If I were a Bond girl, my cheeky code name would be Cara. Cara Mel. I’d make sly, sultry comments to Bond while carelessly smoking a long, elegant cigarette that won’t have the chance to kill me because I’ll die in a freak accident by getting a mounted sword-fish nose through the stomach while Bond escapes the clutches of some comical, balding, verbose and vaguely effeminate bad guy yet again. “Cara Mel burns when hot, Mr. Bond,” I would say. “Cara Mel lies,” he would reply blithely, the line coming out very suavely if he was Sean Connery, and not nearly as impressively if he was say, Roger Dalton. Sorry, Rog. But it’s true.
Of course my action-packed, sugar-fueled day dreams are only tangentially related to post, at point (Caramel, Bar). Mostly because I’m tired and I get weird when I’m tired, and also because I can’t think of any other way to introduce this recipe other than to say it’s so good that Josh made me take the pan to work so that he wouldn’t eat the entire thing himself. So there you go. Bond tested, Josh approved.
No, really, these bars are quite good. And really easy too. And of course, I still had about 1.5 of caramel leftover from making the Take Five bars. I used half of it for this recipe and the other half I melted into a pan of these brownies. So yes. I’ve had a lot of sugar this week. Enough to kill a lesser mortal. Okay, maybe not kill. Stun? Make giddy? Give cavities? There it is. Read the rest of this entry »
Take 5...leave the rest
I’m calling these my homemade Take 5 bars but really, there are only four lights ingredients. Caramel. Chunky peanut butter. Pretzel. And chocolate. Oh unless you count awesome as an ingredient.
These candy bars came as a request, as pretty much all my candy bars do, this time from my friend Chase. He sent me a recipe, which I pretty much ignored, as I am wont to do. The story goes something like this:
Once upon a time, in the magical land of NotOhio, there was a little boy. One day, this little boy felt a rumbly in his tumbly and lo, headed off in the direction of the nearest 7-Eleven to find something to sate his orangutan-sized hunger. He perused the aisles of this and that, passing Hershey bars and Reese’s peanut butter cups and something called a Goober when his eyes fell upon a beautiful stranger the likes of which he had never seen before, a coquettish, salty yet sweet little minx all wrapped up in red. Hey you, she called out, you, with the face. Why don’t you take a little time out with me? Just Take 5, just Take 5…”
I’m just going to leave that right there. Read the rest of this entry »
Toffee Break: Homemade Heath Bars
I want to make a disclaimer on this post: I don’t really eat that much junk food. Honestly. I know it seems like it, what with every other post being a chocolate cake or a marshmallow mousse or fruity alcoholic drink or yet another homemade candy bar. I eat a lot of fruit, veggies, whole grains and nonfat dairy. Honestly. It’s just that those things aren’t nearly as fun to write about.
But anyway. Let’s move on to the topic at hand. Which is a post on yet another homemade candy bar! But not just any candy bar: homemade Heath bars. Do you know what a Heath bar is? I didn’t. It’s toffee, wrapped in chocolate. Do you know what toffee is? Sugar and butter. Which is then smothered in chocolate. So that’s three essential food groups right there. Oh and there’s nuts, too, so that’s…you know…vitamin E. And protein…
My boss Lynne requested these. And I blame Jeff. He started this, requesting a batch of homemade Snickers bars, which turned out remarkably well. Then another coworker requested M&Ms, which I haven’t figured out yet, and then Lynne requested Heath bars for her birthday. Now that those are conquered, I’ll have to work on Take 5 bars, Butterfingers and Twixes. And then I’m going to fall into a deep sugar coma that will hopefully last all winter, so I can skip the whole “freezing my butt off” thing.
All right, menfolk. This post is for you. Not because I think you’ll like it (I do) and not because I thought, you know, I should really reach out to the men who read this site (I didn’t) and not because I’m hoping that by doing you this favor, you’ll repay me by moving some furniture (seriously, I need to buy a new bed). No, no. I’m doing you this favor out of the kindness of my own heart. And if you happen to be around when I’m moving a new bed in, well…that’s just random. Entirely random.
But pay close attention to this post. Because you need to learn to make this dish. This dish is your “get out of man-jail free” card. It is easy to make, it looks impressive, it is delicious and it’s so chocolaty I think I might die just thinking about it. Your significant other will adore you for it—girlfriend, boyfriend, real doll, doesn’t matter. Seriously. Well I’m not serious about the Real Doll. But maybe you are. Who am I to judge? The point is, this dessert is your chance to be the Old Spice Guy.
I should make a note here—I ran out of milk yesteryday. So where it says “3/4 cup of milk,” I actually used cream. It made it extremely rich and delicious, but if you don’t want the insides of your partner’s body to turn into molten rivers of chocolate and fat, you might want to stick with the milk. I also topped mine with grated chocolate because I like extra chocolate on my chocolate. Read the rest of this entry »
200th Post! Homemade Snickers Bars
Oh yeah, we’ve hit the big time here. That’s right, this is my 200th post on this blog. 200 entries of deliciousness, tastiness, snarkiness and about 1,322.57 other -nesses that need not be named. I had to prepare something special for this momentous occasion. I decided to make something that covered all the bases: included chocolate and caramel, wasn’t something you’d generally think of making on your own, had a few different steps but wasn’t overly complicated. Snickers bars.
You can think our friend Jeff for this. At some point, Jeff got the bright idea that if he just posted a recipe to my facebook page, I would then make it for him. It was a risky gamble. Actually, not that risky. He was pretty much right. As I’ve proven here. Anyway, he posted a link to this recipe for snickers bars. I was intrigued. I like making my own candy–I mean, so far I’ve done mints, peanut butter cups, chocolate and turtles. But I’d never made nougat before. Or as complicated a candy as a Snickers bar. And I love Snickers bars. I love anything that includes chocolate, caramel and nuts. So I gave it a go. Read the rest of this entry »
Strawberries are just little red mountains
I have been to the mountaintop.
No, really. I just got back this weekend from a cruise to Alaska and I really did stand on top of a mountain. Not a very tall mountain, mind you, and it’s not like I was climbing up it, huffing and puffing with my faithful sherpa, Hodgkiss, a few patient yards ahead of me, doing all the real work. No, I was very comfortably ferried up there by bus, 3300 feet up into one of the most beautiful landscapes anywhere.
So yes, Alaska was fantastic. I was looking forward to it (I wanted to see whales—and did!) and it did not disappoint. I mean, who knew that me, Little Miss Sunshine who is always either in front of a computer or iPhone screen, could enjoy being completely wifi-free in the frozen northwest? Although I will be honest…it wasn’t exactly “frozen.” Well, parts of it were. We did see the Sawyer Glacier and that was pretty frozen, as you can imagine.
But the rest of the time, we were blessed with 70 degree, sunny weather. And the highlight? Part of me (the cheeky part) wants to say that it was seeing a street performer dressed as Darth Vader playing the violin.
Move Over Wonka
Oompa Loompa doopity doo;
I’ve got a little lesson for you.
Oompa Loompa doopity dee;
Reading this post will make you hungry.
What do you get when you put in the mix
a bit of sugar and a whole lot of nibs?
Make your own chocolate in one little batch.
What do you think of that?
I really like the looks of it.
Oompa Loompa doopity da;
You can make your own chocolate bar.
You will live in happiness, too,
like the Oompa Loompa doopity do! Read the rest of this entry »
We don’t need no stinkin’ restaurant…
…for dessert.
I’m not feeling super impressed with restaurants lately, I have to admit. Some restaurants never disappoint me, like Beezy’s in Ypsi or Mahek in Ann Arbor. But then there are other restaurants, mostly chains, who shall remain nameless, where I leave disappointed and annoyed at having dropped $25 on a crappy dinner for two. It’s especially terrible because I know I could cook way better than that. But sometimes I’m tired or lazy or haven’t been shopping or want to hang out with friends. So I go out. Again and again. And then I return home, financially and gastronomically poorer than when I left. In fact, while sitting at one of these restaurants that shall rename nameless with Josh today, I ruminated on the lack of enjoyment I got from they referred to as a “pulled pork sandwich.” I’ve had pulled pork. I’ve made pulled pork. And this, sir, was no pulled pork. It was just a glob of overly and poorly cooked flesh draped in sauce. Some poor pig actually died for that. And that’s not right.
The fate of that poor pig dropped upon me another flash in what’s been a long-running yet still staggering revelation about about my personal relationship with food. However, that is a story for another day, children. Instead, we should focus on what I had for dessert.
Chocolate. Read the rest of this entry »
Kebabled
kebab's your uncle
It’s a rare day in Michigan. 82 degrees, sunny, beautiful. Not a raindrop, not a snowflake in sight. Did you hear that? Sunshine. Warm weather. Keep a snapshot of this day in your mind; it may never happen again.
So I decided to celebrate in proper form. With food on a stick.
The first thing was dinner. Josh wanted grilled Polish sausages and potato salad, but that felt just a bit too midwestern for my taste, so while I made him that, I made something more Lauren-friendly for me. The inspiration from this came from a Tyler Florence show once in which he made a salad with grilled chicken sausage and bread. I figured it would be a good basis for an antipasto skewer. I enjoy Mediterranean-inspired meals and this one is easily adaptable and super easy to make, especially because the chicken sausage was precooked. I enjoy easy, tasty meals that allow me to be outside and lounge and eat with my hands. In fact, I find very few things as relaxing as eating a light, delicious meal with my fingers while sitting in the sunlight. I don’t know what it is. Things you eat with your fingers are just inherently more delicious than things you eat off a fork or a spoon or even the fabled spork. Also, sunny days chasing the clouds away on my way to where the air is sweet make everything taste better.
By the way, you get bonus cookies if you got that reference. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes, I get the urge. The urge to merge wet and dry ingredients. The urge to stir.
One of the reasons I cook so much is because I get easily bored and then I have to find something to do. I have books to read, movies to watch, house to clean, dog to keep from drooling everywhere…but it’s not the same. I prefer to be cooking. And since I can’t cook two dinners a night, I end up baking something. It calms me. I listen to music (mostly Motown) and bop around in my kitchen. Sprinkle a little of this, a pinch of that, an estimated teaspoon of something or another, a handful of chocolate chips…or four.
This is pretty much what happened last night. I cleaned the kitchen after dinner, sat down on the couch to relax, opened up Evernote, saw a recipe I’d recently collected, got off the couch, went back to the kitchen, made sure I had brown sugar, went back to the living room, got my laptop, went back to the kitchen and began to bake. These are the days of my life. Read the rest of this entry »
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