.:: Fire The Housewife ::.

I’m the queen of NEEDING THAT FOOD RIGHT NOW.  Last night it was scotcheroos.  You know, those rice crispy-like treats with the chocolate on top.  I NEEDED them.  So after a quick trip to QFC I had them.  The boyfriend understood, he NEEDED no bake cookies just as bad.

Heres how to make a scotcheroo in case you’re in desperate need.

1 cup Karo syrup

1 cup sugar

1 cup peanut butter

6 cups rice crispies

1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 bag butterscotch chips

Bring syrup and sugar to boil in medium saucepan. Remove from heat, add peanut butter, mix well.  pour over rice crispies in large bowl and mix well, press into 9×13 pan.  In double boiler melt chips together, pour over crispies, let cool as long as you possibly can, THEN EAT THE ENTIRE PAN IN ONE SITTING.

Dear Internet,

It has recently come to my attention that everyone thinks I’m a giant fattie.  I’m pointing at you, Brian Massie.  Yes, that’s right, I like him so much that I used his real name.  No nickname starting with The.  Wow. That’s love!! Anyway,  B. Massie and another pal of The Boyfriend’s at work have scoffed at me and apparently think that my hiding out at home all the time means I’m fat. MY BRAND NEW ABILITY TO WEAR SIZE 4 JEANS SAYS OTHERWISE. I just don’t want to live in a world where size 4 is fat.  You know what Internet?  Sometimes I want to eat at Top Pot and that’s okay.  I work out twice a day, 5 days a week, and that means it’s okay to eat a freaking cupcake whenever I want to.  Let that be a lesson to you all, eat cupcakes, it’s okay.

Anyway, my ability to eat cupcakes is not the main staple of my diet, in fact when I’m not eating cupcakes I eat some pretty healthy stuff.  Recently I have decided that perhaps I have a little bit of intolerance to flour, white flour especially. I’ve cut everything out of my life basically.  Sad but true.  I eat whole grain everything and feast upon Mack’s Flax, a flour free bread I really love.  Basically in a day I eat a ton of food but consume well under 1000 calories.  To prove to you all that I can bake something that fits into my pretty tight little diet I’m going to share with you all my Whole Wheat Flax Seed Muffins.

So, they’re pretty easy to make and only very very slightly labor intensive.  If you’re not my kitchen (and even my kitchen had to pick up a few supplies) you’ll probably need to go pick up some whole wheat flour, flax seed meal, oat bran (I secretly just used some oatmeal and ground it up a little in my cuisinart).  Everything else you will probably have on hand or can pick up on your normal trip to the store.  Just to make you feel even worse for thinking I’m such an unhealthy slob, I buy all organic too.  In fact the carrots and apples were purchased at the Ballard Farmers Market, so not only were they organic, they were locally grown too.

ON TO THE RECIPE!

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

3/4 c. flax seed meal

3/4 c. ground oatmeal (or oat bran)

1 c. brown sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp.  baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. allspice

2 medium Fuji Apples (peeled and grated)

1 1/2 – 2 c. carrots (peeled and grated)

4 Tbsp. flax seeds

3/4 c. milk

2 eggs

1 Tbsp vanilla

optional: nuts, dried fruit, anything your little heart desires.  I used dried cranberries.

Go ahead and sift together the whole wheat flour and the flax seed meal.  There will be some residual hulls and whatnot in your sifter,  I just dumped those on in.  I like my hulls.  If that REALLY grosses you out I suppose you could trash them, but why would you want to do such a thing?

Now, I didn’t have any oat bran and I didn’t feel like making the boyfriend scoop anything more out of the giant bins at PCC so I used the oatmeal I had on hand and just ran it through the food processor until it was a little more fine, not so fine that it’s powdery though.  Go ahead and mix that on in with your flour and flax, also add in the other dry ingredients, all the way down to that allspice.  It’ll look a lot like this…

I like to live dangerously so I didn’t sift everything, this is not going to mess up your results this time, trust me.

Now, this is when things get tricky.  I definitely peeled and grated the carrots and apples all alone while The Boyfriend sat and watched.  Gosh I hope he doesn’t read that because then he’ll be sad I told the internet didn’t help when in reality he actually peeled the carrots and grated them for me with our extra grater.  He’s just that grate great!  So, once you’ve grated these things at lightening speed like I did:

My hands are moving so fast they can’t be photographed.

Once I got those apples all grated they started to turn a little brown, so I threw some lemon juice on them, violently.  This isn’t a totally necessary step, but something about browning apples on the counter really grosses me out, so I did it.  Don’t judge.

You’re going to mix these carrots and apples into your dry ingredients.  Now here’s the catch.  These are going to have a definite texture in the finished product.  If you have a picky child or The Boyfriend you’re going to want to do more than grate these.  Probably go ahead and run them through the food processor until it’s just mush, or use apple/carrot sauce.  It’s going to make a slight difference in your finished product texture, but there is a definitely a texture to these muffins and if you think you or your loved ones can’t handle that, you should probably go ahead and puree, puree to your heart’s content.

In a separate bowl mix the eggs, milk, and vanilla, then add it to your dry-ish mixture (it’s not so dry after you add the fruit.  On a side note, I did not use my mixer for these muffins because you only want to get the entire mixture wet, you don’t want to over mix it.   Once you have your wet and dry ingredients mixed together start adding in the other things you love.  I added 4 Tbsp of Flax Seed (because I love it) but you can leave that out if you want.  I also added some dried cranberries that I had left over in my cabinet.  But you can add any little thing you want.  I will add, the muffins would have been a little boring without the cranberries, so maybe think about adding something with a little extra flavor, you could even do chocolate chips!!

Now, I decided to make my own muffin papers out of some parchment paper, but regular muffin papers are fine too.  These muffins don’t rise much so you can definitely fill them pretty full.  Bake them at 350 for what will feel like forever.  I’m sorry I didn’t time it for you, just bake them until a knife comes out clean.

They will definitely make your whole house smell like a delicious factory. Trust me.

As a final thumbs down to those of you who think I’m a secret internet fatty, here’s the nutritional facts before you add any of the extras (mine includes the flax seeds, so feel free to add those and you’ll fit within my nutritional fact parameters.) by the way, the serving size is 1 muffin.

I know you’ve all been waiting for this.  For the stories of how I burned down my kitchen with my new set of kitchen torches.  How the boyfriend’s beard is gone because I singed it off waving my hands around wildly while holding a lit torch. All so I could make desserts like this…

Well, you know what, YOU’RE WRONG.  No major fires, no accidents, no nothing!  And they turned out so pretty and so delicious.  The only thing I’d do differently is use a milk chocolate ganache instead of a bittersweet chocolate ganache.  Don’t hold that against me though.  You can do it better at your house. WITH YOUR TORCH. OH YOU DON’T HAVE ONE?! YOU DIDN’T GET TWO OF THEM FOR CHRISTMAS? OH TOO BAD!

So, I wanted to get the s’moriest of effects so, I tried hard to think of a way to do a graham cracker flavored cupcake.  I settled upon a gingerbread cupcake, which I decided was too spicy, but I did it anyway.  Next time I think I’ll substitute the molasses with something a little less…demanding.  I got 99 problems, and molasses is seriously one of them. SERIOUSLY.

Gingerbread Cupcakes

2/3 cup molasses         1 tsp. baking soda

½ c. sugar                     2 ½ c. flour

½ c. butter                    1 c. sour milk

2 tsp. ginger                   2 eggs beaten

1 tsp. cinnamon

Heat molasses, sugar, shortening, ginger, and cinnamon to boiling, stirring constantly.  Cool about 30 minutes.  Sift together soda and flour.  Add to cooked mixture alternatively with milk and eggs.  Bake at 350° until toothpick comes out clean.

The frosting is wonderfully easy and seriously tastes exactly like a marshmallow that has been melted.  I was amazed. So was The Boyfriend, and after I made him eat that egg puff full of pumpkin he was a little weary of me screaming “OMG COME TRY THIS! RIGHT NOW!”

So, I actually used some powdered egg whites because I’m not really that awesome about using up the yolks after I separate them, and yes I should probably bake a pound cake or whatever other dessert uses a ton of yolks (creme brulee??) but I just don’t do it. Okay? I Don’t.  ANYWAY.  I used the Wilton powdered egg white, it’s just 2 tsp of powder plus 2 Tbsp of water.  Just do the math, not that hard if you decide to go that route.

Faux Marshmallow Frosting

1 ¼ c. granulated sugar      4 egg whites
1 Tbsp vanilla

If using egg whites (not replacement) first combine whites and sugar on double boiler until mixture reaches 160°.  Move to mixer bowl with whisk attachment and beat until room temperature or stiff peaks.

After you’ve done all this, thrown a layer of ganache (I just melt a cup of chocolate chips with 1Tbsp of butter and maybe 2 Tbsp of milk.) in between the cake and the frosting you get this…

You can go ahead and oooh and ahhh at this point.  I’ll allow it.  I know, they’re gorgeous.  These are the babycakes, because we all know how much I love babycakes (they’re just so cute!)

Then you get to pull out the torch.  Seriously, it’s so fun. Get one. Get a fire extinguisher. Get some butane. Start lighting fires.

Admit it, you think it looks like fun.  You can be jealous.

These were definitely a first try and could use some tweaking, but really, cmon, these are like the cutest things you’ve ever seen, just go ahead and admit it.

So it has recently been brought to my attention that the only way to get The Boyfriend to eat healthy foods is to lie to him.  I had exhausted my repertoire of “if you eat all your carrots you won’t have to wear your glasses anymore!” and “SUPER MAN LOVES HIS PEAS” and skipped right on to just crying whenever he turned down the vegetables I cooked.

I’ve been looking at this Deceptively Delicious cookbook since, oh, about our 2nd date (which was actually just a couple weeks ago.) but while we were in Kansas I found it on clearance at Hasting for like 5 dollars.  It’s normally like 20.  MAJOR BARGAIN. I BASICALLY JUST PUT IT INTO MY PURSE AND WALKED ON OUT OF THAT STORE. THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING TO YOU RIGHT NOW.  I also found out that it was written by this lady named Jessica Seinfeld. As in Jerry Seinfeld’s wife. Which was just one more reason for The Boyfriend to enjoy the foods “Look, The Boyfriend, Jerry Seinfeld likes it! Maybe Kramer and Elaine too!”  We won’t talk about George, because I mean, duh.

So one morning for breakfast I made these:

That’s right, Baked Egg Puffs with Yellow Squash or Butternut Squash organic pumpkin puree.

These are soooo easy, trust me, so easy.

All you’re going to need is:

Cooking Spray

2 large eggs

4 large egg whites

1/2 cup organic pumpkin puree

2 Tbsp Cheddar Cheese

2 Tbsp flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Coat 4 ramekins with cooking spray and set onto a baking sheet.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, egg whites, squash puree, cheese, flour, baking powder, and salt until combined. Pour the mixture into the cups and bake until they’re puffy and not runny when you poke it with a knife.

We definitely added more salt to ours because it needed some kick, I think it’s be really good to pop it out of the ramekin (which was surprisingly easy) and eat it with some salsa.  You can taste the pumpkin, but it’s so very slight that even people who aren’t squash friendly can be friends with this.

Yay Jessica Seinfeld!

Here’s the Amazon link.

So, I suck at blogging.  I’m no good at updating when I bake things.  Who knew it was so difficult to actually go through the trouble of getting recipes together.

So we’re going to backpeddle a little and I’ll share with you all the things I’ve been making lately with the grand finale showing up, oh, whenever I get to it, of ME USING MY KITCHEN TORCH!

But for now…here’s a few things I’ve worked on lately… Starting with Christmas Candies

This was quite a process, I decided to make Fudge, Toffee, Peanut Butter Fudge, Divinity, Oreo Truffles, and Chocolate Truffles.

I’ve made most of these things before, but I think they turned out pretty good, minus the divinity which was experimented with quite a bit.  I’ll be trying it another day.

Have you ever sat down and thought about the ridiculous amount of butter that goes into making candies?  Or the supplies in general.  It’s disgusting. Trust me.

There are THREE POUNDS OF BUTTER OVER THERE.  That is enough to give you a pretty sweet heart attack, no questions asked.  Let’s not even talk about the amount of sugar, chocolate, marshmallow fluff, and cream cheese that is over there.  It was disgusting, trust me.  I couldn’t even eat these treats for a couple days and even then I took a large amount of the leftover back to Kansas for my family to eat.

So first, I’ve made this Peanut Butter Fudge before, you can look into that here. I did it a little differently and made it look a little more fancy.  By fancy I mean, I made a double batch.  MORE FAT = FANCY, YA’LL.

Now, onto the single item I made that caused The Boyfriend to drool all over everywhere even though it was by far the simplest thing ever.

Ready for this?

Seriously.

THE OREO TRUFFLE.

Before I even show you what this thing looks like, I’m going to tell you how to make it.  Get your pens and papers ready because it’s a real toughy.  You will need

1 pkg. Oreo Cookies

1 oz pkg. cream cheese (softened)

In your food processor crush the Oreos into a pretty fine powder, then mix together with the softened cream cheese.  Refrigerate for about 2 hours, roll into balls, dip in white chocolate.  Later you can make some fancy green drizzles on top like I did.

The Boyfriend has repeatedly requested these since Christmas and may or may not be getting a box of the for Valentines Day, I just love him that much I suppose.  They will, however, be drizzled in red and pink and maybe a few dipped in regular chocolate.  Like I said, don’t ruin that surprise for me BECAUSE HE NEVER READS THIS BLOG OR ANYTHING.

The other items are made from some tried and true recipes, such as the fudge recipe off the back of the marshmallow fluff jar (The Boyfriend has seriously bragged to people about this recipe, even after I told him it’s not some ancient recipe, it’s off the jar of Kraft Marshmallow Fluff)  Though, in a taste test performed in the IT room apparently my fudge wins out over the gourmet fudge that some Alaskans sent to them.  I’m just that good.

The chocolate truffles are courtesy of none other than the Pioneer Woman.

And the divinity, well, the divinity is from a cookbook The Grandma used to use, and while every other time she or I made divinity it has turned out wonderfully, this time it didn’t turn out.  It was dry and just not right.  I did experiment with adding some other flavors to it though which was interesting and definitely something I may try again in hopes of the divinity turning out a little better.

Successful post 1 or 20000 things I’ve made and never blogged about.

…is the mail when you get back.

That is beside the fact you haven’t been at work for 2 weeks, that was really the best part.  But I guess when you’re facing work the next morning, the next best thing is that you get to open all the Christmas cards you were sent and didn’t recieve because of your mail hold.  Also, all the packages and candy and nice things people said about your blog! Can you believe it! More than one person referenced my blog in their Christmas cards!

I will admit though, the most squealing came when The Former Daycare Boss sent me pictures of T-Bo.  HE IS SO BIG.

Happy Holidays Everyone!! I recieved not one, but TWO kitchen torches for Christmas and also a fire extinguisher, so The Boyfriend said we could even get fuel for it.  It’s just a matter of time until I start posting all the flaming baked goods I’ll be making.  Just as a hint, I think I’m going to be making S’more cupcakes soon!

Thanksgiving is big. Really big.  Huge even.  This is the first year I undertook Thanksgiving alone, usually I would attend someone else’s Thanksgiving and just show up with the can of cranberry sauce (no stems!  See if you can name that movie.) Or I would at the very least have The Sister there to do all the gross stuff like take the giblets out of the turkey.  But this year, oh this year, it was all me.  I started the day before with this…

It’s highly recommended everyone start with this.  Especially if along with cooking Thanksgiving dinner for your The Boyfriend’s family.  Especially if your The Boyfriend tends to wait until you have spent a lot of time meticulously cleaning your house and your The Boyfriend decides that is a good time to leave his crap everywhere.  If YOUR THE BOYFRIEND DOES THIS I RECOMMEND THIS MORE THAN ANYTHING.

Aaanyway, I also recommend you get this cute little kid to come over and keep you company for a while.

It really lowers your stress level.  Just tell me it’s even possible to see that cute little bald head and not want to snuggle it to pieces.  Don’t tell her mother this or she’ll never bring her over again.

I had done a lot of cleaning the weekend before, but like any house there was cleaning to be done the day before still.  I cleaned every square inch of that house and also set the table.  I don’t think anything is better than a pretty table.  Especially when someone bought herself these awesome napkin rings long before Thanksgiving JUST WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO COME OVER AND EAT DINNER WITH HER.

So, all these things happened Wednesday, the day before the big day.  Thanksgiving takes a lot of planning, about a week before T-Day I sat down and made a menu, and got out the ol’ box of recipes and started listing every single thing I would need for each recipe.  Having a thorough list es muy importante.  Having functional Spanish, es…meh.  My menu for T-Day was as follows:

• Veggie Plate (Carrots, Cauliflower, Olives, Dip)
• Fudge
• Sweet Potatoes
• Corn
• Canned Cranberry Sauce
• Cranberry Salad
• Turkey
• Mashed Potatoes
• Gravy
• Ham
• Rolls
• Pumpkin Pie
• Chocolate Pie

For four people this was a crazy large amount of food.  What was even more awesome was that my job gave us a 25 lb turkey.  I did not know this was going to happen the weekend before WHEN WE WENT OUT AND BOUGHT ALL OF THE GROCERIES FOR THANKSGIVING, INCLUDING A TURKEY.  It would have been pretty nice to know that, but beggars can’t be choosers.  The best/worst part was, I tried to donate the huge turkey, I wanted some family to have a turkey that couldn’t have had one otherwise, but all the food banks and community dinners in the area did not need turkeys! I’m glad they were so full up, but I still would have loved to donate my turkey to them.

On Day 1 of T-day (the day before) I cooked both pies, made the beginnings of the cranberry salad, and was going to make the fudge, but housewives like me tend to get a little, uh, distracted when babies and wine come over to play.  I didn’t quite get to that fudge on Day 1.  Don’t worry, I was up at the crack of dawn on T-Day putting in the turkey and prepping the rest of the food.

Everything turned out wonderfully and despite the fact that it was an insane amount of work alone, I pumped it all out, the boyfriend made the ham, the fire, and this awesome beard….

We ended up with quite the buffet:

And this beautiful turkey, GO ME.

This post was exhausting, so I am refusing to include recipes today.  Instead, you can all leave nasty comments for The Boyfriend who was supposed to have a whole lot of other things updated and re-done on FTHW to make my life easier.  Gosh, you’d think after that huge Thanksgiving meal he would have been feeling, well, Thankful and Giving.

Happy Thanksgiving and here’s to time to stop eating real food and start eating all sugary Christmas food!

I am promising a fabulous Thanksgiving update VERY VERY SOON. I promise you. I promise it will be some time before Monday.

Today, before embarking on my Halloween cooking, we made our traditional Sunday trip to Top Pot for donuts.  Boy, do I love that place, delicious donuts and fabulous coffee.  Plus the boyfriend takes me there and let’s me dress up and wear boots and pretend I’m French.  Apparently I looked French today as some crazy homeless guy told me if I thought I was in France, I better take a look around.

mmmmmmmmmmm

Onward, I have a problem.  A real problem.  One I thought The Boyfriend would help to squash once I moved here, turns out he just completely enables it. HE’S AN ENABLER.  Good thing I’m not an alcoholic.   THANK GOD, SOMEONE PASS THE BOOZE.  The problem, oh yes, the problem, I buy things, things like dishes and cookie cutters.  SO MANY DISHES AND COOKIE CUTTERS.  I can’t help it, I love having new sets of dishes and cookie cutters.  WHAT IF THE OPPORTUNITY COMES UP THAT I NEED TO MAKE  HEDGEHOG COOKIES, THEN WE’LL REALLY FEEL STUPID WE DIDN’T BUY THAT SET OF COOKIE CUTTERS, WON’T WE!??  Luckily, The Boyfriend tends to agree, mostly  because he likes cookies.  On our monthly trip to Ikea this weekend I picked up a set of Christmas cookie cutters and somehow a new service for 6 set of white dishes snuck their way into our kitchen, then later that day we made a trip to THE SUPER-WALMART, YA’LL, to buy Halloween supplies and I cried like a little kid and threw a tantrum until he promised to buy me the giant set of Wilton Halloween cutters.  I might have just promised cookies, but you know, whatever.  It might be an issue when we had to purchase a giant storage device for my cookie cutters which will not fit into any cabinet in our kitchen, I already tried, but THINK OF ALL THE DELICIOUS COOKIES I CAN MAKE.  Oh and Dad, DAD! Can you find the cookie cutters I left stashed at your house? I have some room now…

I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, The Boyfriend NEEDS SPACE TOO.  But I’ll share a little secret with you.  We have a storage unit.  A HUGE storage unit.  AND IT IS FULL OF THE BOYFRIENDS CRAP HE SAVES.  The crap he saves for those hard, sad, long, cold days when he might need to read about his homework assignment from January 28, 1999.  It’s an even trade.

Anyway, cookies, you know I love Alton Brown so I used his recipe, like usual, and also his recipe for royal icing which is painfully easy and so delicious it’s not even worth it to whip up a buttercream.  Plus, royal icing is better for decorating cookies, it hardens well and honestly, it’s got a better color, it starts out perfectly snow whiteso you can tint it without having to remember that you need to make up for the yellow tint.  So easy, whip together 3 egg whites and about a tsp of vanilla (I use my tried and true doubling of vanilla in all recipes tip on this one) until it is frothy, then add in 4 cups of powdered sugar, mix on a low speed until combined (I add in one heaping spoonful at a time to avoid dumping a giant amount in at once.) then when it is all mixed in beat on a high speed for about 5-10 minutes, until the mixture is whipped into glossy peaks.  When you tint it, use gel colors, using the drops will water it down too much, just trust me on this one.

On to what you really care about…

I have been thinking for weeks about how I would like to add fondant spiders to the webs, and basically, they turned out famously.

The Boyfriend walked in and said “Wow! you put a lot of work into those spiders!!” Let me tell you, it may look liek they were really hard work.  But in reality, they took all of about 2 seconds to assemble.  I used the slightly old fondant in my fridge (I PROMISE I threw it away after these spiders) tinted a little bit black, rolled two balls one smaller than the other, attached them with a little vermouth on a paintbrush, then used frosting and piped on the legs.  I know, right!  It was super super easy and looks pretty awesome, I’ll admit it.  NOT HUMBLE AT ALL.

In closing, I’m incredibly distracted by the fact we are watching Battle in Seattle and I am screaming out things like “OMG THERE’S THE CARWASH! OMG THERE’S (insert random Seattle place)!!!!”  Trust me, go out and grab this movie, it’s amazing and apalling all at the same time.  It’s about the WTO riots in Seattle in the 90’s.  Plus you can see our beautiful metro buses in several different scenes.

So, The Boyfriend and The Boyfriend’s Girlfriend have been working on some pretty new designs for FTHW. In the meantime I’d like to confess something to you.  I didn’t eat a lot of jarred applesauce as a kid.  I was spoiled, horribly horribly spoiled.  The Uncle owned an apple orchard and The Grandparents froze foods allllll the time and would make enough applesauce for an entire year each fall.  I’ve grown incredibly spoiled and eating applesauce out of a jar just doesn’t cut it anymore.  I knew I needed to bring this to my daycare kids because their parents should know that EVERYONE SHOULD EAT FOOD THAT IS MADE FROM THE ACTUAL PRODUCT IT COMES FROM AND NOT FROM A JAR. BREAD DOES NOT COME FROM A BAG. APPLESAUCE DOES NOT COME FROM A JAR. CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES ARE NOT FROM CHIPS AHOY.  I like to spoil them away from foods whenever possible (p.s. I love you, chips ahoy, I’m so sorry I ever said that about you.)

Applesauce is painfully easy, in fact, a couple years ago when I called The Dad and said “hey, remember how Gramma and Grampa used to make applesauce and freeze it? How do I do that?” to which he replied “Get some apples.  Peel them and cut them up.  Boil the piss out of them.  Then mash them.”  I have found applesauce to be best when you mix the kinds of apples.  In my latest adventure I used only Granny Smith apples and it was so tart even I couldn’t eat it, and I love my applesauce to make your mouth pucker a little.  So here is what I’m saying. Use a lot of tart apples, but use a couple sweet apples too.  That’s the way to do it, trust me on this one.

Now, you don’t have to do it this way, but I heard this works to mash up your apples….

I might have used the Cuisinart, but you decide.