Crushed

If you like salt and oil and crispy goodness, make these crash hot potatoes immediately. That is all.

Image from Pioneer Woman

PS Isn't the name awesome too?

PPS Thanks to the Pioneer Woman.

Trick or treat!

Trick or treat! This week: treats to sip.

A sweet cinnamon rimmed carmel apple cider martini.

Hola Jose! A smoky pear margarita.

Sip some apple pie (sans alcohol) with apple pie cider.

Candy corn vodka? Oh yes.

Dust off the Crockpot and make some mulled wine.

Pumpkin pie in the sky.

Have some halloween candy with your blood martini!

It wouldn't be autumn without some hot buttered rum.

Good ole' Hershey's hot chocolate.

Nothing beats homemade ginger ale.

This cinnamon roll milkshake is almost too much to handle.

{Photo}

Trick or Treat...

I have decided that for the month of October every Friday will be "Trick or Treat Friday" on the blog- I'll post a delicious treat or a beautiful trick. Today: one of my favorite fall dishes, my mom's pumpkin lasagna. Don't be intimidated by the many ingredients or several steps; this one is worth it.

Pumpkin Lasagna
Pumpkin filling:
1 stick butter
6 leeks, trimmed, rinsed and minced
4 cups pumpkin puree, fresh or canned
1/2 cup white wine
salt and pepper

Bechamel (white sauce):
1 stick butter
6 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
salt and pepper
3 large egg yolks, beaten

For the assembly:
1-1/4 pounds lasagna noodles, cooked and drained (or use no boil noodles)
1/2 pound thinly sliced prosciutto (or smoked ham)
1/4 cup sage leaves, torn into pieces
1-1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups walnut pieces, toasted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or spray a 15 X 10 inch baking pan and set aside.

Prepare filling:
Melt butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add leeks and sauté, stirring occasionally until tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in pumpkin and white wine; cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Remove from heat; season with salt and pepper. Reserve.

Prepare béchamel:
Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add flour and whisk 1 minute until smooth. Gradually whisk in chicken broth and half and half. Cook, whisking the bubbling mixture constantly, until smooth and thickened. Stir in Parmesan. Season with nutmeg.
Stir in 1/2 cup of the sauce into beaten egg yolks and whisk the mixture back into remaining sauce, blending completely. Stir 2 minutes longer; remove from heat. Set aside covered.

Make a layer of lasagna noodles in bottom of prepared dish. Top with 1/2 the prosciutto and 1/3 of the béchamel. Scatter half the sage leaves evenly over top. Cover with a second layer of noodles, all the pumpkin filling, 1 cup Parmesan and 1 cup walnuts. Make a third layer of lasagna noodles; top with remaining prosciutto, 1/3 of the béchamel and remaining sage. Make a final layer of noodles; top with remaining béchamel, walnuts, and Parmesan.

Bake uncovered 1 hour or until browned and bubbling. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

{Photo from Closet Cooking}

Smookies

Tonight I'm making combining two of the most scrumptious desserts to ever exist- cookies + s'mores. Smookies? Co'mores?

{Image from marthastewart.com}

The oven is about to ding, so here is a link to the lovely Martha recipe! Just a side note, in place of some of the dry ingredients (namely the flour), I crushed up 1/2 cup of graham crackers to add to the batter to give it a graham cookie taste.

Sweet as a cupcake.

My college roommate came into town for the weekend, and, since her birthday is next week, we obviously needed to eat a lot of cake and/or cupcakes. Along with many similarities, we share an intense love of cake, and the two of us have quite a history of good cake eating in college (we once ate an abandoned cake in the kitchen on her dorm floor, but we knew the birthday boy so it's okay). Though I considered ordering treats from one of Chicago's delicious cupcakeries, I decided to try out my own recipe and made, wait for it, cookie dough cupcakes.

Ingredients:

Cupcakes-

1 box of cake mix (I used marble cake so that there would be some chocolate but not an overwhelming amount)

1 can of diet cream soda (If you haven't tried making diet soda cake before I would highly recommend it. Instead of oil and eggs, just blend one can of diet soda with the cake mix and you cut out tons of fat. And then you can eat more cupcakes.)

1 package of pre-made cookie dough (I'm not Martha Stewart, let's make things easy.)

Blend cake mix with can of soda and bake according to the box directions.

Let the cupcakes cool.

Once cool, use a sharp knife to cut the center out of each cupcake.

Stuff the cupcake with as much cookie dough as your heart desires.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (Sprinkles Cupcakes frosting recipe)-

1 cup of butter, softened

3 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1/3 teaspoon of salt

Combine butter, sugar, and salt. Beat until well blended (should be fairly creamy).

Add the milk and vanilla and beat until smooth and creamy (3-5 minutes).

Frost liberally. (This recipe frosts about 12 cupcakes).

Decorate the top with a mini cookie dough cookie.

Enjoy lots.

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C is for Cookie...

I dedicated an entire post a couple weeks ago to my ultimate cookie making failure, so I thought it only appropriate to dedicate this entire post to celebrate my FIRST SUCCESSFUL HOMEMADE COOKIES EVER!! I won't bore everyone with the details of how they are the perfect size- 4 inches across- a lovely golden color, crispy around the edges and slightly unbaked chewy in the middle, and filled with the perfect amount of melty M&Ms. But I will share the recipe. Enjoy!

M&Ms Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose flour (note: I only used 1 1/2 cups since my cookies always turn out way to dry and cakey)

1 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of salt

3/4 cup of butter at room temperature

2/3 cup of granulated white sugar

2/3 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract

As many M&Ms as your little heart desires

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium size bowl.

Beat the butter and sugars until they are creamy, light, and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes- do not over beat).

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the egg and egg yolk, beating until well mixed.

Beat in the vanilla extract.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Now, you can either mix the M&Ms into the dough (the superior choice because then the whole cookie is chocolatey and melty) or place them on top of the cookie once formed on the baking sheet.

Form balls of dough as big as you can handle, leaving plenty of space between them on the cookie sheet. Nobody likes a siamese cookie.

Put some more M&Ms on top of the cookies for good measure.

Put in the oven and bake for about 6-7 minutes, then turn the sheet on the baking rack so that the cookies bake evenly.

Bake for another 6-7 minutes or until perfectly golden brown but still soft.

Take out of the oven and eat them while they're hot, the only acceptable way to enjoy a cookie!

Makes about 12 large cookies, plus a little extra cookie dough to snack on while they bake.

cookie FAIL

I am officially THE WORST chocolate chip cookie baker in the world.  After several attempts, following several recipes perfectly, I give up.  As my hysterically laughing boyfriend likes to say, my cookies are ghost cookies.  Every single time, no matter what recipe I use, even if I buy fresh new ingredients, my cookies come out about 3/4 an inch thick and pure white.  They are like a strange mixture between cake and bread.  If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, please help!!

Here is the recipe I used.