Tastefully Tuesday...

Photo from Taste of Home

Halloween is almost here and its time for fun themed food items, but what to make?  I have seen a lot of ideas for eyeball items, spiders and creepy cupcakes, but this recipe from Taste of Home was a new one to me an looks fun. 



Boneyard Cookies
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam
16 to 18 ounces white baking chocolate, chopped

In a small bowl, combine confectioners' sugar and cornstarch. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in extract. Combine flour and salt; gradually add to sugar mixture and mix well.

Shape dough into a ball; flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate for 30 minutes or until easy to handle.

On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/8-in. thickness. Cut with a floured 3-1/2-in. bone-shaped cookie cutter. (The best place to find this may be a pet store) Place 1 in. apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Remove to wire racks to cool.

On the bottoms of half the cookies, spread 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon jam down the center; top with remaining cookies.

In a microwave, melt white chocolate at 70% power for 1 minute; stir. Microwave at additional 10- to 20-second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Dip each cookie in chocolate, allowing excess to drip off. Place on waxed paper; let stand until set. Yield: 34 sandwich cookies.

$0.35 off one Argo or Kingsford's corn starch
$1.00 off one package of Davidson's Pasteurized Eggs
$0.50 off one Simply Organic extract
 

Today's no cook option is from Taco Bell.  Right now when you purchase a $20.00 gift card you get a free Chicken Flatbread Sandwich combo.  This is a nice perk and you can save the gift card to use later for yourself, as a holiday gift or give to your college kid for an meal different than Ramon Noodles.
 
Have a great Tuesday!
 
C.Q.

Jalapenos Are Not a Secret Ingredient

My brother in law is single and currently unemployed. That means he has a lot of time on his hands to watch t.v. Instead of watching porn, car crashes or fighting, he watches the Food Network. Just watching it isn't enough, he feels as if he must try the recipes. Not just the simple recipes, not recipes that are somewhat mainstream. Nah, he likes to try the most outrageous things he hears of.

For example on Thanksgiving he made homemade cranberry relish with jalapenos. I know that when you think cranberry, you think jalapenos. He likes to put jalapenos in anything he can. I think he thinks of that little bundle of hot as his "secret" ingredient. He always claims its just "a touch", but its more of a punch.

On Christmas Eve we usually just have appetizers and a soup for dinner. A couple days before the big day, he stopped by to talk about the dinner with me. I explained that I was going to be making a wild rice soup for Christmas Eve. He then proceeded to tell me that he was going to go home and make 15 bean soup. My first thought was, Who even knew that there were 15 different types of beans? Then my panic set in and I asked him what he planned on doing with a big pot of bean soup. His reply set fear in my heart, "I'm going to bring it to your house for Christmas Eve. That way you guys won't have to cook so much." I tried to explain to him that I wanted to make wild rice soup, I didn't mind. I really wanted that. He chose to ignore my plea and proceeded to tell Mr. Bernie about his plan for the soup. Mr. Bernie reminded the brother, "Bernadette doesn't like beans." The brother in law had an answer for that. "Oh, it has lentils in it. She won't notice the beans. They shouldn't bother her." What??!! I hate beans. Its only in my 30's that I will eat green beans. A huge pot of beans doesn't rock my world. He brought the soup over on Christmas Eve. I avoided it like the plague. He was able to add his jalapenos to the soup.

For Christmas, Santa brought the brother in law a Taste of Home Cookbook. Those are normal recipes. Nary a jalapeno in the book. As brother in law was reading the cookbook, he would read some recipes out loud. He was really excited about one recipe in particular and told us what he would add to make it even better. "That recipe sounds good. All it needs is a bit of jalapeno to kick it up a notch!"