Hallowe'en candy bars of my childhood

Photo of 1970's Canadian candy bars found here

What's for supper when it really snows

Tonight's dinner menu:

Upside-Down Meatloaf from Saving Dinner, but with breadcrumbs made from garlic breadsticks, instead of rolled oats

Baked potatoes

Mixed green veggies and cabbage

Snowfall Cake, which is chocolate cake with some white chocolate chips leftover from Christmas added in and grated on top.

And it all goes in the oven together. Except the veggies.

When friends come

CM Bookmarks downloaded from The Common Room.

Neiman-Marcus $250 Chocolate Chip Cookies

Teapot.

New Year's Cookies: No-Bake Chocolate Fingers

NO-BAKE CHOCOLATE FINGERS, from Canadian Living's Family Cookbook

INGREDIENTS: 

1 pkg (350 to 400 g) digestive biscuits (For those of you who can't get digestive biscuits, you can substitute 1-3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs.)
½ cup finely chopped nuts (we use hazelnuts)
½ cup butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder

1 Tbsp instant coffee granules
1 Tbsp hot water

2 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla

GLAZE:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 Tbsp shortening or possibly butter or cream cheese (I do not usually have shortening around so I have tried other things)

WHITE CHOCOLATE DRIZZLE (our addition): A bit of white chocolate: melt and add to the top after the rest is set. NOTE: You do not need to use as much as we did--a little drizzle is good. More than that makes them hard to cut.

INSTRUCTIONS

Line 8-inch square pan with waxed or parchment paper, leaving enough paper hanging over the edges for easy removal later.

1. Using food processor or rolling pin, crush biscuits until in fine crumbs (or use a food processor). Transfer to bowl and add nuts.

2. In saucepan or bowl set over simmering water: melt butter; whisk in sugar and cocoa.

3. Dissolve coffee in hot water; add to pan and cook over simmering water, whisking for 1 minute or until thickened and sugar is dissolved.

4. Whisk in eggs and vanilla; cook, whisking, for 4-5 minutes or until thickened slightly. Remove from heat.

5. With fork, stir in crumb mixture. Mix well.

6. Press firmly into prepared pan (lined with wax paper). Cover and refrigerate until cool, about 1 hour.

GLAZE: (don’t prepare this until base is cooled and ready)

1. In saucepan over simmering water (or microwave), stir chocolate with shortening until melted and smooth.

2. Pour over base, spreading evenly.

3. Cover and refrigerate until set.

4. White Chocolate Drizzle, optional: melt and drizzle. Let set before cutting.

5. Using waxed paper as handles, lift square from pan. Cut carefully into small squares or fingers (running hot water over the knife helps).

6. Keep covered in refrigerator. These will keep for several days.

Previously posted here.

Thanksgiving Sunday, Come for Dinner (photo post)

Front hall

The last of the garden flowers

Roast Chicken

Perogy Casserole

Veggies

Chocolate Tofu Pie

Squash Loaf and apricots

And then we do the dishes.

Nabisco Chocolate Brannies Recipe

Because any links I've given previously don't seem to go past the list of ingredients, here's the recipe for Chocolate Brannies, made with Nabisco 100% Bran Cereal.  (It came from a magazine ad for the cereal, a lot of years ago.)

Whole Grain Brannies

1 cup Nabisco 100% Bran Cereal, or another brand (like All-Bran)
2/3 cup milk
4 squares Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate, OR 4 oz. semisweet chocolate chips (and less sugar)
1/2 cup margarine
1 1/2 cups sugar, or less, especially if you are using semisweet chocolate chips
3 eggs
1 cup whole wheat flour (or unbleached or all-purpose work fine too)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9-inch square pan.

Mix cereal and milk, let stand five minutes to soften.

Heat chocolate and margarine together, in microwave or on low heat. When melted and smooth, stir in sugar.

Beat eggs.

Combine chocolate/margarine, cereal/milk, and eggs. Stir in flour.

Spread in greased 9-inch pan.  Bake 30-40 minutes or until done. Cool and cut in squares.

What's for supper? Taco Turkey Pasta and a Hot Fudge Sauce recipe

Tonight's dinner and dessert menu:

Taco Turkey Pasta, a casserole I made up with browned ground turkey meat, homemade taco seasoning, macaroni, chopped celery, cheese, a bit of tomato sauce, and water as needed.  We had enough left to freeze some for another night.

Broccoli

Very small slices of leftover Chocolate Microwave Cake, dressed up with Gary's Microwaved Hot Fudge Sauce.

Gary's Microwaved Hot Fudge Sauce came from MyRecipe.org about seven years ago, but it's no longer there, because MyRecipe.org is gone.  So here is the recipe, because it is very good and because Mr. Fixit says he wants leftover chocolate microwave cake with fudge sauce for his birthday cake next summer.

In a microwaveable container (I use a four-cup glass measuring cup), combine 1/2 cup white sugar, 3 tbsp. cocoa, 1 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch, and a dash of salt.  Stir in 1/2 cup water.  At this point I cover the container lightly with plastic wrap, although Gary didn't say to--I just like to be careful.

Have a spoon ready, plus something to lay the spoon down on (trust me on this), and maybe a damp cloth in case of drips.  Microwave the sauce for between 3 to 4 minutes total, stopping to pull it out and stir every 30 seconds.  Gary says not to skip this step--it's important.  Stop cooking when it begins to thicken, and stir in 1 tbsp. butter or margarine and 1 tsp. vanilla.  Serve hot, cold, or rewarmed; thin with a bit of water if it gets too thick.

It's snowing. Make a cake.

We had a freeze.  We had a thaw and lots of rain.  Now it's been snowing all day, big thick flakes.  Gray, cold weather seems to require something to cheer things up.

For some reason I was thinking about the "Delicious Death" cake in Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced.  Next to Esther's Orange Marmalade cakes in the Mitford books, that's probably the literary cake I've always been most curious about.  It turns out that about three years ago there was a big AC birthday celebration, and to mark the occasion they created a real, actual recipe for "Delicious Death," a rich chocolatey flourless cake with fruit and rum in the middle and sugared fruits and gold flecks and who knows what else.  Actually I never envisioned it quite as posh as that, especially if the baker in the story (Mitzi the hard-done-by maid) had to struggle just to get the post-war butter and eggs and chocolate together.  The cake in the Joan Hickson BBC version of the story looks more like a white cake with a thick chocolate glaze over the top.  So I guess you can imagine Mitzi's cake any way you like.

Besides the Small Chocolate Cake, which we still make regularly for birthdays etc., we have another 8-inch cake that I make if I have some chocolate to use up (which I did, just a bit left from Christmas baking).  It calls for two squares (ounces) of unsweetened chocolate, and I was a bit short but made up the last bit with part of a (dark, barely sweet) Polish chocolate bar.  I grated up some more of the bar for the topping.  And that is close enough to "Delicious Death" for us.

Here's the recipe. It came from a Kraft What's Cooking magazine, Fall 2001.  (You can see the whole thing here on their site, under "Mix Easy Snack Cakes."  The recipe gives three other variations, but this is really the only one we liked.)

One-Pan Chocolate Cake, Not Mitzi's But Not Bad

This is my version of the directions.  If you want to see Kraft's, click on the link above.

Preheat the oven (a toaster oven is fine, if it keeps steady heat) to 350 degrees F.  Put 1/3 cup cooking oil and 2 ounces (squares) unsweetened chocolate in an 8-inch square pan.  Kraft recommends non-stick but I don't have one, I just use Pyrex.  Put the pan in the preheated oven for about two minutes or until the chocolate is soft.  Carefully remove the pan from the oven (use mitts!) and stir with a fork until oil and chocolate are blended smoothly.

While the chocolate is getting soft in the oven, you can be assembling the other ingredients:

3/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda.

When the pan comes out and you have blended in the chocolate, beat in the other ingredients with a fork. Keep beating it for about two minutes.

Before baking, top the cake with any combination you like of grated chocolate, chocolate chips, coconut, nuts, etc.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Cool before cutting.

In which we decide on Christmas dessert

We do not have a fixed Christmas dessert tradition, other than having "something" plus maybe ice cream, a cookie plate, dried fruits and nuts.  Some years it's been layer cake or chocolate trifle.  A couple of times we have had Tofu Chocolate Pie or that other chocolate-torte thing that takes all those chocolate squares. Sometimes Grandpa Squirrel brings a pie along.  This year most of the people in attendance (other than the Squirrelings) are trying to keep things nutritious and/or low-cal and/or...well, you get the idea.  So while we don't want to overload people who are trying to keep things moderate, we don't exactly want to have No Dessert either.

"Christmas cake?" suggested Mr. Fixit.  "You hate fruitcake," I said.  "That's not Christmas cake," he said.  "Yes it is," I said.  "Christmas cake is, like, chocolate cake with icing,"  he said.

Oh.  Well, I could do that.  And then a little "where's that recipe" buzzer went off in my head, something we'd made once or twice but not for a long time, something I knew we had most of the ingredients for, including a jar of marmalade that The Apprentice had brought with her this week...aha.  I had somehow lost or purged the magazine page in my binder, but found it online, Bakers Chocolate Mandarin Orange Cake.. It's not exactly a diet recipe, but the cake itself isn't huge (good for our smallish family), and you can cut small pieces.

Sorry there are no photos there, but if I remember, I will get one of our cake when we make it.

In which Ponytails chooses the menu (plus another frosting recipe)

Ponytails had a birthday this week.

Since she has not worn ponytails for some time now, she is trying on other possibilities for blog names. Stay tuned for that.

This was the birthday dinner menu she chose:

Barbecued pork schnitzel on a bun, with hamburger toppings
Stuffed eggs with lots of paprika
Carrot sticks, mushrooms

White cake with chocolate icing "but not as thick as that icing Dollygirl had"
Ice cream

Cocoa Fudge Rocky Road Icing

I adapted the Cocoa Fudge Icing recipe from More Food That Really Schmecks. Here's my version.

1 cup brown or white sugar (we used brown)
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
About a cupful of butterscotch chips
About two cupfuls of mini marshmallows
9-inch cake to frost

In a saucepan, combine the sugar, cocoa, and milk.  Add the butter or margarine, and stir over medium heat until it comes to a boil.  Boil for one minute, then remove from heat and cool as quickly as possible, by putting the pot into a bowl of ice cubes or a sinkful of cold water.  Add the vanilla and extra additions (butterscotch chips, marshmallows), and stir hard with a wooden spoon until the frosting has thickened  and looks like soft candy.  The marshmallows aren't meant to melt completely.  If the cake is still too hot to ice, you can put the frosting into a bowl and leave it in the fridge until you need it.  We left the cake in the pan and just covered the top of it with the frosting, then added some sprinkles and candles. 

Photo of Dr. Who and Romana found here.

What's for supper? Dangerous chocolate cake in a cereal bowl

Tonight's menu:

Sausage baked with sauerkraut
Black beans-and-salsa (reheated)
Brown rice
Carrot sticks, peppers

Chocolate cake in a mug (we make two and share them) Update: Every time I make these in mugs, it makes a mess. So I had an idea: cereal bowls work just as well and don't run over. And they're easier to share.

Oranges

Banana cake, a little different

Ponytails asked me to post about this because she said it was amazing.

Ingredients:  1 batch standard muffin batter (I added a teaspoon of vanilla); two sliced bananas; one cup chocolate chips.

Directions:  Scrape half the muffin batter into a greased 8-inch pan.  Top with sliced bananas and chocolate chips.  Cover with remaining batter (it's okay if it doesn't quite cover).  Bake at 350 degrees for about half an hour or until it tests done.

If you eat a piece of the cake still warm from the oven, the chocolate chips will be gooey and the bananas will have that slightly strange, hot, cooked taste (like a baked banana) that some people like and some people really don't.

But if you chill it, the chocolate chips revert to a rich kind of cold chocolate chunkiness, turning the whole deal into a chocolate-banana-muffin-sandwich-cake.

You could probably get the same results with individual muffins.

So if you ever start making plain muffins and decide too late that you would rather have had banana bread, or just want a change, try it this way.

Christmas Dessert: Chocolate Trifle, now with photos

(The toothpicks are not meant to be decorative--they were to hold the plastic wrap up.)

This is the recipe we used for trifle--the same one we've used for several years, but it's been quite awhile since we've made one.  We cut back on the sugar in the whipped cream, and added thawed frozen raspberries.  What to put on top?  Mama Squirrel found some chocolate sprinkles in the cupboard, and The Apprentice used bell and star cutters to cut shapes from the leftover cake.

(Note:  we made this a day ahead, since the trifle part is better if it sets--but Mama Squirrel forgot that sprinkles on whipped cream tend to melt and bleed a bit.  Good thing we had a few left in the jar to top it up again.)

Photos:  Ponytails

Christmas cookies, not for Ralphie

In the movie A Christmas Story, Ralphie is disappointed when his secret message turns out to be "Drink your Ovaltine."

Last year when I was experimenting with this master dough (also mentioned here), I wanted to try the Malted Milk Buttons variation, but couldn't find any Ovaltine at our supermarket. So I put that idea aside; but when I saw jars of Ovaltine weeks later, I picked one up. It turns out that nobody here likes to drink it much, so we had more than the required two cups' worth left to make the Buttons this year. And they are very good.

As with the "Chocolate Shortbread" we invented last year, giving you the actual recipe is a little tricky, because you need exactly half of a Master Dough recipe which contains three egg yolks and so on. But I'll give you the idea and you can work it out from there...or you can buy Leslie Glover Pendleton's book...or you can find a copy of the December 15, 1998 Woman's Day Magazine.

Make a shortbread-type dough containing about 2 1/2 cups flour, 2/3 cup white sugar, a cup of butter, 1 or 2 egg yolks, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1 tsp. vanilla. Mix in, probably with your hands, 2 cups Ovaltine-type powder and another 1/2 tsp. salt. You will also need at least 6 oz. of milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate--chips or squares, doesn't matter--for melting and dipping. We ended up using the whole 8-oz. box of semisweet chocolate, and had a few left over that did not get dipped. Squish all the Ovaltine powder (and the extra salt--not sure why that's needed, but I did put it in) into the mixed dough, and roll it into approximately 140 teaspoon-sized balls--no joke, these are quite small like Pfeffernusse. Bake on ungreased sheets for 10 to 12 minutes at 350 degrees, but watch them--you do not want the bottoms to burn. When they've cooled enough to handle, melt the chocolate and dip the tops of the cookies into it, forming a sort of kiss-type swirl if you're skillful enough, or just getting them chocolatey if you're not. Let them set--they probably won't get firm enough unless you put them in the fridge.

As I said, we're not Ovaltine drinkers--but the cookies seem to be addictive.

This post is linked from Four Moms Cookie Exchange at The Common Room.

Let's make muffins

The heat level went down enough yesterday that we decided to make some of Chef Earl's Muffins. Chef Earl is Earl Johnson, who was the subject of a favourite Canadian Living article which also featured Potage Paysanne, a soup we try to make at least once a year just because it's so much better than the ingredients make it sound (turnip, leeks, parsnips--shudder). The story of how he won over the high school students in Winnipeg also made it into Reader's Digest.

His muffin recipes are a bit fancier and sweeter than my usual throw-it-in-the-bowl formula, but once in awhile--like the soup--they're fun to make. The recipes for Streusel Apple Raisin Muffins and Black Bottom Muffins made 24 large muffins and 24 half-size muffins, respectively. I found it was just as easy to get all the dry ingredients mixed for both (put the 2 cups flour for one in one large bowl, then the 1 1/2 cups flour for the other in another bowl, and so on), mix up the wet ingredients for both, and then finish putting both recipes together and bake them at the same time. If you have an extra willing pair of hands around, it helps too. (Ponytails put the Streusel muffins together.)

Note on the Black Bottom Muffins: they call for cream cheese, but I've substituted both sour cream and drained (thick) plain yogurt, and both work fine. They do tend to get sticky if they sit around, so you would probably want to keep them refrigerated or frozen.

Especially if it's the middle of August.

When it's better the second day (dessert)

We had some of last night's steamed pudding left--mostly a thick fruit mixture (raspberries, rhubarb, peaches) and just a bit of the cake part.

This is what I did with it: in five fancy dessert glasses, I layered plain yogurt, leftover pudding (making sure each serving had a bit of cake), a smaller blob of yogurt, and then a spoonful of grated chocolate. (Mr. Fixit buys bittersweet chocolate bars at the downtown grocery store where they don't cost much.)

Better than your average leftovers.

Cooking without recipes: Summer Edition

What's for supper?

Pizza Pasta. I had thought of making Pizza Roll-ups, but it was too hot to turn on the oven. So this is what I did: browned a pound of ground chicken in a non-stick skillet, added some cut-up pepperoni, a few mushrooms, a chopped green pepper and a bit of canned pasta sauce, and let all that cook while I cooked a potful of fusilli. Just before the end I melted some mozzarella and cheddar over the top of the skillet.

BTW, one of the best frugal and energy-saving tips I've tried recently from the Tightwad Gazette books is the pasta method from the late Mary Leggewie of HomeschoolChristian.com. Bring the water to a boil, add pasta, bring it back to a boil, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and cook for about twenty minutes, stirring a couple of times to keep the pasta from sticking. It really works!

Raw vegetable plate: cucumbers, zucchini sticks, a few carrot sticks.

Chocolate Microwave Cake with Raspberry Sauce. (our post about microwave cake) The raspberry sauce was made like this: I partly thawed some frozen raspberries (a couple of cupfuls?). In a saucepan I combined two cups of water, two tablespoons of cornstarch, and a couple of good spoonfuls of raspberry fruit spread; I cooked that until bubbly and then added it to the berries, and we drizzled the sauce over slices of chocolate cake.

No-bake fruit and chocolate balls, latest incarnation

I've posted about this "recipe" before, but it changes every time I make it. It can be made gluten-free, dairy-free or whatever depending on the chips, cereal etc. that you use.

Latest version, with amounts very indefinite: most of a 12-oz. bag of chocolate chips; half a bag of unsweetened coconut; 1 package (about 12-15) dried figs, with their hard little stems chopped off; small amount of orange juice; and a couple of cupfuls of rice krispie-type cereal, divided. Also something to roll the balls in, either coconut or something else like ground oatmeal or graham crumbs. Run all ingredients except for about half of the cereal through the food processor, until it is a fairly solid, slightly sticky mass of pulverized stuff. Add a little more orange juice if you have to, but not too much. It's okay if there are still some small bits of chocolate etc. that don't get mashed before the mixture won't move around the bowl any more.

Transfer to a larger bowl and mix in the remaining krispie-type cereal, enough to give it some texture but not so much that it won't hold together in balls. Roll in small balls and roll the balls in coconut or other coating...or leave plain if you prefer.

I don't always have rice-krispie-type cereal around and you can make very good balls without it, but adding it seems to lighten up the dense fruit-chocolate mixture a bit, and it also adds a bit of crunch.

The candy that did turn out?

That wouldn't be the chocolate-pretzel clusters in the Crockpot...although a couple of the Squirrelings did like those. Mama Squirrel just made one too many substitutions in that recipe, and the salty pretzels, while interesting, were just a little too...salty.

What did turn out well--it's really almost failproof--is Canadian Living's Quick Fruit and Nut Fudge. Made just like the recipe says, except we leave out the nuts and use dried cherries for the fruit. And we use homemade sweetened-condensed-milk substitute. Cut them small, and they're incredibly good, especially with the slightly tart dried cherries. We've actually posted the recipe here before; which is why Mama Squirrel figured that these, at least, would defy her tendency to mistake-prone-ness this week. And she wasn't wrong.

December is Chocolate...and Cookies

I posted this previously:

"Malted Milk Buttons and Crispy Rice Shortbread, two variations on a Master Dough recipe that I found in a (thrifted) December 15, 1998 Woman's Day magazine and which were adapted (with others in the same food article) from One Dough, Fifty Cookies by Leslie Glover Pendleton."

But Mama Squirrel came up with a variation all our own! The problem with writing it out is that it was made from only half the Master Dough recipe, since the idea is to make a big batch and split it between two variations. (We mixed the other half of the dough with Rice Krispies.) And the Master Dough recipe, which I assume is copyrighted by the author, contains such difficult-to-halve ingredients as three egg yolks and 4 3/4 cups of flour. But here's the basic idea:

Make a shortbread-type dough containing unsalted butter, sugar, salt, egg yolks, vanilla, and flour. (No baking powder.) To a batch of dough made with about 2 1/2 cups flour, add half a package of (dry) instant chocolate pudding mix, and a cupful of small chocolate chips. Press into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan, pre-cut into squares, and bake for half an hour at 350 degrees. Re-cut the squares after they have cooled slightly. Drizzle with a glaze made from powdered sugar mixed with a little milk, just enough to let it drizzle from a spoon.

For some reason (mainly because they're very tasty), these improvised squares have been everybody's favourite so far these holidays. As in, they're gone. Maybe we'll make some more.

Here are some other cookies we've made and posted about in the past:

Date-Walnut Bars
Rigglevake Cookies
No-bake Chocolate Fruit Balls
Gluten-Free Dutch Chocolate Chip Cookies
Lemon Poppyseed Shortbread
Tofu Fudge Chews
Peanut Chocolate Butterscotch Bars (link only)
Doreen Perry's Cookies
Betty Crocker's Brownie Recipe
Cappucino Thumbprints
Chocolate Hazelnut Crescents
Double Ginger Drop Cookies (LINK FIXED!)
Snickerdoodle Blondies
The Best, Bar None
Two No-Bake Candy Recipes (one of our most-visited posts)