Chocolate-Bacon Mini Muffins!!

At the office, I'm a member of the department's Friday Morning Breakfast Club.  How does it work?  I'm glad you asked!

Each of the Breakfast Club members agrees to bring breakfast for the rest of the group twice during a two month cycle.  If you are a member of the group you get to enjoy the offerings every week.

So, today it was up to me, and my co-worker Carlie to supply breakfast to the department.  She brought a yummy cinnamon roll cake, and I brought chocolate-bacon mini muffins.  I found the recipe in the January/February issue of GRIT....

Ingredients:
6 slices bacon
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 2 T packed brown sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup melted butter (or walnut oil)
1 T strong coffee
1 tsp Vanilla
1 large egg
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate mini chips, divided

1.  Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.  Line muffin pans with paper liners, or spray with cooking spray.

2.  Fry bacon until done but not yet crispy.  Transfer to paper-towel lined plate and cool.  Once cool, chop into 1/4 inch pieces.  Set aside.

I used my trusty flat cast iron griddle.

3.  In large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Whisk together.

4. In separate bowl, combine water, oil, coffee, vanilla and egg.  Stir together.  Stir in 1/2 cup chocolate chips and half the bacon.

5. Add this mixture to flour mixture and stir just until moist.

6. Divide batter evenly among 12 regular muffin cups (or same amount of batter will make around 42 mini muffins).  Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips and remaining bacon evenly over batter.

7. Bake for 15 minutes (around 10 for mini muffins - check your oven), or until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool for five minutes before serving.  Store leftovers (if you have any!) in refrigerator.

Before taking the muffins to work, I tried them out on my favorite test subject Baby Huck.  He loved his samples... all three of them!!

He was a big fan of the "CHOK-IT MUFFNS"!!

I took 40 mini muffins to work, and brought home two... so I think they were a success!!!

Caramel Cake

I never had Caramel Cake until today, but ever since I read "The Help" I've wanted to try it.  In that book, one of the main characters "Minny" is said to make the best Caramel Cake anywhere.  It kept coming up throughout the story, and every time I read about it - my mouth began to water.

It was not something I'd tried, but I was sure I'd be a fan.  After all, I love caramel and I love cake.  But after I finished the book, I kind of forgot about my interest in this seemingly yummy confection.

So today when we were watching America's Test Kitchen, and they featured Caramel Cake - my interest was instantly renewed.  Hubby offered to bake it for me, and I said you betcha!  He baked the two cakes, and then I whipped up the frosting and iced them.

This cake is good.  We're far from being professionals, and this was our first attempt.  Doesn't matter.  This cake is REALLY good.  The cake itself is a fairly basic yellow cake, and it's a buttery, moist yum-fest.  Honestly though, the cake is nothing more than a delivery vehicle for the frosting.  Oh dear.  That frosting could maybe bring about world peace.  It's just so GOOD.  Ridiculously sweet, buttery and richer than Bill Gates... this is a cake to love.

So of course that's what we're doing.  I highly recommend giving the recipe a try. 

Noodles!!!

not my noodles....image from Bing search

Recently I made noodles for the first time.  The recipe I used had been in my possession for probably ten years.  A dear lady who I worked with back in the 1990s had given it to me after sharing a batch at a pot-luck luncheon.  I adored them, and begged her for the recipe.  I had every intention of making them much sooner than now…but for whatever reason hadn’t bothered to do it.  When I came across the recipe in my little metal box last week, I was sadly reminded that the lady who gave it to me so long ago, had passed away a couple years back.  I decided it was high time I gave her noodle recipe a try.

The recipe is pretty straight-forward and was easy to whip up.  For some reason though, I made the process more complicated than it needed to be by rolling the dough out on wax paper.  I guess I thought that the paper would help the noodle dough not to stick.  It did help with that (a bit), but when I cut the noodles – I also cut the paper (into noodle sized strips of course).  Pulling the noodles off of the wax paper strips was not fun.  Also, it turned what had been pretty uniform noodles into big messy pile of misshapen lumps. 

I had very little faith that the blobby dough before me would ever pass for noodles.  A less optimistic (and/or less frugal) gal might have tossed them out and given up, but not me.  I laid them out as best I could and let them dry.

Earlier in the day I had cooked up a fryer chicken, de-boned it and put it in the crock pot with broth, carrots, onions and celery.  By now the house smelled a little like heaven.  I wasn’t sure how the noodles would do when added to the soup, so instead of dumping them in the crock-pot, I put them in some boiling water on the stove top.

And then, a miracle happened.  The mangled strips of dough began to look like… noodles!  Hurrah!  I did a little happy dance as they started to bob and float in the boiling water.  Once I was sure that they were not going to dissolve or turn to mush, I drained and moved them into the crock-pot.  About forty-five minutes later, I dished up plates of yummy mashed potatoes topped with homemade chicken and noodles. 

Yes, the carb count on such a meal is crazy high… I.DO.NOT.CARE.  Never has there been a better comfort food than this. 

The noodles still looked odd – only some having a regular noodle shape - but they tasted wonderful!  Worth every moment of effort put into making them, I think they were maybe the tastiest chicken and noodles I’ve ever eaten!  Maybe they really were the best ever, or maybe I only thought that because I was enjoying the “fruits of my own labor”…. I’m not sure.

What I am sure of, is that I’ll be trying that recipe again.  I didn’t remember to take pictures, but pictures wouldn’t have done them justice anyway (trust me on this).  I am including the recipe below.  It’s super easy and I think it’s fairly standard as noodle recipes go….but here it is:

Luetta’s Homemade Noodles

4 eggs

3 T cold water

1 tsp salt

3 T soft butter

2 c. Flour

Beat eggs.  Beat in water and salt.  Stir in flour and butter.  Roll out then as desired and cut with sharp knife.  Let dry at least 30 minutes before cooking.

Oreo-filled Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, I first heard of this recipe when two Facebook friends posted links to similar recipes in the same day. Then a few days later, Mindy blogged about giving them a try, and THEN my little brother called to say he’d baked some and thought they were a hit.

I’m not a big trend follower, but when the trend involves combining multiple yummy cookie types, I’m a sucker for peer pressure. Last week my office was having a food day, and I decided to take a batch of these sweet treats.

This is the recipe I tried. The one thing I did differently was use mini oreos instead of full size ones, as I’d seen some others try. I was very pleased. These are indeed yummy cookies.

Hubby had a food day this week, and he tried the recipe also. He went with the full size double-stuff cookies from the original recipe, and I must say the original is way better. Of course, eating one cookie feels like main-lining sugar, but the sheer joy associated with biting into one of these sweet explosions makes all the calories and eventual sugar letdown worth it.

If you haven’t tried making this yet…and you love cookies…. Try it today. I promise you won’t be sorry (no matter what size Oreos you use).

Aunt Ree’s Blueberry Cobbler

If you haven’t eaten cobbler, or if it’s been a while since you have – here’s a recipe you might want to try.

Cobbler is an old-fashioned dessert. It’s yummy warm with ice cream on top. It’s yummy cold on day two. To be honest, I always think its yummy, and it brings back very happy memories of childhood (my Mom made Peach or Rhubarb cobbler fairly often).

Hubby is not typically a huge fan of cobbler. His idea of dessert usually includes chocolate, and lots of it. But I was in the mood for something fruity, and the idea of cobbler sounded just perfect to me. My Mom is from the South, and this particular recipe is one that was given to me by my Great Aunt Ree who lives in that area still.

It’s a fairly simple recipe, and the flavor is simply heavenly. We did eat our first serving hot with ice cream, but it’s good hot or cold. I believe you could substitute other fruit as desired, but if you are a fan of blueberries….you can’t go wrong with the original.

Aunt Ree’s Blueberry Cobbler

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
Melt one stick of butter in a casserole dish or 9x13 pan.

Mix into the melted butter:
1 ½ cup flour
1 ½ cup sugar
¾ cup milk
2 ¼ tsp baking powder

In separate bowl:
1 quart blueberries (room temp)
½ cup sugar
water – to the top of the blueberries in the bowl

Stir the blueberries, sugar and water gently and pour over mixture in casserole dish

Bake for 40 minutes or until top of cobbler is golden brown