ( far superior to apple, in my opinion).

For those of you that have been asking, the hole that I previously posted pictures of has been filled in. Wanna see? Here it is.....

Muuuuuuch better. With the hole filled in, my life is back to normal, and I no longer want to burst into tears when I look at my back yard. Also, let me say that Mr. Icequeen and his dad tackled this grand project entirely on their own and did an amazing job. My husband is truly something special and I feel that he can really do anything that he becomes determined to do. Can I get a round of applause for my better half?

JEWELED COCONUT DROPS

I was trying to come up with some lame excuse as to why I haven't posted for a few weeks. It was going to go something like...."Well it's hard to bake when your back yard looks like this!"

Then I realized that, since the oven isn't actually inside that monsterous hole, it's not a valid excuse. And then I thought about telling you that I've been touring some exotic locale, and that baking is now for the Commoners, and I now consider myself above all that. Lame. Then, I thought I should just come clean. I really have been baking, but I either forget to take pictures, or I don't have anything interesting to say about the dish I've made. Sometimes I can't think of anything more creative to say about a recipe than "It's good."And that can make for a short, boring entry.

I've been on vacation this week, and I've gotten a lot done. It's been moderately relaxing and of course, the baking has been nice. And the Jeweled Coconut drops are all kinds of delicious. You may have noticed that I'm doing more recipes that appeal to my pallette, and those of you who read this blog regularly know that I am passionate about coconut. For those of you born without the "coconut gene", you may want to stop reading now.

These cookies are chewy, fruity, filling and versatile.

The recipe calls for seedless raspberry jam to be used as the topping. I did make some of them using raspberry jam, but it had seeds (seedless is overrated), and since I had some peach preserves, and some cherry preserves I made a few using each one of those flavors. Why yes, we are jelly freaks at my house. We often have two to three different jelly and jam flavors in the fridge. Mostly because Mr. Icequeen has the soul of a ten year old boy, and I think he could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day and not become sick of them. Wait. Does that make me a pedophile?

I really liked the version using the cherry preserves, and the peach wasn't too bad.

What some of you may not know is that most of the stuff that I bake for this blog doesn't stick around my home. It goes....away. We sample the final product and then the rest is given to family, friends, co-workers, etc. If I ate all of the stuff that I bake, in its entirety, then the airlines would require that I buy an extra seat when I fly. These particular cookies were given to Mr. Icequeen's co-worker, and she was generous enough to share the cookies with others in her office. The drops were a big hit. One person even said that they were "Like sex in your mouth". Hmmmm. I'm not so sure. They're good, but they're not orgasmic.

CHOCOLATE CARAMEL CLUSTERS

Candy, candy, candy..I can't let you go. Are you surprised? I'm a little surprised myself. I've never been much of a candy maker, but the past couple of Christmases I've tried to step outside my comfort zone and make more candies. Usually with pretty good results. Some of you may already know that BFMHTY, doesn't contain any candy recipes. I confess, I had to get away from the cookbook for a bit. I plan on finishing that part of this project, but I don't like limiting my sugary adventures to just one set of recipes. Sooooo, why not some heart-stoppingly sweet, turtle-like candies? Why not indeed.

These candies literally took about thirty minutes to throw together, that includes set up time on the chocolate. I used chocolate bark, so that I wouldn't have to go to all the trouble of tempering chocolate (tempering is a bitch of a task, and one of the reasons I don't enjoy candymaking much). After you melt the chocolate, you throw some nuts on top, and then cover with melted caramel (yum) and more melted chocolate.

The chocolate has a strong cocoa taste, which I like. The caramel has a little heavy cream added that really adds to the richness. Overall these were very good, but if I make them again, there definitely needs to be an addition to the recipe. See, these little patties are sickeningly sweet. The sugar hit was so strong that I couldn't even eat a whole piece, luckily, Mr. Icequeen was around to scoop up the scrap I left behind. I wish that the cashews had been saltier, to balance out the sweetness of the choclate and caramel. So, I recommend topping the clusters with a sprinkling of sea salt just as the chocolate is setting up. The salt on top would also help them to look more appealing.

I'm sure you could make these same candies using white instead of milk chocolate. But, why the hell would anyone want to do that? White chocolate is satan's breast milk! Blah. It's heresy! It's not even real chocolate. It's mockalate.

Personal Note: February marked five years since my last cancer treatment, and I visited my oncologist earlier this month and he gave me the all clear. I was told that once you're cancer free for five years (as I am) that in the medical community you're considered to be "cured". Yep, he said it just like that, with the air quotes and everything. I despise my oncologist. Now, I know what you're thinking..."That man saved your life. You shouldn't hate him". Many people treated me and took wonderful care of me, but he was not one of them. He was not the one who found my tumor, he did not conduct the chemo and radiation treatments. He primarily made the whole process less bearable with the way he runs his office. Plus, he has a huge God Complex. I'm not going to tell you who he is, but he has a life size portrait of himself in his waiting room. And I hope none of you are ever in the situation where you end up getting to see that portrait. The point that I'm actually trying to make is.... Yaaaaaaaay me! Thanks to the support of my family and friends I made it through the treatments and I feel great. Also, props to my gyno, who really did save my life (Dr. Heywood, you are the greatest!) Okay, enough of that crap, this ain't no Lifetime movie.

CHEWY, CHUNKY BLONDIES

Spring has definitely sprung around here. That means home projects on the horizon, that's in addition to the tending of flower beds, prepping our garden for planting, mowing. But, I hope to get in plenty of baking in between other projects. So, don't worry my darlings, I will not abandon you just because the sun has decided to return.

The onset of warmer weather will also allow me to get to a several recipes that I had been putting off because the fruit needed to make them was out of season. Fall is my favorite season, and I don't even mind the gloom of winter. Because when you're as pale as a vampire*, but without all the sexiness, Summer, frankly, sucks. Things are different this year though, I don't know if it's the happy pills or the fact that this past winter was just so damn cold, but I'm actually happy ( dont' get used to it) that the warmer weather is here.

The blondies featured here are delicious. Moist and most importantly, sweet. This recipe finally had enough sugar in it to satisfy my sweet tooth. The subtlety of the sweetness in some of the previous recipes were making me want to hang this project up, or move onto a different cookbook. After making the blondies, I'm glad that I stuck it out. The batter is nothing spectacular, but the addition of the bittersweet chocolate, butterscotch chips, coconut (all hail!), and I snuck in some milk chocolate chips too, make for a combination that sings in your food hole.

Sometimes I judge how good a recipe is by how many people ask for the recipe after they've tasted the end result. This one is definitely a winner.

*Fictional vampires are supposed to scare the hell out of you and make you afraid to go to sleep at night. They are not supposed to make you swoon and wish you were a bloodsucker yourself, or wish you had a vampire boyfriend. I'm not completely anti-Twilight/True Blood/Vampire Diaries, etc., mind you,  I do think that any franchise, no matter how cheesy, is a good thing if it gets people to read who otherwise wouldn't dream of cracking open a book for pleasure. Rant complete. Icequeen out.

CHOCOLATE OATMEAL DROPS

Hmmmm. This post is going to be a short one, because there isn't anything too exciting to say about these cookies, except that they are very chocolatey and have a somewhat cakey texture going for them. They're best described as a rich, sweet chocolate cookie with some oats thrown in for texture. I feel like the addition of the oats made the cookies dry and didn't really add anything worthwhile to an already dull recipe. There are better chocolate cookie recipes out there, so I say avoid this one.

Side Note: Pictures to be posted tonight.