I agree with the experts that say Rick-Rolling has been done to death, and wouldn’t be funny as an April Fool’s Joke anymore anyway. So I’m going in a different direction that works with the topic of this blog… but to find out, you have to click this link – do you dare? The little icon at the top of this post will give you a hint, if you’re getting nervous. 😉
[Tags: april fools day, cake, funny]
Leave It To Cleaver – Not Just an Apron Anymore!
We’ve had our “Leave it To Cleaver” apron available in our shop for a while now, as it’s been a definite favorite. Recently it was brought to our attention that this design would do well offered on our other products as well – seeing the good sense in this, heh, we added them to the shop immediately! Click any of the sample images below to look at the entire selection – great for cooks and chefs, or people who just like to chop things with gusto!
Tropicana Relents!
Yay! Tropicana has decided to go back to their old packaging! When I first saw the new packaging, the word, “generic” came to mind immediately, even before I discovered that’s what happened when MOST people saw the new packaging – LOL.
Perhaps the color of the orange juice just paled in comparison to the actual orange we were used to. Or maybe the font they chose just didn’t stand out as special like the old one. Or maybe both! Click here for short article and side by side comparison.
[Tags: tropicana, orange+juice, packaging, generic]
Got Resveratrol?
Okay, this is just a weird little design I made up after finding the word “resveratrol” (the stuff in red wine that makes it ‘good’ for you) not only very hard to say, but rather amusing. I mean, try saying it AFTER you’ve had a few glasses of red wine. Without accidentally swallowing your tongue, I mean.
Click any of the images below to browse our entire line of “got resveratrol” products….
A “got resveratrol?” (see, I can’t even stop TYPING it) tee would be a great conversation starter at a wine tasting, or even a bar bet – LOL.
[Tags: funny, humor, tshirt, red wine, resveratrol]
Papa Murphy’s Cinnamon Buns
Our favorite pizza is Papa Murphy’s Take-n-Bake Chicken Garlic Pizza. It’s got their homemade white garlic sauce, white meat chicken, green onions, diced tomatoes, and lots of gooey cheese. And the last time we went to Papa Murphy’s we had a coupon for a free tray of their cinnamon buns.
They came out looking terrific, as you can see in the delicious photo above. The cream cheese frosting was a bit thin and whipped, but tasted fine. But overall, the buns were a bit doughy, and just not as tasty as we’d hoped. A might flavorless, actually – could just be a slightly old batch or could be the norm. In any case, we probably won’t be getting a tin of these next time we go back for the chicken garlic pizza, but we won’t hold it against them.
[Tags: pizza, cinnamon rolls, food review, Papa Murphy’s, food]
Homemade Girl Scout Cookies
It’s girl-scout cookie season soon (if not already?), and I ran across this interesting tidbit. It points out that the girl scout cookies still use hydrogenated oils, so they suggest making a donation to the girl scouts instead of buying cookies and making the cookies yourself! And here is the page with links to the homemade girl-scout cookie recipes. It’s verrrrry tempting, isn’t it!
[Tags: girl scout cookies, recipes, homemade, cookies]
Happy Birthday, John!
Happy Birthday, John and Happy Solstice too! John requested a chocolate cake for his birthday this year (surprise!), so I thought I’d check out some new recipes online. I decided to try a Black Chocolate Cake Recipe since we’re both fans of dark chocolate. The only change I made in that linked recipe was to use butter instead of shortening. The cake layers came out great – quite dense and didn’t get all puffy/risen in the middle, so no leveling was needed.
For the frosting I used Caroline’s Chocolate Fudge Frosting Recipe, although as many commenters suggested on that site, I used less milk than indicated.
And here it is!
I also shaved some dark chocolate over the top of it to add even more chocolateness, which I’m sure it needed. (Don’t look at the plate around the bottom of the cake as I hadn’t tidied up yet when I took the photo. I said DON’T look!)
Maybe next time I try this recipe I’ll make a double batch of frosting and do some actual decorating around the edges and such.
[Tags: food, baking, birthday cake, chocolate cake, recipes]
Cherry Cookies
It’s holiday time, so I’m starting to pull out recipes I usually only make this time of year. (For no other reason except that it’s nice to have some recipes for special occasions.) I started with Cherry Cookies, since I haven’t made those in a LONG time, and they look so darn festive – covered in chopped walnuts with a cherry in the center!
See? Festive!
Cherry Cookies
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup butter or margarine (softened)
3/4 cup sugar
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups finely chopped walnuts or pecans
2 unbeaten egg whites
cherry halves
In small bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
In large mixer bowl beat margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, dry ingredients and vanilla. Mix well. Chill dough 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Grease 2 large cookie sheets. Place chopped nuts in one small bowl and egg whites in another. Roll dough by the teaspoonful into balls, flatten slightly, dip in egg whites, then roll in nuts. Place on cookie sheets. Press cherry half into center of each cookie. Bake 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Makes about 54.
Jam & Cheese Loaf Recipe
For some reason I had a little extra time on the day before Thanksgiving, so I decided to make a Jam & Cheese Loaf for breakfast the next day. It’s essentially a biscuit base, cream cheese filling, topped with the jam of your choice. Really easy and really tasty, and it looks pretty neat too, since you braid the dough over the filling:
I basically halfed this recipe since the full recipe makes a pretty large loaf. We finished it off in no time.
Jam and Cheese Loaf
1 package hyperactive, dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
2 1/2 cups packaged biscuit mix
1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon sugar
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup desired jam or preserves
In a mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Stir in biscuit mix, egg, and one tablespoon sugar. Turn out onto surface dusted with additional biscuit mix. Knead gently 20 strokes. Place dough on a greased 15 1/2 x 12 inch baking sheet. Pat into a 14 x 9 inch rectangle.
For filling, stir together cream cheese, the 1/2 cup sugar, and lemon juice until smooth. Spread lengthwise down center third of rectangle. Make 3 inch cuts in dough at 1 inch intervals on both sides of filling. Fold strips alternately over filling. Cover. Chill Overnight. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Spoon desired jam down center of loaf. Bake 5 minutes more or until golden brown. Cool 10 minutes. Makes 1 loaf.
Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix
I picked up the complimentary ‘Something Extra’ magazine from our local Nob Hill Foods supermarket the other day. While I was wandering through the pages, my attention caught on the recipe for homemade hot chocolate mix. I was excited because over the last year we’d been looking at the ingredients in all the standard single serving packets of hot chocolate on the market, and it seems that (excluding the more expensive or gourmet brands) there was a lot of unnecessary ingredients in them, including sucralose, which tends to give us both slight headaches. The one with the fewest ingredients was Swiss Miss (sans marshmallows), so we’d been using that.
Anyway, the recipe was pretty good, but we felt it needed a touch more sugar, so here’s our tweaked version of their recipe:
Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix
3 cups instant dry milk
1 1/2 to 2 cups sugar (to taste)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. cinnamon (optional)
Just mix all of the ingredients together in a sealable plastic ziplock bag and store it in a container with a tight fitting lid. To make a cup of hot chocolate, add 1/3 cup of the mixture to a mug with 8 oz. steaming hot water and stir well. (Makes about 15 mugs.)
We’re very happy with the way it came out!