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Family Friendly Fridays: A Review of Small Batch Baking For Chocolate Lovers

May 6, 2011 By Julie 55 Comments

Debby Maugans is my new best friend. No I’ve never met her, but let me just say this. Any woman that can put together a cookbook like the one she did, most certainly should qualify for best friend status.

I recently received her newest cookbook for review entailing a treasure of recipes for small batch baking. But we’re not talking just any old recipes. We’re talking all chocolate, all the time recipes. With everything from strawberry chocolate tarts to chocolate chip cookie souffles to white chocolate lemon creme brulee to this beauty pictured above, the diva milk chocolate layer cake, she fills my chocolate sweet tooth like no other cookbook ever has. And get this, it’s all done in manageable proportions. The recipe for that cake you see above makes two of those little chocolate gifts; one for me and one for my husband. One indulgence and that’s it. No extra cake waiting around to taunt your waistline day after day. Just one glorious craving fulfilled in a personal sized portion.

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Family Friendly Fridays: Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

March 25, 2011 By Julie 39 Comments

I was supposed to be making a tart with my brand new tart pan. At least that was the original intention. In the end it turned out more like a bar made in a tart pan. This is the second time that my attempts at “tart creation” have been thwarted. The first time involved rhubarb and wouldn’t you guess, cream cheese. It was a sloppy finish and in the end I had to mix the whole concoction together, throw it in a pie crust and freeze it. The pie was delicious, but it definitely didn’t qualify for tart status. I swear, one of these days I’m going to set out to make a tart and succeed. Until that day comes though, this bar definitely suffices and serves to calm my ever nagging sweet tooth.

Think cookie crust with just a hint of lemon zest meets smooth as silk almondy cream cheese middle and hug it all together with a slightly tart red raspberry sauce that serves to balance the overall sweetness of the confection. Combine this melody of flavors and what do you have? One harmoniously empty plate, that’s what.

I’m assuming you can’t get to the kitchen fast enough to whip a plate up for yourself, so let me end the suspense and show you how it’s done.

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17 Bean White Chicken Chili

March 21, 2011 By Julie 24 Comments

Have you ever bought one of those packs of beans from the grocery store? You know the ones, they have 17 different flavors of legume in the assortment and a recipe for the same old soup on the back every time you pick it up.

Well, I just so happened to have one such bag gracing the inside of my pantry a few weeks back that was bellowing at me to eat it. Being the adventuresome food blogger that I am, I decided to veer away from the bean sack’s dinner plans and instead attempt to create a dish of my own. It would be a chili dish. And while I was at it, I resolved to make it a chicken based chili. And if I was going to use chicken, why not take it one step further and make the base be something other than tomatoes. I was on fire; the inspirational juices were flowing like a glass of cool water on a hot summer day.

I threw in a little of this, and a bit of that. The steam was rising and the water was bubbling. All I needed was my witches hat, a wart and a good cackle, and I would have been concocting one seriously wicked witches brew. When the smoke cleared and the spoon was laid to rest, what remained was one seriously delicious white chicken chili.

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Navajo Fry Bread

February 28, 2011 By Julie 32 Comments

The time comes when all birds must leave the nest and fly on their own. When I graduated college and started looking for a job, I decided that the farther I could soar from my hometown the better. Sound familiar? Be it a need for actual physical distance or merely emotional distance, I’m willing to bet that at one point in our lives we could all relate to that new found feeling of independence pulling us as far away as possible from where it all began. As for myself, I wanted nothing more than to show all those around me that I had what it took to make it on my own.

That ever growing need for independence eventually landed me in Phoenix, AZ. It was far from my childhood stomping grounds, completely different in every possible way from Wisconsin, and I had a cushion in the fact that my grandparents were living there in case I ever needed a familiar hand.
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Cherry Orange Bread

February 23, 2011 By Julie 30 Comments

It’s been awhile since I’ve popped up a beautiful ol’ loaf of bread on the blog. Things have been busy and good bread takes time, love, and patience. Lots of it. But I was overdue to share some Panera love again and I figured, why not focus on the bread this go round? Because anyone who’s ever been to Panera knows that one of the best parts about the tasting experience is their fresh baked bread. Am I right? Panera passed me a few links to read regarding their bread making process and in perusing the site I was surprised to learn that all their loaves are made on location each night and every loaf uses unbleached flour. You had me at fresh and unbleached. I can only imagine the passion those bakers must have for the bread they create.

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Family Friendly Fridays: Chocolate Churros

February 18, 2011 By Julie 47 Comments

I have had this recipe on my radar for some time now. It all started when I resolved to create a list of 100 “must make” dishes in the name of organization and pop it up on my Facebook page. I added churros to the manifest and concluded almost immediately that I needed to make them ASAP. And here I am, four weeks later, and they’re finally up for all to enjoy. I’m honestly not sure why it took me this long to make them (although I’m positive my husband would have some valuable insight to share regarding said procrastination habits). They’re simple to make, the kids loved them, and the hubby literally ate half the batch upon walking in the door from work, proclaiming it be an appetizer before dinner.

I personally loved the addition of chocolate to the mix. I realize that I “de-authenticated” the recipe a bit by doing so, but my goodness, this is chocolate we’re talking about. I’m sure once you’ve tried a couple you’ll be able to forgive me for the indiscretion.

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