Sunday, November 27, 2011

Wintertime Chili

I must admit, when I first received this Wintertime Chili for Christmas last year, I was pretty skeptical.  Today, however, after having it in my cupboard for 11 months, I decided to gather the ingredients and make it.

Boy, am I ever glad. It was super duper tasty.

The recipe is ridiculously easy to make. All you need to know is how to chop an onion, cut up a pepper, chop a couple cloves of garlic, and brown some ground beef.

Oh, and how to turn your stove on and off and not use it at maximum.  You'd be surprised how many people can't do that.

I added extra chili powder, extra cayenne pepper, and some red chili pepper flakes because I used 19oz cans of beans instead of 15. The flavours were all there! Definitely a good meal.

I sliced up some flour tortillas to eat with the chili. Perfection.

Here's a picture:

Raisin Bread French Toast

This was a good idea, in theory.

In fact, this would have been an amazing idea in practice if I hadn't ruined my loaf of raisin bread.  I think my breadmaker hates me;  it over-rises white bread and under-rises raisin bread. 

It wasn't raisin bread; it was raisin cube that weighs 2 lbs.

But, being the trooper I am, I decided to try, anyway.

French toast mix recipe:

  • 2 eggs
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
  • 6 slices raisin bread


The flavour was there but the consistency was like... spackle. Too bad.  If the bread was fluffy and had properly risen, then it would definitely have been delicious.  Here are some pictures:




Saturday, November 5, 2011

Adventures in Cake Pops

I love to bake. I love to bake new things. I love cake. I love baking cake. I do not really like making cake pops, but they are -delicious-.

I bought a package of Wilton's orange candy melts with intent to make pumpkin cake pops to give to the kids around the neighbourhood that I know.  Sadly, I melted the candy at too high a temperature, and had no more orange chocolate.  Sadness.

So, Halloween came and Halloween went and in my freezer sat 50-some lonely, naked, freezing cake pops just begging to be dipped in delicious warm chocolate. What better way to end quickly?

I had a spare package of light cocoa candy melts in my drawer so I decided I'd give it a go again today.

This time, I used the stovetop instead of the microwave.  I heated it slowly, gradually. The chocolate was never too hot to touch.  When it was melted, I still found it too thick, so I added a bit of vegetable oil, a bit at a time, until it was the right consistency -- dippable.

Then, so began the dipping. We had a few casualties of war:


Poor bastards. I'll give them a good home, later.

But all in all, I finished a good solid, (but seriously fugly), chocolate cakepops.



They don't look like much, but they certainly are tasty.


Oh, and for those who are curious as to what I might've done with my ruined melted orange chocolate?


Chocolate flowers.  Hey, the Behemoth loves them.


Cake pops: let it be known! With time, I shall conquor you!