Making Candy

This one is simple if you are looking to make a sweet treat that goes a long way.  I made these for Christmas this year.

Chocolate covered nuts

1 pkg of vanilla almond bark
1 pkg of chocolte almond bark
1 small bag of giradelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips
2 lbs of gourmet nuts with sea salt or nuts of your choice

Place the choc chips in bottom of crockpot, cover with nuts and almond bark.  Turn on low for 3 hours and leave the lid on. After 3 hours take the lid off and stir.  Drop by spoonful on parchment paper and cool.

Nutella Turnovers

Nothing sweet all week so I am craving some chocolate. Looked in the pantry and found these ingredients and searched recipes til I found one. Yummy.

1 sheet of puffed pastry thawed & divided into 2 layed on a floured surface and cut into little squares.
1 bag of giradelli choc chips
1 c nutella
1 egg
1 tblsp water
slivered almonds 1 tblsp butter

Preheat oven to 400
stir nutella and 3/4 bag of chips together
Wisk the egg with water and brush the ends of the pastry dough that you are folding together
Place a heaping spoonful of choc mix in each square
Fold over and make triangles and place on parchment lined cookie sheet
Brush rest of egg mixture on top of pastries and sprinkle almonds on top
Bake for 15 minutes
Cool and eat

Favorite Egg Casserole

8 eggs slightly wisked
12 oz container of cottage cheese
1 c bisquick
1 stick of melted butter or 1/2 c melted margerine
1 c milk
2 c of shredded cheddar
bacon cooked crisp and broken up to your liking
salt and pepper - you can add red pepper flakes or parsley


Preheat to 350
Combine all ingredients and pour into a 9 x 13 sprayed baking dish
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes   ENJOY


My son loves this hot or cold

Homemade Bread with Sunflower Seeds

I am so excited about how my bread turned out.  It is delicious... no kneading.  My La Cloche arrived the other day and I am definately going to get my money back with the use of it.  I didn't photograph the process because I was uncertain the first time.  I will post the steps next blog.

Here's the results

BELLA ROMA

We just have all kinds of unusual tomatoes growing this year so we have had fun staging the Roma's while we get down to some serious aroma flowing through the house.

ROASTING ROMA'S AND GARLIC

Slice the roma's in half and place on parchment lined cookie sheets.  Be sure to fill the pan.  If you have fresh garlic, peel some cloves and set in there as well.

Sprinkle kosher salt, fresh basil, oregano or parsley

Drizzle olive oil on top.

Place in a preheated oven at 225 and bake for 4 or 5 hours.

I put mine in a convection setting at 325 because I needed to bake in less time.

These can be put in freezer bags and stored n the freezer for later use on pizza's or pasta.........if they last that long!!!

Baked Roma's with garlic and mozzerella

Our tomatoes are coming in and we had a beautiful crop of garlic this year.  I am a garlic lover and these were delicious.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
Slice your Roma's in half lengthwise, scoopout the center with a spoon and place on cookie sheet
Peel your garlic
Place the garlic in a bowl and pour enough olive oil to coat well
Add some basil to the mix
Place one garlic in each roma drizzling some oil on as well
I used pearl mozzerella and placed one pearl in each Roma
Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes

Apple Poppies

We thawed out some frozen apples from last years crop and usually I will just heat these up and serve them warm.  Keith had a friend over and they wanted some pie.  I had some frozen puff pastry sheets and came up with this.  Keith wants to call them Apple Poppies.

1 pkg of frozen puff pastry
1 quart of chopped cooked apples.
dash of cinnamon
dash of fresh ground nutmeg
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
2 tbsp butter

Thaw out the puff pastry - this shouldn't take long (if you thaw it too much, you can't work with it)
Heat your apples in a saucepan for about 10 minutes and let cool to room temp. Cook a little longer if you are using fresh picked.
I put the butter in a microwaveable bowl with the pecans and add the cinnamon and nutmeg.  Microwave about a minute stirring halfway.

Drain the apples, saving some juice
Roll out the pastry and cut into 4 equal squares on each sheet
spoon apples onto pastry sheet
spoon some pecan mix on top and take pastry ends diagonally and press all sides together
Place on cookie sheet and brush some juice on top.

Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes until light golden brown.