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Caramel Comatose Thunder Brownies Recipe

January 2, 2012 by 2 Delicious Comments
Caramel Comatose Thunder Brownies Recipe

This year I plan to focus on more meal-oriented recipes, but before I do, I’m going to start out with a dessert recipe that really steals your attention: Caramel Comatose Thunder Brownies (made with real canned thunder!—kidding). If desserts were people, this one would be Chuck Norris.

Here are a few things Chuck Norris and these “brownies” have in common:

  • You don’t find them, they find you.
  • Both can kill you with a simple stare.
  • Under their ‘beard’ lies another fist.
  • They’re both rugged at first, but are sweet once you get to know them (or so they say).
  • And so on and so forth…

In other words, make sure you’re wearing your big boy pants before digging in. On a more serious note, this dessert was born from my curiosity to play with opposites.

I wanted something that was chewy but crunchy, sweet but salty. After throwing a few ideas around and creating a few sketches, I decided on a brownie mixture that included caramel, extra chocolate, pretzels, and marshmallows.
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Holiday Squares (Sunshine Bars) Recipe

December 12, 2011 by 5 Delicious Comments
Holiday Squares (Sunshine Bars) Recipe

I blinked once and the Christmas season was here; I blinked twice and now it’s almost over. I’m considering holding my eyes open with toothpicks à la Odysseus so I won’t blink again. Not really, but maybe I should because it would be a shame for Christmas to pass without sharing at least a few more Christmas recipes with you. (Read about Christmas Lollipop Cookies.)

The Christmas treats I’m sharing today are some of my favorites for many reasons:

  • They are festive and come out of the oven dressed to party.
  • They’re extremely easy to make.
  • The masses love them. So do the non-masses.
  • You can take them to work and your co-workers will love you.
  • They make your house smell divine.
  • They can tell the future, and so much more!

I should warn you though. They also have an identity crisis, and I’m afraid it confuses the children. After eating these, my kids have been known to say some pretty odd things. Check these doozies out.
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Christmas Lollipop Cookies Recipe

November 17, 2011 by 4 Delicious Comments
Christmas Lollipop Cookies Recipe

General Mills always seems to be up to something fun, and earlier this month they invited a few bloggers to create a fun holiday-themed cookie recipe using a Pillsbury cookie dough roll. With the chance of the recipe being on Pillsbury.com (Update: This recipe and the other bloggers’ submissions are now on Pillsbury.com. Follow the link to check out all the delicious goodness!), I couldn’t resist and decided to participate. We could choose to use any of the following Pillsbury cookie doughs: sugar, gingerbread, chocolate chip, peanut butter, or peppermint.

Being the sugar cookie addict that I am, I naturally opted to use the sugar cookie dough. Sugar cookies have long been a holiday tradition at my house, one that I hope my kids continue and pass down to their own families someday.

As part of our cookie submission, General Mills also asked us to make it kid friendly so that moms (or dads!) can make it at home with their kids. For those of you who read my blog regularly, you already know that I love cooking with my little girls. They’re especially fond of any recipe that lets them play with dough.

This particular Christmas cookie idea combines two of my children’s favorite things. The first is making dough snakes. My kids jump at the chance to make them, and believe me, we can play that game for hours. The second is suckers. Their love for suckers nearly surpasses my own for sugar cookies.
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Orange & Apple Cinnamon Biscuits Recipe

November 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Orange & Apple Cinnamon Biscuits Recipe

Today’s recipe is a partner to my last recipe post, Butterscotch Biscuits. If you haven’t tried those, you should. In fact, I would almost say try those first and then come back to these. I’d love to know how you feel they compare. This biscuit variation requires a smidgen more work and cooking time, but I love the extra orange, apple, and cinnamon flavors mixed in. In all honesty though, both are heavenly.

Okay, I explained in my last biscuits post how my kids go nuts when they find out we’re having these for breakfast. However, something I didn’t mention—and should have—is how kids love to help prepare this recipe. There’s some small knife work involved when dicing the apple, but other than that, kids can help with nearly every part from mixing the dough to slicing the rounds (with a dull dough cutter). If you haven’t tried cooking with your kids, I think you should give it a shot. We’ve had some great (and messy) times in the kitchen together.

The areas where my kids enjoy helping out the most is sprinkling the flour on the cupboard and spreading the butter, sugar, and apples onto the biscuit dough. They’re also pros at putting all the ingredients into the bowl. I maintain that the memories we create are worth the messes we make.

Now on to the biscuits.
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Butterscotch Biscuits Recipe

October 25, 2011 by 10 Delicious Comments
Butterscotch Biscuits Recipe

Do you remember as a kid waking up in the mornings to the smell of your favorite breakfast cooking? I sure do, and I still love it. Smelling the sweet breakfast aromas early in the morning is one of life’s great pleasures, one that almost instantly puts the entire family in a good mood.

Growing up in my family, there were a couple smells that almost always had us kids instantly bounding up the stairs: the quintessential breakfast of pancakes served with eggs and bacon and then the irresistible smell of butterscotch biscuits. Yes, I said that right… butterscotch biscuits,and today I’m going to share that biscuit recipe with you. But first, a quick peek into how awesome these biscuits are. These are not your typical biscuit, my friend.

Luckily (read: holy flipping cow, I’m incredibly lucky), my kids are not picky eaters. I’m not sure if it’s because I will eat nearly anything—with the exception of tuna loaf—and they’re just following my example, or if it’s because they know they’ll go without if they don’t eat what’s prepared. Maybe they’re really not my kids, but aliens from another planet… maybe, just maybe that’s it. (By the way, after they realized mom and dad were serious they always choose to eat what’s prepared.)
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How to Make Pumpkin Seeds: Year 2

October 29, 2010 by 9 Delicious Comments
How to Make Pumpkin Seeds: Year 2

Last year I was a little late (mid-November) on the bandwagon when I posted How to Make Pumpkin Seeds: Year I, so I figured this year I’d try to post before Halloween.

My family looks forward each year to buying our pumpkins from one of the local pumpkin patches. You arrive, get a wheelbarrow and leisurely stroll around the pumpkin rows looking for the perfect pumpkin. I always buy a couple extra just for the seeds. My kids run around in utter delight trying to carry the largest pumpkin they can find. Depending on the patch, they may have hay bales and tractors set up for kids to play on. The owners of the patch we went to this year was giving tractor rides and had created a free corn maze for the kids.

We bought two big pumpkins for my wife and I, and three small pumpkins for our kids, and then a few of those really really small pumpkins just for the heck of it–actually, the kids seemed to be rather attached to them, and it was impossible to resist.

This past Monday, we hollowed out the pumpkins and let the kids carve theirs, so I’m sure the pumpkins will be overly shriveled come Halloween day, oh well. From the 5 hollowed out pumpkins I ended up with 6 cups of fresh pumpkin seeds–perfect for three different batches. Now, I’m the type of guy who rarely orders the same thing at a restaurant each time I visit because I like to experience different foods and flavors. So although I’ve already created pumpkin seed recipes that I like, I couldn’t resist whipping up some new ones either.

This year I’ve created three new recipes: Chipotle Ranch, Sugar ‘n Spice, and Lemon Picante. The Lemon Picante has become my new favorite.
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