Strawberry Topped Brownies

Are you scared of sweetened condensed milk? If so run far, far away. And hand me your brownie before you scamper off.

The brownie itself is nothing special. It is made with a brownie mix - any box will do. Add one more egg than it calls for to make it a little extra cakey. You can make them in a pan or in cupcake papers. This time I made regular cupcakes and mini cupcakes because I wanted less messy individual servings.

Then. Get. Ready. To. Be. Delighted. The frosting is what makes these brownies delicious. It is sweet and tangy and shouldn't be eaten by the spoonful, although it is tempting. Someone please come hide all my spoons because they are just BEGGING me to get a heap of this sticky sweet ambrosia and eat the rest of the bowl.

Brownie Topping

1 Can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 C cold water

1 pkg instant pudding (vanilla, white chocolate, or cheesecake)

4 oz whipped topping, thawed

1 pint fresh strawberries

Mix the sweetened condensed milk and cold water, then beat in the pudding. Chill for 5 minutes and add the whipped topping. Spread on cooled brownies and top with sliced strawberries. Serve within a couple of hours. The strawberries start to get icky after too long.

Mmmm...tempting dessert or tantalizing husband.....delicious dessert or deliciously sweet hubby....can I have both?

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

We started making ice cream at 8:45 on a work night. Halfway through grating the chocolate chips, Katie had had enough and she went to play a game on the computer. Kevin came in to help grate the chocolate and left the kitchen in a chocolate massacre. There were melty chocolate shavings covering every flat surface in a 10 foot radius. I started to analyze if he did more harm than good, but then figured that he grated all of it in less than 3 minutes, plus it was already done, so I should count my blessings and give him a big ole' kiss.

After the ice cream was in the freezer I sat down with the laptop to check Facebook. There it was on Katie's status: "I'm so bored."

WHAT THE HECK!??! I'm staying up late for HER ice cream, and she sneaks off to write about how bored she is. What gives?

Then she made up for it, plus some, with this sweet note on my windshield:

(And she laughed the whole time she helped me write this post. Here is a refresher on the nickname Megasaurous Wrecks.)

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

2 1/2 C milk

2 3/4 C sugar

1 t salt

2 1/2 C half and half

1 1/2 t vanilla extract

6 C whipping cream

12 oz (2 C) grated semisweet chocolate

2 t peppermint extract (or less - it was pretty strong)

1 1/2 green food coloring

Scald milk until bubbles form around edge of pan. Remove from heat. Add sugar and salt. Stir until dissolved. Stir in half and half, vanilla, and whipping cream, peppermint extract, and green food coloring.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Freeze in ice cream freezer.

While ice cream is freezing, melt the chocolate and spread it thinly on the back of a cookie sheet. Put the pan in the freezer for 10 minutes, then use a metal spatula to scrape off the chocolate, which will break in thin, rough chunks.

When ice cream is frozen, after removing dasher, immediately stir in chocolate chips.

Chocolate Cherry Biscotti

Apparently, there were a lot of unhappy blog readers when I made the almond biscotti instead of the chocolate ones. In order to correct the error of my ways [well, at least in this case] I have ponied up the effort to make another batch of biscotti. Now I desperately need somebody to come eat some of this biscotti before I eat the entire batch.

Kevin ate one and he didn't mention if he liked it or not. All he said was, "This is really chocolaty!" If you kinda, sorta like chocolate, don't attempt this recipe. If you are a tried and true chocolate lover, this is the recipe for you.

Somehow, I get the feeling that when it said, "sprinkle each log with a little sugar" this isn't what it had in mind.

This was supposed to be the top picture, but that chair looks really silly. Doh! I don't care if the chair is there or not. I still want to eat the biscotti and drink the milk. 'Cause if you don't have some milk handy, you will wish you did.


This was another optional photo. The grass is finally green, so I really wanted it to be this picture, but it took all the richness out of the biscotti. It is such a dark chocolate that it is almost black.

Chocolate Biscotti
2 C flour
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
3/4 stick butter, room temperature
1 C sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 t vanilla extract
3/4 C chocolate chips or chunks, chopped
1/3 C dried cherries, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put the rack in the center. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.


Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.

In a large bowl with a hand mixer (or a stand mixer with a cookie paddle) mix the butter and sugar at a medium speed for 3 minutes, until very smooth. Add the eggs and beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl, for 2 more minutes until it is light, smooth, and creamy. Beat in the vanilla extract.Reduce the speed to low. Mix in the dry ingredients in 3 batches until just combined. It will be sticky and ball up around the beaters. Toss in the dried fruit and chocolate chunks until just blended.

Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a rectangle about 12 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 1 inch tall. Don't worry about making it completely even. Sprinkle each log with a little sugar.

Bake for 25 minutes, until they are just slightly firm. Transfer the baking sheet to a rack and cool the logs for 20 minutes on the baking sheet. Leave the oven on.

Carefully move the logs with a spatula to a cutting board and cut into 3/4 inch slices with a bread knife. Stand the biscotti up on the parchment paper, with the bottom of the log still on the bottom, and a little room between each slice. Bake for another 10 minutes. Transfer to racks and cool to room temperature.

Popcorn S'mores

The first 3 years of our marriage left our popcorn air popper sad and lonely. Kevin didn't like air popped popcorn, and I never thought about using it. Then, one fateful day, I decided to make some popcorn and really loaded it up on butter and salt. Do you know how they say that people are mostly water, and if you took all of it away you would be just a little dirt? That doesn't hold true for Kevin. He is 80% salt, and the only thing keeping the salt in one piece is the little bit of water. When food is so salty that I can't even eat it, he will add extra salt to his plate. Eeek.

That was when Kevin discovered that he liked air popped popcorn. In fact, he liked it enough to ask for some more the next weekend. It has progressed to the point that if the word "popcorn" is mentioned in conversation, Kevin will automatically stand up, go to the kitchen, and start popping popcorn. It is almost like he has been hypnotized to respond to that word.

Then 101cookbooks.com had a recipe for chili lime popcorn, and we made it and it was excellent. We got the book and now we need to start trying new recipes for popcorn.

Of course, my first recipe is a sweet one. I have been salivating over the popcorn smores for several weeks. Every day I would remind myself to buy some Golden Grahams on the way home, and every day I would forget. On Friday night I finally got some, and immediately upon entering the house, I started to make the smores. Of course, Kevin edged in first (because I had said the P word) and made a batch of buttery popcorn to go with the sweet bars.

I was planning to drizzle chocolate on top of the bars, but there is already chocolate inside, so I left it off of the top.

Popcorn S'Mores

4 quarts air popped popcorn

1/2 stick butter

1/2 t vanilla

5 cups mini marshmallows

1 cup Golden Grahams

1 cup chocolate chips

Melt the butter and then mix in the marshmallows and melt them. Stir it up with 1/2 t of vanilla. Mix in the popcorn and Golden Grahams, and then the chocolate chips. Press into a 9X13 pan and let cool before cutting into bars.

The Year of Embracing Simplicity

What is your New Year's Resolution this year? Anonymous comments are now allowed, so all you lurkers can finally chime in. You can no longer pretend that you don't stop by because I just added a counter a couple of weeks ago and it is already at 245, and it will only counts each person once. I know because I tried to artificially inflate the count by hitting "refresh" over and over.


The book "This Year I Will...: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True " suggested naming your year after your resolution to make it easier to change something in your life. Last year our resolution was to fully fund our Roth IRA's and we were wildly successful (which means we squeaked it out at the end of December.) It was wonderful to have a challenging goal that we actually reached, but it just doesn't have that special ring to say "I am funding my Roth IRA this year."

Initially, my resolution was going to be implementing the "One In, One Out" policy, which means that every time I buy something new, I have to get rid of something I already have. But I couldn't think of a way to name it, so I decided that the spirit of my resolution was to enjoy the simple things, and not look for fancy new things. Sipping chocolate milk and reading a book under a cozy blanket is going to be how I spend my free time this year - not shopping for another shirt. (The one in, one out policy will be part of it.) Hopefully we will end the year with less clutter and more peace.

Here is Katie enjoying the simple goodness of a glass of chocolate milk. It is in the not so simple glass that Aunt Louise gave me. Isn't it wonderful? She said I was the fanciest cook she knows, which I find very hard to believe. But they are beautiful and I am thrilled to have them, so I didn't put up too much of a fight. Katie kept saying how pretty they are. She was so happy to be able to drink her milk out of one. Thanks, Aunt Louise! She gave me them in the final days of 2008, so they don't count toward the "one in, one out" rule. That rule didn't start until today.

Chocolate Milk in 5 Minutes

1 pint heavy cream

4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

Heat the cream on medium and then throw in the chocolate chips. Whisk until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Put it into a small empty ketchup bottle in the fridge. It will get really thick as it sits in the fridge. It lasts for about a week. Or more if you are adventurous.

When you are ready for your milk, add a few tablespoons of the syrup to a glass of skim milk and stir it up; there will be yummy pieces of chocolate in your milk. Sit back and smile as you enjoy the chocolaty goodness.

Sugarless Coconut Cookies

These wonderful coconut cookies are just what the doctor ordered. They are sweetened with bananas, sweetened coconut and chocolate. Yum-o.


First, mash up 3 bananas. I felt really clever when I thought of the potato ricer, thinking it would create perfectly mashed bananas. It turned into a gloppy mess, but the bananas got mashed.


A cookie scoop makes life a lot better. If you don't have a cookie scoop, go out right now and get one. They are fabulous. With a cookie scoop you can make cookies three times as fast, you don't have to put your grubby hands on the cookie, and you can gain even more weight (easy cookies get made much more frequently, and therefore, you eat many, many more cookies.) But this is about why you should get a cookie scoop, so forget that last thing.

Smash them down a bit - these guys don't flatten at all in the oven. Then realize that I forgot to put in the chocolate chips. *GASP* That will never do. Put everything back in the bowl and throw in some chocolate chips.

Ahhh...that's better. A tray of perfectly flattened cookies ready for the oven.

And here they are - all packed up and ready to be delivered. Will you be my friend if I bring you cookies once in a while?

This adorable box is from Sweet Celebrations. I went to get some dipping chocolate, only to be affronted by a "Going Out Of Business" sign on the front door. Sheesh. They were out of chocolate, but I got a bunch of cookie cutters, goodie boxes, and cupcake liners.


Coconut Cookie Recipe:

3 large ripe bananas, well mashed
1 t vanilla
1/4 C coconut oil - barely warm so it isn't solid
2 C rolled oats
1/2 C flax meal - or almond meal (ground up almonds)
1/3 C coconut
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
6 ounces chocolate chips (1/2 a bag)

Mix it all together and bake at 350 for 13 minutes, until they start to get golden brown.