no TWD: Chocolate Armagnac Cake

On Saturday I started making this week's TWD, the Chocolate Armagnac Cake.  First, you flambe your prunes in the armagnac, so I tried to track some of that down.  In Washington state, all non-beer and wine alcohol must be purchased at a state run liquor store, so the selection can be limited.  They did have one bottle of armagnac but it was in a gift box and a rather large size and quite expensive.  I didn't feel like shelling out that much, so I decided to use amaretto which we already had.  I was nervous about the flaming part, but man was it fun!  The rainbow effect you can barely see in the picture is my flame.  So cool!  I forgot to turn down the lights when I did this so it would have been more impressive.  

Unfortunately, this is as far as I got in this recipe.  Dorie says you can do the prunes up to one day ahead.  It's now been three days, and I'm afraid to use the prunes now.  They have been stored in the refrigerator so maybe they are OK, but I don't know if I want to take the chance.  I think instead of stressing out and rushing to get this cake done, I will just let it go, enjoy reading about other's cakes, and move on to next week's Lemon Custard Cup.  

TWD: Caramel Crunch Bars

This week's TWD is the Caramel Crunch Bars.  I was *really* looking forward to these.  I love rich desserts, toffee, butterfingers, etc., and I was hoping this cookie would fall along those lines.  In reading the recipe, it sounded similar to the Chocolate Saltine Cookies that I've made before and are deliciously rich and awesome when frozen.  I figured Dorie's would be better with the shortbread crust and well, because she's Dorie and she gives so many recipes that magical touch.  I even went against my tendencies and made a full batch instead of a half batch like I usually do, I was so confident these would be amazing. 

I am so disappointed to say how underwhelmed I was by these!  I just did not care for them.  They were not as rich as I'd hoped.  And with all that butter and toffee bits, there are just too many calories in these that I couldn't justify eating something that I thought was "just OK".  I would have much preferred the Saltine Cookies - those are so easy to make and I do not need to get out my Kitchen Aid.  I don't mind bringing out the heavy power tools for baking, but it's got to be worth it and these were not for me.  

I'm sure I'm in the minority in not liking these cookies.  At least I've learned my lesson to stick with making half batches until I know I like something (like I did with the world peace cookies).  

Orla Kiely

Yes, I have been caught up in the Orla Kiely craze.  She has designed a collection for Target, and a lot of people out there are going quite crazy for it!  I really wanted to get some mugs.  I liked the patterns, plus they are ceramic.  The coordinating dishes are melamine, and I already have enough plastic plates in my house so I am not interested in those.  Daughter #1 picked out the green pear and apple pattern, Daughter #2 picked the blue flower pattern, and I picked the brown flower pattern.  I almost went with different one, but my girls convinced me the brown one was nicer.  The centers of the flowers are each a different color, the ones on the other side of the mug are orange and red.  These are good size mugs - I love my coffee in the mornings so I need a mug that can hold a generous amount.  The girls have been enjoying hot chocolate and chamomile tea.  We make a nice trio, I think!

Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day!

Bargain Shopping

Today I stopped by Half Price Books.  Whenever I go I always check out the cookbook section,  you just never know what you will find.  I always scan the Italian section to see if there are any Giada De Laurentiis cookbooks.  I like her show and I've made a lot of her recipes from Food Network, but I never want to shell out for a cookbook.  In some ways I figure it's a good sign her books don't appear at HPB - they must be good and people don't want to get rid of them!  So I was pretty surprised today to see a copy of Giada's Family Dinners.  Eight dollars, so not too bad.  The cover is a little worn but the pages inside are very clean.  This book contains one of my favorites, Chicken Tetrazzini, and a lot of the soup recipes look good so I went ahead and purchased it.  When I got home I looked it up on Amazon:  four-and-a-half stars over all, 77 five-star reviews and only 1 one-star review.  Hopefully this book will be a keeper.  Part of me feels why bother buying the cookbook, I can just get the recipes I want from FN.  But sometimes it's nicer to have a bound book rather than just scraps of paper.     

TWD: World Peace Cookies

How tall is world peace?  In my house, I guess not tall enough!  These went faster than you can say United Nations.  This week's TWD was chosen by Jessica of cookbookhabit and I think it is safe to say these are going to be an overwhelming hit.  I for one am glad to be back in the game, after two Baking disappointments in a row.  

Not much to say about these lovelies.  I baked them per the instructions, used Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips, which were rather large and made the frozen dough a little hard to cut into slices, but not too bad and easy to squish back into a round shape.  I froze my dough overnight (I love that you can just have this dough in your freezer waiting to be baked.)  I only made a half batch which was an awful mistake.  These cookies are full batch worthy.  Oh my gosh - can we talk about the dough?!?  No eggs, so perfectly safe to eat the raw dough, and it is the most delicious dough ever.  It's a good thing the cookies turn out even better, otherwise I'd be making batches of dough and just having that.  

So thanks Jessica for an awesome pick for this week.  The worst thing about World Peace?  It doesn't seem to last.  

HTCE: Smoky Black Bean Soup and Fish Tacos

I love cookbooks.  I love to read them.  But I have a bad habit of not actually cooking from them sometimes!  I received the 10th Anniversary addition of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything for Christmas this year, and there is no way I'm going to let this big boy just sit on the shelf.  I made his banana bread a few weeks ago and that was very very good.  This weekend I made his Smoky Black Bean Soup and Fish Tacos.

I hesitate to even post this picture.  It tasted so much better than it looks!  Soup is very hard to photograph, I've decided.  And the taco isn't looking so hot either.  Nevertheless, both of these turned out very good.  I went easy on the "smoky" for the soup by only using a very small amount of the chipotle in adobo.  I'd used that before and I know that too much does not work for me.  I think if I make this soup again I'd leave it out entirely.  It's kind of a waste to buy a can and then just use a tiny bit.  For the tacos I used halibut.  Oh yeah!  I just love halibut.  

So far, I am liking this cookbook.  There are menu ideas in the back, plus lists of favorites (102 essential recipes, top 100 fast recipes, and top 100 make ahead recipes.)  I'm tempted to pick a list and just start cooking my way through it.  Like with TWD, I would probably make a lot of things I would not normally pick on my own but end up really enjoying.  

Anyone else out there with HTCE (silly question, I know!)  What are your favorites?