Pesto

I think one of my all time favorite dishes ever in the history of the world is spaghetti wish pesto. And by pesto I mean basil, garlic, parmesan, olive oil and pine nuts - none of this water crest walnut stuff for me!

I'll go to Trader Joe's and buy two packages of the basil and a container for freshly grated parmesan cheese. Then head home to make my pesto

Get out the food processor and blend together the two packages of basil leaves (takeing the stems off and removing and bad looking leaves.) with about a 3/4 of a cup of parmesan, 1/4 cup of pine nuts and two cloves of garlic. I blitz that until it's well chopped then start to slowly add olive oil until it looks like a good consistency to me.

What I love about my recipe is that it's a little different every time. Sometimes there's more cheese sometimes there's more garlic but always it's super yummy. There's really no "right" way to do this except for trying it a few times to see just exactly what combo of the yummy ingredients work best for you.

However you might be thinking "that's great knitting duck but seriously I cant eat all of that yummy yummy pesto at once!"

You could cut the recipe in half OR you could do what I do.

Set out 5 or 6 plastic freezer bags with the tops folded back and spoon in two spoonfuls of pesto into each bag, un-curl the top, squeeze out the air and seal them shut. They are then ready for the freezer.

Then when ever you have the craving for pesto or something home-made with out all the work you just pull one out of the freezer and rest it in a bowl of warm water. And by the time your pasta is ready so is your pesto.

Yes, I am eating pesto right now. Why do you ask?

Ok back to the food

I know I know so much food talk around here but 'tis the season of eating loads of yummy food right?

So hubbs had a work thing and I decided that I needed to make cookies and cupcakes so that he could bring them and have something in hand. You know how it goes... ok ok maybe I had an anterior motive (Who me? ::looks around::)

I really wanted to make cupcakes and cookies because I was craving them. But I only need to eat one or two before I'm ready to move on to something salty... By making them for other people I don't have to worry about what to do with the 23 extra cupcakes sitting around

Anyhow back to the cookies. I decided to make these pumpkin and chocolate cookies that I found online. I made them before and they are amazing. You can taste the pumpkin with out the flavor being too strong. Also they aren't SUPER sweet cookies so I don't feel like I'm eating a sugar attack, in fact they almost have a cake like quality to them.

But most importantly they are so simple to make...

After baking the pumpkin cookies and letting them cool, I melted some chocolate chips over a double boiler and poured that chocolate in a piping bag (a zip lock baggie would work too) and cut off a little bit of the tip.

Then slowly drizzle the chocolate over the cookies. When you're done pop them in the fridge for a few minutes and the chocolate will harden up again and enjoy. Yum

After the cookies I decided make some chocolate cupcakes filled with caramel and with a caramel frosting on top.

Secretly I used a box to make the cupcakes but that's because honestly the boxed mixes taste amazing and stay moist plus when you add extra things like, say, caramel then no one will notice if the cake part is from scratch or not.

The carmel, on the other hand, I made from scratch. And I'll admit that I did buy some caramel sundae topping just in case I botched the whole thing. Here's my tip: When trying something new or something that can be temperamental (like caramel) always have a backup so that you aren't stressing that the desert wont turn out. Plus if you have a back up then for some reason everything turns out and you never seem to need the backup.

I had always heard that caramel was very difficult to make in that it can go wrong really quickly but perhaps because I was SO worried and wouldn't leave the stove I didn't have a problem. Some brown sugar melted down with baking powder and cream worked wonderfully. It didn't come out stiff enough to use as an icing on it's own so I took most of it and filled one piping bag for the cupcake filling. I had a round medium tip on the bag and just insert the tip into the cupcakes and squeezed out. Not wanting to over do it with the caramel I was kinda conservative in the amount I squeezed into the cupcakes.

Then to make the icing I took about a quarter cup of the caramel and a cup and half of powdered sugar with a half a stick of room temperature butter and whisked it together to make a nice light and fluffy buttercream caramel icing. If you wanted to make your own icing I would start with the powdered sugar and then slowly add the caramel and butter to get the consistency you like. A little of each will go a long way in powdered sugar.

I placed the icing in another star tipped piping bag and got to work

Before the icing could dry on the top I sprinkled some gold sugar on top and called the done!

They were fabulous although you can't really go wrong with caramel and chocolate

Randomness

1 - It's getting colder and colder. At night it's hovering around freezing and it's only November

2 - I used my Kitchen Aid!

3 - And made chocolate cookies

4 - They were some tasty cookies.

5 - I'm knitting a secret set of mitts for the hubbs. I hope he likes them

6 - I have realized (yet again) that I don't like knitting something for someone when I cant get them to try on said knit every few rows just to make sure it still fits.

7 - It's 6 pm and pitch black outside... explain to me again why we need daylight savings times?

8 - Although I guess that would have meant it would have been pitch black outside at 6 pm weeks ago

9 - Whatever, I'm still going to complain about it

10 - oooh I can turn my car on from my phone! SCORE!

p.s. I am purposely not talking about how amazingly well the ducks are doing...I figure if I don't acknowledge it then it can't go away

One step closer

Today I came one step closer to becoming a grown up

I got a Kitchen Aid...

... and I'm beyond excited.

It all started a few weeks ago when my mom called me and said "we need to talk". She had noticed all the baking I have been doing on my blog and other cooking adventures that I told her about in passing and realized that it was time for me to have my very first Kitchen Aid. "Baking will be so much faster and easier" she promised

I was reluctant. I mean they are big and they are expensive! and they take precious counter space. But mostly it just felt like a grown up thing I wasn't sure I was worthy of yet... What if i didn't use it? What if I broke it?

But my mom made one final point and I was sold... "It's dishwasher safe."

We talked about colors and engine sizes and finally settled on the 5.5L currently being sold at our favorite got to place, Costco. After too-ing and fro-ing between black, white or silver we agreed that silver would be the best bet for an appliance that should last the majority of my baking career.

So today, after my mom arranged for it to be waiting for me at my local Costco, I went and picked it up.

And I love it. And it's beautiful. And I can't stop starring at it. I feel so grown up!

And I can't wait to make some cookies!!

Thank you mom for a wonderful housewarming gift!