Snow Day Recipes

The snow started falling early this Saturday, and I am thrilled to be stuck inside with the family, enjoying a lovely fire, playing games, doing crafts... and ready to start my baking.

We started our day with George's pancake breakfast. I will be making a nice big pot of Mom's clam chowder later. In between, we will be baking Christmas cookies and making Irish cream. What a great way to spend the weekend! I am really looking forward to these Chocolate Mint-filled cookies from recipegirl.com:

http://www.recipegirl.com/2008/07/31/chocolate-mint-filled-cookies/#ixzz0a92OhZDE

CHOCOLATE-MINT-FILLED COOKIES
www.RecipeGirl.com

6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups flour
2/3 cup butter, softened
¼ cup light corn syrup
2 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 large egg
sugar for rolling
48 Andes Mints

1. In saucepan, heat chips on low heat until melted and smooth.

2. In a large bowl with mixer, beat melted chocolate, flour, butter, corn syrup, baking soda, salt, egg and ½ cup sugar until blended. Increase speed to medium and beat until well-mixed, scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Wrap dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate until easy to handle (2 hours).

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place some sugar in a small bowl. Shape dough into balls. Roll balls in sugar and bake on cookie sheet 12-15 minutes.

4. Immediately remove ½ of cookies from cookie sheet onto work surface. Top each cookie with 2 mints and place the other half of the cookies on top. If your freezer is big enough, place in freezer until set, or leave at room temperature until set.

Servings: 24
Yield: 2 dozen

Cooking Tips
*These taste divine while still warm, and they are a great frozen treat as well.
**Andes brand mints can be found in the candy section of most stores.

Hope anyone else stuck inside this weekend takes the time to enjoy the forced break from the holiday chaos.

Christmas Bread

It must be a hold over to growing up but I love making bread for teachers for christmas. Usually I do pumpkin. I did make a chocolate muffin this fall and am thinking of turning that it to a loaf.

I happen today to have a lot of leftover chopped up apples so was thinking of make an apple bread. I found this and thought I'd try Apple-cranberry bread

I also have a lot of bananas and thought I'd do Bridget's chocolate chip banana bread. My question - The apple recipe talks about making the batter and freezing until ready to bake. That would be great! Would it also work for the banana bread? Can I freeze in the aluminum loaf pans I got?

Christmas Taffy

Last weekend my mother-in-law made christmas taffy with 6 grandchildren ages 5 to 10. The kids had a wonderful time. Mine were very excited about getting to rub butter on their hand, something they had never done before. Here is the recipe they used. They made lemon/line and cherry, the red and green colors were great. She divided the candy in half and then put a half of package of koolaide in in each one. Worked great so they could have Christmas colors. I no longer have a picture of the taffy, or the taffy. As Maeve just reminded me it doesn't have to be Christmas Taffy.

Christmas cookies

I'm putting together my list of cookies I'll be baking for Christmas so I can shop for the necessary ingredients and bake them slowly over the next few weeks. So far I'm hoping to make: gingersnaps, chai spice girls, pecan bars, bourbon balls, date and nut balls, peanut butter temptations, creme de menthe brownies and fudge. I was wondering do you have any creative ideas for packaging them to give as gifts.

Christmas gift idea for a Teenage Foodie

Anyone have any Cool Christmas gift ideas for a 15 year old boy who's hobbies include: video games, movies, and eating:) I was thinking some unique food idea? Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Southwest snack mix

Regina asked for a spicy snack that could be stored in a jar. Here is one we like.

4 cups popped popcorn

3 cups mini pretzel twists

2 cups mini garlic bagel chips

1 cup corn chips

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon paprika

3/4 teaspoon chilli powder

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Dash Cayenne

In a large bowl, combine popcorn, pretzels, bagels and corn chips.

In a small bowl combine all remaining ingredients; mix well. Pour evenly over popcorn mix, toss gently to coat. Store in tightly covered container.

I know Brendan will be mad at me for divulging this long-held family secret (and probably this picture), but I can’t find my copy of the recipe, and I’d like you all to tell me if my memory is correct.

Irish cream

4 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 c heavy cream
2 T chocolate syrup
2 t instant coffee
1 t pure vanilla extract
¼ t pure almond extract
¾ c Irish whiskey (I think the original recipe called for 1½ cups, but I usually use less)

Combine in blender. Chill. Serve in a pretty bottle. Makes great gifts!

File under: You gotta try this! It's the simplest, nicest, chocolate treat ever!

Now, if you ask my kids what my favorite candy is, they'll tell y0u it's Junior Mints or maybe Mounds or Almond Joy. And I do love those, don’ get me wrong. But my favorite candy is Chunky. I’m just generally unwilling to pay $1 for a 1½" square of chocolate with raisins and nuts. Enter: Chocolate, Fruit, and Nut Clusters that arrived in my e-mailbox this week, as if from Santa, but really from Health.com Healthy Holiday Postcard ... Healthy Holiday?! This just got better! The sidebar on the recipe says it’s healthy because dark chocolate offers stress-busting (really?! no wonder I like it so much!) antioxidants, while cranberries may help fend off winter colds and fight stomach bugs.

The other thing I love about it is it’s a half-cup of everything. That, I can remember when I’m walking through the store with no idea where I left my shopping list (usually on the passenger seat of the car).

I tried it as written, but I’d like a little more dark chocolate and a little less sweet, so I might substitute darker bittersweet or more semisweet chocolate for the milk chocolate next time.

Chocolate, Fruit, and Nut Clusters

½ c (3 oz) semisweet chocolate chips or chopped baking bar, such as Ghirardelli
½ c (3 oz) milk chocolate chips or chopped milk chocolate bar
½ c dried cranberries
½ c coarsely chopped pecans, toasted

Place the semisweet chocolate and milk chocolate in a double boiler over simmering water; make sure the water is not actually touching the inner pan. Stir until chocolate is completely melted.

Stir in the cranberries and pecans. Immediately drop by level teaspoonfuls onto a wax paper-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate until chocolate is set, about 30 minutes. Clusters will keep in the refrigerator up to 5 days.