Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Sometimes I just seriously need a cookie, and nothing store-bought will (ever, really) do. If it's not homemade the texture will be off or they'll be too sweet or the nuts will be chopped so small they're non-existent. And if they're oatmeal cookies from the store they'll be filled with ... raisins. Say it with me now: ewwww. The only oatmeal cookies I like are the homemade kind because they're filled with everything but raisins if they're coming out of my kitchen. In this case I filled my oatmeal cookies with cranberries, which I love because of their tart, cheek-tingling flavor. (I also had several boxes of cranberries to get rid of because a certain toddler in my house refused to eat the "treats" his father so graciously bought him at the store. But I digress.)

What do you like in your oatmeal cookies?

Cranberry-Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from Lick the Bowl Good
Makes a couple of dozen large cookies
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Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg
1 1/2 cup oats
1 cup dried cranberries

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add egg and beat well. Add vanilla and beat well.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add to wet ingredients and mix well.
4. With a wooden spoon stir in oats and cranberries.
5. Scoop large balls of dough onto cookie sheets. (I used my large cookie-dough scoop, and it holds about two tablespoons of dough.)
6. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until edges are just golden. Do not overbake. Remove from oven and cool on sheets for a couple of minutes before moving cookies to racks to cool completely.

Roasted Garlic

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Roasted garlic has to be one of the easiest, versatile and most delicious things on the planet. Like I told my friend Amanda on Friday night, "It's like eating flavored butter without all the calories." If you've never tried it you are missing out, my friends. How can you use it? Let me count the ways. Literally.

1. Spread on warm bread or stirred with olive oil for dipping chunks of bread. *Sigh*
2. Pureed into dips. I know a lot of you out there are big fans of hummus! Also try it with soft cheeses, sauces and dressings.
3. As part of an appetizer tray. Set whole roasted heads out right along your cheese wedges, tomatoes, roasted peppers, crusty breads and crackers.
5. As a pizza topping.
6. Rubbed onto pizza crust, or bread toasted for bruschetta.
7. Added to mayonnaise. Divine.
8. Kneaded into homemade bread dough.
9. Mashed into potatoes.
10. Scrambled into eggs.

Drooling yet?



The best part about roasted garlic is how easy it is to make. A bit of oil and a sprinkle of salt and you're ready to go. It can be kept in the fridge for up to a week (if it lasts that long), and it can be frozen. One option is to puree it after roasting, and drop it into ice-cube trays, a tablespoon at a time. The other option is to freeze the cloves whole, but tossed with olive oil before popping them into plastic bags. You can always poor oil over the cloves in the bag, and later you'll have wonderful roasted garlic and garlic-infused olive oil.

The possibilities and uses are endless. And one can never have too much garlic! How would you use it?



Check out these directions at howtoroastgarlic.net. Doesn't get much easier than that, does it?

Super-Indulgent Valentine's Day Cupcakes

My sweet boy is giving out Valentines at school this year for the first time. Considering he's 2 and a half, however, I'm the one who did all the fun stuff: choosing, buying and filling them out. He would have loved to do all the "writing" himself, but I thought it might be nice if his friends knew who those Lightning McQueen cards were from! There are only about 12 kids in his class, which means we ended up with lots of leftovers. While I could have saved them for next year I decided that we'd give them out to neighbors and cousins instead, along with a pretty package of these dark chocolate, Snickers-filled, ganache and coffee-frosting topped cupcakes.



Now that you've read the full description of these treats I think you can understand why I decided to call them Super-Indulgent Valentine's Day Cupcakes. But if there's a day of the year when we're allowed to indulge ourselves it's Valentine's Day, right? Okay, okay. There's also Thanksgiving and Christmas, but those two days are a loooong time away. You have plenty of months in between then and now to work off these chocolate bombs. And besides, if they're this smile-inducing how can you turn them down? (I might be his Mama, but gosh he's a cutie...)



I used a box cake mix for my cupcakes, but you can substitute that for your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe. I filled my cupcakes with Snickers minis, but you can substitute your favorite candy: Rolos, Kisses and even chunks of Toblerone would be great. The ganache recipe is from Ina Garten, and the coffee frosting is from America's Test Kitchen. And they are both absolutely fabulous, especially the frosting. I don't even like coffee-flavored desserts, but Brad caught me licking the frosting bowl clean!



A few tips and tricks:

* Put one scoop of batter into your cupcake liner. Drop in the candy, but don't push it to the bottom. Then put another scoop of batter on top. Bake like normal.
* Cool your cupcakes completely before you dip them in ganache.
* The frosting recipe I used is supposed to frost 12 cupcakes, but that's probably if you use a knife. If you pipe the frosting on like I did you're likely to only have enough frosting for 8 cupcakes so be prepared to make more than one recipe. That means you need to set out plenty of butter to come to room temperature or you'll be doing the waiting dance.
* I left a few cupcakes topped only with ganache and sprinkled them while still wet.
* My sprinkles came from the Valentine's Day aisle at Michael's.
* You can find the ganache recipe at Food Network.
* My inspiration for these cupcakes came from Inside BruCrew Life.

Coffee-Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen
Makes enough for about eight cupcakes, piped on
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Ingredients
10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons instant coffee

Directions
1. Beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds.
2. Add sugar and salt and beat on low speed until sugar is moist, about a minute. Scrape down sides and beat at medium speed until fully combined.
3. In a small bowl combine vanilla, cream and instant coffee. Stir until coffee is dissolved.
4. Add wet ingredients to sugar mixture and beat on medium for about 10 seconds. Scrape down sides then increase speed to medium-high and beat about four minutes, until frosting is light and fluffy.

Happy Valentine's Day! Check out these other great ideas:
The Girl Creative
Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Mad in Crafts
Craft-O-Maniac
The DIY Showoff
Skip to My Lou

Southern Chicken and Dumplings

I'm sure it goes without saying that several of you, like me, are fans of Top Chef. I've never missed an episode, and I get excited every Wednesday, awaiting the show's great challenges and chefs. This week's episode centered on Jimmy Fallon, his birthday, and his favorite foods. One of those foods was chicken and dumplings, or chicken-n-dumplins if you're from the South. But hello - what in the tarnation did Tiffany serve those poor folks?! As soon as I heard her say "Southwestern" style, and I saw that ridiculous thin broth I just knew she'd be on the bottom. I was so disappointed! She's a Southern girl - what was she thinking?

I told Brad that it's always interesting to me that when these top-rated chefs are let loose in the kitchen they come up with some amazing dishes. But when they're asked to simply cook good ol' comfort food, American-style, they stumble, crash and burn. I'd love to have a bit more talent in the kitchen - especially top-knotch knife skills - but I'd never want to lose my family-style cooking sensibilities. My dumplings are thick, puffy strips of seasoned dough that swim in creamy broth, along side chunks of poached chicken, and all liberally salted and peppered. Dumplings, much like biscuits, are an art - an art at which my grandmother excelled. My mom said just recently how much she misses Maw Maw's chicken-n-dumplins because no one can make them quite like her. That's true, but it shouldn't keep us from trying to recreate them, as long as we don't stray from tradition, Tiffany.



Southern Chicken and Dumplings
By Confabulation in the Kitchen
Printer-friendly version
Serves about 4

Chicken and dumplings are served all over the South. In Western North Carolina, where I'm from, the dumplings are thick and pillowy soft and served with chunks of freshly poached chicken. In Eastern North Carolina, where my husband is from, you're more likely to find chicken-n-pastry, meaning the dumplings are thin and flat and served with shredded chicken in a thinner broth. This recipe is for the Western N.C. kind. While you'll rarely find this dish served with vegetables I think that sweet green peas or blanched green beans are great tossed in - and maybe even some chopped carrot, too, to up the nutritional ante.

Note: Remember to remove the chicken breasts from the poaching liquid, but don't pour it out! Keep it in the pot to cook your dumplings in.

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup green peas or green beans (optional, and frozen are fine)
1/2 cup chopped carrot (optional)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons shortening
3/4 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Put chicken breasts in large pot and cover with at least one inch of water. Stir in salt, bring to a boil, then immediately reduce heat and let water simmer for about 30 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Remove chicken from broth and set aside to cool, but keep the broth in the pot. Once cool enough to touch, chop into chunks or shred breasts and set aside.
2. Combine flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in 3/4 cup milk until ingredients just come together.
3. Dump dough onto a well-floured surface. Knead until you get a stiff dough, then roll out thinly and cut into strips.
4. Add to broth four tablespoons of butter and 1 cup of milk and bring to a boil. Drop in vegetables, if using, and cook to desired doneness.
5. Slowly drop dough strips into broth but do not stir or you'll break them. Add chopped chicken and let cook about 10 minutes. Serve hot, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Strawberry, Citrus and Mint Salad

Have you ever been served a dish that you just couldn't get out of your mind? That was the case with this strawberry, citrus and mint salad, which I first had when I met Kara of What's Kookin' in Kara's Kitchen. It took us a few years, but we finally met in early 2010. We initially connected through our blogs and our love of food and cooking, but we quickly found out that we had a lot in common! I'm excited to say that I call her a friend now, and Brad and I enjoyed having brunch with Kara and her husband. They're such nice people! Go on over and check out her recipes - I'll wait. (And be sure to wish her congratulations on her soon-to-arrive first child!)



To be honest I asked for the recipe of everything Kara served at that brunch. There was a Deen brothers breakfast casserole, a wonderful poppy-seed loaf, and this beautiful salad. But obviously it was this salad that stole the show. Could it be any prettier? And the flavor combination is just perfect. I don't know about you, but I've about had it up to here with this winter weather. Last week I couldn't take any more gray so I sent Brad a message at work that he just had to stop by the store to pick up the ingredients for this salad. It's truly like a bit of spring in the middle of winter. And, yes, I realize that strawberries (and mint, truth be told) are not really in season right now. But sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. And after one bite of this salad I think you'll agree.



Strawberry, Citrus and Mint Salad by bon appetit.

This salad is best the day you make it, and I'd suggest putting the ingredients together right before your meal. The mint wilts quickly, and it's just not that attractive after a stint in the fridge. And of course this salad could only be made better with fresh, local, in-season strawberries - if you can wait that long. I obviously could not.

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