Food

Biscoff Blondies with Cinnamon and White Chocolate Chips

/ Jodi / 8 Comments

biscoff blondies title photo

OOOO  LA LA!!  Have you ever tasted Biscoff Spread?

O… M… G…

It kinda tastes like those little teddy graham cookie crackers, but in a peanut buttery-like spread.  (Can you imagine?!)

biscoff

It is amazing on toast, bagels, English muffins…..

It is heavenly licked from a spoon!

Add it to a blondie with some cinnamon chips and some white chocolate – and it is magical!

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Remember – I was recently cleaning out the baking shelf??   Well – I had some Biscoff Spread, had some cinnamon chips, and Biscoff Blondies came to my imagination.

So, of course, I googled Biscoff Blondies to see if anyone had thought of it yet or if there was a similar recipe; and lo and behold, the amazing Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction, had just the recipe!

I thought it needed cinnamon chips, so that was just the way to “Jodi” it up.

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I simply followed Sally’s recipe, but subbed 1/2 cinnamon chips and 1/2 white chocolate chips for her 1 1/4 cups of white chocolate chips.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup  flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 5 Tbsp  butter, melted
  • 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup Biscoff spread
  • 3/4 cup white chocolate chips
  • 3/4 cup cinnamon chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Line a 8×8 or 9×9 baking pan with parchment paper or spray with nonstick spray (I used a 9 x 9 square baking stone).

In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and brown sugar until combined. Whisk in the egg and egg yolk, then add the vanilla. Stir in the Biscoff spread. Gently fold in the dry ingredients.

(Per Sally – be careful not to overmix, as it will result in crumbly, hard blondies.).

Fold in the cinnamon and white chocolate chips.

Spoon the batter into the prepared baking dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes. The blondies may appear very soft, but they will set up as they cool.  Always UNDERBAKE for yummy goodness.

Allow the blondies to cool completely before cutting into squares.

Makes 16 yummy, awesome blondies.

biscoff blondies 2a

Betchya can’t eat just one!

Enjoy!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Drink More Water

/ Jodi / 5 Comments

water

We hear it everywhere – right? We know it is good for us – right? But do you drink enough water?
I know I don’t myself.
Coffee all morning – many cups… Wine in the evening – (ahem) no comment…

All dehydrating.
So I TRY to drink a couple of glasses of water in between.
I was watching a show on Food Network recently that took muddled honeydew and coconut water and lime juice that they made look like a cocktail!
Fruit Infused Water seems to be all the rage.
So I thought I’d try my own version.
I must say – DELISH!
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For my water “cocktail,” I simply mixed some muddled fresh red raspberries and lime juice to some sparkling water over a tall glass of ice.
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Another really refreshing way to drink water that seems all the rage is with freshly sliced cucumbers; and with all the cucumbers I’m harvesting (YAY!), I tried this too – with simple tap water.  Nice when you don’t want something “sweet.”  And it is amazing how quickly it infuses.

cuke water

It’s not quite cucumber vodka (which – – have you tried yet?  with tonic – YUM!) …… but – I so easily digress – we’re hydrating now – remember?!

And it always tastes better with a cute straw – right?

Drinking Water…
At Life in Between.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Cinnamon Chip Scones

/ Jodi / 15 Comments

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Another one of my “almost famous” recipes is this super easy, yet super yummy recipe for homemade Cinnamon Chip Scones.

I made some this week to take to a morning meeting at work, so I thought I would share with  you.

The first time I had these was at a friend’s house for a holiday party.  Brenda is quite the chef, baker, and entertainer.  We all raved about these scones, but I had never attempted making them before.  I assumed they were difficult.  And truthfully – every scone I ever had before this was less than exciting…..  Many I’ve had were quite dry and lacking in anything that really made me want to do cartwheels.

But these – oh my – I wish I could express to you have awesome they are.  They are tender and moist and full of sweet and cinammony chips.  sc8

And though they end up looking like they would be something difficult or time consuming to make, they are really easy.

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So here we go.

Start by mixing the dry ingredients together (I often do this the night before and put in a bowl with a lid, so I can make fresh in the morning by simply adding the wet ingredients and baking):

2-3/4 cup Flour
1 TBSP Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 cup + 2 TBSP Sugar
Pinch of Salt
2 tsp Cinnamon

Then add 1-1/2 sticks of cold butter, sliced and cut in with a pastry blender (Sorry, Kurt – I told you there was no butter in them – just keep believin’ that – Wink! Wink!)

It starts out looking like this…
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and with the magic of the pastry blender (who needs a food processor?! – have had two – gave away – over-rated), in a matter of about 2 minutes, it becomes a crumbly mixture like this:

sc2Easy Peasy.

Then you add 3/4 cup (or a little more if it is too dry) Buttermilk and 1 TBSP Vanilla with a wooden spoon just until dough forms a ball.

Then you transfer it to a floured surface, blend in a bag of Cinnamon Chips, and shape into a 15 x 3″ rectangle.

Cut it in half, then each half in thirds, then each third on a diagonal into triangles – like this:

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I then brush with a little bit more buttermilk or water, sprinkle some coarse raw sugar on top, place on baking stone (I use 2 with 6 on each) – allowing room for them to GROW.  They go in the oven looking like this:

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Bake at 400 degrees F for 10-15 minutes, and they come out looking like this:

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These are truly best served the day they are baked.  If you store them in an airtight container or bag, they get soft and lose the crispy outside that contrasts so well with the tender inside and makes them so amazing.

sc7Hope you’ll give these a try – even if you don’t think you like scones.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

sc8Enjoy!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Homemade Rustic Crusty Bread

/ Jodi / 9 Comments

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Do you think computers, iPads, smartphones will ever have scratch ‘n sniff available?  Perhaps “smell-a-vision,” “smell-a-phone,” “smell-a-computer?”

Oh how I wish you could SMELL this homemade rustic crusty bread!

And you know what is even better?!?!?!  It is SOOOO simple!

Seriously!

I have been having bread-making envy from a couple of folks I know (ahem – Oh Rob and Nancy), who have been talking so much about baking bread, I couldn’t take it anymore – I HAD TO BAKE SOME BREAD!

But, alas, I am not a bread baker, so I searched for the simplest rustic crusty bread to start with – thinking – is there such a thing?!??

THERE IS!  Thank you Mel – from Mel’s Kitchen Café for this amazing recipe that was apparently adapted from a New York Times article  about “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007).

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There are THREE ingredients.  That’s it!  Well – ok – four – if you count tap water.

It is simply:

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast (equivalent of 2 envelopes)
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

Talk about easy – talk about cheap!

This recipe does NOT require a mixer, does NOT require a bread machine, does NOT even required kneading.  I was skeptical, but thought it was worth a try.  I had time while I was doing other things to let it sit, so what the heck!

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Here are the instructions I adapted from Mel:

Directions

  1. In a large bowl mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover lightly with a kitchen towel but don’t seal the bowl airtight. Let the dough rise at room temperature 2-5 hours until doubled.
  2. Divide the dough in half to form two loaves (or you can make 3-4 smaller round loaves if you prefer).  Turn the dough in your hands to lightly stretch the surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put the dough on floured baking stone, and let it rest for another 40 minutes at room temperature.
  3. After the dough has rested and is ready to bake, dust the dough lightly with flour, slash the top with serrated or very sharp knife three times, and sprinkle with a little bit of coarse sea salt if desired.
  4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.  Place a broiler pan on the bottom rack of the oven.  Pour one cup of hot water into the pan and shut the oven quickly to trap the steam.
  5. Bake the bread until well browned and it sounds a bit “hollow” when you knock on it –  about 20-28 minutes depending on your oven.  (Mine is an electric convection oven and only took about 20 minutes.)
  6. Slice when cooled and ENJOY!

br w pepWe enjoyed ours for Sunday dinner with spicy sausage stuffed banana peppers from my garden.  It was perfect for cutting the heat and soaking up the juice.

I think I’ll be baking some more of this soon, and maybe branching out to try some others.

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Homemade bread that is easy and inexpensive, has no preservatives, and tastes OUT OF THIS WORLD!

You are going to want to try this!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

Salted Caramel Black Walnut Brownies

/ Jodi / 5 Comments

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We were going to a special event on Saturday (a wedding celebration for my brother, Jeff, and new Sis-in-Law, Terri 🙂 ), and I didn’t want to go empty-handed.  I had figured on taking the usual “Jodi’s Almost Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies” because the kiddos really love them.

But I wanted to make something else special and yummy for the occasion.  I was watching one of my cooking “heroes,” Ree Drumond aka The Pioneer Woman, in the morning and was inspired by her Crazy Brownie recipe.

So I checked the baking shelf (which needed cleaning out desperately – so it led to that!)  Think I have enough stuff???!!

baking shelf

And set out to make my own brownies.  I used some of her tricks, including a box of Duncan Hines Devil’s Food Cake for the base to which I added 1/3 of a cup of evaporated milk and a stick of melted butter.

I pressed about 2/3 of that into the bottom of my round baking dish.  (I’ve always loved to bake my brownies in a round dish – my BFF Jill got me started on that years ago I think….)

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Then I had all of these caramels in a Ziploc bag ALREADY unwrapped from some other baking project from who knows when, so I figured I would melt them with the rest of the evaporated milk and make a caramel gooey layer.

It starts like this….

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and turns into this yummy goodness!

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So I layered that on, sprinkled it with a layer of sea salt, added the rest of the batter in blobs (technical term) on top of it, then a sprinkling of chopped black walnuts, some leftover shaved chocolate and a smidge more sea salt.

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It went in the oven looking like this:

br6and came out like this:

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and was pretty amazing when I cut into it…

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Yummy, sweet, salty, gooey goodness!

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at Life In Between.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

How does your Garden Grow? With Prickly Cukes and Juicy ‘Maters and Spicy Peppers all in a Row

/ Jodi / 4 Comments

Ok – so I’m not quite the “Mary Mary Quite Contrary” Nursery Rhyme Poet that Mother Goose was…

But OH How I LOVE to watch my Garden Grow!

tomatoes

I only started vegetable gardening – again – a few years ago – and my garden is just a tiny, manageable patch…

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with enough tomatoes and cucumbers for fresh salads by mid to end of summer (and OH I just can’t wait for these to turn RED! – and my Orange Pineapple Heirloom tomatoes to emerge!)

cukes

and some spicyJalapeno peppers to zip up fresh salsa!

jalapenos

and some banana (Hungarian Wax?) peppers to stuff with spicy sausage!

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and I love how fresh and clean everything looks in the morning after a night of nourishing rain.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

 

My Favorite Recipe

/ Jodi / 4 Comments

happy home

Yep – this is a good one!  One of my favorite recipes!

Not sure if it is because of the sweet young-child writing  from my now married, 26 year old son on the gingerbread  and heart-shaped candy cane recipe card,

or the wonderful meaning of the words in the simple message,

0r the fact that I love my home and family so much….

No matter the reason, hope you will also enjoy this FAVORITE recipe!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

Grilled Mini Pizzas

/ Jodi / Leave a comment

We all like our pizza a little different, so why not make personal mini pizzas?  I had some Mama Mary’s 3-packs of mini crusts that were just perfect for throwing on the grill on a warm summer day.p1

The topping choices can be as endless as your imagination and taste. buds.  Chicken would be wonderful (but I think we had it 4 or 5 times already this week 🙂 ).  Ham and pineapple,  steak and mushrooms….

p3For us this past Sunday afternoon, I just chopped up some sweet red and orange and yellow peppers, Vidalia and green onions, added a sprinkle of salt, and sautéed it all with some garlic in olive oil…

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I sliced some pepperoni and thick chunks of fresh mozzarella and goat cheese.   Fried up some thick-sliced salty bacon…

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Put out a jar of marinated artichoke hearts and sliced banana peppers…

p5 and we put together our own faves, threw them on the grill for about 8 minutes – keeping OFF the direct flame for best results!

And guess what – we all LOVED our own pizza!

(I’ll bet they would even be fun to make with cinnamon and sugar and apple or peach slices or tart cherries and cream cheese!)

Enjoy whatever way you like best for a quick and easy and satisfying meal.

Cheers and Hugs,

Jodi

 

“Instants” I Just Don’t Get….

/ Jodi / 3 Comments

macncheese

… INSTANT Mashed Potatoes

Seriously???!!
NEVER bought them.
What is more instant that peeling and boiling and mashing REAL potatoes?  A no brainer, and SOOOOO much better!

… INSTANT Coffee

GAG!  No more words necessary!  Should not even exist.

… INSTANT Iced Tea

Is it really that much easier than putting a tea bag in hot water and cooling?

… INSTANT Macaroni and Cheese

GROSS!

(I do have to admit to buying this “food” in a box in my younger years when the kids were little. And then there is Nick’s first experience with “cooking” boxed mac’n cheese! You’ll have to ask him about that!)

I’m not sure why I bought it????
I don’t think I was ever taught differently.
But – another – SERIOUSLY??  – What is so difficult about whisking together some butter, flour, milk and cheese and mixing it with a box of macaroni?
Pretty instant I think.
And pretty yummy too!  Who can resist the creamy, gooey, cheesey center contrasting with the browned crusty goodness on the edges?!? – Num Num Num!
Made some for Marty this past week.  Macaroni Salad and Mac and Cheese are a couple of his favorite indulgences I don’t make that often.
But when I do – it’s a big hit!

(especially goes over well a day after I serve him “CHICKEN AGAIN?!” – and even more especially with teriyaki sauce! 🙂 )

I know many of us are busy and enjoy INSTANT things, but I’m liking them less and less….

Then again,

I am at

Life In Between.

Do you have any INSTANTS you LOVE or HATE?  Would love to hear about them 🙂

Cheers and Hugs,

Jodi

Kicked Up Teriyaki Grilled Chicken Breast Sandwich

/ Jodi / 2 Comments

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I LOVE Chicken!

It is so versatile.  There are so so so many different things you can do with it.  So many ways to prepare it.

Grilled, fried, baked, broiled, boiled, stir fried…

In pasta, in the crockpot, marinated, breaded, with vegies, with fruit, with sauce, in a wrap or in a sandwich……

The possibilities are limitless, and I make chicken at least twice a week.

So when I saw this AMAZING looking Chicken sandwich on Carlsbad Cravings’ Blog,   I knew I had to try it!

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Since  my dear friend Janet was coming over for dinner this past Monday, I thought this would be a great recipe to try.  (and being that Marty is not a huge teriyaki fan <SERIOUSLY?? – WHAT THE HECK!>, I knew he wouldn’t mind with Janet here 🙂 ).

From the sticky sweetness of the homemade honey teriyaki sauce with a kick of heat to the smooth coolness of the honey lime avacado yogurt sauce to the tangy sweetness of the grilled, marinated pineapple to the crunchy goodness of the crisp red onion, to the heat and bite of the melted pepper jack cheese to the juiciness of the marinated grilled chicken breast to the sweetness of the tomato………..

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SIGH…

Oh My!  Are you dying yet??

So many layers of wonderfulness on a grilled bun!

We all decided it might even be just fine without one or two of the ingredients, but totally enjoyed these delish, but a bit sloppy sammies that are totally restaurant worthy.

Have an extra two or three napkins on hand when eating this one!

We enjoyed with a large fresh tossed salad, and I have lots of leftover chicken for salads and sandwiches and wraps the rest of the week.

Check out the recipe Jen posted here for what she calls Honey Teriyaki Pineapple Chicken Sandwiches with Honey Cotija Avacado Spread and tweak to your own taste and enjoyment (i.e. I subbed Feta cheese for Cotija cheese, which I was clueless about…)

I’m pretty sure you are going to love this.  I know I did!

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Cheers and Hugs,

Jodi