Holiday Baking

Well, the time has come to 'fess up!   Callie and I together in the kitchen during the holidays?!??! Probably not a good idea!  By way of introduction, let me remind you of some of our previous experiences.  You may recall the the amazing . . .er . . .  interesting Resurrection Rolls that we created for our Sunday School classes.  I lost a cookie sheet during that experience and while the final batch tasted pretty good, they bore no resemblance at all to an empty tomb.
Or anything appetizing, for that matter.

I don't know why we thought those would be a success.  It was only a few months earlier that we had a major "praline mishap".  

And before that, there was the "Toffee Crack".  Yep, that recipe is one that everyone swears by--easy and delicious.  Unless of course, you have Callie and I making it.  That night, we also managed to burn a bowl of chocolate we were melting.

And, while the final product was ultimately a success, there is not denying that some of the "snowman marshmallows" we created a couple of years ago were a little bit scary to look at.

Well, 2014 was sure to be different!  Callie brought over a couple of recipes she'd chosen because they looked yummy and were supposed to be super easy.  So we gathered our supplies and set to work.

We decided that we should try the toffee first.   She had researched recipes and found the no-fail one.  How could we go wrong?  We roasted the sliced almonds according to the directions.

At this point, there should have been some alarms going off in our heads, but instead we considered it to be a minor bump in the road, scraped off the burned ones and continued on.  Luke helped as we stirred and heated and spread.

The first batch looked so perfect---creamy and smooth.   Except, what exactly is the "almond color" that the recipe called for?  Is that a dark almond?  A light almond?   Knowing that our previous experiences resulted in overcooked toffee, we opted for the light color.   And because it looked so good, we made the decision to go ahead and make 2 more batches, thus using all the cookie sheets that I own.

As we set those batches aside to harden, we began the Oreo Truffles.
Now these actually were very easy and tasted oh so good!

I must admit that some were not as pretty as others, but, overall, this was definitely a success!,

After a couple of hours, we began to worry about our toffee.  It didn't seem to be hardening ---- at all.  It was still very pretty, but it required a spoon to eat at this point.  Even after putting it in the refrigerator for a while.  Not wanting to waste all the ingredients, we decided to try to make something from our mess.   I scraped one cookie sheet of "toffee" in a mixing bowl and added the ingredients that were missing from a cookie recipe (flour, brown sugar, backing soda, salt, vanilla, eggs).  

We rolled them into balls, and at the last minute, I suggested we coat them in powdered sugar.  I mean, what did we have to lose?!?!  We baked one dozen and then had Ron taste-test them.   The verdict???   They were good.  Like REALLY good!!!  They reminded me of the Chocolate Crinkle cookies my mother used to make.

We decided that they deserved a special name, so we dubbed them "Krisp Krinkles" and proceeded to bake as many as we could do that night before becoming completely exhausted. (remember that we had 3 full batches of "toffee" to convert).   Both of us took them to work the next day and they were a hit with everyone that tried them.  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), it would be virtually impossible to duplicate them.

I suppose the recipe might look something like this:

When Tyler came into town, he helped us make more Oreo balls, gingerbread cookies and muffins (all of which were quite yummy).

And to think that we did all of that baking while keeping the kitchen clean and organized?!?!  NOT!

I think that 2015 is sure to be the "Year of the Perfect Toffee"!

Garden Fresh

Well, the growing season of my little garden seems to be winding down now.  I still have plenty of tomatoes, but everything else has just about played out--not that there was much variety to begin with. I did however, recently pick our one home-grown zucchini!

Using a recipe I'd seen while at the beauty salon getting my hair cut, I made baked zucchini chips.

I sliced the zucchini into thin slices using my new Ulu knife from Alaska (which worked quite nicely I might add).

I then tossed the slices in olive oil and coated them in a panko/parmesan/basil mixture.

I spread them out on a cookie sheet and popped them into the oven.

Meanwhile, I sliced some of our tomatoes and grilled some chicken, adding some barbecue sauce for a little extra flavor.  It's always a little tricky grilling the chicken with the sauce on them because I want them to be juicy, but cooked and not burned.

This time it all turned out great though.  Everything was quite yummy and I'll definitely be trying the zucchini chips again.

Berry Pickin' Time!

Friday morning, Callie and I joined Leah and Erma out at Hillcrest Blueberry Farm for a relaxing morning of picking.   Several years ago, Callie and I picked blueberries at another farm--Hillcrest is much bigger!

It has been rainy all week, so the grass was quite wet, but not muddy.  And it sprinkled on us as we picked blackberries, but it didn't last too long, or stop us.

I never even knew there were different varieties of blackberries (never thought about it, I guess), but there are.  I chose to pick on the "blue" rows, where the plants are thorn-less and the berries are the sweetest.

The bushes were loaded and the berries were so pretty!

It didn't take long to fill our buckets with blackberries.

I caught sight of a tiny bunny watching for his chance to sneak a bite.  He reminded me of the story of Peter Cottontail, but of course, no little blue jacket on this bunny.

After dropping off our blackberries, we got new buckets and headed out to the blueberry field. 

Callie thought that it was very convenient at this stage of her pregnancy that she could pick berries without even having to lean over!

Once our buckets were full, we paid for them and headed back home, dreaming of recipes we could use them in.

Back at my house, I discovered that the guys were hard at work installing my new sprinkler system in the backyard, so I made up a bag of berries for each of them.  Leah shared her recipe for blackberry cobbler, and Callie made it Friday night---she reported that Jordan decided that he DID indeed like cobbler after all.!

I made blueberry waffles Saturday morning that were quite yummy . . .

. . .. and blackberry crumble tonight (I didn't have any milk on hand to make the cobbler).

As evidenced by the empty bowl, it was a hit!

I think since it contained oats, it could be classified as breakfast.  What do you think?

Here is the cobbler recipe that Leah shared with us:

Fruit Cobbler

1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 c. milk
MIX ALL TOGETHER.

Melt 1/2 stick margarine (or butter) in bottom of a pan then add the other ingredients.
ADD 2 cups fruit to top.
SPRINKLE with sugar.
BAKE at 375 for 30 minutes.