OH SUSHI how I love thee!

I had never tried sushi until a few months ago. Honestly, they looked like miniature, rubbery yoga mats to me. And the thought of eating raw fish… *shudder*

I actually still feel a little queasy when I eat it, but the immediate ecstasy of the taste immediately drives all concerns away. Oh my word, this stuff is so good!!!

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Tonight, I tried some raw fish on rice. YES! I did it! Previously, I’d only been brave enough to eat seaweed, rice and veggie sushi and maybe small portions of eel mixed in. But tonight I hankered down on a bit of raw salmon, eel and lobster. *faints from delight* Smeared with a little wasabi sauce, the stuff is AMAZING!!!! I love Japanese food. Wow.

How about you? Have you ever tried sushi? Do you think you’d like it?

Instructables has a post about how to make homemade Cadbury Cream eggs. I LOVE those things. I don’t want to copy the entire recipe here (wouldn’t be right), but I’ll show you the basic recipe ingredients.

* 170g (1/2 cup) light corn syrup
* 58g (1/4 cup) butter, room temperature
* 375g (3 cups) confectioner’s powdered sugar (icing sugar)
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* yellow food coloring
* 1 (12 ounce) bag milk chocolate chips

Here’s the Instructable’s page with the full recipe. The author says that the hardest part may be connecting the chocolate moulds, but it’s learned with some patience. I think it’d be worth it.

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Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies
makes 24 cookies

• 1/2 cup butter (no margarine!)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (we make our own, see our brown sugar recipe here)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of each: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
• 1 Tablespoon brandy (we used whiskey; you can also use pure vanilla)
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup dried cranberries

In one bowl, mash the butter. Add the sugars to make a grainy cream. Add the egg and mix well.

In a second bowl, add the flour, baking soda, and spices. Combine the bowls and add the brandy/whisky/vanilla.

Add the chips and berries and mix lightly.

Scoop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Don’t allow the cookies to overbake.

You may want to stock up on the diet supplements before making these– they are SO good that you may easily eat half a dozen without even realizing it!!! They are not heavy in the stomach. Best served with hot, regular tea. YUMMMMMM!

CUTE!!!

It’s a little chocolate-covered cherry, with a Hershey’s kiss for a head. I love the chocolate-dipped sliced almonds for the ears. Whoever made this was really creative. We got it as part of a Christmas cookie set. The cookies were all homemade, and were all good. Some were SPECTACULAR. There was this cookie that had cranberries, white chocolate chunks, and walnuts. It just about knocked my socks off, lol. Thankfully, whoever made the cookies included the recipe in the box. I will love them forever, lol. The cookies came from my husband’s workplace. He paid a small nominal fee for a box of assorted cookies. It was a nice way for the little organization to raise money, especially when fund-raising and banking jobs and jobs in general are difficult to find.

The kids may make this little mouse cookie sometime. It’s SO cute!!!

Here’s the challenge for this week:

Tell me four things that you have made from scratch with chocolate (or just candy if you don’t/can’t have chocolate).

Oh dear. You may have well as asked me about rv insurance quote or something. I rarely bake, and I rarely bake with chocolate! I just eat it.

Well, in the past I *have* baked with chocolate. I’ll have to recall those olden days!

1. Peanut butter cookies with Hershey’s Kisses on top. YUMYUMYUMYUM. Now you know why I don’t bake anymore!

2. Chocolate milk. :-p Well, yeah, I made it from scratch! I STIRRED the powder into the milk!

…uhhhhhh…..

3! Brownies. OK< boring answer, I know. EVERYONE has made brownies, yah. But I am desperate for answers!

…one more to go, one more to go….

4….. ummmm….. oh dear. I’m stuck. OH WAIT! I once made chocolate pudding pie! Does that count?

Wow, this was hard! I like eating chocolate, but I am too impatient to bake with it. It’s so much better popped into my mouth.

They spent a few days, on and off, during the summer, picking black raspberries for the pie. We didn’t have enough berries for a full pie (those lousy drenching rains all spring!), so we added some pear to the batch. The pears were a bit mushy (having been frozen), but the pie was delicious. And the berries were EXQUISITE. I say “were” because the pie was gone in about 20 minutes.

I love how they made a pear in the center. My son did a terrific job of crafting it, and my daughter carved it out. It was such a beautiful pie! (Livvy the cat thought so, too).

While I didn’t add much sugar to the pie, this thing will still make you reach for the fastest working weight loss supplements, if you know what I mean. The lack of strong sweetness makes this pie perfect with a cup of tea, or a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

Pear Berry Pie
makes 1 9-inch pie

2 pie crusts (I use store-bought)
3 cups peeled, slices pears
3 cups berries
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon molasses
2 Tablespoons tapioca
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt

Gently mix the ingredients. Dump into a prepared pie crust. Seal with a top crust. Poke holes or slits into the top, to allow steam to escape.

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Serve warm with ice cream or cold with hot sweet tea.

photo credit: L. Marie

I made apple pie late last night on this crazy whim. It was a cold evening, and I was desperate to bake something. I enjoyed it so much I almost broke out the led christmas lights and started playing carols! Well, about the pie: this is all that is left.

I have posted my recipe for “industrial-sized” apple pie, but I have never posted my really easy recipe for “regular” apple pie. It’s a little different than the standard pie, because I reduce the sugar and add molasses. This gives it a heartier, less sweet flavor. It’s very good, especially with vanilla ice cream. I use store-bought pie crusts for the pie. I don’t bother making dough, rolling it, etc. Too much work. The pre-made crusts are always flaky, and they cut the pie-making time down to 1/3 of what it would be, making it all from scratch. I also have bags of pre-sliced apple in the freezer. Whenever we want to make a pie, we thaw out the apples, throw the ingredients together, and lay out the pre-made crusts. SO EASY! It takes me about 15 minutes to get a pie in the oven, from start to finish.

Granny’s Apple Pie

6-7 cups peeled, diced apples
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon tapioca
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
Pinch of salt

Mix the ingredients quickly in a large bowl. Dump into the pie pan lined with a crust. Lay another crust over the pan. Pinch the two crusts together firmly, to keep juices from bursting the seams. Make a few slits on the top (or carve out a fancy Macintosh apple as in the photo above) to allow steam to escape.

Place in a preheated oven set to 375 degrees. Bake for about an hour. Allow to cool slightly. Serve warm with ice cream!

Anyway, this recipe is nice. It makes just one pint of PB, though. Peanuts and honey tend to be expensive foods (I have considered growing my own peanuts sometime), don’t expect to save loads of dough with this recipe so that you can buy that sterling silver jewelry you’ve had your eye on. This is probably more of a snack food than a staple.

Here’s the recipe. SO EASY!

Ingredients
16 ounces of peanuts (I love the honey-roasted kind but plain or salted would be fine too)
3 tablespoons of canola oil
1 tablespoon of honey

Directions

1. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, whiz the peanuts until finely ground and beginning to get pasty. This may take a couple of minutes.
2. Add oil and honey and pulse about 10 more times until completely incorporated.
3. Taste for salt or sweetness and add salt or honey to taste.
4. Put in a 1/2 pint mason jar or similarly sized container and store in the refrigerator.

See more recipes at the website. They have lots of very nice, simple recipes. Whenever I am out of ideas, I always check out the site.

But look out. There are plenty of luscious recipes, too– some complex, and some terribly easy. I saw this one:

Isn’t it pretty? It’s simply white chocolate chips in raspberries! Oooooo lllaaaa laaa!

It’s Greek yogurt. It has NO corn syrup!! This strawberry yogurt does have some sugar, but I ate the honey yogurt and that had no added sugar!! And the protein amount is higher than many other yogurts. It’s also loaded with all that happy bacteria that is good for the digestive system. Yum. While eating Chobani may not qualify you for lower term life insurance quotes, you will feel better after eating it.

Like I said, the yogurt is pricey– it’s $1 for a small container at my local Hannaford’s. The nice thing is that the yogurt is firmer and a lot less sweet than other yogurts, so the kids dislike Chobani. Which leaves all the more for me.