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.

» Finish reading Caramel Comatose Thunder Brownies Recipe at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Brownie Mix, Brownie Recipe, Caramel, Caramel Brownies, Chocolate, Chocolate Brownie, Comatose, Desserts, Food and Drink, Fudge Brownies, Homemade Caramel, Marshmallow, Pretzel, Snacks, Thunder

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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.

» Finish reading Holiday Squares (Sunshine Bars) Recipe at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Christmas Recipe, Christmas Seasons, Extra Nice, Family Favorites, Holiday, Holiday Square, List, Orange Juice, Oranges, Recipes, Squares, Sunshine, Sunshine Bars, Tasty Dessert

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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.

» Finish reading Christmas Lollipop Cookies Recipe at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Lollipops, Cookie Decorating, Cookie Lollipops, Cookies, Cookies Recipe, Food and Drink, Fun, Fun Christmas Cookies, Holiday, Pillsbury, Pillsbury Cookie Dough, Snacks, Sugar Cookie, Sugar Cookie Dough

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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.

» Finish reading Orange & Apple Cinnamon Biscuits Recipe at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple Cinnamon, Baking, Baking Powder, Biscuit Dough, Biscuits, Biscuits Recipe, Bread, Breakfast, Cinnamon, Cinnamon Biscuit Recipe, Cinnamon Biscuits, Cinnamon Sugar, Fun, Orange Apple, Soul Food

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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.)

» Finish reading Butterscotch Biscuits Recipe at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Biscuits, Bread, Breakfast, Butterscotch, Irresistable, Picky Eaters, Quick Breads, Soul Food

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On Goodreads, I gave this book a 5-star rating. It’s awesome. Really.

The purpose behind Ratio is to enlighten and teach the home cook about the fundamentals of cooking in the kitchen. Sounds boring, I know, but the concept of ratios is simply fascinating. It’s not as if cooking with ratios is a super-duper, ultra-guarded secret (because it’s not), but interesting enough, it’s not well known among home cooks. Knowing ratios gives you the power to ditch the recipes, grow some wings, and fly! It won’t be long before you’re creating recipes of your own. In fact, using his custard ratios, I created a tasty (and interesting) vanilla peach custard. I’ll post the recipe once I refine it a bit. It was my first ever attempt at custard, but I could do it thanks to being taught simple custard ratios.

Let’s explore some of the fascinating aspects of Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio.

» Finish reading Book Review: Ratio by Michael Ruhlman at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Bread, Cake, Cook Book, How To, Meats, Sauce

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Contrary to popular belief I’ve actually been doing a lot of cooking lately. In fact, I’ve been doing so much cooking that I’ve accumulated a gazillion and a half recipes to share with you. Some I’ve found online, others I’ve created from the depths of my inner self–and that can get pretty scary.

Some of the recipes I’ve found are from other blogs that I follow, and today’s lemon bread recipe is an adaptation from the ever popular and addicting blog called Cookie Madness, written by Anna.

I’ve made this lemon bread a few times and this last time around I added the poppy seeds, which I absolutely love–and it’s not because they supposedly make you test positive for doping. Is that even true?

A few tips when making this bread:

1. Do not pack your flour. You want your flour to be loose so that the bread isn’t overly dense.
2. Although bread is super delicious right out of the oven, I prefer this bread after it’s cooled down and the flavors have had a chance to mix together.
3. I’ve tried this bread plain and also topped with a lemon glaze, a chocolate glaze, and a regular glaze. I prefer the lemon glaze.

Alright, that’s enough mumbo jumbo for one post. Let’s get baking. As always, there’s a printable recipe at the bottom of this post. The pictures in this post are a combination of the different times I’ve made this recipe.

» Finish reading How to Make Lemon Poppy Seed Bread (with Glaze!) at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Bread, Cake

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Jim uses 5 basic ingredients to whip up a simple loaf of bread with amazing taste. He says, “[It's] a truly minimalist breadmaking technique that allows people to make excellent bread at home with very little effort. The method is surprisingly simple — I think a 4-year-old could master it — and the results are fantastic.”

» Finish reading Video: How to Make No-Knead Bread at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Bread

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She really loves cooking with daddy and I enjoy cooking with her, even though it usually turns our kitchen into a disaster. But in the end it’s all worth it, and we both enjoy spending the time together. This past weekend Maggalicious and I decided to make biscuits and gravy. So for today’s post, I figured I’d her instruct you through how to make this easy biscuit recipe and country sausage gravy. The biscuit recipe I use is one from my mom, and I call them “Mom’s Increda-Biscuits.” Honestly, they’re down-right irresistible and so easy to make. This is actually two different recipes on one post (biscuits + country sausage gravy), so this time around there are two printable recipes available at the end of this post. Don’t forget to print them both out.

» Finish reading Making Biscuits & Country Gravy with Maggie at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Breakfast, Gravy

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This contest will run through Friday sometime (December 11th), and then I’ll ship them a.s.a.p to the random lucky winner.

» Finish reading December Giveaway: Cookie Cutters at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Giveaway, Holiday

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Need a bagel recipe? Click here.

Related posts:

1. How to Make Bagels at Home
2. Video: How to Make No-Knead Bread
3. Video: Learn How to Chop Vegetables
4. Book Review: Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bagels, Baking, Bread, How To

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I absolutely love breadsticks, especially when they’re fresh out of the oven. I haven’t made too many of them in my life, but my mom used to make them often. I realized that I hadn’t made any for a loooong time the other day when my wife and I made some chicken noodle soup and realized we didn’t have any bread in the house to eat with it. The next day to eat with the leftovers, I decided I’d make some breadsticks. Let’s see, that was around 6:30 p.m. Breadsticks take about 2-1/2 hours from start to finish. I’m not sure what I was thinking… the whole family was hungry, the soup was done, and I was going to make breadsticks?

I enlisted my 3-year-old to help me mix the dough, who loved every step of the way. When dumping the flour in the mixing bowl, she’d sometimes miss the bowl and dump it on the counter. Even so, all the ingredients eventually found their way to the bowl, where we mixed them into a sticky ball of dough. We used our Bosch mixer to mix the breadstick dough–if you haven’t invested in a good table-top mixer yet, I highly recommend the Bosch brand.

» Finish reading How to Make Italian Herb Breadsticks at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Breadsticks, Italian Herb

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I’ll apologize beforehand for not having any pictures. I’m working on it. I’ve cooked it a few times, but always forget to have the camera handy. NEXT time I’ll remember. Next time… there I go procrastinating again.

I grabbed this recipe word-for-word from a family cookbook where there’s a lot of ‘assuming you know what to do’ steps. Well, if you’re having a hard time figuring it out, let me know. You can ask your questions in the comments or just shoot me an email. When I add pictures, I’ll also update the directions a little bit.

» Finish reading Easy Crispy Baked Chicken Recipe at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Chicken, Poultry

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