Happy Valentine's Day

I just felt like I needed to get that out there. Love you all!

Snickerdoodle Blondies

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I think. I must be the most flattering girl in the whole world. I pretty much spend my time taking other people's recipes, making them exactly as instructed, and regurgitating it here on my blog. I probably shouldn't use the word "regurgitating" on a food blog, eh?

Today's recipient of my constant fawning and groveling is the lovely and talented Peabody of Culinary Concoctions by Peabody. I assume she's lovely, but I know she's talented. All her recipes and pictures cause instant salivation.

I LOVE snickerdoodles, and I figured I could only love these as well. One of the fabulous perks of my chosen workplace is one night a week they serve snickerdoodles on the trays for the patients. They are out of this world for hospital food. I like to take the tray of food in to the patient who has been complaining of nausea the most that particular day and say "oh sorry dear, I think these icky cookies would only make you sicker. Let me take those away for you". Then I run like hell.

I'm not sure why I chose to poke holes in it to check for doneness before I took the pic. I can be such a dumbass. The only change I made in her recipe was to use cream cheese instead of marscapone, because it's cheaper and I already had some.

Overall this had a very Thanksgiving-ish pumpkin pie taste to it. I'll have to eat about 5 more pieces before I can truly decide if I want to make it again.

UPDATE: Okay, I ate them all. I think they're definitely worth making again. *burP*

Chicken Soup for the Snotface Soul

I have the bubonic plague. I haven't really been sick for ages and forgot I don't enjoy it. Chicken and rice soup seemed to be the only way to go.

I don't really have a recipe as such, but I like my veggies chopped up tiny like so....

Throw it all in a pot with some broth, chopped chicken that is already boiled, whatever seasonings that are in front in the cabinet, and a couple handfuls of rice. Let it simmer with a lid on until all the veggies are tender and the rice is cooked (20-25 minutes).

Remember the wasted bread chunks from the stupid fondue? They made pretty nice croutons and were tasty in this soup.

Okay I've eaten my frickin soup, now I'm ready for the plague to go away.

Bedroom Bliss Giveaway

The girls at SITS are hosting a fabulous giveaway this month....everything you need to turn your sleeping chamber into a 5 star spa retreat.

Included in this prize are:

500 thread count sheet set

2 memory foam pillows

Sheet spray, lotion and candles

A set of wonderfully soft and luxurious spa towels

A 30 dollar gift card to Target.

And, winner's blog will be their Friday Favorite the first Friday of March!

Click the logo here to go to their site to enter, and while you are their, don't forget to click on their ads so they can keep having fun contests like this for all of us.

Also, please don't be too disappointed when you don't win, because I'm sure this prize is destined to be mine.

Stuffed Mushrooms

This a copykat recipe from the Olive Garden, which I didn't completely copykat (details to follow). I took a lot of pics so I thought I'd do a step-by-step, just cause I want to be like the cool kids!

The recipe starts with 8-12 baby bellas. I used more because I'm an over-achiever. (I'll stop here and let you snicker a bit)

Turn the little babies over and viciously rip out the stems. I use a lot of paper towels when I make stuff. Please don't tell anyone from Greenpeace.

RR says I shouldn't wash my mushrooms, but she's already lost my trust, so these guys got a bath.

Gather up some minced garlic (1/2 tsp), garlic salt (1/8 tsp), oregano (1 tsp), melted butter (1 tbsp), and one green onion finely chopped. I should mention here that I doubled everything since I had more mushrooms than the recipe called for.

At this point the recipe says to add 6 oz of canned clams and save the juice, but I don't do clams. But if it makes you happy, then throw them in.

I added bacon! (a large handful) Bacon makes me happy.

Now we are to add Italian bread crumbs (1/2 cup), 1 beaten egg, and 1/4 cup clam juice. Well, I don't really like clam juice much more than I like clams so I had to come up with a substitution. I was thinking chicken broth, but didn't have any. I had some 3 day old cold coffee sitting here, or maybe some fruit punch flavored Crystal Light? Then I spotted a bottle of white wine and decided that was my best option.

To this add grated Parmesan (2 tbsp), grated Romano (1 tbsp), and grated mozzarella (2 tbsp), and mix all together.

Place approximately 1 1/2 teaspoons of the stuffing mixture inside mushroom cavity and slightly mound. Place the stuffed mushrooms in slightly oiled baking dish and pour 1/4 cup melted butter over the top of the mushrooms. Cover and place in oven for about 35- 40 minutes. Remove cover; sprinkle 1/4 cup freshly grated mozzarella cheese on top and pop back in oven just so the cheese melts slightly.

The finished product. My review: meh, they're ok.

Oh The Failure

First, there's this.

I haven't really followed football this year, but I was hoping the Cardinals could pull it off. But no. The Steelers won the superbowl. Woohoo. There's something we haven't seen before. Seriously, congrats to them. Hopefully this is the beginning of good things for the Cardinals.

Then there was this.

There's just no excuse for this cheesy gloppy mess. This was the only pic I had a chance to snap cause I was in a hurry to leave. Just as I was singing the praises of Rachael Ray, she disappoints me with this monstrosity.

Honestly, I've never had fondue before. But I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to take the piece of bread you dunk in it and swallow it down like a bunch of quicksand. And the flavor didn't thrill me either.

And it made me waste most of these.

Does anyone have a recipe I can make out of leftover bread chunks, kielbasa, and baby carrots?

Oh well maybe someday I'll get to have real fondue, and one of my teams will finally win the big one.

Oatmeal Bars

I found this recipe at Allrecipes and thought it sounded like a nice alternative to the granola bars I send in my daughter's lunch a lot. Until I actually read the recipe and found it's got tons of butter in it. Don't get me wrong....I puffy heart butter big time. But I don't particularly want to pack a stick of butter in dd's lunch every day. There were some suggestions of eliminating part of the butter and replacing it with baby food bananas (eww). Maybe applesauce would be better.

Here's the original recipe:

4 1/2 cups rolled oats 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2/3 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup honey 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 2 cups miniature semisweet chocolate chips (or mixture of choc chips, nuts, dried fruit, whatever blows your skirt up) Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9x13 inch pan. In a large mixing bowl combine the oats, flour, baking soda, vanilla, butter or margarine, honey and brown sugar. Stir in the 2 cups assorted chocolate chips, raisins, nuts etc. Lightly press mixture into the prepared pan. Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes then cut into bars. Let bars cool completely in pan before removing or serving.

I put slivered almonds, mini chocolate chips and dried cranberries in mine, although the right side of the pan is sans the cranberries for the girl. I think my son will like them.

They didn't really hold together great, so I don't know if they're gonna work for lunch box purposes. But they are really yummy, not as dry as store bought granola bars. A commenter at Allrecipes suggested freezing them before slicing them to help them not fall apart. I'm really not that patient though. I think I'll try putting some rice krispies in there next time too.