Double-Chocolate Brownies

I got one of those brownie pans that I am constantly seeing the commercials for on TV. Have you seen it? You pour the brownie batter into the pan, then you place a grid-like metal insert into the pan, which separates the batter into individual brownie rectangles. Once the brownies are done baking, you simply remove the grid, and the sides of the pan (by lifting out the brownies, which are on a little metal platform, and you have perfectly cut, perfectly portioned brownies!

Anyway, my mom had gotten this for me for Christmas, but I hadn't had an opportunity yet to try it. We've just eaten up all our Christmas goodies! So I found this recipe for reduced-fat brownies that I wanted to try, written by my favorite healthy-cooking chef, Ellie Krieger.

I really should be posting more recipes on here that we've tried by Ellie, because there are a lot of them and they pretty much always turn out fabulous. I'll have to make a point of it in the future. In the meantime, the link for Ellie's brownies is here.

Although Ellie's recipes always taste good, I will say this about these brownies: you can tell they're reduced-fat. Now, they aren't low fat; they come in at about 7 or 8 grams of fat per brownie, depending on whether or not you use the optional walnuts. But they are definitely lower in fat than your everyday, ooey gooey brownie. And if you're looking for ooey gooey, you won't find that here. The taste is great: rich, chocolatey, dense. They're perfectly moist. But the texture just screams "diet food." What can you expect, really, when you cut out most of the butter? Anyway, they are great for satisfying those chocolate cravings, but you won't be fooled into thinking these are true-blue brownies. I'd give them 4 out of 5 stars!

Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes

Time flies when you're neglecting your blog. I really can't believe it is the last week of January already, and a month after Christmas. I feel like this whole month has been a blur. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that the kids and I were sick for a while and we're still just barely getting back into the swing of things after the long winter break. Plus, we're trying our best to eat healthier in the new year, which means that sweets and treats will be made fewer and farther between.
But that won't stop me completely! We celebrated my father-in-law's birthday this past week. I know that my in-laws love Oreo cookies, so I thought I would use that as an excuse to finally dig into my Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook. I'd been eyeing this recipe for a while, and it was time to bust it out.
Well, I sure am glad I did! The method for these little cuties, titled Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes, is simple enough. To assemble the cupcake-sized cheesecakes, you simply drop an Oreo cookie into each cupcake paper liner, and that becomes your crust. Then you mix together just a few ingredients, and voila! Just 22 minutes in the oven, and you get a perfect little cheesecake that tastes like a cross between cheesecake and cookies and cream ice cream. Plus, when you flip the cupcake over, you can see the Oreo cookie peeking through the wrapper. Heavenly, and adorable!
The pictures hardly do these justice, but take my word for it: they're awesome. I've posted the recipe below because I couldn't find it anywhere on Martha Stewart's website. I highly recommend making these. The recipe can be easily cut in half; that's what I did.

Cookes and Cream Cheesecakes
makes 30 cupcakes

Ingredients
42 Oreo cookies (30 left whole and 12 coarsely chopped)
2 pounds (4 packages) cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
pinch of salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.
2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.
3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.
4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-filled cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely.
5. Refrigerate (in tins) at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

The Stars of the Show

The other night, we went over to Xander's school for his annual Christmas concert. All the preschool classes are assigned a different Christmas song to sing together, and then they come together at the end for one big group number. We weren't sure how Evan would react to being in a big gym full of people, but we knew he would love the singing.

As it turned out, we shouldn't have been concerned about Evan being shy. As soon as we put him down on the floor of the gym, he took off! He started running all around the gym, and he was talking up a storm. He waved at people. He pointed at people. He whooped and yelled because he loved the fact that his voice carried well. And he loved the wide open space even more. I didn't even know he could run as fast as he could until that night, because he'd never had a space that huge to roam freely! It was adorable to watch, and he quickly became the center of attention among the crowds of people standing around him.

When it came time for Xander's class to sing "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Xander's voice boomed louder than anyone else's. He was so exuberant that at first, he was singing louder and faster than anyone else. He slowed down though, and just sang his little heart out. At the end of the song, he had turned red from the exertion, and he literally blew out a huge breath, exhausted from his effort. We were very proud parents, because both of our boys had been stars that evening in their own ways.

There will undoubtedly be more Christmas recipes I will put up in the near future, but for now I wanted to post this one (see below). It's simple, it's yummy, and it looks so darn festive!

Five Minute White Chocolate Fudge with Pistachio and Cranberries
adapted from Recipezaar
48 servings

Ingredients
18 oz. white chocolate (use white chocolate chips, or white chocolate baking squares, chopped)
14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk (I used fat-free, with no problems)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon orange extract (you can also use 1 teaspoon orange zest
1/2 cup dried, sweetened cranberries (I used Craisins)
1 1/2 cups shelled, skinned pistachios (mine were roasted and lightly salted
Your choice of decorating candies (I used red and green jimmies)

Directions
1. In a medium saucepan, combine white chocolate, condensed milk, and both extracts. Turn heat to low and melt the chocolate. Stir occasionally.
2. Allow chocolate to combine with milk and extracts. When mixture is smooth, turn off the heat and add cranberries, then pistachios. Stir well to combine.
3. Pour mixture into a prepared 8-inch round or 8x8 inch square pan. (I prepared mine by lining a square pan with foil, then spraying the foil with Pam.) Press mixture evenly into pan, then decorate with your choice of sprinkles or candies.
4. Allow fudge to set in the refrigerator for several hours. Once firm, you can cut the fudge into squares. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Evan's First Birthday

This is a couple weeks late, but we had Evan's first birthday celebration recently. I was excited to try out the pirate ship cake pan again! I was experimenting with the cake itself, and tried to make a cake with no eggs and no milk. In other words, a cake that was probably doomed to fail before it began. I wanted him to be able to eat a cake that contained nothing new to his little system. Unfortunately, the recipe I test drove was an utter and complete failure. It smelled great while it was cooking, but then as soon as it came out of the oven, it sank in the middle. By the time we tried flipping it out of the pan, it fell apart, a mushy mess. However, Andy was able to salvage enough to cut the cute number 1 cake you see above.

So the pirate ship you see here is attempt number 2, the good old boxed white cake mix. It turned out just fine! And I had fun decorating it too. It was actually less nerve-wracking to do this at home, rather than in a cake decorating class. Less pressure, I guess.

As you can see, Evan was delighted with his little number 1 cake. He tore it to teeny bits, sampled just a little of it, and then proceeded to throw the rest onto the floor. Oh, and Andy thought it would be fun to put the cake on a ceramic plate, so when Evan tossed the cake onto the floor, he tossed the ceramic plate along with it. Needless to say, it was tons of fun to clean up. I think it was all good, though, considering you only turn 1 once!

He had fun with his gifts, too, although I think it was a bit overwhelming for him at first. So much to open all at once! Then suddenly there were all these new toys, and it seemed like he didn't know what to do with it all. Fortunately, Xander was right there to commandeer half of the toys right away! We've had trouble with the whole sharing thing now that Evan has so much new stuff. All I can say is, I'm glad that Christmas will yield new stuff for the both of them, rather than just one of them. When it was all said and done, Evan recovered from his birthday just fine....then he had an accident involving a toy wheelbarrow, and sustained the injury you see below. The fun never ends! And you'd never know it, judging by the affection he is showering on his big brother in the picture, but Xander may have been the cause of the wheelbarrow incident. Good thing babies are forgiving.

The Year of the Pirate

So this year, we decided to dress the boys up as pirates for Halloween. We didn't jump on the pirate bandwagon last year, when it was really popular, but better late than never, right? It was hard to get a picture of them together, or with their hats, for that matter. But we did manage to sneak a few good ones of them separately!

Xander had a wonderful time trick-or-treating this year. In years past, he has requested to come home early, and last year he had way more fun handing out the candy than actually receiving it. This time, though, the fun of the whole knocking on peoples' doors and getting some candy thing really took over. He was high on life for hours that night! Evan had fun, too, even though he had no idea what was going on. He did enjoy watching the spectacle around him.

I felt bad having Evan receive candy from people, considering he won't be eating any of it. So we just walked along with Xander for the most part, and let him get all the loot. I think we got plenty of candy, even without Evan getting some! And Xander barely eats any of it, so we are better off.

Well, this post felt naked without a food picture and recipe, so here it is. Spiderweb Pumpkin Cheesecake. Now, I don't actually like pumpkin-flavored things, so I did not eat any of it, but I hear it's really good! You can find the recipe here. Enjoy!

Beer Battered Asparagus

So we got it in our heads that it would be a really good idea to make up a batter of flour, salt, pepper, and beer, and toss asparagus in it. From there, we would submerge the battered asparagus in oil and fry it up. With the leftover beer batter, we decided to take a stab at frying chicken thighs and chicken tenders. Well, how did it all turn out? It was beyond our expectations.

As it turns out, frying beer battered asparagus really is a great idea! We were afraid that the batter was a little too simple, that it would have no flavor or just taste really weird. Thankfully, we were wrong. Frying the asparagus actually really brought out the flavor of the vegetable, and they were perfectly cooked inside. They only took about 5 minutes per spear to fry up. Delicious! However, they weren't so good as leftovers, not that I expected them to be. The outside crust turned totally mushy and soggy, not a good combo. We were pleased that we got the chicken to turn out well, too. The first chicken thigh we fried up didn't turn out. We pulled it out of the oil way too early, and it was severely undercooked. A quick internet search taught us that chicken thighs take a much longer time to fry than you would think. I ended up frying each for 15 minutes, and they turned out just perfect. The tenders were good, too.

Before our magical dinner, we had a cupcake decorating party. The ones above were done by me. I figured I would put my new cake decorating skills, as well as all that leftover frosting, to good use and make some cute Halloween-themed designs. Xander found out what I was doing and wanted to do some of his own, so below you will see the ones he decorated all by himself.

It was a splendid mess, but we had a lot of fun, which makes it all worthwhile. Next time I will be better prepared. I need to make sure I cover the whole kitchen table in newspaper so I can just pick up the whole mess of sprinkles and such and dump it right in the trash. A beautiful thing!

Beer Battered Asparagus

adapted from Recipezaar

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 tbsp lemon zest

1 cup beer

1 lb. asparagus, ends trimmed

vegetable oil, for frying

Directions

1. Heat oil in a heavy saucepan (we used our wok) until it reaches 375 degrees.

2. Whisk together flour, salt, pepper, and lemon zest until combined. Add beer and whisk ingredients until smooth.

3. Dip each asparagus spear in batter to coat. Shake off excess batter, then drop asparagus in oil, a few spears at a time. Stir gently to prevent spears from sticking together. Fry until golden.

4. Transfer spears to a baking sheet lined with paper towels, and keep warm in a 200 degree oven until all the asparagus is done.

Cake Decorating Class

Rather than bore you with excuses as to why I haven't written a blog post in months, I thought I would just jump right in with a cute picture of the boys. If they can't entice people to read on, who can?

Anyway, so I have just finished taking a 4-week Wilton cake decorating class at our local Michael's. I had a blast, and I think that with practice I may be able to become good at this whole decorating thing. Right now I still feel like I have a long way to go before I will be ready to have anyone besides my husband and sons actually see one of my finished products up close and personal. The cakes I completed for class always had help and direction from my teacher, so I don't think they really count.



The first cake was this pirate ship cake. I bought a brand new pirate ship cake pan for the occasion. I figured I could practice in class, and then I could attempt to make another one of these for Evan's first birthday. In the future, I think I will change the color scheme. Overall, I think it turned out all right. If I squint, it looks even better!


The next cake we did was a rainbow cake. I feel like this one turned out pretty badly. The rainbow is much thicker on the right side than on the left, and so are the clouds that underline the bottom of the rainbow on that side. But I was proud of the colors that I mixed up, and I dig the stars on the lower half of the cake!

Then, this past Sunday, we did the final cake where we learned how to do the Wilton rose, a crazy feat of frosting if you ask me. I have to admit, I can't take the credit for two of my roses. The teacher actually used my cake as the teaching cake, so she made a couple to demonstrate and then put them right on my cake for me. Part of me was happy to have such attractive flowers adorn my cake! The other part of me was almost disappointed that I had to put my much inferior roses alongside hers. To me, there's a big difference. If you look at the top flower cake picture, mine are the two roses on the lower half of the cake. I know it's hard to see, because the roses are small in the picture, but the two roses on top are so much prettier!

Oh well. Practice will only help at this point. I have a ton of frosting left over now, so I'll have to find something to do with it. Xander and I are overdue to make cupcakes together, so maybe that'll happen this weekend. If we do make some, I'll have to post them on here. And hopefully, it won't be three months from now!