Molly Muffin

Sweet for the sweet is the theme of Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is the best time to spend the day in the kitchen creating time honored snacks with the little ones.

White chocolate with dark chocolate swirls will be a wonderful treat for a Valentine Day dessert buffet. Kids like chocolate and strawberries. The combination makes for a yummy and fun activity.

Red Strawberries & White chocolate fondue

Ingredients:

* 1 cup whipping cream

* 10 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped

* 2 oz white chocolate, chopped

* Fruit to fresh strawberries, sliced bananas, orange

* Sara Lee Pound cake cubed

Instructions:

1. Pour the whipping cream into a small saucepan

place over medium heat.

2. Bring cream just to a simmer

3. Remove from heat.

4. Add the semisweet chocolate and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.

5.Transfer mixture to a small ceramic fondue pot over a tea light candle.

6.Sprinkle the chopped white chocolate over the dark chocolate mixture.

7.Let stand for a minute or two to allow it to melt

8. Gently run a spoon through the mixture two or three times, just until marbled.

9. Serve with strawberries, and other fresh fruit and chunks of cake for dipping.

Valentine Day Cupcakes

A special treat to serve on Valentine’s Day

INGREDIENTS:

* Red Velvet Cake Mix

* Cream Cheese Frosting

* Cinnamon Hearts

* Heart shaped cake molds

Instructions:

1. Make your cupcake batter according to the package directions

2. Pour into cupcake cups in the cupcake pan.

3. Frost and decorate with cinnamon hearts.

These cookies are so easy, even the tiniest of helpers can participate in the excitement. Quick assembly and cooling is all that is required.

Valentine Day Cookies

Ingredients:

* 1 box Vanilla wafer cookies

* 1 pkg. Round pretzels

* 1 bag of Hershey’s Kisses

* 1 box Candy hearts

* 1 8oz Valentine M&M candies

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

2. Place vanilla wafer cookies 1-inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Set a Hershey’s chocolate Kiss on the center of each cookie.

4. Bake at 200 degrees for 5 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and gently press an M&M candy or a candy heart into the center of the softened Hershey’s Kiss.

Allow to cool completely to let the chocolate harden again. You can cool in the refrigerator, but the chocolate will soften again after coming out of the refrigerator. Just allow them to sit long enough to harden up again.

Valentine Day PRETZELS

Place pretzels 1-inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Place a Hershey’s chocolate Kiss in the center of each pretzel and bake for 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven and gently press an M&M candy or candy heart into the center of the softened chocolate.

When pushing down you may want to wiggle the chocolate around a little to fill in any gaps between the chocolate and the pretzel. This will help the chocolate adhere to the pretzel. Allow to cool completely.

Next time you are looking for Valentine’s Day recipes or any day you want to make something special with or for your children, pull out these recipes and give them a try.



By: Christine Steendahl

About the Author:

Spring has sprung, Easter is just around the corner. One of the most celebrated holidays is Easter and part of the reason why this holiday is loved is the food associated with it. If you are hosting an Easter dinner with your friends or family this year, here are some good tips for some delicious Easter recipes.

Maple Syrup Ham and Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows

One of the most requested types of food to eat at Easter is ham and you can sweeten up the taste of it by adding some tasty maple syrup. While your store bought maple syrup should work, try to purchase maple syrup that is 100% pure and not made from corn syrup. Adding pure maple syrup will add a sweet, delicious taste that your friends and family will love.

You can easily accompany your maple syrup ham with some tasty sweet potatoes smothered in miniature marshmallows. Sweet potatoes will be your maple syrup ham’s best friend. For an extra treat, add miniature marshmallows and you will definetly get some smiles from children and adults alike.

Easter Bunny Cookies

Even though chocolate bunnies are pivotal to Easter, cookies can also be an excellent treat. Just like Christmas cookies are fun to make and yummy to eat, so are Easter Bunny cookies. Most grocery stores, discount stores, and craft stores sell Easter Bunny cookie cutters to make your favorite chocolate chip or sugar cookie into some fantastic Easter Bunny shapes.

Easter Egg Cup Cakes

Easter Egg cup cakes are an awesome way to add enthusiasm to the holidays for your children. Easter Egg Cupcakes are an easy and fun way to bring color to any Easter dinner dessert. Instead of using cup cake holders, try to use small waffle cones to hold your cup cake mixture. Once baked, add coloring, sprinkles, candy, etc. to your creation.

Easter Bunny Carrot Cake

Easter Bunny carrot cake is an awesome way to add color and excitement for the whole family. What goes better with bunny rabbits than carrots and a yummy carrot cake goes with any Easter dinner. You can easily purchase a carrot cake and decorate the top by hand. Many people create their own frosting adding food coloring to color the carrot cake to look like an Easter egg.

Easter Cocktails

For those adults that like to top off their dinner with a delicious alcoholic beverage, there are many colorful cocktails that compliment the mood of any Easter dinner. For example, certain liquors come in various colors such as grenadine for rose, blue Curacao for cerulean and mixing clear liquor with assorted fruit juices for multicolored Easter drinks. For those that prefer a cocktail sans the alcohol, it’s easy to add color to your event with a host of fresh fruit smoothies, just by adding fresh fruit with cream or milk. Some people even add some yogurt to the mix.

If you are looking for a great way to enjoy your Easter this year, follow the above Easter recipes.



By: Christine Steendahl

About the Author:

We’re all different. No two individuals are exactly alike; however, there are some general categories that seem to hold true. For instance, there are the Morning People and the Night People. I am definitely of the latter variety. About 9:00 p.m. something kicks into geara burst of energy, creativity, and feeling totally aliveand I could work until daylight, and have done so many times. Mornings are an entirely different storyfor the first 30 minutes of the day I hardly know which planet I’m on. There are some Morning People in my family. They awake with the birds, happy, cheerful, and ready to meet the day with a smileit’s disgusting! Suffice it to say, we just don’t understand each other.

In the culinary category there are also two basic classes of people as I see it: the Bakers and the Cooks. Baking is a very precise science. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, soda, milk, buttermilk, flavorings, shortening, oil, butter or other ingredients are used in a variety of ways in baked goods recipes, but they interact with each other in very specific ways. Measurements have to be precise or it’s disasterville in the kitchen. Commercial bakers even weigh their ingredients to assure they’re using just the right amount. Cookbooks have recipes that are tested and re-tested until the directions shown, if followed, will result in a tasty dish. There is very little room for personal variations unless the baker has a great deal of experience. When we see a famous chef on TV appearing to simply mix in this and that in a somewhat carefree manner, it’s just because he or she has put in a great deal of time learning basic measurements and techniques that yield that mouth-watering masterpiece.

Although I can turn out a good cake or pie when I have to, it’s not what I enjoy most. A few of my baking experiments have yielded some “interesting” results, like the time I thought I’d vary a mini-chocolate cupcake recipe. I added some extra chocolate, filled the cupcakes with raspberry jam to which I had added raspberry liqueur, and just knew I had created little masterpieces. What I took out of the oven was a pan full of mini-disasters that resembled lumps of coal! So much for baking innovation.

Apart from my creative baking experiments, there’s the whole other category of baking blunders. Recently, I prepared a batch of cranberry-orange muffins to thank a friend for his help with a computer problem. When he took the first bite, I knew something was definitely amiss by the scrunched up look on this face. He ran for the kitchen garbage can, spit out the offending mouthful and said, “Sorry, but that tasted terrible!” As I looked at the recipe again it dawned on me that in my haste to get the muffins in the oven before he arrived I had forgotten one very vital ingredientsugar! This was another reminder to me that baking is a precise science that requires careful attention. If one ingredient isn’t measured correctly or, in this case ignored, the result can be completely inedible.

On the other hand, there’s COOKING, which I love! I’m fascinated with creating new recipes, varying others to make them look and taste just a bit different, or using ingredients in new ways.

For instance, take that good old American standby, potato salad. Most of us have our favorite recipe, but have you ever thought of some ways to vary your version? Take potatoes, the main ingredient. Do you go with Russet, Yukon Gold, White Rose, Baby Reds, or some of the more than 40 other less known varieties that are grown? And what about the onion family? We have lots of choices there too: white, sweet, and red onions, scallions, chives, or shallots, to name a few. Dressings are another story. Some people prefer mayonnaise; others, salad dressing, a creamy sour cream mixture, French dressing or a light vinaigrette. Then there are the add-ins, which can vary greatly. Some people don’t consider it a real potato salad without the addition of chopped, hard-cooked eggs. Others prefer crumbled bacon bits, chopped pickles, sweet relish, or a variety of crisp vegetables. You get the ideawith cooking, there’s room for innovation, and that sparks the creative side of me.

I am definitely a Cook as opposed to the esteemed title of Baker. My motto is, “a pinch of this, a smidge of that, a little bit of that spice to kick up the flavor, and don’t forget the lemon zest.”

Which kind of culinary aficionado are youa Baker or a Cook?



By: Jeff Gustafson

About the Author: