Fudgy No-bake Drop Cookies

If you need a quick chocolate fix, here's a great recipe that stirs up in no time.  You dump most of the ingredients in a bowl, microwave for three minutes, add the last couple ingredients, then plop onto a greased cookie sheet and pop in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Voila.  Done.

You may want to use oven mitts as you take the bowl out of the microwave.  And next time I'll grease my cookie sheet a little better, or even use parchment paper, so the tasty little morsels will slide off the pan more easily.

Also, I cut this recipe in half to get the amount shown here. 

Because we all know that if cookies are just sitting on the counter, they are asking for it. 

Go visit Sandra at Keeping it Simple to get the recipe.

Now I have a question for you.  On a completely unrelated chocolate note,
How the heck do you get chocolate curls, not chocolate dust?  Any secrets?

Chocolate Chip Bread

While I could have posted aboutthese vegetables that I made today, which were good, honesty prevails upon me to admit that the chocolate chip bread, visible here thanks only to a cookbook photo seeing as we descended upon and devoured the actual product like a pack of famished wolves before a true-life photo could be taken, was better.

What can I say?  We like our treats around here.

The recipe came from this book, because I think it is entirely appropriate to start baking Christmas-y items once October rolls around.  I use my bread machine, so I'll alter the directions to reflect that.

CHOCOLATE CHIP BREAD

3/4 c. water

1/4 c. butter

2 eggs

1 t. vanilla

1/4 c. sugar

3 - 3 1/2 c. flour

3 T. cocoa

3/4 t. salt

1/8 t. ground cinnamon

1 package (about 2 1/4 t.) yeast

Place these ten ingredients in bread machine in order listed.  Make sure machine is on "dough" setting and press button to start :)  Once it starts mixing, check to see if it looks like the amount of flour you've added is enough.

When the dough is done, remove from pan and roll out with floured rolling pin on floured surface to an 18- x 10-inch rectangle.  Sprinkle with about 3/4 c. chocolate chips (the recipe in the book called for 1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chunks, but I had chips, not chunks, so that's what I used; I also decided 1/2 c. did not look like nearly enough -- a good decision).  Press chips lightly into dough, then roll up starting from shorter side.  Fold ends under and place, seam side down, in greased 9- x 5-inch loaf pan.  Cover, let rise in warm place for about an hour, until doubled.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until loaf sounds hollow when you tap it.  Remove from pan immediately.  When cooled, drizzle over this glaze:

GLAZE

1 c. powdered sugar

1 1/2 T. milk

1/2 t. vanilla

Mix all glaze ingredients together.

NOTE:  My loaf rose quite a bit while baking, so make sure you bake on a rack toward the bottom of the oven to give it plenty of room. 

So what's your favorite thing to bake this time of year?

Book Winners

Big congratulations to Confessions of a Closet Hoarder, Meg at Little Bit of Life blog, and Barbara at candy di ricette barbare blog  for winning the Goosberry Patch books.  May you have many happy hours of pumpkin and apple baking.  And thanks so much, everyone, for entering.

Fall Book Giveaway

Fall is here! And in honor of this most glorious of seasons, I'm giving away some very gently used Gooseberry Patch cookbooks: Flavors of Fall, Good for You!, and Thanksgiving/Pumpkin recipe booklets. Three prizes, three winners. Just leave a comment here by Friday, Oct. 1, noon Pacific time, and tell me what's your very favorite thing about fall.

If you want to enter more than once, you can mention the giveaway on your blog or on Facebook and enter again.

And make sure, if you don't have a blog, to leave an email address so I can let you know when you win.

Happy fall, y'all!

Summer Food Wrap-up

With Kahuna's gardening prowess and my enthusiasm for playing with my food, we've had a good summer here at the castle. Here's my wrap-up of the season -- or, What I Learned (about Food) on My Summer Vacation. 1. Most tragic food blunder: garlic paste. Thinking this was a good way to preserve

our garlic harvest, I used fully half of the year's crop, roasting and turning it into a paste to use on bread, in stews, etc. Result: a very mellow-tasting spread that doesn't even make a decent piece of garlic bread.

Grrrr.

Epic fail.

2. Most ill-advised historical food experiment: these muffins from a 17th-century recipe. I don't remember the name, but I do remember they tasted like chalk and contained enough baking powder to make a horse float. A castle record: amount of time from taking first bite until entire batch is pitched into the garbage -- 1.2 seconds.

3. Biggest surprise: homemade "butter," whereby cream, blenderized and promised to magically transform into fresh home-made butter, instead resolutely remained cream, albeit slightly dazed cream. Said cream's sole action was, upon seeing daylight as blender top was lifted, to defiantly and maniacally splash into blender wielder's eye.

"Butter" - 1. Castle Queen - 0.

4. Biggest (pleasant) garden surprise: eggplant.

Our first time growing this, we grilled, roasted, and baked it. Vegetable medleys, ratatouille, eggplant Parmesan -- all were delicious. All were eaten within minutes.

Our mothers would never believe it: we actually like vegetables.

5. Most frequently made recipe: pear nectar. Or maybe peach nectar. What can I say? I love nectar. Probably because I love sugar, and after a summer of eating vegetables, I am a tad sugar-deprived.

6. Most triumphant garden victory: enough basil for homemade pesto. The fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Totally worth the wait.

Never mind that we received said basil as a gift, already a very large plant. The point is, at this date it is still a very large plant, thriving in Kahuna's garden and popping out an abundance of leaves daily.

You go, basil. You go.

So how about you? Any summertime hits, misses, surprises? Feel free to leave a link if you've posted about your summertime food adventures. We'd love to read all about it.

Pickled Peppers

Cue up the Peter Piper jokes, 'cause here come my pickled peppers.

Last year's crop of green peppers were eenie-beenie little things -- maybe golf ball size, if that.

But this year? This year our peppers have been amazing. Big as a softball. See?

We've had lots of them, and they're still going strong.

Kahuna is a sucker for anything pickled. So pickled peppers it is.

Here's a wonderful recipe I unearthed from the depths of my file drawers. It's from an ancient issue of Cooking Light, back when home-grown peppers were merely a twinkle in Kahuna's eye.

PICKLED PEPPERS

4 large bell peppers, either red, green, yellow, or any combination (about 2 lbs. total)

2 c. water

1/2 c. sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar or white vinegar

1/4 c. honey

1 t. black peppercorns

4 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 c. sliced onion (about 2 small)

Slice up peppers, lengthwise, into strips about 1 inch wide; discard stems and seeds. Set aside.

In medium saucepan, heat water, vinegar, honey, peppercorns, and garlic until boiling. Add peppers and onions and return to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and continue cooking for 20 minutes, or until peppers are very tender. (I cooked mine about 30 minutes.) Let cool, and pack into jars or plastic containers. Refrigerate. Serve with a slotted spoon.

I've made several batches of this, and what we didn't eat, I popped into the freezer. 'Twill be a wonderful reminder of warmer days come February.

So how about you? Any surprise successes in your garden this year?

NOTE: I'm entering this recipe in the Grow Your Own food roundup, held this month at Girlichef's blog.

Oreh Keyk or Walnut Bar Cake

Walnuts abound here in Bulgaria & are lovely much better than the shop bought variety!!! I have a huge tree along with a few smaller ones so plenty of nuts available, this year though the crop has been bad I have only managed a few kilo's along with every other tree in the area. Thank goodness last years was bountifull & I am still using them in my baking. The Bulgarian's use Walnuts in many traditional recipes & it is a protected tree you can't chop them down.
This is a really nice bar type cake, in fact it's not a cake at all. Small squares or bars are the best way to cut it.
I make this with the walnuts from my tree, last years crop.

7oz Walnuts coarsely chopped
8oz Butter/Margarine
10oz granulated sugar
11oz Plain flour

Pinch salt

1 Egg separated

1tsp Vanilla extract
Pre heat oven to 180c, 160c if fan
Chop all the walnuts
Butter a cake pan I use a square one as its easier to cut in bars
Beat butter & sugar together till it is creamed. Mix in the flour salt vanilla extract & egg yolk till it is well mixed or blended. Mix the walnuts into the mixture making sure they are well mixed throughout.
Pour into a greased tin , level & press down firmly. Brush the top with the egg white if you wish
Bake in the oven for 30 minuets, check its cooked with a tooth pick if not dry continue for 5 minuets etc
Cooking time depends on how deep the mixture is so related to your tin size
Turn out to cool & cut into bars while warm, not hot!