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February 2010 Recipe Round-Up
- Cheesy Hash Brown Chili. Good, but not repeatable. Next!
- David Garrard’s Buffalo Chicken Dip. The favorite of the month, and even made twice in one week. Reviewed here.
- Mocha Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies. Good. Nice hit from the caffeine. Interesting sandy texture on the outside of the cookie. Review coming soon.
- Deep Woods Salad Dressing. This recipe came from Serena, Food and Stories. Easy and packed with flavor. I served it on a salad at Madeline’s birthday party. Review and recipe coming soon.
- Sour Cream White Cupcakes. This one is from the new Cupcake Doctor cookbook. I tried one without the frosting and nearly threw away the whole batch. Luckily, once it had frosting on it, all was right with the world.
- Roast Ham with Marmalade Mess Marinade. This is another one from Serena, Food and Stories. Loved it.
- Chocolate Chip Dream Bars. These are OMG good. If you haven’t made this one yet, you’re missing out. Favorite #2 of the month.
- Veggie Bites. How to make good vegetables bad for you. Review coming soon.
- Hershey Kiss Good Fortunes. A fun sweet treat. Review here.
- Tuna Cakes. Easy and you likely have the ingredients on hand. A few days later, I warmed one up, and put it in between pumpernickel bread with melted cheddar and spicy mustard. So good.
- Roasted Mushrooms and Asparagus. Super simple. Loved this. Review coming soon.
- Go Green Stew for Eli. Nick and Madeline made a stew for Eli. He inhaled it so fast, we’re thinking he liked it, but we stopped short of taste-testing it ourselves. He was definitely looking for more the next day.
- German Chocolate Cupcake. The failure of the month. You won’t be hearing about this one.
- Peanut Butter and Honey Cookies. Favorite #3 for the month. You won’t think they’re anything special. Until you make them. Bet you can’t eat just one….
Chocolate Chip Dream Bars
Sometimes chocolate makes everything better. Or at least that’s what we’re sometimes led to believe. And why not? It can certainly make us feel good for a moment and take our mind off whatever is weighing heavy. I promised a friend I’d keep her in chocolate on Monday, and had every intention of making a batch of cookies, using a new recipe I had found. A typo in the recipe led to that batch being thrown away, and me scrambling at the last minute. I had to follow through on my promise. Chocolate.
I grabbed a cookbook off my shelf and started thumbing through it, looking for a delicious recipe. With chocolate. And ingredients I had on hand. And something easy since I was a bit behind schedule. I spied the picture for Chocolate Chip Dream Bars and was hoping it would do the trick.
Now even if you don’t cool the bars in the pan for an hour before refrigerating, these are good. Even if you refrigerate them for way longer than the suggested hour, these are really good. Let’s just say that it’s a good thing some of the directions are a bit forgiving, because I was in a rush and didn’t have time to follow it to the letter. Once the dish came out of the oven, I quickly did the glaze, drizzled it on and popped the whole thing in the fridge for a few hours, hoping I wasn’t ruining it in the process.
A few minutes before I left the house, I took the bars out, cut them neatly and plated them up. I stole one and ate it on the ride over. You know, quality control and all that. OMG. Rich. Chocolatey. Slightly gooey and soft. My first thought was that it’s a good thing I was taking 90% of these out of the house, because faint sweet tooth or not, I don’t think I would be able to withstand the temptation. My second thought was that if a bite of these babies doesn’t momentarily transport you to your happy place, I don’t know what will. I snuck one off the plate and shared it with another friend in the car pool lane. The kids after school got some. My mom got a few.  A neighbor too. There are exactly six left on the plate in the kitchen. I told the babysitter she better come and get her share. Before they’re gone. Go on and make them. Please. And find your happy place.
Project 365
February 9, 2010, Photo #39
My apologies in advance to anyone who has these curtains.  I really don’t like them. They’re just not me. And they are on four windows in the kitchen. I bought them four years ago when we first put this house up for sale. I had something a little darker in the kitchen, and went with a more neutral curtain to stage the house a bit. They’ve been there ever since. They need to go. The kitchen is my next painting project and will soon be a pale ice blue, the same blue I did the living room ceiling in. All the cabinets are white. The countertop is beige, as is the floor. I feel like I’ve looked everywhere to find the perfect kitchen curtains and I’m still coming up empty. I want something light. Bright. Fun. Everything I see is either too dark, too floral, too frou-frou or too predictable. Open to suggestions – have you got one? Please say yes.
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