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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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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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Tapatio Doritios, Tapatio Fritos, and Tapatio & Lime Ruffles Reviewed

April 19, 2011 by 6 Delicious Comments
Tapatio Doritios, Tapatio Fritos, and Tapatio & Lime Ruffles Reviewed

Author’s note: Frito lay asked that I review these chips. They provided the chips, but no other compensation was given. Enjoy!

Not too long ago, I received a request from Frito-Lay to review some of their new chips that will be hitting the market this month. Naturally, I’m always curious to know what’s new so I accepted and a few days later, courtesy of Frito-Lay, a box arrived at my door with three bags of their new flavors.

It was hard to contain my delight when I opened the box and found that the new flavor was none other but Tapatio. Tapatio and I have a deep-rooted partnership. You can read about it here. I’m sure that the Chip Gods were smiling when Frito-Lay and Tapatio hot sauce formed this partnership.

One at a time, I pulled out each new, shiny bag of chips. Doritos, Fritos, and Ruffles. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, especially seeing that the Ruffles had lime mixed in. Tapatio and lime are one of my all-time favorite flavor combinations—nearly impossible to resist.

It was tough not to rip open a bag immediately and just stuff my face, but I wanted to share my excitement with someone else—the guy who introduced me to Tapatio—none other than my own hermano. So, with great hesitation, I placed the bags above my refrigerator (had to protect them from the kids, you know) and waited for a couple days so that SkinnyD and I could get together and experience the madness together.

Those were a long two days, but it finally arrived. We met up at his house and commenced our review. We recorded it on video, but due to some techincal difficulties in editing, it might not get posted. BUT! I’ve still taken the time to write out what I thought as we tested each new chip.
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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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The Best Halloween Candy — No, Seriously.

October 22, 2010 by 3 Delicious Comments
The Best Halloween Candy — No, Seriously.

I’ve gotta’ say, Halloween is a dangerous holiday. It’s too easy to buy candy long before October 31st; it’s even easier to justify buying it early when you say to yourself, “Oh, I’ll stick it in the top cupboard and save it until then…”

Yeah right.

I don’t know of anybody who has ever successfully done that. Before too long, it just starts gnawing away at you because you know it’s there… eat me, eat me, eat me… *sigh* … Two years ago I bought my Halloween candy on October 31st, Halloween Day. I went to the store to find nearly empty shelves and ended up coming back with the stuff nobody wants: stale pumpkin peeps, Sunmaid raisins, and a mini-size candybar mix. Mini size. Really? Halloween is about packing in the goodies, not skimping on treats that you don’t even have to chew before swallowing.

So this year I decided to–yep, you guessed it–buy my goodies early. I bought them two weeks ago during a “weak moment” on aisle 5. Needless to say, I’m going to have to buy more. Dangit. At least there is one huge benefit to buying your Halloween candy early; besides having to buy and eat twice the amount of candy for Halloween, you get the best of the best. No stale pumpkin peeps for me this year.

So this year I’ve rounded up a list of the 10 best Halloween candies (I cheated and added more than one candy to some numbers), that if I had to buy twice this month, I wouldn’t complain.

In no particular order, behold the list…
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Filed Under: Kitchen Sink, Lists (Top 10 & Such) Tagged With: , ,

Does Food Packaging Make You Overeat?

October 21, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Does Food Packaging Make You Overeat?

I came across an article today on Psychology Today that was pretty interesting. It’s basically a quick summary of a study done by Adriana Madzharov and Lauren Block in the October, 2010 issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Here’s a snippet of the article.

Many snack foods show a picture of what the product looks like. A box of chocolate chip cookies will show sample cookies on the front. A bag of pretzels will show pictures of the pretzels. A box of crackers will show the crackers.

The studies in this paper make three main points…

First, the number of items on the front of the package affects people’s judgments of how much food is inside the package…

Second, when given the chance to actually eat, people ate more food from packages with many items pictured on it than from packages with few items pictured on it.

Third, this effect was strongest…

Visit That Package Made Me Overeat to read more.

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