Thought of the Day

"I was only going to eat three cookies but I forgot to count." -Little Critter

The Way I See It...

We participated in "No Impact Week" twice this year (you can google that if you don't know what it is) and both times came away with some new insights and ideas. Above is the list we made during the most recent week. We started at the beginning of the year with small changes like recycle more, restart composting, eat vegetarian once a week, make less garbage, and buy less stuff. Once it started I feel like it snowballed, in a good way! When we started writing down the ways we have and the ways we can make better use of this world's resources this time around, it was amazing to me how easy it was to change my own mentality. Suddenly it just made sense. I want to be a good steward of creation and what a better way to start than with little changes that over the course of one year turn into life-changing ways of living. I really believe our Earth needs saving and I really believe we CAN save this planet.

Chocolate and Mint? YES PLEASE!

Want one of these?

Because this is how good they taste:

For New Year's 2011 my Mom made several resolutions to spend one-on-one time with her kids. One of her "resolutions" with me was that we would each try three new baking recipes over the year and in December we would get together and bake each of our favourites. I did pick out three recipes at the beginning of the year: Chocolate Mint Cookies, Nutella Cookies, and Chunky Cheesecake Brownies. Okay, the Nutella cookies were edible, but overall a flop. I don't know if I ever blogged about the brownies but they were incredible. And these cookies... just plain awesome. So here is the winner for the year.... I guess I saved the best for last.

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Chocolate Mint Cookies
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Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 (4.5 ounce) packages chocolate covered thin mints

Directions:

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, cook the sugar, butter and water, stirring occasionally until melted.  Remove from heat, stir in the chocolate chips until melted and set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

2. Pour the chocolate mixture into a large bowl, and beat in the eggs, one at a time. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the chocolate mixture. Cover and refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.  Roll cookie dough into walnut sized balls and place 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.

4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, be careful not to overbake. When cookies come out of the oven, Press one mint wafer into the top of each cookie and let sit for 1 minute. When the mint is softened, swirl with a toothpick to make a pattern with the green filling of the mint wafer. For smaller cookies, break mints in half.

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Oops Can Still Taste Good

We had some friends over for lasagna the other night, and I had everything organized. The dessert would go in right when I took the lasagna out, would bake while we ate, and would come out warm and ready to eat. This is the dessert:

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Hot Fudge Sundae Cake
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When done this tastes like cake on top of chocolate pudding. 

Ingredients:

1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp baking cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1/4  tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 3/4 cups water, very hot

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350.

2. Mix first set of dry ingredients together directly in 9x9 ungreased pan.

3. Mix in milk, oil and vanilla, until smooth. Spread in pan.

4. Sprinkle brown sugar and cocoa over batter. Then pour the water evenly over everything.

5. Bake 40 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

6. Top with vanilla ice cream.

Notes:

Place cake pan on top of another larger and shallow pan in case the pudding bubbles over some.

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Sounds delicious, right? Well it is. What is not to like about it? I don't even use a bowl! I make it right in my pan! Anyways... the cake was all prepped, except for the hot water which was waiting in the microwave to be warmed up. When the lasagna came out, in when the desert. Forty minutes later my oven beeped and I pulled it out. Something was wrong. The top was just crusty cocoa powder and brown sugar... you can probably guess that I forgot about that water in the microwave. Well, I dumped the water on, stuck it back in the oven for ten minutes and wouldn't you know, it wasn't wrecked. It was an "Upside Down Hot Fudge Sundae Cake" since the pudding was on top of the cake instead of underneath. Delicious, yet stressful. So much for being organized.