Secret Recipe Club: Chocolate Apricot Marshmallow Crunch

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned the blog Mother Would Know, which is written by a wonderful woman named Laura.  Laura is the mother to two grown children, but is ready and willing to be the fill-in mom for anyone who needs cooking advice!  Her blog has great recipes, lots and lots of tips, and is incredibly welcoming.  I really enjoyed poking around on the blog.

 

There were plenty of very appealing recipes to pick from.  I strongly considered Overnight Holiday Dinner Buns, Moist Almond Bread, and Tuna Stuffed Tomatoes, and will probably make all three very soon.  The recipe I ended up choosing was Chocolate Apricot Marshmallow Crunch: Rice Krispie treats topped with mini marshmallows and diced up dried apricots.  Why have I never thought of putting apricots on Rice Krispie Treats?  The combo just sounded amazing, and I was already looking for a dessert recipe to try, so the choice was simple.

 

How did they turn out?  Every bit as good as I hoped!  My husband and I were happy I made a double batch.  I'm also grateful for the trick I learned from Laura- use parchment paper to press down the cereal mixture and the topping!  It won't stick and works much better than a spoon or hands.  Why didn't I think of that before?  The funniest part is that a few hours before I made these treats, my own mom called and in the course of the conversation, she mentioned that parchment paper was awesome for pressing sticky Rice Krispie Treats into the pan.  So, thank you to both Mother Would Know and my actual mother!

  

My tiny changes were to not soak the apricots in juice because the chewy texture of the plain apricots appealed to me, and I added vanilla extract, because why not?  Regardless, what a fun and slightly different dessert choice for any time of year, but especially autumn/Halloween because of the colors.  I actually chose them in part because of the colors.  We live in Alaska and I love it here, but the end of summer is always sad and a tiny bit panic inducing as we gear up for another 6+ months of nonstop snow and cold.  I make a real effort to to try to get excited about autumn: wintry foods, Halloween movies, fall decorations, etc.  These Rice Krispie Treats fit in perfectly.  Thank you, Laura, both for the great recipe and for helping ease the transition into fall!

 

  

Chocolate Apricot Marshmallow Crunch

 

1/2 C finely diced dried apricots

1/3 C mini chocolate chips

3 Tbsp butter

8 oz mini marshmallows (by weight)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

5 C Rice Krispies cereal

 

Cut two long strips of parchment paper to fit the inside of an 8 by 8 baking dish with a few inches of overhang on each end.  Overlap the strips so they make a + sign in the dish.  Set aside.

 

Melt butter in a large pot over medium-low heat, then add marshmallows and cook, stirring constantly, just until marshmallows are melted.  Immediately remove the pot from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract, then the cereal.  

  

Once the cereal is completely coated, dump it into the prepared baking dish and press it in evenly with the back of a spoon.  You can use the parchment paper ends to press the mixture down, too.  Sprinkle the apricot pieces and mini chocolate chips evenly over the cereal mixture.  Use the long ends of parchment paper to firmly press the topping down.  

  

Let set for a couple of hours until cutting into pieces to serve- you can use the parchment paper overhang to lift the Rice Krispie Treats out of the dish and then cut them into serving pieces.

An InLinkz Link-up

Stout Chili

This is my version of a chili recipe from Nick Kindelsperger over at Serious Eats.  It's originally from Bon Appetit.  After going to a local restaurant called Silver Gulch for years now, my husband and I finally tried their chili a couple of weeks ago, and were blown away.  It was so good!  It had stout in it, so of course I immediately planned to try making it myself.  My version is probably not as rich, uses ground beef instead of steak, has a lot more beans, and smaller pieces of veggies, which is just how I like it.  The flavor of this chili is awesome, especially for one that's simmered such a short period of time.  Honestly, I think this chili would be good without the beer, but the beer deepens the flavor in an indescribably good way.  I'm pretty sure this recipe will supplant the favorite red chili recipe I've been making for the past 5 years.  Next time I may even make a double batch because chili freezes so well.  Yum!  (Update: I actually never made my old red chili recipe again because we love this one so much, and I do always make a double batch of this one!)

 

This chili lasted for several meals, but for dinner the first night, I served the chili in corn bread bowls.  A couple of weeks ago, we impulse purchased a waffle bowl maker and I had the idea to cook corn bread batter in it.  Turned out awesome, and that's what's pictured below.
   

Quick Note:  I'm not fond of big pieces of onion in chili, so I chopped my onions in the food processor.  I also minced the jalapeno and garlic in it.  For the tomatoes, you can either drain them (reserve the juice!) and chop them, or blend them with a food processor.  I am weird and don't like chunks of canned tomato (fresh are fine), so I blended mine.

 

 

Stout Chili

1 1/2 lbs ground beef

2 onions, diced

1 bell pepper, diced

1 jalapeno, minced

5 cloves garlic, minced

4 Tbsp chili powder

3/4 Tbsp ground cumin

1/2 Tbsp ground coriander

4 tsp salt (or to taste)

12 oz bottle stout beer (I used Alaskan Stout)

28 oz can whole tomatoes (chopped with a knife/kitchen shears or blended smooth)

2 28 oz cans pinto beans, drained (or 1 lb dried pinto beans, soaked, simmered until soft, and drained)
    

In a large pot over medium-high heat, cook ground beef until it's cooked through.  Scoop out beef into a bowl and drain any excess fat.  Reduce heat to medium or medium-low.  Add onions, peppers, and jalapenos, and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables get tender and the onions begin to turn clear, about 10 minutes.  Add garlic, plus the chili powder, cumin, and coriander, and stir constantly for another minute or two, being careful not to let it burn.  Stir in beer and remaining ingredients, including the cooked, ground beef.  Bring to a boil, stir, then reduce heat to low and simmer chili for 30 minutes.

Serve topped with grated cheese, sour cream, or whatever else you'd like.

 

Yield:  About 8 main dish servings

Eyeball Cupcakes

My boss asked me to make some Halloween cupcakes, and of course I was happy to oblige.  Other people were already bringing owl, witch hat, ghost, and spider cupcakes, so I was left looking for an easy to decorate cupcake that would still look good.  My enthusiasm for cupcake decorating is strong, but my talent is less so, and these eyeballs from The Brewer & The Baker were a great choice!  The cupcakes went over very well at work and were immediately recognized as eyeballs.  Several people also commented on enjoying the lime flavor.

When I made these eyeball cupcakes, I just placed the gummi candies right on top of the veiny cupcakes.  Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me that the red from the vein frosting would show through the translucent gummis and they ended up looking more brown than green.  Below, I included instructions to spread a small amount of white frosting on the bottom of each gummi so the red veins won't be visible.

Quick Note:  If you can't find Lifesaver Gummis, you can just use regular Lifesavers.  Adhere the Mini M&Ms with a tiny bit of frosting.  I went with the gummis because these cupcakes were for toddlers and preschoolers and I feared the Lifesavers could be a choking hazard.

Eyeball Cupcakes

1 box white cake mix (enough to make 24 cupcakes)

1 small box lime Jell-o powder

1 can white frosting

1 squeeze pouch red frosting (or you can add lots of red gel food coloring to additional white frosting)

1 package Lifesaver Gummis (one package had 27 green candies, you can always make different colored eyes if you run out of green)

24 brown Mini M&Ms (you can buy these in either a large bag or small tubes, two tubes had enough brown candies)

Preheat oven and prepare cake mix according to package directions, adding the box of Jell-o powder to the mix.  Bake in 24 cupcake papers according to box directions.  Cool completely.

Set aside about 3 tablespoons of the white frosting, then frost the cupcakes with the remaining frosting.  Pipe red frosting over the cupcakes to look like veins.  

Place one Mini M&M into the center of each green Lifesaver Gummi, it should be a perfect fit.  I did it so the M and Lifesaver logo were facing the same direction.  

One at a time, spread a small amount of white frosting over the bottom of the Lifesaver Gummi (do this on the side with the M and the Lifesaver logo), then immediately place frosting side down on the center of a cupcake.  Repeat with remaining candies and cupcakes.

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins and Donuts

Earlier this week, I stumbled upon my blog's soulmate: Macaroni and Cheesecake!  In addition to loving the name of the blog, I found tons of fantastic looking recipes that I want to make really soon.  This is the first recipe I've made from the blog, but we're having another of the recipes for dinner tonight.

  

This recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins was supposed to make 30 muffins.  I have exactly enough muffin tins for 30 muffins, and even had exactly 30 orange muffin papers.  Perfect!  Unfortunately, as I was prepping the tins for the (already made) batter, I couldn't find one of my 12 hole muffin tins.  This seemed like the perfect time to finally use the donut pans my mom gave me, so in addition to 18 muffins, I got 6 normal sized donuts, 12 mini donuts, and the rest of the batter I baked in 3 Fiesta bouillon bowls.  I'm honestly a little skeptical that the batter would have only made 30 muffins!  

  

Regardless, everything turned out great.  I brushed the donuts with melted butter and rolled them in cinnamon sugar.  My husband loved them.  I liked them, too, but preferred the plain muffins.  They're very moist and light, with a delicate pumpkin flavor, barely a hint of cinnamon, and of course, the melty little chocolate chips.  I chose to use mini chocolate chips (personal preference in muffins), and that was definitely a good call since I ended up making mini donuts with some of the batter and full sized chips would have been huge.  For some reason, in my opinion, when they were freshly baked, a bit of the flavor of the muffins was lost with the addition (and added texture) of the cinnamon sugar.  By the next day, the flavors of the donuts had melded nicely and I actually liked them better then.

   

I froze most of the muffins so I could put them in my husband's work lunches.  I'm pretty sure I'll be making this recipe again because we both really enjoyed them!

 

 Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins
  

15 oz can pumpkin puree

2 C sugar

1 1/2 C canola oil

4 eggs

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

3 C flour

10 oz bag mini chocolate chips
  

Preheat oven to 400 and either line approximately 30 muffin holes with paper liners, or grease the wells of donut pans.
  

Stir together pumpkin, sugar, oil, and eggs until smooth, then stir in baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.  Stir in flour until batter is smooth, then stir in the chocolate chips.
  

If you're making muffins, you can just spoon batter into the muffin liners 2/3 full.  If you're making donuts, I suggest placing the batter into a gallon sized Ziploc bag, cutting off one of the corners of the bag, and piping the batter into the pans.  You want the pans to be about 2/3 full.
  

Bake pans of muffins/donuts until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes for muffins for about 10 minutes for donuts.
  

If you're making donuts, as soon as they come out of the oven, melt butter (probably about 4 Tbsp, maybe more) in a bowl.  Stir together about 1/2 C white sugar and 2 tsp ground cinnamon.  Run a plastic knife around the edges of the warm donuts to loosen them from the pan, then place them on a wire cooling rack.  Brush both sides with the melted butter, then roll them in the cinnamon sugar.  Place them back on the cooling rack to cool off.
  

If you want to freeze the muffins, let them cool completely, then place them in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.  Transfer them to the freezer until they're completely frozen, then place them together in a gallon Ziploc bag and store them in the freezer.  You can either let them thaw at room temperature, or warm them in the microwave.
  

The leftover donuts can be stored in a container at room temperature.
  

Yield: Approximately 36 muffins (my guess) or a lot more donuts!

Graveyard Cake

Well, darn!  So much for sharing several Halloween recipes.  I attempted to make Candy Corn Pizza (less horrifying than it sounds, look here at Our Best Bites) but somehow or other after it baked, the mozzarella was the same color as the cheddar.  Delicious, but unimpressive and not worth blogging about.  Then I was going to make Spider Melt Sandwiches, but we ended up having pizza instead.  Then on actual Halloween night, I wasn't feeling well so didn't make my standard Mummy Fingers.  I have the ingredients for the spider sandwiches so will probably just make them anyway, and if they turn out well I will either post the recipe in a couple of days or wait until next year.  The Mummy Fingers- which somehow escaped getting posted last year, too- will wait as well.

Hopefully this awesome cake will make up somewhat for the boring and unfestive spirit on the blog!  Every Halloween, I want to make some kind of spooky dessert, and for some reason that dessert almost without fail ends up being Graveyard Cake or Graveyard Cupcakes.  I figure it's pretty much tradition now, so decided to do it again this year!  Usually I use a cake mix since it's the decorations that are the star, but this year I wanted to try something different and used the base for the Mississippi Mud Cake from the Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice blog.

Poor Reeni will probably be horrified at what I did to her cake- left off the marshmallow/ganache/coconut/pecan/cherry topping and used just melted chocolate chips and food coloring tinted canned frosting (sorry, Reeni!), but I couldn't help myself!  The cake looked so, so good and I wanted to make it immediately when I ran across the recipe a couple of weeks ago, but the only chocolate cake I was planning on making anytime soon was my traditional Halloween graveyard cake.  Sadly, chocolate ganache and those other yummy toppings do not look like a graveyard, so I had to change things up a bit.  Used just chocolate chips instead of the ganache because I wanted to safely store the cake at room temperature for a few days and ganache has cream in it, and purchased frosting simply because so far I have never, ever found a recipe for homemade vanilla frosting that I thought tasted okay (not a fan of the powdered sugar flavor).  If you decide to make this cake, though, you are more than welcome to make both the ganache from the original recipe and homemade vanilla frosting, or you can jump over to the original recipe and make a Mississippi Mud Cake the way it was intended to be made!

Justifications aside, this is a really good cake.  Reeni said her cake was dense and brownie-like, which is of course what I expected, but mine ended up being fluffy and soft and moist and perfect.  The thin layer of chocolate on top really enhanced the chocolate flavor, and the frosting just made it even better.  Next time I will definitely make the cake with the ganache and marshmallow fluff because I can only imagine it is amazing, too!  And although I was quite happy with the amount of chocolate in the cake, real chocolate lovers could even use 3/4 C cocoa.  My other favorite chocolate cake recipe (uh, the one on the box of Hershey's cocoa) uses 3/4 C cocoa for the same size cake so I don't see how it could be bad!

Update:  Amazingly, this cake stayed yummy and moist for a solid week.  Homemade cakes usually get stale really fast, but not this one!  It will be my go to chocolate cake recipe now, no more boxed mix.  The only reason I used the boxed mix anyway was because they stay good a lot longer.

Graveyard Cake

Cake:
1 C butter
1 C hot water
1/2 C cocoa
2 C sugar
2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t espresso powder (optional, I didn't have this and didn't want to buy it)
1/2 t salt
2 eggs
1/2 C sour cream
1 t vanilla extract

Topping:
about 1 C chocolate chips
1 jar vanilla frosting (or about 1 1/2- 2 C of your favorite vanilla frosting recipe)
green and black food coloring
Milano cookies
pumpkin shaped candy corn
about 5 Oreo cookies, pulverized in a blender

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9 by 13 baking dish.  Place butter in a medium bowl and microwave until melted.  Stir in hot water and cocoa powder.  Set aside.  In a mixing bowl, mix together sugar, flour, baking soda, optional espresso powder, and salt.  Pour in cocoa mixture and mix just until combined.  Add eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract, and beat just until smooth.  Don't over mix.  Pour batter into prepared baking dish and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

As soon as the cake is done, pour the chocolate chips on top.  About a cup is good, you can just eyeball it and use more if you want, but keep in mind a thick layer will be harder to stick the tombstones through!  Place cake back into oven and let the chocolate chips melt for a minute or two.  Make sure not to walk away or you risk doing horrible things to the chocolate chips!  When the chips have melted enough, they will look very shiny.  Remove the cake from the oven and do one of my all time favorite kitchen activities: Evenly spread the melted chocolate over the surface, while imagining the opening credits of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and humming "The Candy Man Can" and wonder why you don't melt chocolate chips onto things more often just so you can spread it around.  After you finish having fun, set the cake aside and let it cool completely before decorating.

To decorate, place a couple tablespoons of frosting into a small plastic bag and add a bit of black food coloring.  Squish it around to mix, snip off the very tip of a corner of the bag, and pipe "RIP" (or whatever you want) onto the cookies.  Alternatively, you could probably use more melted chocolate chips for this.  Set the cookies aside and mix the frosting with green food coloring.  Spread over cake, then use a spoon to make the frosting look like grass by touching a spoon against the surface of the frosting and pulling upwards.  Do this all over the cake.  Carefully press the tombstone cookies down through the layer of chocolate, then sprinkle Oreo crumbs in front to look like freshly turned soil.  Place candy corn pumpkins around tombstones.  Enjoy!

Yield: About 16 servings

Worms and Blood

It's that time of year again!  The time when I make all kinds of weird, creepy looking food (with gross names) in the spirit of Halloween and my sweet husband happily eats it all anyway.  I am definitely still a kid at heart and really enjoy making spooky food.  Last year, I made such delights as chocolate oatmeal with ghosts for breakfast, deviled eyes as a snack, and for dinner vampire bat legs with maggots, serpentine stromboli, and baked mice.  Dessert was honey caramel apples, which is not remotely creepy but still very festive. 

Some of these I plan to make again this year because they were so good, but of course I had to find some new fun recipes for this year!  To kick things off, I made the horrifying but yummy Worms and Blood.  Found the idea last year on Our Best Bites (go check out their blog if you want even more great Halloween food ideas).  Okay, so the worms are just sliced hot dogs and the blood is barbecue sauce.  The effect is pretty spooky though and it tastes quite good.  I used homemade barbecue sauce, but you can use whatever kind you want.  Enjoy!

Worms and Blood

8 hot dogs
1/2 T butter
1/2 C barbecue sauce

Slice each hot dog lengthwise into 8 pieces so they're long and skinny like worms.  Heat the butter in a skillet over medium-high and add the hot dogs.  Saute, stirring frequently, until the hot dogs curl up and get a little browned.  Reduce the heat and add the barbecue sauce, stirring until it's heated through.  Serve on hot dog buns.

Yield: About 6 sandwiches, depending on how much you put on each bun.  They reheat well, or you can very easily cook less hot dogs and just use less BBQ sauce.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Cranberry Pumpkin Loaf

Okay, so this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is for Cranberry WALNUT Pumpkin Loaf: a beautiful yeast bread with a hint of spice and full of pumpkin, cranberries and golden raisins.  I left out the walnuts because there is only 1 kind of bread that I have ever enjoyed with nuts in it.  The recipe also called for fresh cranberries but our store didn't have any, so I used dried cranberries.  I also halved the amount of nutmeg because I'm not the biggest fan of it, and I used allspice to make up the difference.

Must admit this is not a recipe I would usually make, but that is the entire reason I joined this baking group: to broaden my baking horizons.  While I like pumpkin bread okay, I already have a favorite recipe.  Also, neither of us care for dried fruit in our baked goods, especially not yeast breads.  However, the concept of a pumpkin yeast bread was intriguing, so I decided to go for it.

Anyway, to the actual recipe, which you can check out over at the blog This Bountiful Backyard.  This was another easy bread recipe, but definitely time consuming.  After you make the dough, it has to rise at room temperature for a couple of hours, then go into the fridge overnight, then sit out at room temperature for four more hours, then rise for another two hours after being shaped into loaves.  A number of TWD participants just skipped the fridge time and next time I make it (there will be a next time!), I will skip it as well.  I'd also like to try forming the dough into balls and baking them all in a 9 by 13 pan as rolls.  They would be the perfect addition to the Thanksgiving or Christmas table!

The verdict:  This bread is very nice.  The bit of spice is great and surprisingly, we both really like the dried fruit.  Good texture, too, and perfect when cut into thick slices.  I was expecting a dense bread, but it really isn't very dense.  The loaf in my picture looks like it didn't rise much, but it actually rose like a champ- the recipe calls for the bread to be baked in 3 tiny pans but I used 2 big pans so my bread is small.  I love how it looks- the orange bread with the yellow and red fruit is just beautiful, and it smelled wonderful both while the dough was being made and while it baked.  Just like autumn! 

Oh and funny side story- we adopted a stray cat from the local animal shelter last week and named him Declan.  He is a very friendly, laid back guy and spent 5 hours sleeping on the couch this evening, with us periodically nudging him and rolling him over to make space for ourselves.  At one point when the cat was kind of awake, my husband tried to get him to stand by lifting his side up.  As soon as he let go, Declan flopped back onto his side :D  Anyway, the thing that finally woke up the cat was the smell of this bread when we sat down on the couch with our slices!  And boy, was he awake FAST and trying to get his fair share!

Two minutes after we ate our bread, he was back to sleeping, but the next day he yoinked a discarded heel of Cranberry Pumpkin Loaf out of the trash can!

Chocolate Oatmeal

For some reason my husband associates Halloween with oatmeal. I don't know where the association comes from since he says he didn't usually have it for breakfast on Halloween when he was a kid or anything, but that's okay! I'm willing to roll with it. When he told me he wanted oatmeal for breakfast on Halloween last year I was happy to oblige and found this chocolate oatmeal recipe. I've changed it a bit (surprise!) and we love it. You could also add a touch of cinnamon or top individual bowls with mini marshmallows if you want.


Chocolate Oatmeal

2 C water
1/2 C milk
1 C old fashioned oats
1/4 t salt
1/2 C brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1/4 C chocolate chips

optional: whipped cream and chocolate chips for garnish

Bring the water and milk to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Stir in oats and salt and simmer, stirring frequently, until oats are cooked and thickened (3-5 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar, vanilla extract and chocolate chips. If desired, spoon the oatmeal into bowls and top with whipped cream ghosts with chocolate chips for eyes.

Yield: 4 servings

Deviled Eyes

These spooky eyes are a yearly tradition for us. Mostly because we love any excuse to have deviled eggs and these are really cute! You can use your favorite deviled egg recipe. Normally I put dill in mine but I don't when I make these because I don't want little flecks of dill in the eyes.

Deviled Eyes

6 hard boiled eggs
4 T mayonnaise
1 T dijon mustard
1/2 t salt
1/4 t onion powder
4 drops green food coloring
for garnish: sliced olives

Cut the eggs in half and place the yolks in a shallow bowl. Mash with a fork. Add the mayonnaise, mustard, seasoned salt, onion powder and food coloring and stir to combine. Alternatively, you can mix it all up in the food processor so you won't have any little bits of yellow yolk showing in your green filling. Scoop the mixture into a small plastic bag and snip off the tip of one corner, then pipe the filling into the egg halves. Press one sliced olive into each egg half and arrange on a plate to look like pairs of angry eyes.

Yield: 6-12 servings

Vampire Bat Legs (aka Spicy Chicken Legs)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Okay, I know you probably aren't going to rush out to make Vampire Bat Legs for Halloween dinner tonight and eating something called Vampire Bat Legs any other time of year is rather odd, but the good thing is the rest of the time you can just call them Spicy Chicken Legs since that's what they are. We had these chicken legs (er, bat legs!) for dinner last night and they were SO good! The flavors combined perfectly. Kind of sweet, limey, spicy. My husband handles spicy pretty well and he thought they were hot too. I don't eat the skin so wasn't subjected to the full heat blast but the sauce did get cooked onto the exposed part of the chicken legs and I put a little dollop of it on my plate. The recipe also includes a lime sour cream sauce to dip the chicken into and that helped temper the heat in a very delicious way. The original recipe actually called for a full teaspoon of cayenne pepper in addition to the chipotle peppers. I left that out because I wanted us to have some tastebuds remaining so we could enjoy our caramel apples. Regardless, this may not be a good choice for little kids. You could just put some BBQ sauce on some chicken legs and cook them in a separate dish at the same time. Oh and I served my Vampire Bat Legs with orzo (aka maggots- I know it's disgusting but I couldn't resist).

Do you have a digital probe thermometer? I mentioned it earlier but didn't go into a lot of detail. I love my digital probe thermometer. It's one of my favorite kitchen gadgets. The reason it's wonderful is that you can stick the probe into the meat (or whatever) and leave it there as it cooks so you can check the temperature without opening the oven door. You can also set it to beep once it reaches whatever temperature you specify. I'm very very safety conscious when it comes to raw meat and this means I don't have to worry about undercooking the meat but also don't have to worry about overcooking it. My thermometer also has a timer :D My pet cockatiels had babies last year and I ended up having to hand raise 2 batches of babies from when they were a week old and this thermometer was actually perfect for checking the temperature of their formula (vitally important) and monitoring the temperature of their brooder that was on a heating pad- I set it to go off if the temperature rose too high. Of course this is not the standard use for most people but it just shows one of the things you can do with digital probe thermometers :D

Anyway, on to the recipe:


Vampire Bat Legs (aka Spicy Chicken Legs)

Chicken:

8 chicken legs

2/3 C BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)

1/2 of an 8 oz can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

1/2 t salt

1 T chili powder

1 T minced garlic

6 T lime juice

Cool Lime Sauce:

1 C sour cream

1-2 T lime juice (I used 2 T)

1 green onion, thinly sliced

1/4 t salt

Combine all ingredients for the chicken in a gallon zipper bag and squish it around so everything's mixed and all the chicken is coated. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. While it's refrigerating you can make the Cool Lime Sauce by simply stirring together the ingredients. Preheat oven to 425, line a 9 by 13 baking dish with aluminum foil, and grease the foil. When 30 minutes are up, pour everything from the bag into the baking dish and evenly arrange the chicken legs. Bake 15 minutes and then brush the chicken with the sauce in the dish. Bake 15 minutes longer or until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the biggest chicken leg registers 165 degrees. Remove chicken from oven and brush again with the sauce (I suggest washing your brush first because there may be raw chicken juices on it from the first time you basted). Serve the chicken with the Cool Lime Sauce to help soothe the burn.

Yield: 4 servings (2 legs each)

Baked Mice (aka Mini Meatloaves)

I got the idea for these cute (or as cute as meatloaf can be) little Halloween mice from this recipe. They were easy to make and ended up tasting really good too. I would make these mini meatloaves the rest of the year sans mousie features. Lean ground turkey is usually pretty dry when made into meatballs or meatloaf, but I think the little hunk of cheese in the middle helped because mine didn't turn out dry at all. The cheese did leak a bit out of some of the mice but I think that just added to the effect! And yes, the noodle tails do cook completely in the oven. Serve the mice with mashed potatoes (the sauce is good on them) and a veggie.


Baked Mice

1.25 lb package ground turkey

1 egg

1/2 C seasoned bread crumbs

1 t garlic powder

1 t onion powder
1 t salt

1/2 t pepper

8 3/4 inch cubes cheddar cheese

3 spaghetti noodles, broken into thirds

16 oz can tomato sauce

4 T brown sugar

3 T yellow mustard

2 T Heinz chili sauce (not the spicy Asian kind- this is optional)

1/4 t black pepper

16 very thin carrot slices

16 black olive slices

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 7 by 11 baking dish. Combine the ground turkey, egg, bread crumbs and spices. Form 1/8 of the meat around a cheese cube, sealing well. Form a point on one end and make the other end rounded. Place in baking dish and stick one of the spaghetti thirds into the rounded end to make a tail. Repeat with the rest of the meat, cheese cubes and noodles. Stir together tomato sauce, brown sugar, mustard, chili sauce and pepper and pour over the mice, making sure to cover the tails. Cover with foil and bake 20 minutes, then remove foil and bake until mice are cooked through (165 degrees in the middle), about 20 minutes longer. Arrange mice on plates, cut a small slit on either side of the heads, and insert carrot slices for ears. Place olive slices on the face to make eyes.

Yield: 8 mice, 4-8 servings

Serpentine Stromboli

I love holidays and Halloween is especially fun. Today marks the beginning of several spooky Halloween recipes that I'll share. A couple of weeks ago I ran across the idea for this snake stromboli and thought it was so cute! I used my favorite pizza dough recipe from Our Best Bites and filled the snake with pesto, cheese, pepperoni and olives. It turned out adorable and VERY tasty!

My very favorite pesto is from DeLaurenti Specialty Food and Wine at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. To me it has the perfect blend of flavors and perfect texture. We like it so much that when I go visit my family, we bring home a couple large containers of it, divide it into smaller containers, and keep it in the freezer. How much pesto you use in this recipe will really depend on how strong your pesto is. I used about half a cup in mine but if you have a really strong pesto you may only use 3 or 4 tablespoons. My stromboli split open as it was baking and some oil from the pesto leaked out. This didn't bother me at all (it looked like he had a green belly!) but you could leave out the pesto entirely and dip the slices in pizza sauce if you'd prefer.

This snake was so yummy that I'm definitely going to make it other times of the year just baked as a log.

Serpentine Stromboli

For the dough:

1 1/2 C warm water
1 T sugar
1 packet yeast
1/2 t salt
about 4 C flour

Stir together warm water, sugar and yeast in bowl of electric mixer and let sit until yeast blooms (10 minutes). Stir in salt and 3 C flour by hand. Place bowl on electric mixer with dough hook and add 1/2 C flour. Knead on the lowest or second lowest speed and add flour a couple of tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition, until the dough is only slightly sticky. It should feel like a wad of chewing gum (gross description, but accurate!). Pour about a teaspoon of oil over the ball of dough, spread the oil with your fingers, and turn the dough and spread the oil over the other side too. Cover with a dish towel. Place the bowl in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size. I've found the perfect place for dough to rise is in my oven. I set the temperature to 300 and let the oven heat for 45 seconds, turn it off, then put in the bowl of dough. You may need to tweak the temperature and time slightly.

For the stromboli:

pesto sauce
1-2 C shredded mozzarella
sliced pepperoni, 1 reserved
1 small can sliced olives, 2 reserved
garlic bread seasoning (optional)
1 egg white
food coloring

Once the dough has risen, grease a large cookie sheet and punch the dough down. Cut off 1/3 of the dough and refrigerate it for another use the next day (this is what I did), or you could make an extra large stromboli. On the cookie sheet, pat the dough out into a 12 by 15 inch rectangle (make it longer if you used the full amount of dough). Spread to within 1 inch of the edges the desired amount of pesto sauce, then top with cheese, sliced olives and pepperoni. Sprinkle with a little bit of garlic bread seasoning if desired. Roll the dough up like a cinnamon roll, starting on a long side. Press edges to seal as best you can and arrange the stromboli into a snake shape on the cookie sheet, seam side down, or you can just leave it as a log and have a regular stromboli. Press the ends to seal and tuck them under. Make one end pointy to look like a tail and one end rounded to look like a head.

In a small bowl, beat the egg white and food coloring of your choice with a fork. Brush the egg white on the snake in whatever pattern you desire. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until snake is slightly golden. While snake is baking, cut the reserved pepperoni slice so it looks like a snake tongue. After you remove the snake from the oven, place the tongue under the snake's head so it sticks out and place the olive slices to look like eyes. Let the snake cool for 5 minutes before cutting into 1 inch slices to serve.

Yield: 4-6 servings (more if you make a big snake)