Try new recipes.

I made these candy graduation caps for someone my mom knows. I wish I could say they were my own idea, but I saw them on Bakerella’s site. Everybody seemed to like them so I’d definitely make them again. : )

For my birthday this year, I asked dh for a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours. I’d checked out a copy from the library and spent several days drooling over the pages. :P Last night I made her basic cheesecake recipe and it was to die for; rich and creamy and delicious. It would have been awesome enough on it’s own, but I decided to make a chocolate raspberry ganache to drizzle over it too.

Scrumptious.

I didn’t think the Oreo could be improved upon but it can! I tried the recipe for Oreo Truffles on Bakerella’s site today and they’re amazing. They’re not hard to make and yet very impressive. Wrapped up in a nice box they’d be a good gift for an Oreo lover. : )

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a morning person. My poor family practically never gets a home-cooked breakfast unless breakfast takes place around noon. But every now and then I’ll cook something before I go to bed at night to surprise them.

This calorie-laden concoction is called Monkey Bread. It’s one of my favorite treats from my childhood. I can count the number of times I’ve eaten it on one hand. That’s not because it isn’t sweet and gooey and delicious; it’s because if I ate it more often than that I’d be as big as a barn.

Here is the particular recipe I tried tonight.

_{I’ll be zealously avoiding the bathroom scale tomorrow.}

The munchkin and I made these Brownie Candy Cups today. They’re basically just brownies with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups inside. They were pretty tasty! But it’s hard to go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate. : )

I really liked these; they were small and tasty and very filling. I modified the original recipe by adding three whole eggs instead of the four egg whites and one whole egg the recipe specifies. I also omitted the thyme and added the parsley for presentation. I probably added a bit more cheese than the recipe called for, but I’m of the opinion that you can never have too much cheese. :P I’d definitely make them again.

Today’s culinary experiment was a No-Bake Cheesecake. It’s light and fluffy, uses a minimum amount of ingredients, and would make a great summertime dessert. (That, however, did not keep me from scarfing it down in January. :P) I added blueberries to mine, but you could top this with any fruit. The original recipe (which I’m too lazy to post today) can be found at Cottage Magpie.

Today’s experiment was Apricot Pork Chops. I found the recipe in the Cooking Light Annual Recipes book from 2006. The ingredients in this looked a little funky to me and I wasn’t sure how the tastes were going to mesh, but it turned out to be pretty darn good. It’s also fairly healthy (only 231 calories per serving), which is another added bonus.

Apricot Pork Chops

Cooking spray
4 (4oz) boneless loin pork chops
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup apricot preserves
1 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
2 tsp bottled minced garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sliced green onions

1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add pork to pan; cook 6 minutes on each side or until done. Remove from pan; keep warm.

2. Add chopped onion to pan; saute 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Stir in preserves, soy sauce, garlic, and salt; cook 3 minutes or until thickened. Add pork to pan, turning to coat. Sprinkle evenly with green onions. Yield: 4 servings (serving size 1 pork chop and 1 tablespoon sauce).

One of our friends is having a birthday this weekend. His passion is for all thing cookies and cream. So being the brave adventurer that I am, I googled and came up with a recipe for Cookies and Cream Cupcakes. : )

Since I’d never made them before, I cooked a test batch this evening. They came out so well that dh is taking them to his staff meeting tomorrow so that all 24 of them do not end up insulating my thighs. :P

This is the recipe I used. I modified it slightly from the original, which can be found at Bake and Destroy.

30 Oreo (or Oreo-like) cookies
1 pkg swiss chocolate cake mix
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
3 large eggs

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Break out your cupcake pans and line them with cupcake liners. Count out 12 Oreos and seperate them from the rest of the pack. Twist them apart, making sure you get some of the frosting on both halves of the cookie. Place one Oreo half frosting side up in the bottom of each cupcake liner. Take all of your aggression out on the remaining Oreos—they need to be left in little pieces. I put mine in several Ziploc bags and clubbed them with my rolling pin. _{(I think that’s about the only thing I ever use it for.)}

Ignore the package directions on the cake mix. Dump the cake mix, cup of sour cream, vegetable oil, and eggs into a large bowl. Mix with an electric mixer until well combined. Now add in 1 and 1/2 cups of the Oreo crumbs and stir well. (My mixture looked a little bit thick so at this point I dumped in 1/4 cup of water to help thin it out a bit). You should still have some Oreo crumbs left over and these will be utilized later in the frosting.

Spoon the cake mix on top of the Oreos in your cupcake liners. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Let cool.

The frosting recipe I used came from another site: Hell on High Heels. It calls for:

1 1/3 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
pinch of salt
1/3 cup whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 Oreos broken into pieces (I just used the crumbs I had left over from the cake)

In a small bowl, using an electric mixer on low, beat together the sugar, butter and salt until well combined. Increase speed to high, beating until light and fluffy. Add cream and vanilla, beat until smooth. Dump in the cookie crumbs and mix well.

Enjoy!