Sweet Treats

Happy Valentine’s Day!

by emily on 02/14/2012

David and I usually don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, because our anniversary is February 7th.  We kind of roll it all up into a week-long festival of smooches, you know?

Tonight’s plans are to watch back-to-back DVRs of the Westminster Dog Show and enjoy some take-out Thai.  Martha’s chow, Genghis Khan, won best in breed for the chow chow! My co-worker emailed me this hilarious photo of the two of them celebrating with dinner at the Plaza in New York:

I’m a little creeped out that it was clearly taken through some hedges, but I really hope that one day, I hit that level of “eccentric.”  Martha really is my freaking idol.

Anyhoodles.

If you are going to be celebrating with your lovey tonight, here are a few of my favorite recipes:

The Chocolate Covered Strawberry Martini

Or maybe the drink I had the night I got engaged? It’s called an Il Postino

As far as dessert goes, I suggest Chocolate mousse!  The real stuff is almost as easy to make as the stuff that comes in packets.

Or you can nibble on some chocolate covered orange peels.  I love the translucent color!

If you’ve got a bit more time, I do suggest the Banana Cupcakes with Nutella Whipped Cream Frosting

Chocolate and a cocktail are sort of essential when it comes to Valentine’s day, no?

How are you going to celebrate this international day of hugs and kisses?

{ 2 comments }

Whole Wheat, Banana Flax Muffins

by emily on 02/12/2012

After last week’s rant about Pinterest, health, diet and the evils of “butter-fried-butter,” I wanted to try to make something healthy and good for you this week for my sweet treat!

Aren’t the little polka-dot muffin liners cute? Gasp of gasps– they’re from Paula Deen’s product line.  Got ‘em on sale at Michael’s.

So, I nabbed the recipe from Disney Family, but 1) I’m not a fan of Disney and 2) I edited it.  I’d like to take a little credit for actually making these portable nuggets o’ joy a bit healthier. Here’s what I added to the batter:

  • 1 cup white flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour (have a whole bag leftover from my home-made dog treats!)
  • 2 tablespoons flax seed
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • scant teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3-4 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)
  • 1/3 cup yogurt (ended up using peach, as that’s what we had in the house)
  • 2 large eggs, beaten lightly
  • 6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  1. Preheat oven to 350* and line your muffin tins.
  2. Mix your dries.  Aren’t flax seeds neat looking? 
  3. In a separate bowl, mix your wet ingredients.  Slowly add your dry to the wet, stirring thoroughly.
  4. Portion your batter into prepped muffin cups and bake 20 minutes or so, or until a toothpick inserted to the center of each muffin comes out clean.

Et voila!  Muffins! This recipe is way healthier than the last banana treat I made.

The flax seed is barely noticeable, until you manage to crunch down on one, and you get a great nutty flavor in the middle of your muffin.   I’m going to start adding flax seed to many of my baked goods. David and I don’t eat fish, so we’ve added flax to our diet to make sure we get Omega 3′s. Good for the brain, the heart, and the skin!  (I went ahead and pinned a whole lot of things that have flax in them– can’t wait to make them!)

In my opinion, these muffins were a wee bit buttery.  I know that when you’re using whole wheat flour, you have to keep the batter moist, but quite literally, the muffin liners on these were *glistening* when I took them out of the oven.  Can you believe that?  I might knock the batter down to 4 tablespoons of melted butter next time.  I do like denser muffins, so that will help, I suppose.

These will be a great, portable breakfast for this week back at work!  On the weekends, I enjoy french toast (remember the pumpkin spice french toast?), but I can’t do that five times a week. Instead, I’ll run out the door with these suckers!

What did you cook this weekend?

Pin It

{ 3 comments }

When Pinterest Steers Us Wrong

by emily on 02/06/2012

Has anyone else seen this floating around Pinterest?

Cake Batter Dip from Tasty Kitchen

So, in the vein of celebration of the Super Bowl, I decided to make this dip and bring it to our friends Matt and Caitlin’s house for their party.  Dip is kind of a sport thing, right?  And I’m well-known to be the Dessert Lady, so what can go wrong with making Funfetti Cake Dip?

In case you didn’t click through to the site, you take 1 package of cake mix, 12oz of yogurt and 2 cups of Cool Whip, mix it all together, and ‘fridge for an hour.  What results is a strangely cake-y dip. EDIT: I ended up using fat-free yogurt and fat-free Cool Whip to make my version

One spoonful and I thought, “My god, it’s like someone created the Holy Grail of awesome dessert plasma IN MY MOUTH.”  It’s like cold fusion.  Alchemy.  Higg’s Boson.

One more spoonful and I thought, “Oh, my god.  I am going to vomit all over my shoes.”  Cannot. Handle. How. Gross.

Forgive me while I get real snarky:

I remember all the way back three weeks ago when Paula Deen’s scandal broke.  First of all, yes, she’s right when she defends herself and says she never told people to eat all of her gross food, and she never said SHE ate like that every day, and that no, butter-friend-butter should logically not seem like a good idea to anyone who ever passed 6th grade health class and has ever seen a food pyramid.

But.

How bad are us bloggers?  Seriously, we worship Pioneer Woman, and she’s just the online Paula Deen.  We contribute recipes like this monstrosity to Tasty Kitchen, which is a website she owns and profits off of.  Half of the crap on that website– and her own cooking sub-page– is butter fried butter with red meat tossed in.

Guys.  I know that I make crap from box brownie mixes and I have an entire segment of the site dedicated to sweet treats.  I’m being a massive hypocrite for pointing this out.  I want to say, “Yes, I’m bad BUT…” and fill it in with the fact that 1) I only feature one sweet treat a week or so, sometimes less and 2) I make no bones about the fact that I’ve been a vegetarian for close to 10 years and 3) Whatever else hooey I can scroung up in my brain but…

Bleh. I don’t want to be the poor lady’s Paula Deen/Pioneer Woman.  I just want to find balance.  And I want to NEVER eat Cake Batter Dip ever again ever in my life.

{ 27 comments }

Homemade Caramel Sauce

February 1, 2012

I first made this sauce a while back, using a recipe I found on Yummy Supper.  First published last spring, I have to say– I want to keep this in my house at all times. This stuff tastes like a liquified Worther’s Original candy.  It’s unbelievably good.  And surprisingly easy to make! 1 cup sugar 1/4 [...]

read more!

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Treats

January 29, 2012

So, David and I are on a diet right now (too many brownies, I think) so we decided it was time that the dogs got a sweet home-made treat! I searched for a simple dog cookie recipe, and found one on AllRecipes.com, which I adapted slightly. (Margo loves her peanut butter, so I added more [...]

Pin It
read more!

Snickerdoodle Blondies

January 22, 2012

Clearly, you guys have noticed that I’m on a brownie kick right now.  The Mint Swirl brownies were absolutely fabulous, so were the Brownies with Peanut Butter Frosting. But what if you *gasp*– don’t like chocolate? I’ve only made blondies once before– I made the ABC Chardonnay Blondies.  But these?  These are heavenly. I picked [...]

Pin It
read more!

Mint Swirl Brownies

January 15, 2012

I do have to say, experimenting with these brownies is an absolute blast. For this batch, I mixed up some basic box brownies PLUS, a small batch of brownie batter, with a quick switcheroo in flavor. I started with this box o’ brownie, because 1) it’s the good stuff with the extra Hershey’s syrup mixed [...]

Pin It
read more!

← Previous Entries