Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Butter
• 1/2 cup Shortening
• 3/4 cup Brown sugar; packed
• 1/2 cup White sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1-1/2 tsp Vanilla
• 2 cups Flour
• 1 tsp Baking soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 6 ounces White chocolate chips
• 7 ounces Macadamia nuts

Method:

Beat butter, shortening, sugar, eggs and vanilla well. Combine dry ingredients and add to butter mixture. Stir in white chocolate and nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

Makes 5 dozen cookies.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Sugar
• 1/4 cup Butter — melted
• 3 eggs — slightly beaten
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp bourbon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup pecans — chopped
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1 – 9 inch pie shell

Method:

Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs, syrup, salt, bourbon and vanilla. Mix until blended.

Spread pecans and chocolate chips in bottom of pie shell. Pour filling into shell.

Bake in 375 degree oven for 40-50 minutes.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Ingredients:

• 2 cup Sugar
• 1 1/2 cups Butter or margarine
• 2 tbsp Water
• 1/2 cups Slivered almonds
• 1 lg Milk chocolate bar broken into small pieces

Method:

Combine sugar, butter and water in a heavy saucepan, cook, stirring constantly to the soft-crack stage. Add the almonds, cook, stirring to hard-crack stage. Pour immediately on unbuttered cookies sheet, spreading as thin as possible. Place chocolate on hot toffee, spread melting chocolate to cover the toffee.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of Styrofoam
• 8 apples
• 8 ice cream sticks
• 12 packages (14 oz each) creamy caramels
• 2 tbs. water
• 3/4 cup pistachios, chopped
• 8 foil cupcake liners
• 3 ounces semisweet chocolate

Method:

Place Styrofoam on a flat surface. Lightly coat baking sheet with cooking spray. Remove stems from apples. Insert wooden stick into stem of each apple. Place caramels in saucepan. Add water, heat on low, stirring constantly, until caramels are melted.

Working quickly with one apple at a time, and keeping caramel over low heat, dip apples into the caramel, turning to coat the apples, remove apple from caramel and gently shake. Pat pistachios onto top of apple, place on prepared sheet. Refrigerate until caramel is cool.

Heat chocolate in top of double boiler until melted. Drizzle chocolate over apples. Press apple sticks into Styrofoam. Refrigerate until the chocolate hardens. Remove from Styrofoam and place in foil cupcake liners.

Share and Enjoy!

Makes 8 apples

Popularity: 1% [?]

Recipe ideas can come from anywhere.  This post is proof of that.  The idea for baked apples was driven into both my head and that of my oldest son one afternoon during an episode of “Little Bear” that the youngest was watching on NickJr.  It only took one mention of honey baked apples to have us both drooling over the concept.

Luckily for us, Fall is upon us and with it are apples.  The stores are overflowing with fresh, delicious apples of every variety, shape and color, all perfectly ripe and in-season, so getting the right ingredients was no chore at all.  The only difficulty was in coring the apples… Or it would have been, if I hadn’t had two very eager kids helping me with it.

So here I present to you the new favorite dessert in the Russell household.  A dish that has been given nods of approval from all but my youngest, the nuggetarian. (I couldn’t get him to try it.  Had he done so, I’m sure he would like it as well.)  It’s cold outside folks.  Isn’t this the perfect way to end a long day?  Just this and a Muscatto and all is well.

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Popularity: 12% [?]

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg. Butter Recipe Fudge Cake Mix
• 1 c. finely chopped pecans or walnuts
• 2 tbsp. dark rum
• 2 c. sifted confectioners’ sugar
• 1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa
• Pecans or walnuts, finely chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour 13x9x2 inch pan. Prepare, bake and cool cake following package directions.

Crumble cake into large bowl. Stir with fork until crumbs are fine and uniform in size. Add 1 cup nuts, rum, confectioners’ sugar and cocoa. Stir until well blended.

Shape heaping tablespoonfuls mixture into balls. Garnish by rolling balls in finely chopped nuts. Press firmly to adhere nuts to balls.

Makes 6 dozen.

Tip: Substitute 1 tbsp rum extract for real rum if non alcoholic is your preference.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Fudge is loved by most, but can be a very difficult treat to prepare.  This recipe takes the guesswork out of the result.  you’ll get perfect fudge every single time you use this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 3 C semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
• dash salt
• 1 C chopped walnuts
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Method:

In heavy saucepan over low heat, melt chips with sweetened condensed milk and salt. Remove from heat; stir in walnuts and vanilla. Spread evenly into aluminum foil lined 8 or 9 inch square pan. Chill 2 hours or until firm. Turn fudge onto cutting board; peel off foil and cut into squares. Store loosely covered at room temperature.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Day three of the Twelve days of cookies finds us in the 80′s again, but this time in the late 80′s. The charts were rockin’ to The Escape Club singing Wild Wild West, Bobby McFerrin released Don’t Worry, Be Happy, and Bon Jovi (Who rocks, occasionally) released Bad Medicine. The Big Hair Craze was fading into the mullet, and The car of choice for most people ws beginning to look something like the modern SUV.

According to Gourmet magazine, the best cookie of the year was the pistachio tuile.  They had this to say…  But they were wrong:

What petits fours were to the well-heeled in the 1950s, tuiles were in the 80s, garnishing every dessert plate in the land. Still, the potato-chip-thin cookie studded with pistachios is a combination that will never go out of style. Drop level tablespoons of batter, then spread into a thin 3-inch round and bake at 350° F for 6 to 9 minutes.

Umm, that was supposed to be teaspoons, not tablespoons, people… Geez.  Of course, that’s not the only thing they got wrong.  Like “not everyone loves Amaretto.”  I’m one of those people, and these things taste like Amaretto, so not my favorite thing ever…  Not by a long shot.

My wife loves them however, so they have redeeming qualities.  In all they’re pretty simple to make, taste like half a tiramisu (add a little cream and you’re there).  For me, any other extract in the world would probably make these things good, but the almond extract flavor is just too much.  Perhaps with hazlenut extract I’d love them, but that wasn’t the recipe.

So if you like amaretto I’d say give them a 9.  On my personal scale they rate a solid 4.

But they are pretty, aren’t they?

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Tostones, little fried plantain chips.  It seems that everyone in the world had had them but me. I’ve seen them on the food network, heard them spoken of on travel shows and even had friends talk about having them when visiting Puerto Rico. To say the least I’ve been feeling left out. This week my wife set out to change that and I have to admit that I was very excited by the prospect.

The theory here is simple.  You cut up a green plantain or three, toss the slices in water to soak, blot ‘em dry and fry them for a few minutes.  Then you cool ‘em, toss ‘em back in the water, dry them, squish ‘em into chips and fry them again.  If you want to get fancy you use a cup shaped Tostonera to press out little plantain bowls to scoop up your condiment of choice with.

Once fried to your choice of perfection, they are sprinkled with a  bit of salt and then they can ether be served hot or at room temp.  The choice of dips ranges from none to whatever your heart desires.  They really are as versitile as a good ol’ potato chip.

In the end I think I’d have to say that the jury s still out for me on these little gems.  I wasn’t wowed on the first round, but then again, I’m not saying there’s nothing there to like.  I think perhaps I had preconceptions that got in the way.  That is something that I’m not OK with, so I’ll be trying these again, with a  variety of sauces.

As for the sauce pictured in the top photo, I can’t tell you what was in it except garlic, sofrito and adobo powder.  I wish I knew more, but even my wife can’t remember what she put in it.  (And I wish she could, it was fan-friggin-tastic!)

But I guess I should get on to giving you a recipe, huh?

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Peanuts are a part of daily life, at least around this house.  They’re consumed as butter, as a recipe addition, as a snack, and pretty much any other way I can come up with to use them.  I started working up a recipe for Valentine’s day a little earlier in the week and I knew from minute one that I wanted it to include peanuts, but not just any peanuts, these needed to have a kick.

I remembered a recipe from David Lebovitz for Salt-Roasted Peanuts (see below), and that seemed a good start.  On closer examination, it was the perfect beginning, since chocolate was to be involved in the next stage, and his recipe was quickly and easily adapted to what I had on hand, as well as what I had in mind.

Originally I was just going to post the recipe for this preparation with the finished treats but in the end, these nuts are so intensely good that I decided that they need their own moment in the spotlight.  They are salty, sweet and ultimately spicy (The more you eat, the hotter they get, I love that!) but the flavors fit so well together that you may find you can’t stop at just a few.  I know I’ve had a hard time not just eating all of them instead of using them for their intended purpose.

Thankfully I’ll only need about half of the nuts I made, the other half are up for grabs!

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Popularity: 7% [?]