Oreo Brownies

For my first post, I would love to share this amazing recipe I adapted the other day. Oreo creme filled brownies. These are super simple but a little time consuming since you must let the brownies cool completely before spreading the creme. Onto the recipe:

Ingredients:

Brownies: full disclosure, I used a box mix so please feel free to use your favorite recipe or your favorite box mix.

Creme Filling:

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 3 Tbsp. hot water 

Chocolate and Oreo Topping:

• 2 cups milk chocolate morsels
• One row of Oreos (about 10-12 Oreos)

 Directions:

1. Bake brownies  in a 9x13 pan
2. Allow brownies to cool completely, I placed mine in the refrigerator as soon as the pan had cooled off
3. Create creme filling by combining the shortening, vanilla, sugar, powdered sugar, and hot water and mix with beaters or stand mixer until smooth (approximately 2 minutes)
4. Spread creme filling over brownies. To do this, we placed different dollops of creme topping in different sections of the brownies. We then used our hands (wearing gloves) to spread completely over the brownies. The spoon made it difficult to smooth without ripping the brownies
5. Melt chocolate in the microwave in a microwave safe bowl. Every 30 seconds I checked the chocolate and stirred to ensure it wouldn't seize up
6. While you are melting chocolate, place your Oreos in a plastic bag and smash up. I just used my hands to crush them but I am sure a roller would work too
7. Pour melted chocolate over the creme covered brownies and be sure to cover entire pan
8. Quickly add Oreos on top of the warm chocolate to ensure they will stick
9. Cool brownies again in the fridge to harden chocolate
10. Use a sharp knife dipped in hot water to cut into the brownies and store in an airtight container.
11. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from this recipe here: http://makingmemorieswithyourkids.com/2014/03/oreo-cream-filling-brownie-bars/

"My name is Sarah and I am the owner and lead designer at Classy Media. Ever since I was a little girl, I loved creating new things or upcycling old things into something beautiful. I have a close knit family full of creative minds. My love of crafting was sparked by my Grammy and my Mom. I can be found knitting, baking, experimenting with cooking, taking photos, designing, and reading. I love finding creative ideas online and making them my own."

Welcome to our blog, Sarah!

We've recently invited some fellow foodies and crafters to join our team and would like to officially introduce Sarah of Classy Media, LLC as our newest contributor!

"My name is Sarah and I am the owner and lead designer at Classy Media. Ever since I was a little girl, I loved creating new things or upcycling old things into something beautiful. I have a close knit family full of creative minds. My love of crafting was sparked by my Grammy and my Mom. I can be found knitting, baking, experimenting with cooking, taking photos, designing, and reading. I love finding creative ideas online and making them my own."

Welcome, Sarah!

French-Style Country Bread

Hello! My name is Kassy and I have too many baking supplies ("Hi, Kassy!").

For real, though. Especially flour.

I shop at Costco and buy the gigantic two-packs of 10 lb. bags of unbleached all-purpose flour (so I have one or two of those)... my mom recently decided to go low-carb, so I acquired another, oh, three or so 5 lb. bags of different kinds of flour... then I also have cake flour, self rising flour, baking mix, etc. in my cabinet.

...and we have a potential big change for our family coming up in the next few months, so I need to clear some of this out...

So, to remedy this "problem" I've challenged myself to bake more and buy less, of course!

I made this loaf of bread last week.

It was awesome...  I'm making it again right now.

French-Style Country Bread

(recipe from King Arthur Flour)


Sponge Starter (Begin 2 to 16 hours ahead)

1 cup (8 ounces) cool to lukewarm water, preferably spring water (90 to 100°F)

1/2 teaspoon active dry or instant yeast

1 1/4 cups (5 1/4 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour

1/4 cup (1 ounce) King Arthur White Whole Wheat or Traditional Whole Wheat Flour

Dough

All of the sponge starter (above)

1 cup (8 ounces) lukewarm water, preferably spring water (l00 to 115°F)

3/4 teaspoon active dry or 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

3 3/4 to 4 cups (1 pound to 1 pound 1 ounce) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour

1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

To Make The Sponge: Stir all of the sponge ingredients together to make a thick, pudding-like mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and leave on a counter overnight or for at least 2 to 4 hours. If you're making this in a bread machine, place the sponge ingredients inside, and turn the machine on for just a few seconds to mix the ingredients together. Turn the machine off and close the cover. Let the sponge rest for 4 hours or overnight (anywhere between 2 and 16 hours is fine, the longer the better).

To Make The Dough: Stir down the sponge with a spoon and add the water, yeast, sugar, most of the flour (hold back about 1/2 cup to use if required), and salt. Knead the dough, adding more flour as necessary, to make a soft dough, 10 to 12 minutes.  After the dough has finished kneading, place it in a lightly greased bowl, and continue as directed below.

Big Tip: Mix ingredients together using up to 80% of the flour called for: it will be a loose, messy mass. Let the dough rest for 12 minutes, and you'll see it change in texture, to be come much smoother. Continue, kneading and adding additional flour as required. Overall, the dough handles better once its had time for the flour to absorb the water while resting and relaxing. By using this method, you'll tend to add less flour, and have much bigger holes in your finished bread.

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl or plastic container, cover with lightly greased plastic wrap and a damp towel, and let it rise until almost doubled (depending on the weather, this could be l to 2 hours). If you're going out, or if you prefer, let the dough rise slowly in the fridge. If your dough has been refrigerated, allow it to come to room temperature; it'll warm up and rise at the same time. After its first rise, deflate the dough gently, but don't knock out all the air; this will create those "holes" so important to French bread. Form the dough into a round ball. Place two cookie sheets atop one another, and place a semolina- or cornmeal-dusted piece of parchment paper on top. Gently place the ball of dough on the cookie sheets, seam-side down. Cover it lightly with a tea towel, and let it rise the second time until it's puffy and about 40% to 50% larger, anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes (depending on the weather, luck, and magic). Slash or cross-hatch the bread with a sharp knife or lame. Dust it with a little flour.

Preheat the oven to 475°F. Slash the bread, spritz water into the oven with a clean plant mister, and place the bread in the oven. Reduce the heat to 425°F and spritz with water every few minutes for the first 15 minutes of baking. Bake the bread for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until it tests done. 

Yield: 1 large round bread or two medium breads, 10 to 12 servings

"My name is Kassy.  I'm currently a stay-at-home mother of three.  I like to spend my free time crafting, cooking and, well, creating in general, I suppose.  When asked what kind of crafts I do, I'm usually left at a loss for words, as I have a severe case of "crafty ADD" and have WAY too many self-taught hobbies.  I have another blog called "Tinsnips and Scissors" where I share about the things I love, things that I've made (a tutorial or two), recipes and my weekly menu plans.  Head's up: I'm also an excessive user of punctuation..."

January FotM Recipe: Julia Child's Potage Parmentier (Potato Leek Soup)

I started with this recipe.

It's such a simple and basic recipe.  I made a few minor changes simply based on ingredients that I already had on hand.

Potage Parmentier (Potato Leek Soup) from yumsugar.com

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola or grapeseed oil  (I used avocado oil)
• 4-5 medium russet potatoes (1 pound), peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 large leeks (1 pound), cleaned, and thinly sliced
• 6 cups vegetable stock (or light chicken stock)  (I used turkey stock that I made around Thanksgiving)
• Kosher salt, to taste
• 1-2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup crème fraiche  (I used 0% fat plain Greek yogurt, because we had it)
• 1/3 cup minced parsley or chives

DIRECTIONS  

1. Heat the oil in a large stockpot or dutch oven (six quarts or larger), over medium heat. Add the leek and potato. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables have begun to soften and brown slightly, about 8-12 minutes (this time will vary greatly depending on the surface area of the bottom of your pot).
2. Add the stock, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 30-40 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
3. Blend until smooth either using an immersion blender, or by carefully transferring to a blender in batches.
4. Add the cream, and season to taste with salt (I start with 1 teaspoon and go from there, tasting frequently) and lemon juice
5. Ladle into bowls and garnish with a dollop of crème fraiche (or yogurt), and a healthy sprinkling of minced herbs.

So, what's the verdict from my three kids and picky husband?  Well I loved it, and my girls loved it.  My husband wrinkled his nose, then ate it and scraped the bowl clean...  and, well, my son refused to taste it (but that's just how five-year-old boys are sometimes).

I say, why not try it out?  Chances are you'll fall in love.

Have you ever made this soup?

What's your favorite soup recipe?

January FotM: [Healthy] Soups and Stews

Happy New Year!  ….a little late, we know.

We’re trying our best to start the new year off right, but with all of the snow we’ve had in the Chicagoland area, we still want our comfort foods!  For us that means lots of soups and stews, which can sometimes get a little fat-filled and calorie dense.  So, this month, we’re talking about healthier versions of these classic comfort foods.

check out our recipe for

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup with Rosemary & Chipotle

Storage

Soups, stews and stocks should always be cooled before refrigerating or freezing to prevent the growth of harmful bacterias.  You can do this by placing the pot of soup directly into a sink full of ice water (being careful not to dump the soup, or water it down, of course!), or by allowing it to cool in the storage container on the counter.  After cooling, soup can be kept refrigerated for about 3 days or frozen up to 6 months (any longer and you risk freezer burn).  Be sure to leave about ½” of headspace when freezing to allow for expansion.

Of course, stocks and many soups can be pressure canned as well.  When canning, be sure to use only recipes written for canning and to follow them exactly, otherwise you run the risk of botulism and other foodborne illnesses.

Recipes

There are so many wonderful recipes available in a variety of places.  Here are a few of our favorite places to dig around for good recipes:

• MarthaStewart.com
• WholeLiving.com
• TastyKitchen.com
• Pinterest.com (Kassy has a pinboard dedicated entirely to soups and stews and a bunch of soup/stew recipes on her “recipes I love” board)
• Kassy has a post about canning chicken stock on her blog

Make it HEALTHY!

Most often, recipes for soups and stews are very forgiving and easy to tweak.  You can easily make small changes to recipes to cut the fat and calories without sacrificing the flavor by:

• reducing the oil/butter (sometimes you can get away with only using half!) or replacing half (or all, if you can get away with it) of the butter/oil for healthier oils such as coconut oil or avocado oil
• reduce heavy cream when called for or substitute with a lower fat milk, or even better, almond milk…  in some cases, when making a “cream of” vegetable soup, you can even get away with omitting any dairy at all as long as you give it a good blend (as our favorite broccoli soup demonstrates)

What’s your favorite soup recipe?

December FotM recipe round-up: Our 2013 Holiday Sweets

To make up for the lack of posts this month, here's a round-up of recipes for the cookies and sweets that we made (with LOTS of help from my mom and kids) this holiday season...

ginger cookies

Santa's favorites

sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies with royal icing

cranberry bliss bars

buckeyes

rolo pretzel thingies

peppermint patties

peanut brittle

hot cocoa cookies

figgy cookies

What kinds of recipes did you make this holiday season?

December FotM Recipe - Figgy Cookies

In honor of my love of Figgy Pudding but the desire to make it easier to eat I combined oatmeal cookies with Figgy Pudding....and voila!....Figgy Cookies!!!


We also cut a corner in the Christmas present department by quadrupling the dry mix portion of the recipe, portioning out (we put half the dry ingredient amounts from the recipe below in each jar) and giving some out as gifts....with instructions of course (listed below recipe).


Figgy Cookies

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ginger
• 1/16 teaspoon clove
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 3/4 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup figs
• 1/4 cup dates
• 1/4 cup rasins

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

2. In large bowl, cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until fluffy. Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Gradually beat into butter mixture. Stir in oats and raisins. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown. Cool slightly, remove from sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.

4. PREP 15 mins

5. COOK 10 mins

6. READY IN 1 hr

Brandy Icing

• 1/2 cup brandy, simmered for about 15 minutes to cook off most of the alcohol
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

1. Stir together ingredients until smooth.

2. Dunk cookies, top side down into glaze (or drizzle over the cookies if you'd like them a little less sweet).

Jar Cookies

Add the following to your jar mix...

(there is 2 ⅓ cups of mix in each jar)

• 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Note: Don't forget to include a tag with baking instructions on the jar!

These things are so delicious that Kassy didn't even think about taking

a picture of them until she was half done eating the last one!  Oops!