Brownie Cookies with Salted Caramel Creme Filling for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day gave me the perfect excuse to make these beauties. And since my Valentine doesn't do back flips for chocolate and salted caramel quite like I do, I'll also be baking a pan of Meyer lemon bars. The things we do for love. 

The original recipe for these brownie cookies had a peanut butter filling so I'm sure you could get creative and adapt this recipe to make a raspberry filling, mint or whatever your favorite flavor combination is! 

Brownie Cookies with Salted Caramel Creme Filling

Recipe slightly adapted from Bakers Royale

Makes 24 one inch sandwich cookies (I only ended up with 14 sandwich cookies, and I promise I didn't eat that much of the dough) | Preparation: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line bake sheet with parchment paper.

Ingredients:

Brownie Cookies (adapted from Donna Hay)

• 12 oz. chocolate, chopped
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 large eggs
• ⅔ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder, sifted

Salted Caramel Creme Filling (This made a lot more than I needed, probably could have doubled the above brownie cookie recipe)

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups confectioner sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup caramel (I used Trader Joe's fleur de sel caramel but if you're an ambitious super star, you can make your own caramel. Click here.) 

Instructions:

To make brownie cookies:

1. Place 7oz. of the chocolate and the butter in a saucepan over low heat and gently stir until melted and smooth. Set aside.
2. Place the eggs, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and beat for 15 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add in flour, baking powder, melted chocolate mixture, remaining 5 oz. of chocolate and mix to combine. Set aside to to stand for 10 minutes. Spoon a little under a 1 tablespoonful of the mixture, onto parchment lined bake sheet. Bake for about 8–10 minutes or until puffed and cracked. Allow to cool completely on trays.

To make caramel creme filling:

1. Place butter in a bowl and beat until creamed. Add in confectioner sugar and salt and beat until light combined. Add in caramel and beat until combined (since my caramel was already salted, I only put in a few more sprinkles of salt, not the 1/4 tsp. it calls for). 

Assembly:

1. Spread a  tablespoon and a half of caramel creme on underside of one brownie cookie and place a second brownie cookie bottom side down on top frosting.

When Amber announced this month's theme, I decided I wanted to make cranberry bliss bars but in the pinterest search process, I got distracted and landed on this recipe instead. I normally gravitate toward chocolate, but these bars seemed very fitting for the holidays. They turned out well, not too sweet and not too rich, just the perfect satisfying bites with a tiny bit of tartness from the cranberries. Do note the recipe calls for 12 oz of cream cheese which is 1 1/2 blocks... I only bought one, so I ended up substituting 4 oz of mascarpone cheese. I also added extra lemon juice to the cream cheese, and a pinch of salt to the oatmeal mixture.

On a personal note, Graham finally met his Aunt Megan

and he LOVED her!

OATMEAL CRANBERRY CHEESECAKE BARS

Recipe from A Family Feast

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ¼ cups quick-cooking oatmeal
• ¾ cups packed brown sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened to room temperature
• 12 ounces cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
  
  
• 1 16-ounce can whole berry cranberry sauce 
  
  
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13x9-inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together the flour, oatmeal, and brown sugar. Add the softened butter to the mixing bowl and mix on medium speed until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Measure out 1 ½ cups of the crumb mixture and set aside in a separate bowl.

Pour the remaining crumbs into the prepared baking dish and press evenly into the bottom of the dish. Bake for 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, in the same bowl of the stand mixer, cream the softened cream cheese and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, lemon juice and vanilla extract and mix well.

Also while the crust is baking, in a small bowl, combine the cranberry sauce and cornstarch and mix thoroughly.

When the crust is done baking, remove from the oven and pour the cream cheese mixture evenly over the crust. Then spoon the cranberry mixture evenly over the cream cheese mixture, spreading gently with the back of a spoon so that it is evenly coated. Then sprinkle the reserved oatmeal crumbs over the top of the cranberry mixture.

Bake for 40 or until completely set and very lightly golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Cover and refrigerate the baking dish for at least 3 hours so that the bars can firm up.

Once chilled, cut into bars and serve.

Southern Living

Since I don't have many fabulous slow-cooker recipes up my sleeve, I turned to my "slow-cooker" pinterest board to see what inspired me enough to pin and found  a pin for 30 Classic Mardi Gras Recipes, clicked on it and came across very delicious looking New Orleans Red Beans and Rice recipe. I knew this would be perfect for us for dinner and would make enough to share with my frozen dinner club. And I though it was unique, but Jolie beat me with a red beans and rice recipe!

It was really good, but next time if I was home (which I'm often not, since as Amber pointed out the beauty of the slow cooker is letting it work for you while you're away at work) I'd throw in the sausage later so it didn't cook quite so long. And Curtis and I both agreed it would be really good to add some shredded chicken, shrimp and okra... guess we had gumbo on our minds! But the recipe was great as is and hit the spot!

We're currently trying to find a balance of Graham's bed time and cooking and eating dinner at night. Every evening it's the question of do we do Graham's night time routine and then cook and eat late (which can be more relaxing, but I'm usually starving by the time we get to dinner) or try to balance playing with Graham in the evening while we cook and eat? We haven't quite nailed down the perfect formula. Speaking of Graham, when I saw this recipe my plan was to make a small batch for him on the side with no meat... but I forgot. Don't worry, we still fed him.

And when we made this I was obviously raring to eat because I didn't bother breaking out our real camera, just got a quick, not-so-pretty, shot with my cell phone. But I included the pretty image from pinterest (above) so you can envision what it's supposed to look like.

Slow-Cooker New Orleans Red Beans and Rice

Southern Living

Ingredients: 

• 1 pound dried red beans
• 7 cups water 
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, chopped

• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 pound andouille sausage, sliced
• 3 tablespoons Creole seasoning
• Hot cooked rice
• Garnish: sliced green onions

 

Directions: 

1. Place first 8 ingredients in a 4-quart slow cooker.
2. Cook, covered, at HIGH 7 hours or until beans are tender. Serve with hot cooked rice. Garnish, if desired and add salt to taste. 

Here's Graham-bo at nine months! He has two teeth, pulls up, opens drawers, cabinets and plays in Murray dog's water dish, so it's a whole new ball game around here!

"Mom, want to see how far I can chuck these pumpkins?"

Slow-Cooker Chicken Cacciatore {Guest Post}

This is from my friend Christie who is (lucky for me) part of our frozen dinner club. She delivered this and it landed on my list of top 10 favorite frozen dinners. And since it was a slow-cooker dinner, I asked her to guest post! 

Christie writes:

I adapted this recipe from one in a William’s Sonoma cookbook.  A good friend of mine brought it to us after I had our second son, and we loved it.  It was especially nice to have something a little different than the standard “new baby” meals (lasagna or enchiladas anyone?)   I asked for the recipe and found out it was cooked in the crock pot and I loved it even more!  The original recipe calls for using one whole, cut up chicken, but I use a mix of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs.  They are so tender by the time they are done cooking you can shred them and then you have wonderful, hearty sauce to server over your favorite starch (pasta, rice, mashed potatoes, etc) or you can serve it as a stew with crusty bread to dip in it. 

The one drawback is that there is a lot of prep work for a crock pot recipe.  However I’ve found that the prepped ingredients freeze beautifully, so you can do all of the prep work, freeze in a gallon ziplock bag and then just pop into the crock pot the day of for a delicious meal that evening.  The added advantage of this method is that you can make 2-3 meals worth at once and then you have several easy meals all ready to go in your freezer or to share with friends who are in need of an easy, home cooked meal. 

William's Sonoma

Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 Tbs. salt, plus more, to taste
• 1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper, plus more, to taste
• 1 chicken, 3 1/2 to 4 lb., cut into 8 serving pieces
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 red or yellow bell peppers, sliced
• 1 yellow onion, halved and sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3/4 cup dry red wine
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 1 can (28 oz.) crushed plum tomatoes
• 1 Tbs. dried oregano
• 6 oz. button or cremini mushrooms, sliced

Directions:

Brown the chicken
On a large plate, stir together the flour, the 1 Tbs. salt and the 1 1/2 tsp. pepper. Coat the chicken evenly with the flour mixture, shaking off the excess. In a large fry pan over medium-high heat, warm the oil. Add the chicken pieces, in batches if necessary and cook until golden brown on both sides. Transfer the chicken pieces to the slow cooker or to your ziplock bag(s) if you are freezing for later.

Cook the chicken and vegetables
Return the fry pan to medium-high heat. Add the bell peppers, onion and garlic and sauté until they start to soften, about 3 minutes. Pour in the wine and broth, and deglaze the pan, stirring to scrape up the browned bits on the pan bottom. Stir in the tomatoes and oregano and bring to a simmer. Pour the mixture over the chicken.

If cooking immediately, cover and cook on the high-heat setting for 4 hours or the low-heat setting for 8 hours.

If freezing, seal & freeze for up to 3 months.  Thaw in the refrigerator the night before and then finish cooking as directed above in the slow cooker. 

Add the mushrooms
About 10 minutes before the dish is ready, stir in the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and serve.  

Roasted Cauliflower with Date Syrup

We were called out this month by Girl Has Thyme. Yes we've been slackers and yes you may get an influx of "ethnic" recipes before September wraps up!

This is a recipe from the Calilee Cooking School in Israel that was in Bon Appetit. And I need to state right off the bat, I didn't find date syrup, nor did I spend much time looking for it, but molasses worked as a great substitute. I told my mom I needed an "ethnic" recipe for this month and as she was browsing through her cooking magazines she suggested this one. I'm a big fan because I'm always looking for new exciting vegetable dishes (sometimes the same ol' salad every night just gets old) and this is a cool recipe because it can be served as an appetizer or side dish. It would go really well with Missy's piroshky recipe!

Roasted Cauliflower with Date Syrup

From Bon Appetit 

Ingredients: 

1 head of cauliflower (about 2 lb.), cored and broken into florets (I just bought a bag from Costco) 

2 tablespoons olive oil plus more for drizzling (I used coconut oil)  

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)

2 tablespoons (or more) date syrup or dark honey (I used molasses) 

2 teaspoons (or more) fresh lemon juice

Sea salt

 

  Directions

• Preheat oven to 500°. Place cauliflower on a baking sheet and toss with 2 Tbsp. olive oil or coconut oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast, tossing occasionally, until browned in spots and tender, about 20 minutes.
• Transfer cauliflower to a serving platter. Drizzle tahini and date syrup over. Sprinkle 2 tsp. fresh lemon juice over. Season to taste with sea salt. Drizzle with more olive oil and lemon juice, if desired.