Mistakes happen, but I really hate it when they do

You know what's awesome? When you're someone who posts recipes on the internet. What's even more awesome, is when you're someone who posts recipes on the internet in the hopes that other people will read and like and try the recipes you post. And then you post a recipe that's wrong.

In most cases, not such a big deal. When it comes to baking though....pretty big deal.

I posted a recipe recently for Fudge Drop Cookies, and apparently, I can't read my own handwriting, because I posted that the recipe called for egg yolks only, when in fact it called for whole eggs.

I realized this last night when I tried to make the cookies, using the recipe on my blog, and it turned into a disaster. I knew they didn't look right as I was making them, but I figured it was just one of those things. When I pulled the dough out of the fridge after letting it sit for the called for hour, I then had to spend the next twenty minutes hacking the dough out of the bowl with a butter knife. At this point, I went and checked the original recipe, and realized my horrendous mistake.

So, I apologize to anyone out there who tried to make these cookies with the incorrect recipe. I've updated the original post, which can be found here. I also updated the printable recipe.

Please, please don't let this deter you from making those cookies though. When made correctly, they are life changers.

Broiled Tomatoes with Feta Cheese, and a rant

You know those people? You know who I mean. Those people. The ones who don't like tomatoes. Do they annoy you as much as they annoy me?* You go out to dinner, and they specifically order their salads and entrees with no tomatoes. And if there are a few strays in there, they push them off to the sides of their plate like little red goldmines of delicious flavor, just taunting you to eat off someone else's plate.

Another thing. Have you noticed that the only condiment that the tomato haters really like is ketchup? What's that about? You know what ketchup is made of, tomato haters? Say it with me. TOMATOES. Yeah, that's right.

Me, I love a good tomato. In fact, you take some white bread, tomato slices, mayo, salt and pepper, and you have a meal fit for a king. And for less than three dollars! You just can't beat that. I mean, if I had to choose between tomatoes and steak; steak wins every time. No doubt. But sadly, steak everyday just isn't in the budget. Plus, all the heart attacks. So I'll make due with tomatoes every day.

This is a tomato side dish that's versatile, light, simple and super super quick. Start to finish in 10 minutes or less. You can't get much faster than that. It would work with fish, chicken, or that steak I was talking about earlier, or even just by itself. The recipe calls for feta cheese, but you could use pretty much any cheese you want. It would be really great with some mozzarella and basil. You could really play around a lot with the flavors of this dish.

Just make sure you don't serve it to any tomato haters.

Broiled Tomatoes with Feta Cheese

Ingredients Needed:

6 plum tomatoes

1/2 tsp dried Italian seasoning

2/3 cup feta cheese

1/4 cup Italian dressing

salt and pepper to taste

To Make:

Preheat broiler. Cut tomatoes in half, then sprinkle with the Itailian seasoning and salt and pepper. Drizzle the Italian dressing over the tomatoes, then top with the crumbled feta cheese.

Place on a foil lined baking sheet, and place under broiler for 4-6 minutes, checking on them each minute to make sure cheese doesn't burn.

I cut the recipe in half, because that seemed like a lot for two people. I also added quite a bit more Italian seasoning than the recipe called for. All in all, probably one of my favorite side dishes ever.

*I'm just playing, tomato haters, you know I love you.

Tastespotting Thursday

Hey ya'll. That's not a burn on Paula Deen, I live in Kentucky, we're allowed to say ya'll here.

It's time for another edition of Tastespotting Thursday. What is Tastespotting Thursday, you ask? Well, it's where I can give my readers a taste(ha ha, get it?) of things I'm thinking about making, but haven't actually made yet.

I don't know about all the rest of you, but I have to say, I've had a very disappointing spring and summer here. It feels like it has rained CONSTANTLY since April. I know that it hasn't actually been constant but man, I would really like one week, just one week, without any precipitation at all. I know that rain is good for the earth, and blah blah blah but I just don't care. I don't like rain. I don't like driving in it, I don't like walking in it, I don't like having to keep my car windows rolled up while I'm at work. I just don't like it. And I'm sick of it. It's summer here, mother nature. The rain was supposed to stop two months ago. Knock it off, already.

So, since I cant enjoy summer outside, I'm going to enjoy it in my kitchen. All the pictures I chose this week and bright and summery and fun, and will hopefully give you all, as well as me, a taste of what I'm missing this year.

1st is a Lemon Mousse from Pastry Pal
2nd is a Raspberry Mini Trifle from The Gastronomer
3rd is a Strawberry Shake from My Kitchen Treasures
4th is Martha Stewart's Blueberry Topping

All four of those look outstanding, and so summery I can hardly stand it.

Boneless Buffalo Wings

I married into an amazing family. Don't get me wrong, my family is awesome too, but I'm several states away from them, and I'm really glad that I have this family here with me. Growing up, I always thought that I would stay in Pennsylvania and marry someone there, and that I would continue to go to my grandparents farm for every(and I do mean EVERY) holiday, birthday, and the random weekend here and there. I never in a million years thought that I would be living in Kentucky, hundreds of miles away from any of my family. But if I have to be, I'm so so glad that I got the family that I did. It's not a huge family like my own, but everyone has such a big personality that it feels like a really big family. My mother in law is an amazing woman. She raised two sons as a single parent, and did a great job with both of them. My husband obviously is wonderful, and his brother is one of the kindest, funniest, sweetest people I know. My father in law is great. He's just Kevin. There's really no description for him. My sister in law is probably just one of the nicest people I've ever known. I've never heard Holly say anything bad about anyone or anything. She's one of those people who can find the good in any situation. I really love them all a lot.

There's always a lot of laughter at any family gathering. Like the time I fell down the stairs, and my husband and his brother laughed at me for 20 minutes straight(after making sure I was okay, of course). And then there was the time that Adam(brother in law takes too long to type) cracked me right in the bridge of the nose with a plate, and they laughed at me for 20 minutes straight. Then there was the time that I tripped over my pants leg and fell over, and they laughed at me for 20 minutes straight. So, when I say that there's a lot of laughter, about 30 percent of the time they're laughing at me. I'm okay with it. When you're a klutz of my caliber you kind of get used to people laughing at you. And they do it with love.

I'm notorious in my family for being shy of spicy foods. At pretty much every family gathering, at some point you can hear Adam say in a high pitched girlish voice "it's a little spicy for me, you guys". Somehow that's become the ultimate Sara burn. It's said even when we're having dessert. Actually, a high pitched girlish voice is just Adam's natural voice. If he wants to dispute that, he can start his own blog. Hah! Adam burn.

So, you might be wondering why, if I don't like spicy foods, am I making buffalo wings? Two reasons. First one is that my husband loves them, and so do I(as long as the sauce it really mild, and I can dip it in a sinfully unhealthy amount of ranch dressing). Second reason is that they're SO GOOD the next day. The flavor mellows and intensifies at the same time. It's really hard to explain, but trust me, these are great when you eat them hot, but cold, they are out of this world.

These are a copy cat recipe for Chili's boneless wings, which I've never actually had at Chili's. I'll have to try them the next time I'm there, and see how they hold up against my own.

Boneless Buffalo Wings(adapted from Chili's recipe)

Ingredients Needed:
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4-6 cups oil for frying(I recommend Canola Oil)
1/4 cup Frank's Red Hot
2 tbsp margarine

To Make:

Combine flour, salt, paprika, and cayenne together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix together egg and milk. Cut chicken breasts into 1 inch chunks. Try to keep the chicken pieces as close in size to each other as possible. It makes for easier frying. One or two pieces at a time, dunk chicken into the egg mixture, then into the flour, then back into the egg and again into the flour. It seems like the flour will come off when you re-dip into the egg, but it doesn't. Set the dipped pieces on a plate.
Once all the pieces are dipped, set the plate in the fridge for 10 minutes. While the chicken is sitting, heat the oil to 375 degrees. Once the chicken is done resting, drop the chicken into the oil, and cook for 4-6 minutes, turning halfway through.
Remove from oil, and place on a plate covered with a paper towel to drain. Continue until all chicken has been fried.
In a small microwave safe bowl, combine the hot sauce and margarine together. Microwave until margarine is melted, probably about 30 45 seconds.
Place all the chicken in some sort of container with a lid, pour the sauce over the chicken, put the lid on and shake to coat the chicken with the sauce.
Serve with ranch dressing or bleu cheese.



I usually double this recipe, because it makes a TON, and then there's plenty left over for the next day. And again I say, SO MUCH better the next day.

Stuffed Pizza Rolls

On my first date with my husband we had pizza. On my 3rd date with my husband we had pizza. And again on the 6th date, and again on the 10th. Some of the ladies out there may be wondering how this man who insisted on eating pizza on 4 out of 10 dates became my husband, and to that I answer....he's really cute.

I'm not a pizza lover. I crave it every so often, but it's a once or twice a year thing, and not an every other day thing like it is with certain men that I live with. I'm pretty sure that if you could lay out all the pizza boxes that were ever thrown in my trash end to end, you could get from Kentucky to California and back again.* There is always some form of frozen pizza in my freezer, whether it be DiGiorno(not recently), Totino's Pizza Rolls, Red Baron French Bread Pizzas, the list goes on. It's incredibly rare for me to ask "what do you want for dinner?" and NOT have the answer be "pizza". There's gourmet pizza, cheap pizza, take out, and delivery, and Papa Murphy's, which is basically like a Subway restaurant, but for pizza. In 9 years, I've never ever seen him turn down pizza. That's my test for him. Like, if I'm ever worried that the body snatchers have taken him I'll offer him pizza and if he says no then I'll know...he's not Jim, he's a body snatcher - or whatever the body snatchers were actually called. I've never actually seen that movie.

Part of it of course, is the fact that pizza can be delivered. The fact that you can pay someone to bring you food, and you don't even have to change out of your pajamas to receive it truly is one of the best things to ever happen in this world. And since no decent Chinese places deliver to my house, when I don't feel up to cooking, and Jim doesn't want to put pants on and go out, 9 times out of 10, we have pizza. The other time, I usually suck it up and go pick up wings.

And now, pizza places are so much more than pizza it's incredible. They'll bring you salads, wings, nachos, desserts, and drinks, and even sandwiches! You can order from a pizza place, and instead of pizza, you get a sandwich!? Ridiculous. Ridiculously awesome.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that my husband likes pizza.

So, I was looking around earlier this week for a recipe for the amazingly large carton of blueberries that I bought at Sam's Club last week(Seriously? 2 lbs of blueberries? What was I thinking?), and I found a recipe that looks awesome(more to come on that in a future post), but I also found a recipe for stuffed pizza rolls. Check out Kate and Sara's blog as soon as you can. They rock, and not just because Sara spells her name the right way(no H).

I knew that this recipe would be a hit as soon as I saw it. They're like little balls of pizza. I mean, what's not to like? I really actually liked these a lot - they were super easy, and you're limited only by your imagination, and the pizza toppings you can find at the grocery store. You like peppers? Throw some in. Hate mushrooms? By all means, leave them out.

I went old school...cheese and pepperoni. It's a classic for a reason, people.

Stuffed Pizza Rolls(adapted from Our Best Bites)

Ingredients Needed:

1 roll of refrigerated pizza dough(you can make your own, but that would take away the "quick" part of the recipe)
2 tbsp grated parmesan
1 tbsp olive oil or melted butter
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dried Italian seasoning**
mozarella cheese
pizza toppings of your choice
marinara or pizza sauce

To Make:

Preheat oven to temperature specified by the pizza dough you are using. If you've gone ahead and made your own, use 375-400. Roll out the pizza dough on a floured surface, and roll until thin, and about 12-18 inches. Cut into squares. The original recipe said you can get 24 squares...I only got 18. In the middle of each sqaure, place your toppings, but don't overfill. About 1 tsp of cheese and each topping per square should do you just fine. Also, no sauce on the sqaures...that comes later.
Now, once all your toppings have been laid out, take each square, and fold up, making a little pizza ball. Secure the seams at the bottom, and then place, seam side down, in a pie pan or 9 inch baking dish that you have prepared by spraying it with cooking spray.
Next, lightly brush on olive oil or melted butter. I used oil, but I think the butter would do a better job of browning the rolls. Sprinkle with garlic powder, seasonings, and the grated cheese.



Once all pizza rolls are in the pan, bake for 15-20 minutes, but start keeping a close eye on them after about 10 minutes. Mine actually did take the entire 20 minutes.
Remove from oven, and serve warm with marinara or pizza sauce for dipping.



*This is not a scientific fact. I just made that up. for all I know, it could only get me from Kentucky to Tennessee and back.

**I didn't have italian seasoning, so I used a mix of basil, oregano, and parsley. Which is basically Italian seasoning when you think about it.

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TasteSpotting Thursday

Everyone deals with jealousy on a daily basis. Jealous of a friend who has a nicer car or home than you do; jealous of a co-worker who got praise for something you did; jealous of the people in the apartment next door because you caught a glimpse inside as they were leaving and their TV is at least a 50 inch, while you're still bopping along with a 36 incher. I think that if you asked 10 random people on the street when the last time they felt jealous was, the answer would be "today" at least 8 times. And the other two would probably be lying.

You're probably wondering what the point of this ramble is, and here it is. The last time I felt jealous was about two hours ago. My husband and I were at his brother's house after visiting their grandmother in the hospital, and I was overcome by one of the worst cases of kitchen envy I've ever had. My brother and sister in law redid their kitchen about 8 months ago, and it is beautiful. Lovely stainless steel KitchenAid appliances, pretty tile floor, and acres of counter space. I've mentioned before how much I love cooking in my mother in law's kitchen, but I think I would actually prefer my brother in law's. And the reason is this: light. Any food blogger will tell you that the most important quality in any food photograph is light. Adam and Holly's kitchen has amazing light, coming in from several different angles. It's a food bloggers dream kitchen. I want to volunteer to make them dinner every night, just so I can have access to that kitchen. It makes me not want to cook in my own small, badly lit kitchen. Not that I'll actually stop cooking in my own kitchen, I'll just pout a bit first. I know that eventually my husband will be out of school, and we'll be able to afford a house(hopefully Jim already knows that an awesome kitchen is priority number one for me when it comes to house buying. If he doesn't though....hi honey! I'm going to make your life terrible when we're house hunting!) with an awesome kitchen and hopefully windows out the ying yang. But until then, I just have to lust after other people's kitchens. And hopefully convince all my in laws that a home cooked meal is worth waiting an extra 10 minutes to eat while I search for just the right angle in a photo.

So, this brings me to an idea that I've had cooking(ha ha, get it?) for awhile. Since I can't have a beautiful kitchen of my own to cook in, I want to see what people are making in their own kitchens. I have literally hundreds of recipes bookmarked waiting for me to try them, and about half of them I've found browsing on TasteSpotting. So, I bring to you TasteSpotting Thursday's. What I'm going to do is, every Thursday I'll give you all links to three or four of the most interesting looking recipes that I've found on there. They might not be things I've made myself, so I can't vouch for them, but they will be things that have been added to my daily growing lists of recipes I want to try, but haven't because I'm too busy, too stressed, too tired, or just too bummed to want to cook in my own kitchen.

Hopefully, if you try them first, you can let me know how they turned out.

So, for the first installment, I give you three recipes that have been added to my list, and now hopefully yours.


1.

2.

3.

Number one is an onion cracker recipe, number 2 is pecan pie bars, and number three is a lamb burger with tzatziki sauce and feta cheese.

All three of those look fantastic, and please, if you do try them, please let me know how they turned out.

A Cookie By Any Other Name....

I've found it. Cookie nirvana. Seriously you guys, you have to make these tonight. It's important. If you don't make them until next week, you'll strain something kicking yourself, because you'll be mad that you didn't make them sooner. And I don't want that to happen to any of you. I love my readers. I'm currently nursing a slight sprain, because I've had this recipe for months and didn't make them until last week.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. Brownie Cookies. Fudge Drops. These go by many names, but the name they should really go by is super chocolatey delicious bombs of happiness. If you're not a chocolate lover stay away, because these are almost chocolate overload. Almost, but not quite.
If you are a chocolate lover, I reiterate...make these tonight.

Several people told me that these are the best chocolate cookies they've ever had. While I'd like to take that as a personal compliment, it's really due to the cookie much more so than the baker.

The recipe is from King Arthur Flour, but I used Pillsbury flour, and they still turned out great. Nobody tell Arthur, please.

Fudge Drops(Adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients Needed:

8 oz semisweet chocolate
3 tbsp butter
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips(optional, but recommended)

The original recipe called for 1 tsp espresso powder, but I don't have any, and I don't think the cookies were adversely effected by the lack of it.

To Make:

In a double boiler, melt together chocolate and butter. In a separate bowl, beat together eggs yolks salt, baking powder, vanilla and chocolate chips(if you're using them). Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour.*
Preheat the oven to 325. Lightly grease, or line two baking sheets with parchment. Drop the cookies by tablespoonful onto the prepared cookie sheets. Make sure they are well spaced, because the cookies spread a bit as they bake. Bake for 11-12 minutes, until the tops are shiny and cracked the top of a brownie. This wont happen until the very very end, so I recommend starting to keep a close eye on them at about the 10 minute mark.
Once removed from the oven, LEAVE THEM ON THE COOKIE SHEET for at least 5 minutes. These are really delicate straight from the oven, and they'll break if you move them too soon. Once the 5 minutes is passed, remove to a cooling rack, and repeat until all the dough is gone.

Makes about 30 cookies.

*I actually left the dough in the fridge for about 2 hours. Not be design, just because I honestly forgot about them for awhile. The cookies were fine.

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Buckeye's

So, growing up in Pennsylvania, I never really gave much thought to Ohio, other than knowing that it was a neighboring state, and hating Ohio State(GO PENN STATE!). I never actually pictured myself living in there. But come to pass, I met my (now) husband, and he was living in Ohio, so I moved to be with him, and ended up living in Ohio for about 4 years, before moving to northern Kentucky.

So...Buckeye's. Being a Penn State fan for most of my life, I knew that Ohio State's mascot was the buckeye, but I never knew that it was anything other than a nut.

Well, come to find out, buckeye's are also one of the most delicious candies on the block. Peanut butter and chocolate...what's not to love?

I had originally thought about making buckeye's as our wedding favor, but we ended up deciding to axe favors and have an open bar. Up until this past weekend, I thought that was the right choice, but seeing how these got gobbled up at my in laws 4th of July party this weekend, I might have been wrong.

These are incredibly simple, if time consuming to make, and the recipe makes a TON. It'll probably be awhile before I make these again, because, seriously time consuming, but they were SO worth it.

Buckeye's

Ingredients Needed:

2 cups creamy peanut butter(don't use all natural)
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 3/4 cups(or 16 oz) confectioners sugar
2 cups(12 oz bag) semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tbsp shortening

To Make:

Mix peanut butter and butter together in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Beat in the powdered sugar until mixture is thoroughly moistened. Shape into 1 inch balls, and freeze 30-60 minutes.
Melt chocolate chips and shortening together in a double boiler, or in the microwave. If using the microwave, heat for 1 minute, then stir, and heat an additional 10-15 seconds at a time until chocolate is fully melted.
Using a toothpick, dip the peanut butter balls into the chocolate, leaving a small portion on top uncovered, then transfer to a parchment paper lined baking sheet. You can smooth over the toothpick hole with your finger if you want to. Refrigerate until chocolate is set, at least 2 hours. Store in fridge or freezer in a covered container.

So, when I said that these are time consuming, here's the deal: The peanut butter gets soft very quickly once it's removed from the freezer. I had to keep putting it back in the freezer for 10-15 minutes at a time, or the PB balls would just slide off the toothpick into the chocolate. All in all, to make the full recipe of buckeye's took about 3 hours. So make sure if you're making these that you have plenty of time, because they're going to take longer than you think they will. I will say again, however.....totally worth it. These are amazing. Like Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, but better, because they're mostly peanut butter. So good.

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Maple Glazed Carrots

I don't know if I actually remember the first time I had cooked carrots, or if my mom has just told me the story so many times that it seems like I do.

It goes like this: the first time I ever had cooked carrots, we were at my grandmother's house for the weekend, and she made cooked carrots with dinner. I loved them, and asked my mom why she never made me cooked carrots, and her response was "because I hate cooked carrots, and I'm a grown up, which means I don't ever have to make them if I don't want to." I never said it was a particularly interesting story.

So anyway, I'm the grown up now, which means I can cook carrots to my hearts content. And that's just what I did. These carrots are SO GOOD, you guys. Sweet, and savory, and firm and delicious. And really really easy.

Maple Glazed Carrots

Ingredients Needed:

2 lbs of carrots(to start...you'll want to end up with right around a pound)
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp butter
1/4 cup water
salt and pepper

To Make:

Peel carrots, then cut the both ends off of them. Slice carrots 1/4 inch thick, on the diagonal. In a large skillet, combine the carrots, syrup, water and butter.
Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to medium, and simmer, partially covered for 12-15 minutes.
If the carrots are are tender, but the liquid has not thickened by the end of 15 minutes, turn up heat to medium high, and cook uncovered until glaze thickens.

These turned out really really well. And since I'm the only one in my house(husband is a carrot hater too), they were all for me!