Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Yea! =) I am terribly excited, as this is my first post on this blog! =)
First, before I do anything, I want to thank Melody and Esther for letting me be an author of this blog. I'm really excited! =D

Now, for the chocolate chunk brownies: this is one of my family's favorite recipes. It is quick, easy, and the result is delicious chocolate brownies... yum!
Here is the step-by-step way to make these amazing brownies!
Disclaimer: I'll be including ten billion pictures. =P Just so you know... I love taking pictures, so I was snapping right and left when I made these. =)

Ingredients:
4 oz of unsweetened chocolate
1 stick of butter (this does not have to be softened, as you will be melting it)
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3 eggs
3/4 cups of flour
1 cup of bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks (I always use chocolate chips)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 7 by 11 or 8 inch square pan.

2. In a small saucepan, combine the unsweetened chocolate and butter.

To make it easier and faster to melt, cut the butter into chunks, and cut the chocolate ounces in two pieces.
Put on low heat, and stir often. Continue until everything is melted. Make sure there are no tiny chunks of chocolate left, as these can hide themselves easily. ;-)

Once you finish, it should look about like this (doesn't it look amazing? I wanted to eat it =P)


3. Allow the butter/chocolate mixture to cool for a minute or two (this is not necessary, but it is a good idea). Next, add the sugar, vanilla, and salt. I used 1 cup sucanat, and 1/2 cup organic sugar.

Once you're finished stirring, your mixture should look about like this. Mine might look a little bit more "grainy" than yours would look, because organic sugar and sucanat is a little bit more grainy than white sugar.

4. Add your first egg. Stir well. Do not add all three at once, add each egg one at a time, and stir well before adding the next one.

After adding all your eggs, your mixture should look about like this. It shouldn't be soupy, but it should be fairly easy to stir.

5. Next, add your flour to the mixture. I used freshly ground wheat flour, and a tiny bit of King Arthur all-purpose flour. My mom didn't grind quite enough flour. =P (by the way, I know it doesn't look like 3/4 of a cup of flour in the picture, but that is because I had already started stirring a little bit)

After stirring, your mixture should look about like this.

6. Next, comes everyone's favorite part. The chocolate chips. =D I added almost a cup of chocolate chips. It just depends on how many you want. If you want just a few, add about 1/2.

7. Next, pour the batter into the greased pan.

If you need to, lightly, but firmly, hit the side of the pan.

And if you want to make your brownies look pretty, add some chopped nuts on the top. =)

8. Put your brownies in the oven for about 35-40 minutes. If you have a really fast baking oven, like we do, then put it in for 30 minutes. But if your oven is fairly normal, use the regular time, unless you want unbaked brownies. =)
Once they're done, take them out, and let them cool for a little bit.

9. This recipe makes about 16 brownies, depending on how you cut them. It should serve 4 people for about 2 days, if you're like my family. =P
Get some plates, put your nice, moist, delicious brownies on some plates, put some vanilla ice cream on top, pour some milk in some glasses, and give your family a huge treat!
(my dad loves brownies... and he said these things were amazing. He is a brownie expert, so you can trust him =)
Now go and eat those brownies!


So, there you have it!! A quick, easy way to make those mouth-watering brownies.
I hope you enjoy this recipe!! I love making and eating them, and I bet you will too!

Thanks for reading!

~Chef Madison

Chicken Quesadillas

These are really easy and the whole family will like them. (Well, if your family is anything like mine =P)

Prep Time: ~20 min
Cook Time: 10 min

2-1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken
2/3 cups salsa
1/3 cup sliced green onions
3/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
6 flour tortillas (8 inches)
1/4 cup butter melted
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack or Mozzarella cheese.
Sour cream and guacamole

First, preheat oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a skillet, combine the first six ingredients. Cook, uncovered, over medium heat for 10 minutes or until heated through, stirring occasionally.

Brush on side of tortilla with butter. Spoon 1/3 cup chicken mixture over half of unbuttered side of each tortilla. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup cheese; fold plain side of tortilla over cheese.

Place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for ten minutes in preheated oven or until crisp and golden brown. Cut into wedges and serve with sour cream and guacamole.

~Esther

Monster Cookies!

Today was the first time I'd ever made these cookies and wow! They are amazing!!! So, here is the recipe.

First, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Next, in a large bowl, cream together 1 cup butter, 2 cups white sugar, 2 cups packed brown sugar, and 3 cups peanut butter until smooth.

Beat in 6 eggs, two at a time. Then stir in 1 and 1/2 tsp. Corn Syrup, and 1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

Next, mix in 4 tsp baking soda and 9 cups of oats until well blended. Stir in 1/2 pound candy-coated milk chocolate pieces and 1/2 pound semisweet chocolate chips.

Roll dough into 2 inch balls, and place 3 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with a fork. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool on cookie sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.




* Special thanks to Sara H. for the recipe.

Orange Chicken

Prep Time: ~40 minutes
Serves: 4-6


This is a pretty easy Chinese dish that tastes awesome.

First, marinate 2 and 1/2 pounds uncooked chicken with 2 Tbsp. Cornstarch and 2 Tbsp. Soy sauce for 10-15 minutes.
While that is marinating, in a small bowl mix 3/4 Cup orange juice, 6 Tbsp. Oyster sauce, 3 Tbsp. Honey, and 2 Tbsp. Cornstarch together until honey dissolves.
Stir-fry 1 Tbsp. minced Ginger for ten seconds, and leave in pan.
Stir-fry chicken in several batches.
Pour sauce in to chicken, bring to boil and cook until slightly thickened, approximately 20 seconds.
Add 5-6 Tangerines peeled and separated, and 1 can Pineapple chunks and cook for 30 seconds or until warm, not squishy.
Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and on noodles or rice.




Okay, here's a picture of the finished product. Not exactly amazing looking, but we aren't all that good at beautifying our food. It always tastes better than it looks. ;)

The Awesome addition!!!

Okay, I'm really super excited. Esther and I have this amazing friend, Madison. And she is really good with crafts, and cooking and all that kind of stuff. And she was going to start her own cooking blog, but I thought it would be really really fun to do a cooking blog together. So Esther and I invited her to just join ours. So we have a new author. =D I'm so excited to see what she posts on here. Now I get to get new fun recipes by reading the blog too! =D Today has been such a perfect exciting day! Okay, I'm hyper, I'll try to calm down. =P

Springerles

When I make these cookies it's more than just making cookies. It always brings to mind the stories my mom has told about having them when she was growing up. When my mom was young my grandma made them a lot around Christmas time. Then as my grandma got older my mom sorta took over the tradition of making them and every year, all 6 of her brothers and her sister got some for Christmas. My mom did this for a lot of years. Then as time went and my mom had more kids my she sorta stopped making them.

We all love the cookies so this year I decided we had to make them. They take a while to make, but they are a lot of fun.! Hope you enjoy.

First, beat 4 eggs well, add sugar gradually, beating until very thick.

Pour 2 tsp boiling water over 2 Tbsp anise seed. Let sit. Sift together 4 cups of flour and 2 tsp baking pd in a separate bowl. Add anise seed to egg mixture. Then add 1 Tbsp lemon rind. (It should look something like this)

Add flour and baking pd to egg mixture gradually. Form into flat round (hehe, at least somewhat round) pieces. Wrap in wax paper and chill for about an hour. Roll on lightly floured waxed paper. (Sandwiched between 2 sheets) to 1/4 inch thickness.

Use springerle roller like the one above. Cut, let dry 6 to 12 hours.
Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 to 15 minutes or until light brown.











They are rather hard to see, but all the cookies have the cool designs that the roller makes on them.

Random Cooking Tip: When cooking anything, remember the object is to have fun (and tasty food), if you make a mistake laugh, try to fix it,then move on.

Recipes for Coffee Cake and Egg Casserole

Here are the recipes Mel promised. Even with all the mistakes we made, the coffee cake and egg casserole make an excellent breakfast. The egg casserole is simpler so I'll start with it.

First, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Next, get out a medium sized bowl, put in 4 cups of Monterey Jack cheese (we've always done cheddar), 1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles, and 4 (8-ounce) cartons cottage cheese and stir thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

Next, sift together 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and 1 tsp baking powder in a separate bowl. Add flour mixture, 1/2 cup melted butter, and 10 eggs, beaten to cheese mixture, mixing well.

Pour into well-greased 13- x 9- x 2-inch glass baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes. (It always takes at least 15 extra minutes in our oven. Just be sure to not over cook it like we did :P).

Now for the coffee cake.

First, preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Next, cream 1/4 cup of butter, softened. Beat in 1 cup sugar and 1 egg, well beaten.

In a separate bowl mix sift together, 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Add to butter mixture alternately with 1/2 cup of milk. Pour into a 9- x 9-buttered pan

Next, in a small bowl mix together 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp all-purpose flour, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 cup butter (make sure you don't double this :P), and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. (I often double the brown sugar mixture. )

"Sprinkle" (more like spread) over batter. Bake for 20 minutes (It always takes at least 35 in our oven)

When I bake these two recipes for breakfast I cook them both at the lower temperature and just cook the egg casserole longer so I can cook them at the same time.

Enjoy!

The breakfast Fiasco

Ok, Esther and I started this blog but haven't done anything with it yet. Don't ask me why. So, it's in desperate need of a post and here I am.

Thursday night, Esther, Joylily(a friend from North Carolina) and I decided to make breakfast. Ok yeah, that in itself sounds weird. Making breakfast at night? But we were making egg caserol and coffee cake so we could have a yummilicous breakfast without getting up super early. So we began with Joy and me working on the coffee cake and Esther making the egg.

All was going splendedly, we were happily chattering away(as teenage girls do when they haven't seen each other in like at least five years). Because of the number of people that would be eating it, we decided to triple the coffee cake recipe. I said we should do double the goupy stuff because it taste better that way. But Esther didn't agree! *sigh* I was finally ok with the fact that we weren't doing double when we suddenly realized we had done too much butter. Apparently late at night, us and math is not a good mix. Instead of tripling the amount called for in the recipe we had done six times the amount.

Now of course I didn't mind. I said from the beginning that we should do double the recipe for the topping. =P And no, it was not done on purpose. Definitely an acident. Ok, so we begin to fix our slight cooking problem by simply adding more of the other ingredients. Once again, all was going smooth. But suddenly, we come to the horrifying discovery that we have no more brown sugar. We looked everywhere for it but alas, none could be found. So what do we do? GOOGLE!!! Yeppo, google, my trusted cooking friend. We found a recipe for brown sugar. Haha, at first we said that we were truly cooking from scratch, then we realized that to make our own brown sugar was not exactly the definition of organic cooking. Taking a refined substance and 'unrefining' it. But eh, it's ok, we solved our dilemma and at that time that's all that mattered.

Now, you might think that that is more than enough badness to happen in one cooking experience. I mean, it's not possible to have more mistakes.....is it? Let me tell you, IT IS!!! Boy is it ever. Once we finally had ingredience sorted out it came time to put them in the pan. So I asked Esther what size we normally use for a double batch. She told me 9"x13". So, ok, I should have just put 2/3 of the batter in a 9"x13" and put the rest in one of our 9"x9"s but no, I decide that it will ALL fit in the 9"x13". I was right! It fit. We popped the egg and coffee cake into the oven and then found Abby, Bekey(Esther's and my sisters) and Amy(Joy's sister) and informed them that since we made breakfast and they are on breakfast duty the least they could do was do the dishes. *evil grin* And suprise of all suprises, they agreed to it. I think aliens came and did something to their brains. But that's another story. =P

Ok, so Esther, Joy, and I go upstairs to our room to hang out. And we hung for awhile and talked and had tons of fun.....but then we hear panick downstairs. We rush down and Abby rather frantically tells us that the coffee cake is exploding in the oven. I sorta start to freak out but realize that wont help things so instead I grab the oven mits and open the oven door. Exploding was a major exageration. It was more like, rising and spilling all over the sides of the pan and inside the oven. But whatever the case, it was a mess. After scooping enough of the remaining batter into another pan, which I will add I almost forgot to greese, we placed them back in the oven to finish cooking. At this point the whole kitchen was filled with smoke because of the coffee cake cooking onto the inside of the oven. We had to take down the smoke alarm because my mom was sleeping. Haha, that's right, my mom slept through the entire episode.

Anyway, so we finally get everything close to done but of course both the egg casoral and the coffee cake take waaaaaaaay longer than they say in the recipe so we did the norm and set them for longer.....a little too much longer. The egg was, well,.....brown on top. Not reallly that burnt but a little. I think the coffee came may have survived. At least, I know one of them did. I think we slightly burned the other though.

Ok, so the moral of the story is....DO NOT EVER EAT MINE OR ESTHERS COOKING!!! Lol. No, not really. We are fine cooks. But like all, we have our mistakes. It just happens that the thing you will hear about most on here are our mistakes because what's funny about a sucessful cooking experience? NOTHING! So yeah, mistakes are what you'll hear about. But we can cook most of the time.

Oh, btw, I will post the recipes for the cheesy egg casoral and the coffee cake. But not right now because it's 11pm and my fam is mostly asleep so I don't want to wake them up looking for the recipes. I can never remember what books they are in. And I'm not one of those amazing cooks that remembers all her recipes. =P