Dark Chocolate Peppermint Fudge

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candy, chocolate, Christmas, dark chocolate, easy, egg-free, fudge, gluten-free, holiday, no bake, peppermint, recipe

Maybe someday I will learn to plan ahead and not put off all of my Christmas shopping until the day before Christmas Eve. Perhaps I will even have a plan as to what to buy. That is not today, though I’m happy to report that all presents have been procured.

If you’re in need of one more treat to make that is super duper easy, this fudge is an excellent option. I ran across Megan of Stetted‘s recipe for Dark Chocolate Fudge with Sea Salt while gathering ideas for edible Christmas gifts. It looked too good not to try, and I thought I’d holiday it up by swapping the almond extract and sea salt with peppermint extract and candies. With so few ingredients, it delivers a pure chocolate peppermint flavor.

I made this at my parents’ house which doesn’t have the most helpful light for photos. When I tried to take better photos the next day, I noticed that the crushed peppermint had melted, so boo. Maybe the fridge is too moist? See, it’s perfect for making last minute.

Pumpkin Mochi Bundt

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baking, bundt, cake, easy, egg-free, fall, gluten-free, mochi, mochiko, NaBloPoMo, pumpkin

Happy National Bundt Day!

I’m not one to observe food holidays, but the fact that Mary the Food Librarian celebrates this one so ardently makes it hard to resist joining in. This is her fourth year of I Like Big Bundts and my third time participating.

The bundt cake is pretty great. Don’t like frosting? Not a fan of decorating cakes? Bundt cake for you! (Incidentally, I am one of those people.) Really, they look pretty enough as-is, thanks to those bodacious curves.

Mocha Meringue Stars

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baking, chocolate, crunchy cookies, dairy-free, espresso, gluten-free, holiday, low-fat, meringues, mocha, NaBloPoMo, recipe

These meringues were initially a happy accident. I don’t remember if we had leftover egg whites or what, but my friend Jill and I decided to make meringues one night a couple years ago. A google search led to a Gourmet recipe for chocolate-dipped vanilla, chocolate, and espresso ones. We were sold!

The recipe was kind of tedious since it required making separate batches for each, but we went with it. Well, that is until we hit a road bump in the first (vanilla) batch. The mixer whisk wasn’t able to reach the one egg white due to the groove in the bowl. Nice one, KitchenAid! Obviously we had to think of something, and as lovers of mocha ice cream, we decided to combine ALL THE BATCHES. Not only did this solve the egg white issue, it sure made the recipe a whole lot simpler.

Spicy Purple and Sweet Potato Gratin with Coconut Milk

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chipotle, coconut milk, cooking, dairy-free, easy, gluten-free, healthy, kale, paleo, recipe, shallots, vegan, vegetarian

If I could go back in time to just last year, I would thank myself for one thing: coconut. I spent all my life hating it, but after putting myself through a year of trying it repeatedly, it’s quickly high-tailing it to my list of favorite things. I keep reminiscing about a recent coconut margarita, and have you experienced coconut ice cream? If not, change that ASAP.

Always seeking out new things to try, one of the most recent adventures involved the purple potato via a curry. Ever since then, I’ve been wanting to pair it with sweet potatoes. This may mostly be for aesthetic purposes because, come on, you know one of the main reasons you visit food blogs is for the food porn. However, the purple spuds are actually little antioxidant powerhouses which I thought would make an awesome duo with their also nutritious orange cousins.

Spicy Almond Fudge Babies: My caveman self would totally scavenge for these.

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almonds, chocolate, dates, dessert, easy, fruit, gluten-free, nut, paleo, quick, raw, recipes, snack, vegan

Years ago, my bro-in-law went on the Paleo diet. Years ago, a lot of people thought this sounded kooky. “Paleo, as in Paleolithic? What, do you hunt for your food and cook it over a fire?” It sounded like a good, healthy way to eat, but imagining a world without cheese or bread made me sad. And then I went the vegetarian route. Cavemen didn’t eat tofu, apparently.

Now it seems like everyone is jumping on the Paleo wagon. Rachel just threw an engagement party for her little brother and his fiancee. When I asked if there was anything I could make, she said that most of her relatives were eating like cavemen! Always up for a challenge, I said I’d make a Paleo-friendly dessert and set off googling. The first hit (maybe due to my location?) was from the Austin Post for things called Fudge Babies by Chocolate-Covered Katie. After reading a bunch (okay, that’s being generous) of other possible recipes, Fudge Babies it was.

Daring Cooks’ Challenge: Tamales!

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black beans, cheese, cooking, gluten-free, green chiles, Mexican, recipes, tamales, Tex-Mex, vegetarian

Maranda of Jolts & Jollies was our January 2012 Daring Cooks hostess with the mostess! Maranda challenged us to make traditional Mexican Tamales as our first challenge of the year!

Having been born and raised in San Antonio, I can assure you that I have eaten a fair share of tamales! Often my family has them on Christmas Eve, which is a very popular tradition down here. Every grocery store has corn husks in the produce section, and some even sell giant tamaleras for steaming huge batches of tamales. You might therefore assume that I’ve made tamales before, but nope…this is why they’re on my list!

Traditional tamales are meat-filled and usually have lard in the masa so I haven’t had so many in the past couple years due to the vegetarian kinds being less common. All the more reason to make my own! Maranda provided a vegan black bean recipe which sounded tasty, but I decided to go an easier route and fill mine with monterrey jack, hatch green chiles, and cumin.

I’ve always heard about how difficult, or maybe rather time-consuming, it is to make homemade tamales, but never really knew why. It’s a tradition for many families to get together and make large quantities for Christmas, so I guess making copious amounts of anything can become tedious. Since the husks need to be soaked a few hours, there is a little planning ahead, but after that, you make the filling, masa dough, and then assemble and steam.

Roasted Garlic Black-Eyed Pea Hummus

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appetizer, black-eyed peas, cooking, garlic, gluten-free, healthy, hummus, New Year's, party food, recipes, vegan

Do you eat anything special on New Year’s Eve/Day for good luck? My mom would always cook black-eyed peas (meh) and sauerkraut (no thanks!), which we’d have for dinner on the 31st. Come to think of it, shouldn’t it be a tradition on the 1st to start the year off with luck?

I don’t think of myself as a superstitious person, but do notice coincidences from time to time.

Two years ago I definitely didn’t have black-eyed peas for New Year’s because I had just made it to New Zealand. I’m not sure if they have them there, but am pretty sure that eating them for luck is a southern US thing. Anyway, aside from that amazing trip, the rest of the year was no good, partially because I was broke and bored: poor from the trip, and couldn’t find work (so I started a blog!). Last year I made this yummy black-eyed pea dip for a NYE party, and have to say that 2011 has been a much better year, at least in those areas. Hooray!

I just went ahead and tried an experiment with the things, and dang, what a win!

Chile Lime Peanuts

Tags

chile, easy, gift, gluten-free, lime, Mexico, peanuts, recipe, savory, snack, spicy, vegan

What’s this? Five days until Christmas?

Of course I’m prepared!  Cookies are baked, presents are not only bought, but wrapped!  hahahahahaha!

Err, right… Tomorrow through Friday I’m going to be doing my annual stint with Trans-Siberian Orchestra which is kind of hampering my last-minute Christmas prep. This is the first day I’ve had off in about five weeks, so I feel less guilty and more helpless than anything. Whee!

If you’re stuck in a similar predicament, but still would like to make instead of purchase gifts, you can go the easy route and bake a lot of variously spiced nuts. Think of the people they’re for: do they like/dislike certain kinds of nuts and have a favorite cuisine? Pick a nut (or a mix) and a couple spices with some sort of liquid for glue, and you’re good!

Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Sans Rival!

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baking, buttercream, cake, cashews, chocolate, cinnamon, Daring Bakers, dessert, Filipino, gluten-free, meringue

Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake!  And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.

In case you’re confused, yes, this was last month’s challenge.  I am super late posting this!  Procrastination, the usual culprit, wasn’t to blame this time.  Although too late to count, I finally decided to make the Sans Rival last week in between bowing string parts for Beethoven 3 (it’s totally fine and normal if you don’t know what this entails).  With the ingredients on hand and friends to feed it to that evening, why not?

(umm, especially when this is the only thing I’ve been able to make since Thanksgiving…)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Mochi Cookies

Tags

baking, chewy cookies, chocolate, easy, fall, gluten-free, mochi, mochiko, pumpkin, recipes

With mochiko being a new-found flour friend, I’ve been on the hunt for good mochi cookie recipes.  Not really seeing anything super exciting, yet while also being taunted by  Pumpkin Mochi by justJENN recipes, I came up with a theory.

Pumpkin cookies are often super cakey, and mochi is wonderfully chewy. What if you just replace the regular flour in pumpkin cookies with mochiko?  Answer: Jessica worries and spends lots of quality time with google.

The solution that I was happiest with and ended up using came from Joy of Baking, where it’s suggested to use 7/8 cup rice flour to 1 cup all-purpose flour. Mochiko is actually sweet rice flour (or glutinous rice flour), but I decided to give it a shot anyway.  To make life easier, I went with her recipe for pumpkin cookies. 2 cups all-purpose flour?  1 3/4 cups mochiko!  Maybe too easy?

My uneasiness with flour experimentation and the lack of daylight at 1 a.m. means no process photos.  You can see that they turned out looking like totally legit cookies, though!  They tasted like totally legit delicious cookies, too.