Death By Chocolate

Let's say this week started rough yet got better really fast. I spent the weekend updating art, baking, and carrying on. You can see that in the last post.

But this last week (the first week of March) started off at work as usual and was a rough start. I just recently had a new group added to my desk and it has kicked my butt a little the first month.

So Mike and I, as usual, when we don't see each other for a weekend we text. So he's texting me like he normally does after he wakes up and we are chatting away. He then starts asking me questions like "how many miles are you running today?" Ok, fair enough - he knows I run pretty much daily now. So I reply back with 4, then he starts saying, you should do only 3, maybe only 2. Ok......

Then he proceeds to ask if I am taking an early lunch. No, same time. So I get a few of these types of questions about how my day is planned. What are my plans for tonight etc. Which isn't totally out of the ordinary just strange that they are all strung together within an hours time.

So I keep going along my day, coming up on lunch. I get a phone call as I am packing up to head out. It's Mike, ok well he does know I take lunch at 2 pm every day. No biggie.

So I say hey, how's it going and he says, "Good, come downstairs, bye." I get this bright look on my face, smile. Grab my things and race down the stairwell.

There he is sitting in the lobby. I didn't know he was coming. Then he had flowers for me too. Gorgeous flowers with lilies and sunflowers. Sunflowers are my favorite, I'm a Kansas girl for sure, and lilies are just so pretty especially in orange and yellow :)

He also brought me a can of Lysol because I had said that I needed Lysol to spray my office with since everyone around me seemed to be sick.

He definitely surprised me and I love him so much for the random act. Coming down to see me when I wasn't expecting it and then coming to my office with flowers and Lysol :) I'm keeping him.

So I had Mike with me till Wednesday morning where after our fun Monday and Tuesday filled with playing Mario Kart with my neighbor and getting Imo's pizza and him running 1 1/2 miles with me, he went home and I planned my co-workers birthday.

She's a dear lady that is so amazing so I wanted to make her an amazing treat. She also loves loves loves chocolate and booze. So I incorporated both. Epic brownies turned into "Death By Chocolate." Oh no? Oh yes!

The ingredients are simple, just a few extras you need, like chocolate pudding, caramel sauce, instant coffee, Kahlua  and whipped topping.

If the shear amount of chocolate wasn't enough, 24 oz plus 1/3 cup of cocoa, there are 6 eggs and 3 sticks of butter in these brownies.

You mix your dry ingredients then you mix your wet ingredients all separately then mix together. I must say at this point I'm thinking, what on earth am I doing to these people?!? Oh that's right, making them happy on a Friday :)

So I then pour this delicious looking batter into my 9x13 pan, it FILLS the pan. These are DEEP dish brownies. None of those wimpy boxed Betty Crocker brownies (there is a time and a place for boxed brownies, this is not one of them.) I found the death by chocolate idea but was turned off by the lack of creativity of the brownie/chocolate cake aspect. So That's where epic brownies came in.

Once the brownies were cooked and pulled out to cool for about 5 minutes, I dumped 1/2 a cup of Kahlua on them after I poked them to let it soak. OMG!!! I tested and was like, holy cow, we are partying tomorrow! Then I brought my heath bars out of the freezer - yes the freezer - promptly I started to slap them against my counter top to break them up. Three candy bars worth of crumble in that little bowl.

Once the brownies cooled and the whipped topping thawed and my two large boxes of pudding set up, mind you this took 6 cups of milk to create chocolate pudding. HOLY MOLY! Good thing I bought more while at the store. Total depletion of my 1/2 gallon.

Step 1: Cut up brownies into bites and layer on bottom of bowl.
Step 2: top with half chocolate pudding.
Step 3: Top with 1/3 of the heath bar (or skor bar)
Step 4: Top with half whipped topping

Step 5: Repeat
Step 6: Top with remaining candy bar pieces

I made a little one for my neighbor in a clear glass to show the layers.

I must say this is a terribly delicious and dangerous dessert. When I brought this to work it, 1. weighed a ton, 2. got lots of stares and walk away, and 3. made a lot of people hate me for the rest of the day.

One co-worker and I had this conversation:

CK: I'm going to stick my head in the bowl.
Me: Haha, let JC have one more go before you do then, then go ahead. I want to take very little home with me this weekend.
CK: Can't.type.coma.setting.in.heart.seizing.
Me: HAHAHA!
CK: I even took a small amount, just because I knew better. Still wanted to sleep before I was done. Pretty sure my kidneys just walked off stage.
Me: hence "DEATH" by chocolate
CK: I think I could jump of this building and fly right now. Or, I just lost 3 years of my life in the past 10 minutes. In other words, you forgot to tell me there was cocaine in that thing. I.just.ate.brown.cocaine.
Me: HA! Yeah that stuff will get ya. The fact that it has an exorbitant amount of chocolate, sugar, booze, and more. It's a killer dessert - made only now and then, like 1x a year, much like gooey butter cupcakes.
CK: For some reason I feel like I would have been healthier eating a stick of butter.
Me: Probably fewer calories actually, or at least less sugar. Or you could have eaten 6 eggs on their own.
CK: It's no fun without a little sugar. Gross. I once learned how to bombardier raw eggs.
Me: Ha! well dip it into sugar and I'm still sure it's better for you.

So yeah, that's about how all felt. Didn't quite get the same imagery from the boss or others as I did with CK but he is a writer.

So the long awaited recipe is here, I got the brownie from A Spicy Perspective and then blended a few Death By Chocolate recipes together from allrecipes.com 

Epic Brownies
Ingredients:
1 lb dark chocolate, chopped (or semi sweet chocolate chips) **I'm cheap**
3 sticks unsalted butter
13 oz can Dulce de leche (or 1 jar -13 oz- Smucker's caramel sauce) **I'm cheap and refused to pay $3.50 for Dulce de leche - sorry guys**
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla
6 eggs
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp instant coffee granules (3 pkts of Starbucks Columbia Via)
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional or get creative with toffee bits, crushed Oreo's, butterscotch chips etc.)
1/2 cup Kahlua

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 pan and set aside.

Melt the butter, 1 lb of chocolate, and caramel/Dulce de leche together in the microwave or double boiler. If melting in microwave, heat for 60 seconds  then stir. Repeat in 30 second increments until mixed. Allow to cool a little.

Mix flour, cocoa, salt, and coffee granules together in a separate bowl.

Whisk eggs, sugar, and vanilla into the chocolate mixture. Then slowly add the dry mixture while whisking until just combined.

Finally add the chocolate chips and chopped nuts or other chosen goodies. Stir well.

Pour the brownie batter into your prepared pan and bake for 35-45 minutes. DO NOT OVER BAKE. Check at 35 minutes with a toothpick. The moment the toothpick comes out mostly clean, remove from oven. The brownies will continue to cook a little as they are cooling, but you don't want them to be overcooked.

Allow brownies to cool for 5-10 minutes. Poke an even amount of holes all over the brownies with a fork. Then pour the Kahlua over the top and let cool completely.

Once cooled cut into bite size squares and set aside.

Death By Chocolate
Ingredients:
2 pkgs (the large ones that serve 8) chocolate pudding mix
6 cups milk
1 - 16 oz- pkg whipped topping
3 Heath or Skor chocolate covered toffee candy bars (frozen then smashed into bits)
1 recipe (above) Epic Brownies soaked with Kahlua

Take whipped topping out to thaw. Make chocolate pudding, place in fridge to set up. Bake epic brownies and cool completely.

Take a large bowl, or large trifle bowl.

Layer brownies evenly on bottom. Then top with 1/2 of the chocolate pudding. Top the pudding with 1/3 of the toffee candy, then top with 1/2 the whipped topping. Repeat brownies, pudding, candy, whipped topping and then top the last layer with the remaining candy. Place in the fridge for an hour or so to set up. **Mine sat all night. OMG!

WARNING: This is extremely rich and decadent and very very very dangerous. You have been warned.

This is the perfect dessert for a chocoholic. And by all means if you don't like a specific ingredient, be it coffee or the Kahlua take it out or substitute something for it. Whiskey, a dark beer. Get creative. These are EPIC brownies and therefore the ingredient list needs to stay EPIC.

Now go out and COOK!

November Foodie Pen Pal Reveal

It's that time again, time to reveal the foodie pen pal stash of the month. YAY!

My pen pal this month was Robin Lourie - she sent me this fabulous box. You can check out what she got from her pen pal here. I sent to Anna, who doesn't have a blog but sent me this e-mail in regards to the goodies we sent her.

I hope you are doing well this day before Thanksgiving! I wanted to send you a BIG thank you for the great box of goodies!

I truly appreciate the thoughtfulness that you put into creating this package. The almonds were YUMMY!

The dark chocolate bars will be consumed post Thanksgiving! I can't wait to try the recipes you sent as well. The can of pumpkin is exactly what I needed!

The barbeque sauce looks so pretty! I think that will go great on tempeh for a vegan tempeh reuben.

Again thank you very much! It has been a pleasure exchanging emails! Thank you for reaching out!

I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I've got to get to the co-op to get my "turkeyless roast"

Here is what she got: 

So now on to what we got :) I must say that Robin was lovely and sent the most wonderful things.

Look at this haul! I mean seriously! Of course this arrived the day I was heading out to go to Mike's, the mailman freaked me out by knocking on my front door (mind you I consider my actual front door the back door so, this really does worry me when I hear a knock at that door). Come to find the mailman waiting there for me and handed me this loveliness which I immediately became quite excited about and began smiling. I don't think she quite knew what to do with me other than walk away from me.

First thing I busted open, even before Mike got to see it were these bad boys. Soo freaking delicious, they were gone in 3 days (would have been sooner had I not had will power or the need to share at least one pretzel with Mike). I will be recreating these for a Christmas treat to pass out, rather than bake a bazillion cookies like I normally do. Going easy this season with the baking.

Then we have enchilada sauce and smoky pulled pork seasoning sauce. Um, delish!!! Mike and I had to make pulled pork for sure. So bought a pork shoulder (couldn't find one unseasoned at Walmart so I bought a BBQ seasoned and slow cooker ready one). This is the result ----

Yes, it's as delicious as it looks, super simple too. Add 1 cup of water to the packet of sauce and one 2-lb pork shoulder and cook on low for 8 hours. Easy peasy and super delicious with some baked potatoes and green beans. Yummmm :) I still have leftovers hehe.

Then we have tea, Tazo Passion, Nature's Splash (a lot like Crystal Light) and then some green tea. I adore the Tazo passion tea - when I worked at Starbucks that was my go to drink. I haven't tried the green teas yet and have brought the Nature's Splash to work with me for my water - I use Crystal Light daily so this is perfect.

And at this rate I will never have to buy peanut butter again, I just have to ask that they include peanut butter in every FPP box I get haha!! I do love peanut butter A LOT. It's got to be my favorite food. I was also getting low on honey and this was a pleasant surprise. I prefer local honeys and this is just perfect. Actually used it for the first time last night in some oat bars.

And now for the adult side. She must have read that I like to make beer bread. :) So I received two cans of this Bombshell Blonde Ale. I drank one, was not overwhelmed or in love with the flavor, it's beer. But it made some fabulous beer bread, which I made the other night and have been enjoying since.

A big huge thank you to my pen pal for sending such a lovely box of goodies that I am still enjoying.

Wanna be a foodie pen pal? Check it out below.

Here’s a detailed explanation of the program:

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!

Fabulous Friday

Do you know why it is a fabulous Friday? Hmm? Take a guess :)

Because it is actually under 90 degrees here in the Mid-West for a change. It's actually only 82 degrees currently. WOO HOO! Perfect day for a run after work and for a walk at my lunch break.

On lunch I took a walk outside rather than at the mall I typically frequent as it was actually decent. Of course because it's not over 90 degrees I am not allowed to wear shorts to work - even though everyone did anyway. So I'm wearing dark wash blue jeans, but I don't care. I chose to walk the pond near my office and get some vitamin D. My mom called so I chatted for a good portion of that walk. Normally I can only walk for about 40 minutes before having to drive back to work but today I got in a good 54 minutes. To top it off I was able to enjoy the sun and breeze and wild life.

Hello Mr. Mallard.
Your winter feathers have not come in

 I only know about the feathers because Mike is the smart one when it comes to ducks, since he hunts them in the fall :) YAY for duck season!

Sorry Daffy, I have to go with Bugs here.

So enjoying the gorgeous day out and getting some really great texts today it's been pretty good. After work I get a workout plan from a friend who is a trainer and then I get to go run and have some girl time with a new friend, my neighbor. K should be fun to be friends with. We shall see.

In any event I have experimented a teeny bit and have found a lovely Brown Sugar Cupcake Recipe since I went and made Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting and had nothing to frost.

I just want to lick the beater.

So I was scanning through the usual food blogs when I came across this fun and amusing blog "How Sweet it is"

Yummy

These little gems turned out great. Tasted delish too. I don't typically have cupcake papers on hand since I'm a cheap ass and tend to just spray the pan. So the combination of having a gas oven and having silicone for a muffin pan the edges on my cupcakes came out a bit on the more crisp side, but it was a good contrast to the fluffy and moist inside. YUMMM!!

The frosting was simple and more experimental than anything. I just didn't feel like baking so I made frosting and of course not knowing what I was going to frost with it. Cookies, nah, that means sugar usually and I don't want to cut out cookies - I really have to be in the mood for that. So next question was cupcakes or actual cake. Since cupcakes are portable, single serve and much easier to take to work and give to co-workers I opted for find a cupcake that could carry the fluffiness of Chocolate and Peanut Butter.

Yes this frosting was just absolutely fluffy and delicious. I had a few heaping spoonfuls - which I really shouldn't have but it just tasted so darn good!

Frosting to me is just the easiest thing to make. Leave out some butter and have powdered/confectioners sugar handy. From there you just add the flavors you want.

For this recipe I took a stick of softened butter, a good blob (no I did not measure, I rarely do for frosting) of creamy peanut butter then mixed on medium until mixed well. Then I added some vanilla extract (again people, I didn't measure. I just kind of go - bloop! good enough. Baking this long you can kind of tell how much each pour is. This non measuring thing gets worse the older I get). Then I added some melted chocolate I had left over from the peanut butter cups I made recently, about 1 square, maybe 2 of the chocolate almond bark.

Super simple recipe here

Mix all ingredients together then start adding the powdered sugar, S-L-O-W-L-Y! Otherwise you WILL end up with a kitchen covered in powdered sugar, as well as you. I have done it in a rush attempt to get things done and it just isn't worth the clean up, well unless you have a helper. Then maybe. Powdered sugar in the air also seems to have the properties of laughing gas. Having worked in the Costco bakery for a year, we had one incident where we were making a lot of frosting for the cakes that day and using an insane amount of powdered sugar. I think this was during the graduation rush and there was indeed a lot of it in the air, we were inhaling it at that point. However, at one moment our boss walked in, all employees are laughing and giggling about one thing or another - I can't recall what we found funny but I remember having a great day at work that day - he just looked and asked what was funny. Of course when you are already laughing, a serious question such as "what's so funny?" just makes you laugh harder. Ahh, good times. But I digress.

Once you have incorporated the powdered sugar start to whip it, whip it good! You know you're singing that song in your head now. You are welcome - I did have a publisher tell that group of us to "Dance" today (of course it was in reference to an ad called "Dance" but, whatever).

So now that you have whipped your frosting into a delicious frenzy set it aside or even place in the fridge for just a bit. Note: if your frosting is too thick add a Tbsp at a time of water or milk to thin out until it reaches the desired consistency.

Now, for the cupcakes.

Brown Sugar Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

1 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (I used Blue Bonnet margarine and it turned out just fine)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt, stirring to mix. Set aside. Line a cupcake tin with liners.

In a large bowl, whisk brown sugar and egg until smooth. Add in vanilla extract and milk, again mixing until combined. Slowly pour in melted butter, continuing to whisk. Add in the flour, soda, and salt. Mix with a large spoon until batter is smooth.

Using a 1/4 cup measure, add batter to liners. Bake for 16-19 minutes or until tops are puffy and golden, and don't jiggle when touched. Let cool completely before frosting.

Of course you can frost this cupcake with virtually any frosting you like and decorate accordingly. This is a good all purpose cupcake and great for when you run out of white sugar, like I have on occasion. It's quite disappointing to start a recipe and pull the sugar container down only to find no sugar. Granted you can substitute brown sugar cup for cup should you run out of white sugar, just note brown sugar has molasses in it, making it a bit stickier in the baked good. Sometime caramelizing the edges.


I also made this loveliness this week. Banana bread with chocolate shavings and cinnamon sugar crust. Can I just say that this thing made my house smell like home, that homey smell that all candle companies try to make their product smell like but can't quite capture the essence. Sugar, cinnamon and banana. Umph, perfect smell combo. Should be a perfume - men would come running, just add in a side of bacon and we are good!

Sliced fresh. Yes it's a teeny bit gooey,
but I like it that way and so does Mike

A pat of butter on the warm fresh bread, now we're talking!

 This is just a classic recipe for banana bread, I then took my cheese grater and milk chocolate block and shaved about 2 ounces of chocolate into the batter and mixed. I then combined about a heaping 1/8 cup sugar and 1 Tbsp cinnamon to dust on top (which I did AFTER I baked, it was an after thought but it worked out just fine since the bread was smoldering hot, ouch!)

Here's to the weekend, I get my Insanity DVDs tomorrow, I celebrate a friends 31st birthday and then headed out to Mike's to hang out for the remainder of the weekend. Sounds good to me.

Fudge and Cookies and a few dinner things :)

So this weekend I have the weekend to myself and have been kind of lazy, took this week to use up some random ingredients to make some actual dinner for myself. (Yes I too can cook, not just bake). So having had onion left over, given cans of asparagus, artichoke hearts and mushrooms I threw a few things together and created a dinner with it.

Found out that red onions WILL stain your hands temporarily. Oh well, just looked like I took a hammer to my hand. Haha, but the onion tasted good in my noodle pan stir fry thingy.

 My dinner consisted of ground turkey *80/20

Whole grain pasta - rotini

Artichoke hearts, red onion, sprouts and canned asparagus.

For a sauce I used the KC Masterpiece Honey Teriyaki sauce - quite delicious as a sauce not just a marinade.

I ended up with this while it was in the pan. Mmmmm delicious.

I then added the sauce on top as a garnish. Mmmmmm. Can I just say this was a stroke of genius? Delicious canned foods turned into a delicious and wonderfully simple dinner. If you're watching your sodium look for low sodium canned goods. I also used frozen ground turkey. My local grocer was having a hell of a deal on ground turkey and ground chicken. Of course today I go to the store and for 59 cents a lb I got two GIGANTIC chicken leg quarters (3.33 lbs) for $2. WOO SALES!!!

So mid week I decided to try this super simple fudge recipe I found. I didn't use white sugar like it said to since I was running low. I used brown instead.

The brown sugar peanut butter fudge tasted good but had a slight burnt after taste. So I made more last night and used white sugar, added some oats and topped with crushed graham crackers. And of course I forget to take a picture and give it away before I remembered for the blog :(

The fudge made with the white sugar tasted WAY better, less burnt and the add ins worked marvelously. Now if only I had had some cashews or peanuts (a suggestion from Mike) to add some crunch then drizzle with some chocolate. Mmmm, now we are talking.

This fudge recipe is soooo easy and simple that you can even help a kid make this. I would say about 8-10. You could even double the recipe to spread out in a 9x11 pan and cut out fun shapes once cooled (I place in freezer after cooking up to cool faster.)

Super Easy Fudge:

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk (I used skim - use whatever you have on hand)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup peanut butter
** add in whatever you like that would go with PB - cashews, peanuts, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, oats, Oreo bits - use your imagination.

Directions:
Boil milk and sugar, once boiling boil for 2.5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, vanilla and any add ins you like.

Let set or place in freezer to set a bit faster. (I let mine sit for about an hour in the freezer before thinking about cutting.

YUM! See, easy and all ingredients on hand.

So today I spent the first half of the day in bed. I have my reasons, so around 1pm I decided it was time to get up and actually do a few things. I needed to run to the store so I could have pizza for lunch, which became dinner. I also actually shopped for food for more than just a day - that's unusual for me.

So I came home, unloaded groceries, cleaned the kitchen and then checked out knives on eBay that Mike told me I needed to see. Bid on a good chefs knife too :)

So then I made pizza. Turkey, mozzarella, Parmesan, onion, mushrooms, and red bell pepper. As you can see, fresh and oh so yum looking. Makes your mouth water doesn't it? (I did not make the crust, had that in the freezer - didn't feel like making crust.)

Pre baking

Post baking, and pre eating

 I enjoyed this pizza thoroughly. It was about 254 calories per 1/8th of a 12 inch pizza. Not too shabby.


So after that I got bored again and decided that to ward off cramps I would bake and feel less lazy that way.

I can only do so much lazy before I get antsy.

So off to the kitchen sauna to make "The End All for Chocolate Cookie Recipes."

I was curious about the name and wondered if it was as great as it was advertised. So off I went. I didn't have shortening - and also did not feel like going and getting shortening - honestly I hate working with the stuff and would rather use butter. I used oil and hoped for the best. Probably should have used butter but oh well.

Mixing dough

Flower shapes cut out and ready to bake

So after sweating my little tushie off in the kitchen just heating up the oven and cutting out flower shaped cookies I decided that peanut butter frosting would be best with a chocolate cookie. I mean, come on, peanut butter and chocolate just go together like bread and butter.

Peanut butter frosting before sugar is added\

Mixed peanut butter frosting

Frosted cookies

I must say I was having issues with my peanut butter frosting. Too thick and too oily I think. Probably could have left out the butter and just made with peanut butter and a little milk. Oh well, it's almost able to be rolled out and cut to be layed on the cookie, I think I'll do that with the remaining frosting and cookies. I had to stop after these four cookies because I was melting away in my kitchen.

The cookies have a fudgey brownie consistency in the dough. The cookie itself is the perfect texture but I find the chocolate flavor to be a bit chalky. Not a bad cookie but it will need a sweet frosting to accompany it. I think I'll try the vanilla cookies next time.

So this is what I do with alone time haha, I should get the girls together tomorrow but I"m in no mood for company really. Having me time is a good thing too. Though I will be ready for human contact again come Monday.

Enjoy your weekend guys - cheers!