The Perfect Dark Chocolate Brownie

Where to begin with these guys....first off, I am not a big fan of dark chocolate in general, but my wife is a big fan of it.  These I made for her.  But I had to have one, just to try. Oh man, these are delish.  Even for the non-dark chocolate lover that I am.  The only modification from the original recipe that I made was to put them in a smaller pan, bake them a little longer, because I prefer a thick brownie.  These did not disappoint, me or her.  When I make them again, I will swap out the semi sweet chips for white chips.

These are simple to make, only takes one bowl to get dirty and 40 minutes later, you are in dark chocolate heaven.  I let them cool for a good hour before eating them for dessert.  The following day, I had another and found it is best to toss it in the micro for about 10 seconds the melt those chips inside again and make it ooey gooey.  These are very rich, but very very tasty.  Eat up!

 

 

The Perfect Dark Chocolate Brownie - adapted from www.shugarysweets.com

 

3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup AP flour

3/4 cup dark chocolate powder

3 eggs

1 cup semi sweet/white morsels (if desired)

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and flour 8X8 baking pan. 

 

Melt butter in glass or plastic bowl, mix in next 4 ingredients until well blended.  Fold in morsels.

 

Pour into prepared pan.  Bake 25-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out crumbly.  If using a dark pan, when you put them in the oven, drop temperature to 325 degrees and bake 30-37 minutes.  Mine took 35 minutes in a dark pan. 

 

*If you like your brownies a little more fudgy, bake them on the lower end of the time scale



Cool Cucumber Chicken Salad

It has been a few days since I have posted, but that doesn't mean I haven't been makin' food.  This chicken salad sandwich was very delightful.  Tossed with mayo(of your choice, of course), red grapes, cashews and extra special crunch from both cut up cucumbers and dill pickles.  This one one I will come back for.  My only suggestion is to mix in your cashews before you eat it, otherwise they get quite soggy, which I knew would happen, but I mixed them all in at the first meal....Eat Up!

Adapted from www.justapinch.com

COOL CUCUMBER CHICKEN SALAD

1 cucumber, peeled and diced (to taste)
1/2 cup red grapes, halved or quartered
2 cooked chicken breast, shredded (or you can used canned chicken or even tuna?)
Salt and Pepper, to taste
Mayo - use discretion, some like more, some like less
1 dill pickle, chopped
Cashews/pecans/walnuts

Mix everything except cashews together. Refrigerate 30-60 minutes minimum for flavors to incorporate.  I mixed nuts in right away, but on the second round of making these, I will probably just sprinkle them on top of the chicken salad before putting the top piece of bread on.  Would be great on a crossant with some lettuce.

*If you don't eat it all in one sitting, you may want to add 1tsp-1Tbsp of mayo the next day to moisten it back up again

Ghost Chili Pickles

This year in my garden I planted lettuce, 1 cucumber plant, 1 tomato plant, 2 pea plants a couple trenches of potatoes and a row of sweet corn. The lettuce has all grown up, eaten, and now has been pulled from the garden.  Only one of my pea plants grew and has yet to produce more than about 6 pods.  Tomato plant is in full force and has about 30 green tomatoes on it, and I have picked 3 ripe ones so far.  The potatoes I have no idea about because I have never grown them before.  The sweet corn took some time to take off, but at last check, I have about 9 ears growing at this point.  My one cucumber plant has produced me about a dozen cukes so far, most of which the fam has just eaten with ranch, or I have made into creamy cucumbers.  The other day, my mother in law dropped off a small bag of cucumbers from her neighbor.  I wasn't going to make any pickles this year, especially since I have about 8 jars still from the previous years, but didn't want them to go to waste.  I also recalled that I have some dehydrated ghost chilies in the freezer, and thought I should marry these together and make some hot a$$ pickles.

I have made jalapeno pickles in the past, which I really like, so why not step up the heat considerably and see what happens!  I headed off to our little grocery store in town because I was out of vinegar and dill. I didn't see any dill in the fresh produce section, so I asked the lady working there and she said that she is unable to get it from her supplier, but the guy that works in the deli brought some in today from his garden to use for making salads of something.  She went and asked him and he gave me a handful for free!  Otherwise I would have made dill-less pickles.  I added a bit of sugar into each jar to sweeten them up just a touch.  I also added a little mustard seed and Ball makes a pickle crisp granule that I also put in prior to adding the brine.

 I made 3 pints of spears and 1 1/2 pints of chunks. I now have 5 jars of ghost chili pickles in a hot water bath.  I think it is going to be really hard to let these guys sit for 6 weeks to give them a try.  I am hoping I will be able to make it until Christmas time to let these mill in that ghost chili heat a little longer and hopefully get a little hotter......the taste and heat on these to TBD, but when they are done, I hope they are yum.  Eat up!

Recipe:
6 1/2 cups water
3 1/4 cups white vinegar
1/4 + 1/8 cups salt
cucumbers - sliced, speared, or chunked, or minis
dill
sugar
mustard seed
peppers, any variety, if desired

Boil water, vinegar and salt for 15 minutes.  Pack cucumbers in sterilized jars with dill (i used 1 fairly large sprig in each jar, but use what you think) and 1 tsp sugar per pint.  After the cucumbers are in the jar, add 1/8 tsp mustard seed and 1/8 tsp pickle crisp per pint.  Fill jars with brine and seal.  Place in hot water bath for 15-20 minutes.  Let sit 4-6 weeks before enjoying.

*I have also added a garlic clove to the pickles previously to give a slightly different taste

***UPDATE*** I ate some of these pickles after letting them sit for 2 weeks.  They have very nice smoky flavor and heat from the ghost chilis, although not nearly as hot as I anticipated them to be.  All in all, these turned out to be pretty good.  I traded one of my jars off to my brother in law who made some ghost chili salsa. That was some good stuff too.  I am going to let these pickles sit for another 2 weeks before I crack open the next jar, and hope to have at least 1 jar sit for 6 months.  But that is going to be hard.

Super Easy Cream Cheese Danish

I am a huge fan of cream cheese danishes.  Sometimes with fruit, but more often just cream cheese.  I came across this super easy recipe and thought I would give it a try.  It is just a handful of ingredients, most of which you will have on hand right now.  All I needed to purchase was some crescent rolls.

Crescent rolls, cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, sour cream, milk and powdered sugar. 30 minutes start to finish.  Hope they taste as good as they look!

I am going to eat a few of these with some iced coffee...Good way to start the week. Eat up!

RECIPE:

1 can crescent rolls(DO NOT UNROLL!!!)

4oz cream cheese

1/4 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon sour cream

2 teaspoons vanilla

Icing:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

4 teaspoons milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap crescent rolls and cut log into 1/2 inch slices. Place slices on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Mix with a hand mixer, the next 4 ingredients.  Using your finger, indent a hole into each of your crescent slices.  Put 1-2 teaspoons of cream cheese mixture into the holes.  Bake 12-15 minutes, or until light golden.  While they are baking, whisk together icing ingredients, adding more milk or sugar to reach desired consistency.  You will want it thin enough to pour, but thick enough to stick.  Eat up!

 

 

Welcome

Hi, this is my blog.  I am just a regular guy that cooks regular food using regular ingredients.  Occasionally I will go off the page just a bit and use an ingredient that is not as common, but I try to keep it fairly simply.  I cook, I can, I bake.  I make things that sound good to me.  Sometimes the end result is awful, or so-so, or good.  I will attempt to share them all with you.  Bear with me getting started, i'm not good at taking pictures, especially in the process of creating food.  Frankly, often times my hands are much too messy to be taking pictures anyway.  What I will try to do is take a starting picture of ingredients and then and end result and then tell you my thoughts and the thoughts of my family or friends, whomever I have shared the food with.  Please come along with me on my culinary journey. Feel free to comment or ask questions as you wish.  Just remember, I have no formal culinary training, just a guy who cooks and bakes for his family. Eat up!