Day Three Good Deed and some Cookies

Remember yesterday-how I told you about the kitchen sink?  Well, the plumbers did come today-and I offered that glass of water (Good Deed!)...but not to the first round of plumbers that showed up.  Curious?  Ok, here's how it went...

A couple of nights ago, we ran the disposal, which worked just fine until we shut it off.  At that point, it regurgitated everything back up the drain in both sinks, pretty gross.  So, my husband did his best to figure it out but eventually had to admit defeat and call our property managers.  When they finally called us back this morning, it was after 11:00 am and I had a box of irreplaceable things packed in case our house burned down.  See, when I walked in the door after dropping Hubby off at work, all I could smell was hot, melted plastic coming from the kitchen.  I was a little freaked out.  I discovered that the source of the smell was coming from the cupboard under the sink, so I immediately unplugged the garbage disposal and made a call to my husband who called the property managers yet again.  Our response (the 11am one) came two hours later with the promise of someone coming to our rescue on Monday-IN THREE DAYS.  That would be three days without using our sink or dishwasher with the smell of melted plastic hovering about the sink.  I was slightly panicking, which is why I packed the box.  Anyway, the manager called me directly and I was able to explain the situation.  She responded with " Well, I'll see if I can call someone to come help, but I don't think it'll happen until late this afternoon." Great.  How comforting.  My house is melting around me and you don't care.  Fine, I can handle this.  When the plumbers called me, they also told me that they could come out on Monday.  Did no one understand?  What was going on here?  Where was the communication?  Once again I had to explain the potential melting pipe situation and finally...FINALLY someone understood!  Forty-five minutes later, there were two plumbers standing on my doorstep.  Two butt-crack angels of hope with the capability to save my home from certain doom.  I was so relieved.

Once again, I explained the goings-on and then went back to the business of my Scrappy Trip Along quilt.  Five minutes later, Butt Crack 1 and Butt Crack 2 informed me that my disposal was fine, the melting smell was being caused by a continuously running disposal motor (keep in mind that this thing was unplugged and that it had been turned off already for at least 36 hours.) and that the problem is that the pipe outside was clogged.  Oh, and they couldn't smell anything...probably because I had just baked cookies and that was the prominent smell in the house.

I thanked the Butt Crack Twins and sent a text to my husband with this puzzling development in the Sink Saga.  We weren't very pleased at all.  

Twenty-five minutes later there was another knock on the door.  It seemed the Butt Crack Duo had an additional member to their party.  He was late to the party and, surprisingly, without information from either the plumbing company or the property management.  I found myself yet again explaining the situation.  I expected him to say "Oh, ok, one of our guys was already here and they couldn't fix it?  I guess that's it then, see you!"  But instead, he asked if he could come in and take a look at it.  Ten minutes later, the sink was fixed.  FIXED.  I was so grateful that I skipped right past that offer of a glass of water and gave him a bagful of cookies.  He tried to refuse but I gleefully insisted and I think he was secretly happy to take them.  (I imagine that he scarfed them down before he even got out of my driveway.)

I have since ran the dishwasher and noticed that the melty smell is completely gone.  I am so thankful that there was a miscommunication going on.  I wouldn't have a working disposal and peace of mind otherwise.  I loved that I had something to show my gratitude to the guy who came in despite the fact that his co-workers couldn't fix it.  I loved even more that he took the cookies, he had a big smile on his face and that small gesture of thanks opened him up to a small conversation about our weekend plans: he has to work, I'm going to sew.  Those cookies bridged the gap of being a customer and serviceman to two real humans.  I wasn't just a clogged sink and he wasn't just a butt crack in my cupboard.  Isn't it funny how something so very simple can bring us back to humanity?  I think all the world's problems could potentially be solved with cookies.  The banana is wrong, cookies are the world's most perfect food.

So, how about a recipe?  My friend Tammy passed this one on to me a few Christmases ago.  It's pretty easy and is pretty unbelievably delicious.  I'd be willing to bet that you have all the ingredients on hand already.

Tammy's Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

preheat oven to 350*

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

Mix peanut butter, sugar, egg, vanilla and baking soda until creamy and well-blended; stir in chocolate chips.  Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls on a cooking spray coated baking sheet.  Bake for 10-12 minutes; allow to cool on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool.

Happy Baking!

-Kristi-

PS Tomorrow's good deed will be: Tuck Your Sweetheart In.  Get ready!

Recipe: Nutella Peanut Butter Marshmallows

It's been awhile, right?  So, here I am back from the abyss with a reward for you, dear readers.  For your persistence and consistent interest in my sadly neglected blog, how about a recipe?  Yes?  How about a recipe for something you can make in an hour that will totally blow your socks off?  Well alright then, here you go!

Nutella Peanut Butter Marshmallows

Ingredients:

Part 1

1/4 cup corn syrup

3/4 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cold water

2 packets plus 1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin

*****

 Part 2

1/4 cup corn syrup

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 heaping tablespoons peanut butter

{3 heaping tablespoons Nutella}

*****

Part 3

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup cornstarch

Directions:

1. Lightly coat a 9"x13" glass baking pan with cooking spray; wipe evenly with a paper towel and set aside.

2. In a small bowl, dissolve gelatin in cold water; set aside and let soften for 10 minutes.

3. In a small saucepan, add corn syrup, sugar and salt and heat over medium-high to 240* on a candy thermometer.  

This does not take very long once the mixture is boiling.  Keep a close, constant eye on the temperature or you'll wind up doing what I did:

This is what happens to the syrup when cooked past 240*, yikes!

 4. When the gelatin has softened, place it in the microwave on high for 30 seconds.  Pour 1/4 cup corn syrup into bowl of an electric mixer, then add gelatin.  Keep your machine running while the syrup mixture reaches temperature on the stove.

5. Once your syrup has reached the soft ball stage of 240*, slowly add it to the mixing bowl, while it is still running; turn mixer on medium and beat for 5 minutes; turn mixer to medium-high and beat for an additional 5 minutes; turn mixer to it's highest setting and beat for 1-2 minutes; add vanilla and mix thoroughly.

6. Place peanut butter in a medium sized bowl; add 1/4 of the marshmallow creme and fold until thoroughly mixed.

Looks good, right?  Wait til you taste it!

7. Gently fold remaining marshmallow cream into peanut butter mixture until combined.  Spread into the bottom of prepared pan and set aside while making the Nutella layer.

Repeat the above process for the Nutella layer, substituting the "{3 heaping tablespoons}" of Nutella for the peanut butter.  Spread on top of the peanut butter layer.

Combine corn starch and powdered sugar in a sifter and sift generously over the top of the marshmallows.  Allow to set for at least six hours before cutting. Roll cut marshmallows in powdered sugar mixture and serve!

(Peanut Butter and Jelly Marshmallows made with Bakerella's recipe)

Thanks very much for coming back!  I hope to give you a reason every day to come and visit.  Take a moment to say hi, if you like!  

Happy cooking!

-Kristi

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies



Over the years I have perfected the method for making the best chocolate chip cookies.  I know, I know...that's quite a bold statement.  But just listen: these never come out flat, they never spread out and they don't get crunchy.  They're perfectly golden brown, fluffy and chewy in the center and ever-so-slightly crisp on the edges.  Absolute perfection!  (And pretty darn tasty dough! Although, please don't tell my sister because she hates when I eat raw cookie dough.) 

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cup All-Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 sticks salted butter, softened

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2 eggs

12 ounces mini-chocolate chips

What To Do:

Preheat oven to 350*F.

Combine flour and baking soda in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of your mixer, add brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla and butter.

Blend on low speed just until butter is broken up:

It looks weird and goes against every other recipe's instructions, but just trust me.

Add both eggs:

Combine until this is barely blended.  It'll be slimy and chunky and really gross looking, but I swear it'll be fine.

Looks a bit oogie, right?

Now add the flour mixture about a half a cup at a time:

Until it's all blended nice and smooth:

 

 

See?  No butter chunks, perfectly blended, nice and firm!

Now, add your chocolate chips:

Mix until well combined.  I usually put my chocolate chips in the freezer for a few hours before mixing them in the dough.  Otherwise, they break up and clump in the dough and that's no good!

Don't you wish you could stick your spoon in and get a bite?

Place rounded teaspoonfulls on a cookie sheet about 2" apart and bake for 10 minutes. Transfer immediately to a rack to cool.

Now, go!  Bake cookies for the masses!  Your friends will want the recipe so be sure to send them this way, okay?  Happy baking!

-Kristi-

Recipe: Lemon-Mandarin Curd

So, here's the deal.  When I get really, really busy and my brain is in it's craftiest, creativist mode and I start to get overwhelmed, I go to the kitchen.  Not to eat, I go there to make something.  Currently my plate is so full I need to upgrade to a platter just to keep it all balanced nicely.  My To-Do list is out-the-door long and I have about a thousand things that I need accomplish.  Usually sewing is the place that I catch my sanity and regroup my thoughts, but today I didn't have any sewing ready to complete and I needed a way to organize my brain so, I made Lemon-Mandarin Curd.  I think it would be superbly delicious in my recipe for Lemon Curd Sweetie Pies, especially combined with a little blob of the homemade orange marmalade that my mother and I canned.

I used Ina Gartner's Lemon Curd recipe and added mandarin oranges to it.  Here's how I did it:

Lemon-Mandarin Curd

4 lemons

3 mandarin oranges

2 1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

6 large eggs

Juice from your lemons/oranges

1/8 tsp salt

Using a veggie peeler, peel the lemon rind, being careful not to get the white stuff (which is apparently called "Pith" and I can't get the word out of my head now that I've heard it).  Peel the mandarin oranges, also being careful of the white stuff (I'm just going to keep calling it that!) but don't worry too much if you end up with some anyway.  I started to scrape it off the orange peels but then realized that there really wasn't enough there to make a difference.  Lemons have really thick white stuff and it's really bitter, so that's why you have to avoid it.  Anyway...

Put the peels in your food processor, add the sugar and then process it until the peels are really super fine.

Add the butter, in cubes to the mixture.

Blend until thouroughly mixed.

Add eggs one at a time.  I always crack my eggs into a separate dish and then plop them in there.  This way I have a better chance of avoiding an egg shell in the mixture, which is always pretty gross.

Next, squeeze the juice out of your fruit, if you haven't already done so,

and add to the mixture along with the salt.

Process for a few seconds and then transfer to a large sauce pan.

Cook on low heat for about 10 minutes, or until a candy thermometer registers 170*.  Let thicken at room temperature or put in clean, sterilized jars. 

I might decide to hog it all myself or, maybe I'll be generous and give a jar away.  (Probably the small one, ha ha!) 

Now QUICK!!  Go make those cookies!  You'll be glad, I promise!

-Kristi



That Birthday Cake (and a recipe, too)

So, the birthday cake...it was A LOT of fun.  This is what it looked like (before I cut into it, obviously).  Pretty, tall and decadent.  No one suspected that, yes, even the cake had the rainbow theme in it.  To me, the cake is, aside from the birthday girl, the star of the show.  It is the the most anticipated thing on the table.  When I cut into this eight layer confection and presented the first piece, the whole room gasped.  It was very gratifying, to say the least.



I love how old-fashioned the colors look, and how uneven the layers are.  Somehow these imperfections were just exactly right.

It only took two boxes of cake mix to make this eight layer cake.  It was pretty simple.  I made one box at a time, then dumped the batter into my 1 quart glass Pyrex measuring cup. 

I scooped one cup out at a time, added a few drops of food coloring and then baked two pans at a time for about 15 minutes.

  I had to make sure to write down my color layers and check them off the list as I went along.  It would have been my luck to make two purple layers or two green, otherwise!

Turquoise is "??" because I wasn't sure how to make that color.  Turns out it's 3 drops of blue and 2 green.

Once every layer was baked and cooled, I froze them until I was ready to assemble the cake.  Frosting them was simple because the cakes were firm and not crumbly.  Because the cake was so tall, I frosted the tops and sides as I went along.  This also made it ideal for filling in any gaps between the layers due to uneven baking.  (The pans had a very thin layer of batter in them!)

I just kept adding layers, being sure to follow my color list from bottom to top, and frosting the tops and sides.

Until finally, the whole thing was assembled.

Isn't it pretty?

So, where is this recipe, you ask?  And what is it for?  It's the frosting, of course!  No one would have believed it was a boxed cake because of this frosting.  It is divine!  Not too sweet, not too get-you-in-the-back-of-the-throat...this is the PERFECT frosting recipe.  I have to thank my sister for giving it to me.  She is a cake making genius, and despite laughing at several of my past attempts of birthday cakes for her (just ask her about the melted goldfish cake.  I mean, I can't help it if her birthday is in July, right?  And my car didn't have air conditioning!) she was still willing to loan me her recipe and then very graciously allowed me to share it with all of you.  What a trooper!  I guess she has a new found faith in my Birthday Cake Skills!  Yay for me!  Lucky you!

Birthday Buttercream Frosting

(Enough to frost a normal, two layer cake, not this monstrosity pictured above.  Be sure to adjust your recipe accordingly!  I used 3 recipes for The Roo's cake.)

1/2 cup unflavored vegetable shortening

1/2 cup (one stick) butter, softened

4 cups sifted powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons corn syrup (optional-I did use it)

Cream butter and shortening together; add vanilla.

Slowly mix in powdered sugar and then add milk until light and fluffy.

  Thin with corn syrup, if desired.  Add a teaspoon of milk at a time if it is too thick. 

*You can always thin it out but not re-thicken it, so be sparing with your milk at the end!*

Thank you for the recipe, Peabrain!

-Kristi

Recipe: Caramel Apple Layer Cake with Apple Cider Frosting

This is a recipe that I discovered at my local Whole Foods Market and couldn't resist trying for myself.  I made a few changes to it, so I am giving you my version of their delicious recipe.  If you would like to check out the original, you can find it here.

Ingredients

Cake:

3¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1½ teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1½ cups light brown sugar

¾ cup canola oil

¾ cup unsweetened applesauce

¾ cup jarred caramel ice cream topping

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 eggs

1½ cups buttermilk

For the Apple Frosting:

7 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened

1/2 cup apple cider or apple juice (I used Simply Apple Juice)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Directions

Cake:

• Preheat oven to 350*.
•  Grease and flour (or use cooking spray) three (9-by-2-inch) round cake pans; set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
• In a second large bowl, beat sugar and oil together with an electric mixer until well combined, about 30 seconds.
• Add applesauce, dulce de leche and vanilla, beat for 30 seconds, then add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Add flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk, and continuing to beat until well combined. 
• Pour batter into prepared cake pans and bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle of each cake comes out clean, about 40 minutes.
• Set aside to let cool for 10 minutes, then gently loosen cakes and turn out onto a cooking rack; set aside to let cool completely.

 Frosting:

• For the frosting, put sugar, butter, cider, cinnamon and salt into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
• Arrange one cake on a large plate and spread about 2/3 cup of the frosting evenly over the top. Arrange second cake on top then frost top and sides of entire cake with remaining frosting.
• Set aside at room temperature or in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to allow frosting to set before serving.