Saturday April 27, 2013

It's Spring!

It's Springtime in Colorado although you wouldn't know it with all the snow we have gotten this year. I've decided to test my thumbs this year and see if they are green or not, My husband believes that I kill any plant that I come near, but the cacti in my kitchen window beg to differ, yes I know anyone can grow a cactus. Anyways back to my testing, I've heard that pumpkins are fairly hardy plants and judging by the fields of them that pop up around Colorado every year I figure it can't be too difficult to grow one plant...

Since the growing season in Colorado is so short (our last frost is usually at the end of May) I figured I'd give the little plant a head start and start it inside. Then I started to worry. What if the little seed I planted didn't grow? So I decided I would plant an extra one, or two or... okay I'll admit I went a little overboard and I planted 19 seeds. What will I do if they all sprout you ask? Well luckily my parents have a big yard and I'm sure I will be able to pass a few off on them. If they all sprout then they are going to be getting passed out to anyone who will take them.

Anyways I planted the little seeds about a week ago and to my surprise when I checked this morning I saw this!

YAY!!!! I have a plant! Now assuming I don't somehow manage to kill it I may get to change my husband's mind about my being a plant killer. Wish me luck!

Chocolate chip cookies

Okay Enough about the plants. Now onto another of my ventures for the day. Technically I had to start these cookies yesterday because the dough needs to chill for 24hours according to Pinterest (another addiction of mine) these are supposed to be some of the best chocolate chip cookies out there. 

Okay okay, I'm REALLY lazy and didn't feel like lugging the boys to the store to search for bittersweet chocolate. For those of you without kids, getting them in and out of the car can be a HUGE pain in the butt, not to mention how many times I would have to hear "Are we done yet?"

Anyways instead of 1.25 lbs of bittersweet chocolate I opted to use 2 bags of semi-sweet chocolate chips and a bar of dark chocolate. Asking me to wait for dough to chill is like torture... I'm one of those people who will suffer through the pain of burning my mouth because I was too anxious to wait for the cookie to cool down.

(To help ease the 'pain' of waiting on these cookies I made a batch of Reese's pieces cookies to tide myself and the boys over.)

After 24 hours of waiting I pulled the dough out of the fridge and it was pretty dang solid, I'm not talking rock, but definitely not scoopable (yes I am aware that is not a real word) I ended up slicing hunks of it off then pressing it into an ice cream scoop to make sure the cookies were all the same size. Yes I did say ice cream scoop, I honestly believe there is no such thing as too big of a cookie. I also believe that cookies taste better when they are bigger. After getting the first batch in the oven I realized about 6minutes in that I had forgotten to sprinkle them with sea salt (DUH) so I quick opened the oven and sprinkled some on. I honestly think it worked better because the salt just rolled off the batch of cookies that I sprinkled before putting in the oven.

Here are the resulting cookies. I'll admit they are pretty darn good, but not wait 24hours for them good. I think the best parts were that the grated dark chocolate gave an overall consistent chocolate flavor and the sea salt gave it a nice kick to offset the sweetness. 

Corn Dog Muffins

I'm sure these cookies are not easy on the waistline (so few are) so I'm going to make an apple pie smoothie for myself for dinner, while the boys are going to have corn dog muffins. Another Pinterest find I got the basic idea here but being lazy I opted to cheat and use store bought betty crocker corn bread muffin mix and since I don't have a mini muffin pan I'm just going to use a regular size muffin tin and make the hot dog pieces bigger. (If you can't tell already by my laziness with the chocolate in the cookies I'm a big fan of improvising if I think it will turn out well.)

Here are the the essentials. I greased the muffin tins and cut the hot dogs into thirds. As a side note it only took me one muffin before I realized it's a lot easier to fill the cups and then stick the hot dog in the middle than it is to fill around them, unless of course you were piping the cornbread mix in.

here's the corn dog muffins before they were cooked.

The finished product. Yes I chuckled when I realized these things totally look like little boobs. Oh well, the kids loved them and they will probably make it into our meal rotation because they were easy, fast and the boys liked them. Even the hubby approved of them.