Tag Archives: holiday

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap: Chocolate Orange Pecan Shortbread

I mentioned in the last post that I was excited about three things this week.  One of those is tonight’s Live Organize Your Kitchen with Evernote hangout with fellow Ambassador and food blogger, Brandie Kajino.  The other was cookie swaps.

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Specifically, the annual Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.  I do enjoy participating in it every year.  If you haven’t heard about it, it’s organized by Love & Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen.  Food bloggers all over the country sign up and donate their sign-up fee to Cookies for Kids Cancer.  We get matched with three other food bloggers and we have to make a new-to-us cookie recipe and send a dozen of them to our matches.  In return, we receive three different batches of cookies to enjoy.  It’s a lot of fun, because who doesn’t like to get cookies in the mail?  If you want to join the cookie swap next year, go here to sign up on the mailing list.

This year, I got a delightful selection of truly diverse and delicious cookies.

 

Check out Lynn and Katie at:
Turnips2Tangerines
Blonde Ambition

The cookies I decided to make were chocolate shortbread, based off a recipe I got from The View from the Great Island.  I decided to go double chocolate, though not dark, and add in a bright citrusy flavor with a bit of Grand Marnier and orange zest.  And then, while I was at it, why not a bit of crunch with some chopped pecans?  I love orange and pecan together.

So here’s my revised recipe.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Orange Pecan Shortbread

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/4 cup powdered sugar
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup chopped pecans
  • 1 tbsp Grand Marnier
  • the zest of one orange

Instructions

  1. Pulse the flour, sugar and cocoa powder in a food processor until well-mixed. Add in the butter, Grand Marnier and orange zest until the dough just comes together. Add in the chocolate chips and pecans and pulse a few more times until they are incorporated.
  2. Dump the dough out onto a piece of cling wrap. Shape it into a log, wrap it securely and refrigerate it for at least an hour.
  3. Preheat the oven to 325F. Take the dough out of the fridge, unwrap it, and slice it into half inch slices with a sharp knife.
  4. Put the slices on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes. They'll still be a bit soft at the end.
  5. Let them cool and then enjoy!
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Learnist Love: All About Thanksgiving

Starting to fret about the upcoming holiday?  Don’t.  This is the internet.  Help is everywhere you look.  I’m particularly fond of all the resources curated over at Learnist.  A search for Thanksgiving brings up everything from the history of the holiday to healthy eating tips to how to keep from pulling your hair out.

Check out all the Learnist Thanksgiving resources here.

Here are a few of my personal boards for getting through Thanksgiving:

Learnist Love: Holiday Prep

Me: What do you mean, there’s only 12 more days til Christmas?

Calendar: That’s what I’m saying, you have a week and a half.

Me: No, that’s not right.  I have way more time than that.

Calendar: Uhhhh yeah no, you don’t.

Me: Yes I do.

Calendar: Yeah no.  That’s not how time works.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably had similar conversations with your calendar.  Probably quietly.  I mean, if other people heard you talking to your calendar, they might think you were crazy.  And you’re not craz…ier than anyone else.

But just in case you’re starting to feel a bit crazy about the impending holidays, don’t worry.  I’ve been assembling some great boards on Learnist to help you make it through.

Let’s start with gifts.  The best gifts are homemade… 
Continue reading

Have a Stress-Free Holiday with Evernote

I know.  You’re stressed.  You’re frustrated.  You’re angry and doggone-it, you’re hungry.  The holidays are coming up and just the thought of all that planning and preparation and pie–ok, maybe not the pie–are making you fret.  Well stop biting those nails and tearing out that hair.  We are here to help.  By we, I mean Evernote and me.  We are here to help you survive the holidays.

That’s why Evernote has launched a full slate of events, tips and plans aimed at helping you navigate these busy, bustling times.  First up?  A test-run Holiday Potluck with yours truly!  (Me.  It’s me.) Continue reading

Turkey….cake….not as odd as it sounds

 

If you peruse food sites as much as I do, you’ve probably already seen hundreds of Thanksgiving recipes already.  Turkeys, side-dishes, pie after pie after pie.  Well I’m going to jump ahead a bit with recipe for Thanksgiving leftovers.

Leftovers?!? you say.  How can you possibly think about leftovers when I’ve yet to even set my deck on fire while frying my first bird?  Well, I’ve already had one Thanksgiving so far—yesterday, in fact, at my inlaws.  It was delicious.  And it gave me plenty of leftover turkey to take home to experiment with.

Now, there’s one thing I tend to want the day after a good holiday meal: something light.  I love rich food but it only loves me for so long before it brings out the claws (rawr).  So tonight when looking for a good light meal and considering the bag of turkey goodness I had in the fridge, I thought….turkey cakes.

As is well known, I don’t eat seafood.  I don’t eat anything that swims at all.  In fact, if a cow has so much as wandered across a stream, I don’t want anything to do with it.  I don’t know why, it’s just a thing I have.  But I am entranced by crab cakes.  I partially blame one of my old roommates, Steph, who was from Maryland; I think she was a bad influence.  But mostly it’s because crab cakes just look so freaking good.  And I’ve thought, I could easily do these and just replace them with chicken.  But I never got around to it because hey, there’s so many dishes and so little time.  But now I’ve got all this turkey…turkey’s kind of like chicken.  It’s like a bigger chicken. Continue reading