TWD—Thumbprints For Us Big Guys and Catch Up Wit Da Guys

First up, a couple photos of da guys.

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Parker was student-of-the-day at school last week.  He got to do a display of his favorite things and make a poster with lots of photos.  Every photo we went through and looked at for Parker’s poster was him being goofy in one way or another.  He really is always being silly.  But then he got to lead the school in the pledge of allegiance on tv and he got all nervous and serious.  I could barely get this smile out of him.

Here’s the “normal” Parker.  That’s more like it.

 

Taylor had his kindergarten music program last week, too.  Those are always fun!  Unless you’re like me and take really crappy pictures and video while the husband is teaching that night and can’t be there, especially to stop Sam from bumping my filming arm the whole time.

That and when the annoying couple a few rows in front of you will NOT stop putting their heads together and swaying to the music, thereby blocking your filming view.  I just wanted to go knock their heads together.  Okay, sorry, I just had to get that out.  I feel better now.  Sigh.  And because of that, there will be no video worth sharing, unless you want to see those lovely heads.

Then here’s how I have to get ANY pictures of Scottie if I’m going to get any of him at all.  While he’s not looking, say “Hey, Scottie”, then when he turns, snap a quick one as he tries to back out of the shot.  Nice.

Okay, you’re here for the cookies, I know.  Here goes. 

I thought these were titled such (Thumbprints For Us Big Guys) because they were going to be bigger than the average thumbprint cookie, but not so much.  But the hole I made in them with the end of a wooden spoon sure made craters in the cookies.  When I think of Big Guys, like my husband, he just doesn’t go for jam.  He rarely eats any jam, but when he has one of his two or so pb & j’s for the year, it has to be raspberry jam.   I do agree with Dorie that hazelnuts are a “grown-up” kind of nut, but I just couldn’t “do” jam.  (Although, I do love those thumbprint cookies that are rolled in walnuts or pecans and have jam in the middle!)

I will admit, just because I’m a big girl that way, that I don’t read ALL 400 TWD blogs every week.  I know, don’t hate me. ;)  That being said, I hadn’t ever seen Mike’s blog from Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude before.  Just clicking over to get his link, I read a few of his posts and dude, he’s rather funny.  Anyway, where was I going with this?  Oh, Mike chose our recipe this week.  You can get the recipe for these de-licious cookies on his blog.

Why were they SO delicious?  Chocolate, my friends.  You had to know it.  Now THAT’S a big flavor!  ;)

And not just any chocolate, but Nutella.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who will use Nutella with these cookies that are just screamin “use me”.    I reckon I don’t much really care.  All I know is these are scrumdillicious!  Nutty, buttery, tender and chocolaty.  I thought the big crater in the middle was perfect for filling with Nutella!

I only made half a batch and got 24 cookies---pah-lenty.  You may recall Dorie specifically saying DO NOT OVERBAKE the cookies.  I made the first batch just fine, perfect in 14 minutes.  Then with the second batch, I did the usual.  Baked 10 minutes, checked them, set the timer for another 2, checked again, then MEANT to set it for the final 2 minutes.  Oh, it was probably 6-7 minutes later that I realized the timer hadn’t gone off.

Quick, get them off the baking sheet!

Okay, maybe not that fast.  Hate to say it, but although the cookies were well done and darker than the others, they were/are still edible and quite tasty to me.

 

So, you may notice a few of the cookies have Hershey’s Kisses on them.  Didn’t know the craters would be so big, so the Kisses didn’t really work.  I didn’t want them totally melted, so I put them on after the cookies were mostly cooled.  Wouldn’t you guess it, those are the cookies the boys ate!  Found some new Kisses, so I just had to try them.  Kisses filled with buttercreme.  They are super sweet, but not bad.

The Nutella with these cookies is fabulous.  Did I say that already?  Okay, I’m done then.  Great pick, Mike, thanks.

And finally, FINALLY got Sam’s hair cut.

Thanks, Tes!

Sam is so good when he’s getting his hair cut.  He just sits there perfectly still.

Ahhh, much better!

Um, Daddy, we DON’T sit on the counter, then look who follows!

OH, and I almost forgot—we sold the house!!!  One week after putting it on the market, we got an offer and took it.  The house is under contract.  Holy cow, I’m so thankful.  I really don’t know how long I could have kept the thing so perfectly spotless!  We close on April 30 and it has worked out splendidly to move in to a duplex right by the kid’s school until we move in June.  Some friends from church are looking for someone to sub lease their duplex as they are moving near the end of April.  Could not be more perfect.  We got a great deal on the house, and are really being blessed with having a place to leave until the school year is over.  HUGE sigh of relief!

TWD—Toasted-Coconut Custard Tart

I wasn’t going to make this coconut custard tart this week.  It’s just been a crazy week.  For some reason, I just didn’t want to or think I was going to get to making the tart crust.   But I was making the Calypso Cookies that I recently posted about and out of nowhere, I decided to just stick some of the cookie dough in my two little individual tart pans.  I thought it sounded perfect, since the cookies have coconut, pecans and some dried pineapple.  The cookies are delicious, you need to try them!

  

Monday I whipped up 1/3 of the recipe for the custard (thanks to Nancy for her wonderful math and sharing it on the TWD P&Q’s!).  I left out the rum and added 1/2 teaspoon of pure coconut flavoring along with the vanilla.  I also left out the coriander, it’s too much of a savory spice for me.

The only thing that concerned me is that the custard thickened on the stove before it even had a chance to come to a boil.   I didn’t let it go too long past the thickening, but after it chilled in the fridge, it was really thick, like too thick, almost gummy.  I was worried that the custard was going to be eggy.

I mean, look at it, too thick and not really all that tasty looking.  Sigh.

I carried on and made the two tarts, then I served them for dessert to the boys, but I made the mistake of telling Kevin it was thick and kind of interesting and that I was worried about it.  So he wouldn’t even taste it.  Well, I think it was pretty good.  Our friends, Bob and Tes were visiting and Tes had some and said it was good.  Scott and Parker ate some, too.  So, I would consider this a success.  And I’m glad I participated in this week’s pick.  Thanks to Beryl of Cinemon Girl for a fun pick.  I’m always happy when I get to make something I haven’t made before.

I’m always proud when I can say that I also whipped the cream by hand (ok, I used a bowl and a whisk—ba dum dum).  It’s kind of fun and a nice little arm workout.  I threw a few chopped pecans on with the toasted coconut as well.

 

You can find the recipe on Beryl’s blog.  You can also check out all the other Coconut Custard Tarts in TWD Land.  Catch ya next time.

Calypso Cookies

My baking pal, Anna at Cookie Madness has been on one of her kicks to clone a famous/popular cookie.  This time it’s the Calypso Crunch Cookies from Publix Supermarket.  Now, I’ve never been to a Publix, nor lived near one, and have never tasted the cookies that seem to have Anna so smitten.  But when she posted some of her reader’s clones of these cookies and after her numerous posts about them, I decided I needed to try them.  She posted a reader, Judi’s, cloned version and I liked that there was dried pineapple in her version.  So those are the ones I decided to make.

And let me just say—the cookies are absolutely delicious!  I have no idea if they are like the real Calypso Crunch Cookies from Publix, frankly, I don’t really care, since those cookies just aren’t here.  But this recipe that I followed of Judi’s are fantastic.  Did I mention that they’re good?  Oh, yes, if you like coconut and pecans, with a little dried pineapple, and the most chewy cookie, you’ll really like these.

Have you ever seen a more tasty looking cookies?  Okay, I agree, chocolate looks more tasty and IS more tasty, but these are just about as great as the most gooey brownies and the best Chocolate Chip Cookies!  Really, you need to try these.

Judi’s Calypso Crunch Cookies Clone, adapted by Anna, Cookie Madness, then slightly adapted by Katrina

4 oz cool unsalted butter, room temperature** (I used unsalted butter)
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 medium egg (oh, I meant to measure in grams for a medium egg and forgot, so I used 1 whole large egg) 
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/4 cup quick cooking oats, crushed in a blender or ground in a coffee grinder after measuring
1 cup (4.5 oz) self rising flour (1 cup bleached, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon salt) (I made the homemade self rising flour as Anna did)
Dried pineapple (didn’t measure) (I used 1/2 cup chopped dried pineapple)
7 oz. shredded sweetened coconut
2/3 cup toasted pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and both sugars with an electric mixer. Beat in the egg, vanilla and almond extract and continue beating for another minute or until creamy. Beat in the oats. By hand, stir in the self-rising flour, followed by the dried pineapple, coconut and pecans. Dough will be thick.

Shape into balls (a little smaller than a golf ball) and flatten slightly on sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes (I only baked them for 10 minutes to get a perfectly chewy cookie, if you’d like them crunchy, bake as the recipe indicates, then let them sit on the baking sheet about 5 minutes—Katrina. **I think Judi used salted butter, so that plus the salt in the self-rising flour should be enough. I used unsalted butter plus the salt in the homemade self-rising flour and didn’t feel the cookies needed more salt when made that way, either.

Thanks, Anna!  This was the first thing I’ve baked (besides trying to get TWD done here and there) for what seemed like a long time and the cookies are great!  Our house is officially on the market!  Whew.  Now just to keep it really clean all the time and hope and pray for a quick sale!

TWD—Honey-Wheat Cookies

I made these simple, tasty cookies for TWD last week.  I’m short on time (We’re ALMOST done with the house and it goes on the market on Wednesday!), so this will be a quickie.

Michelle of Flourchild chose this week’s recipe and thanks to her, it was a good one and super simple.  (Thank you, Michelle!)  These Honey-Wheat Cookies have 1-a lot of honey, 2-wheat germ, and 3-lemon zest.

I had some orange zest, lime zest and lemon zest in my freezer, so I thought I’d try all three in the cookies.  Sure smelled good while I was mixing the zests into the sugar.  I love doing that.  (I let the zests thaw first, which took no time at all.)  I made the cookies as the recipe was written---almost!  hehe

No really, here’s the finished cookies.

“Which one of these things is not like the other?”  “Tell me now, which one it is?”  (sing it.)

If you guessed row number four, you are correct!  I thought it sounded good instead of rolling all the cookies in wheat germ, to try a few rolled in some finely chopped pecans.  I only did four that way, and although the wheat germ-rolled cookies were great, I liked the pecan ones better and next time I make these, I’ll roll at least half of them in nuts.  The citrus flavor was overpowered by honey flavor, so maybe the three zests together weren’t as strong as just lemon zest would have been.  I will use just one flavor next time.

Since the cookies were so heavily flavored with honey, I HAD to play around a little and one of my favorite things is a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

  

Um, YUM!

But you know what is even more a favorite of mine than a peanut butter and honey sandwich?

A peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich.  Oh yes.

This was my lunch one day last week.  Bye bye bread, hello cookies. ;)

The cookies have a nice outer edge and are firm, but soft.  Explain that.  They are not crispy and they are not cakey.  Feel free to check out the other blogger’s Honey-Wheat Cookies at the Tuesday's With Dorie blog.  Thanks for stopping by, I can’t wait to get back to my normal blogging and regularly scheduled life---SOON!  I hope.

TWD—My (Dorie’s) Best Chocolate Chip Cookies and Cheesecake Hearts

I made these cookies about three weeks ago.  This photo is nice and yummy.

Oh, whoops, wrong photo.  Still, pretty darn cute.  Back to the cookies.

I love chocolate chip cookies, maybe even most of all treats I could eat.  For the two cups of flour, I measured 9 ounces.  I creamed the butter, then added the 2/3 cup brown sugar and creamed that.  I couldn’t believe there wasn’t more sugar to the one cup of butter.  I looked at the recipe at least three times.  Didn’t see the 1 cup granulated sugar every time.  Well, then I did finally see it in time to add to the creamed butter, but sure freaked me out for a minute thinking there wasn’t more sugar in the cookies.

I made one batch of the cookies and thought these were really flat, spread-out and a bit greasy.  (Not my favorite kind of ccc.)

Added a little extra baking powder to the rest of the dough and chilled it until the next morning.

Still flatter than I wanted.  But even though these are not my kind of chocolate chips cookies, they were pretty good and they certainly all got eaten (not all by me!)  I liked the taste and texture the finely chopped pecans gave them.  One thing, besides that they were a little too flat and a bit greasy that bothered me about them is their shape.  You know, I used a cookie scoop, so all the balls of dough were nice and round, but the cookies kept coming out like this--

I call them amoeba cookies.  I thought this was a great pick because I’m really surprised I hadn’t made Dorie’s CCC’s yet as I’m out to try as many chocolate chip cookies as I can!  Thanks to Kait from Kait's Plate for this week’s pick.  You can find the recipe on her blog.

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I’ve still been up to my eyeballs in getting our house ready to put on the market.  My mom and I have worked so hard the last two weeks with dejunking (holy cow, what a project!!!) and cleaning.  We are having the entire house recarpeted and almost all of it repainted.  Our home does not look like our home.  Sigh!  But we know it’s all good.  We’ll be moving to Utah sometime—not exactly sure when---May, June, July???  We’re planning to get the kids through the scho0l year, but with the house going on the market next week, if we get a good offer on it, we’ll do whatever it takes, which may possibly include renting an apartment for a few months.  Who knows.  I can hardly see past it all being clean up and ready.  Now I know it sounds like we must have had the messiest house ever.  Nope.  But what a job this has been.  I’ve told Kevin I NEVER want to move again.  I’m also trying very hard not to think about the fact that we are leaving this home and this place (Kansas!) and we will miss our friends here terribly.  Sigh.

I have NO idea how we would have gotten so much done with the house if my mom had not been here.  I’m not sure what I’ll do when she goes back home on Wednesday.  She’s ready to go back to her quiet (boring ;) life with just my dad, but we have sure loved having her here and her help with the house and organizing and dejunking and being with the kids last weekend while Kevin and I went to Utah and having someone to cook with and talk to has been awesome.  Thank you, Mommy!

You can also blame her (jk!) for my being gone from the blogging world so much.  She hasn’t let me bake like I normally would.  She’s such a slave driver!  Just kidding.  We would be up a creek if she hadn’t been here to keep me going!  But I am missing blogging and checking out all my favorite blogs!  Please know that if I have missed your blogs lately and haven’t been able to stop by!  I won’t even tell you how FULL my reader is right now.  Sigh.

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Parker and his crazy hair (and crazy self) during spirit week at school (or whatever it’s called) last week!

For Valentine’s Day, I made the boys, including Kevin, as well as my mom, cheesecake for dessert.  Just a simple, easy one that I found at Joy of Baking.  It’s really cheesecake squares, but I loved that that made them easy and they baked in 20 minutes.  Can’t beat that.  Instead of cutting them in to squares, since it was Valentine’s Day, I cut them in to hearts.  Then I topped them with everyone’s favorite, cherry pie filling.

Then I hurried and snapped a quick, horrible picture in bad lighting.  But the cheesecake hearts were delicious.

I really need to get a light box and learn a little food photography! 

Check out the recipe at Joy of Baking.  Surprise, I followed the recipe exactly… I think. ;)

TWD—Rick Katz’s Brownies For Julia AND French Silk Pie Throwdown!

Oh my goodness!!!  This week has been super crazy-busy as we’re trying to get our house on the market-ASAP.  Kevin and I flew to Utah for a quick house hunting trip in the middle of it all.  My amazing mother is here helping and doing what seems like most of the work and she watched the boys for three days while we were gone.  I have not had a moment to breathe, let alone bake and especially visit all my favorite blogs.  It’s killing me! ;)  I miss you all!  Haven’t baked a thing since last week’s TWD or barely visited any blogs.  Sigh.

But today (Monday) we planned to have a French Silk Pie Throwdown with some friends and I wasn’t about to cancel/change that.  I needed a break and baking is just what I needed.  So in between kids and some dejunking and cleaning and lunching with Mom (she had not left my house for 6 days!), I HAD to make a French Silk Pie, so in between crust and silk, I threw together Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia.  And as I was hurrying through the recipe, I, of course ;), messed up.  But only a little bit.

I didn’t read ahead.  So I melted the butter with the chocolate, added a cup of sugar, then whisked together the other cup of sugar with the eggs.  THEN, the next thing is where I didn’t read ahead.  I whisked all the chocolate mixture in with the sugar/egg mixture.  I didn’t realize I was supposed to whip the eggs until they doubled in volume.  So I just went ahead, folded in the flour and baked these brownies that had 2 sticks of butter and 2 cups of sugar, not to mention the 4 eggs!!! in the small 9x9 inch square pan called for in the recipe.  These are not light brownies!  I was very tempted to baked this in a 9x13 inch pan, it was really a lot of batter.  But since I was in a hurry, I just threw it in the smaller pan and baked it for about 35 minutes.  Since I wasn’t too sure how these would turn out, I left out the extra chopped bittersweet chocolate.

These brownies, though I have no idea if they turned out the way they were supposed to, are a great, dense, fudgy brownie.  They were well received by everyone who ate them.  I assume by not whipping the eggs, they weren’t as light/airy as they were supposed to be. 

 

These did not finish baking until about 3:30 p.m.  I took them right out of the oven and put them outside on the deck where they chilled in the 20-something degree air until about 6 o’clock.  They were almost frozen by then, but were perfectly chilled.  I thought they were too rich (I know, I can’t believe I just said that about chocolate!).  But they are a good brownie.  On that note, I will probably never make them again, because that’s about double the amount of BUTTER, SUGAR and EGGS in still-my-favorite brownie (my adapted Tribute to Katharine-Hepburn Brownies) in pretty much the same size pan!  Holy cow, I just can’t do that.  I am really glad I made the time to get this week’s TWD recipe made, which was chosen by Tanya of Chocolatechic (I love her honest and honestly delicious blog!).  Tanya has the recipe on her blog.  Thanks for picking brownies for my crazy week!

  

Dorie says these brownies are fragile.  With my mistakes, these are not at all fragile—dense and very fudgy!

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I wanted to tell you quickly about the French Silk Pie throwdown we had with some friends.  Oh, a couple months ago, our friend, Bob and I were talking and he told me all he wanted for his birthday (which was Feb. 5) was Dan’s (another friend) French Silk Pie, which he made a few years ago and we all tasted.  Bob thought it was the most wonderful pie he’d ever had.  Dan was not with Bob and I during this conversation, but I told Bob that “oh yeah, I could make a better pie than Dan.”  So right then, I told Bob that Dan and I would have a throwdown and Bob would be the judge and pick whose pie is better.  (Then we later let Dan in on it and he was game.)  We decided this sometime back in December.  Oh, did I mention I had never made a French Silk Pie before?  Nope.  But I was certain I could and that mine would be better than Dan’s. 

During the month of January, I tried a few different recipes.  I don’t have time to tell you about the different recipes, and if you’d like my final recipe, let me know and I’ll send it to you.  We all met up tonight, Dan brought his pie and I had mine.  They were similar in looks, except Dan tried to suck-up to the judge by putting chocolate candy bars all over the top of his. ;)  But Bob did not know whose pie was whose.

 

Dan’s pie (B)

My pie (A)

The judge is ready to go!

Dan’s pie was thicker than mine, it was darker, and more chocolaty.  I was a little worried that would win over the judge.  I know him too well.  He loves chocolate.  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are one of his main food groups.   But I had hope.  My pie was lighter, creamier, and silkier. 

That is some serious pie tasting there!

There were a lot of people waiting and watching and WAITING to eat pie.  It was a close one.  And here is where I have to graciously tell you that Bob chose this pie.

What?  You can’t see what he wrote?  Okay, okay, he chose B—Dan’s pie!  Sigh.  I lost.  Sort of.  This was fun.  Over the last few weeks, it was fun to test pies and have our neighbors over to get their opinions.  Bob chose the more chocolaty pie.  I knew as soon as I cut into them and saw that Dan’s looked more chocolaty that that was the one Bob would pick.  Oh well.  It really was fun.  Now Dan and I have decided we must have more throwdowns!  And who knew—his pie had 3 ounces of unsweetened chocolate and mine only had 2.  (There were a few other slight differences, but Bob went for the more chocolaty one.  (Others in the group begged to differ on mine being better because it was silkier, but Dan won fair and square.)  Thanks for coming over for pie Bob (Happy Birthday), Tes, Berghouts, and Tippie/Heidners!  We’ll do it again soon!