A friendship day treat!

So, according to my my LP (life partner) - who oddly enough has some unexplained fascination with Finland - in Finland Valentine's Day is celebrated as Friendship Day! YAY! To say Happy Friendship Day in Finnish it's hyvää ystävänpäivää! (pronounced something like :Hu-VA us-ta-van-PI-va. or something)

Last wknd, LP and our friend from college and I spent our saturday making friendship day cards! As it was noted, or more than one occasion - what do three, young, attractive ladies do on a saturday night in New York City? What else? craft and eat, clearly.

So, are any of us surprised that somehow all I managed to make were cards with uteruses (uteri?) on them?

somehow these uteri ended up looking fairly svelte, with a surprisingly hourglass figure. what can i say? some of them even had googly eyes. One of them was even shedding it's uterine lining. HAPPY V-DAY TO YOU TOO! I mean, who DOESN'T want a uterus card on V-Day?

So - for Friendship Day - here's a wildly unhealthy chocolate Friendship Day treat. It's pretty easy to make too!! I stumbled across it somehow - Luscious Chocolate Raspberry Bars on a website called Kaboose.

Here's the problem with baking - it's that you see everything that goes into baked goods, and you either still want to eat them or never want to see another baked good again. a fairly easy moral dilemma, i guess. :) I mean it's chocolate. The other day, I kid you not, I started to get worried that i wasn't eating enough vegetables, and then thought - oh, well i eat about 2 servings of chocolate a day. so no worries. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.

Here's your shopping list for Raspberry Chocolate bars:

2 sticks butter

2 cups flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar.

1/4 tsp salt.

Beat the butter til fluffy - add in flour and brown sugar. It'll be thick and hard to mix - almost like bread dough. I broke down and kneaded it with my hands.

Take 1 3/4 cup of the dough and press it into the bottom of a greased 13 x 9 baking pan. (Grease well). Keep the rest of the dough.

Bake at 350 for 10 -12 minutes, until the edges of the cookie base are starting to brown.

Meanwhile.....

take 1 cup Chocolate Chips

1 can (14oz) Sweetened Condensed milk

melt over a low heat until melty and smooth.

Also - while you're at it - take 1/2 cup chopped nuts and add them to the left over cookie dough. They say the chopped nuts are optional - and I'm not usually a nuts girl myself, but this time I think they're pretty necessary.

So - now your cookie dough is baked and a little bit brown -

perfect!

While still hot - take the chocolate mix and pour that sucka right on top.

take the extra dough/nuts mix and crumble it on top of the chocolate.

Now take seedless raspberry jam (the cheapest you can find, it doesn't need to be anything fancy) - about 1/2 cup. Drop it in teaspoons over the cookie crumble. (use as much as you want)

Sprinkle another 1 cup of Chocolate chip on top as well!

It'll look something like this:

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. If you want - take it out at about 20 minutes, and stir the raspberry jam/chocolate chips that are on top together. or you can leave it like it is. It's UNBELIEVABLE either way.

It'll kind of set in the oven - but not really. so just take it out when you're ready.

You have to let it set, for a good 30 minutes at least. It really won't come out of the pan otherwise. (although, if you're just looking for it to be delicious, dig into that sucka with a spoon.)

I brought these to the Corpses meeting that we had on Friday. one of our other corpses took a bite, and grabbed my arm and looked like she might pass out in sheer delight.

THEY ARE THAT GOOD.

Peanut Butter Blondies!!!!

Ugh (as in, one of the most satisfied sounds ever). these are the most delicious things EVER. We made them last night, and less than 24hrs later they were GONE.

They come from Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar - which in general will rock your world - and is a follow up to Vegan Cupcakes take over the world. Post Punk Kitchen is one of the best things to have ever

happened to the planet. ever.

Trust me, you will not be disappointed - these are like peanut butter fudge and are only one of so many delicious recipes.

Peanut Butter Blondies:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8x8 pan.

Beat Together:

3/4 cup peanut putter

1/3 c. oil

1 c. brown sugar

Add in:

1/4 c. (non-dairy) milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

Stir in:

1 c. flour

1/2 tsp salt,

1/2 tsp baking powder

(and because I couldn't resist) 1/2 c. - 1. cup choc chips.

Knead til soft. May require your hands to knead, it can get pretty heavy.

spread dough in baking pan,

Sprinkle with 1/3 c. peanuts on top.

Bake at 350 for 22-25 degrees (until brown and a tooth pick comes through clean).

Here's the tough part - let it sit for 20-30 mins. Trust me, it's worth it.

EAT

a cornucopia of fall deliciousness

sweet lord. fall has exploded in our house.Let me just run a list of what we made today:

1. pumpkin pie mix (listed here)

2. barbecue rub (that was tyler, i don't even think he'd remember what he put in if he tried)

3. pumpkin puree (listed here)

4. squash (emmy's making - delicious - she thinks it's a kabocha squash)

5. apple sauce (listed here)

6. pumpkin roll (made with the purred pumpkin -listed here)

7. pumpkin seeds (barbecue, pumpkin pie flavored, and salt - recipe here)

hoooolllllyy cow. (let me just say that those p

umpkin shells will soon be reincarnated as center pieces for t-gives. you're welcome in advance momma, be ready for m.steward part deux)

it all started when we went to the farmer's market today. I think the fact that you can use food stamps is fantastic. so great. I also love that the farmers a

t the Kingston Farmer's market are from right in the area. it's fun to know that

the apple orchard is less than a mile. fantastic. i am so excited for winter csa...

anyway!!! want some recipes??

1) pumpkin pie spice:

1 TBSP Cinnamon, 1/2

TBSP each ground ginger and ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp allspice and ground cloves

store in a air-tight container. yum!! (now you don't have to spend like $5 on a small container, yipee!!)

2. Crockpot Apple Sauce

Last week Emmy and I went to the Jenkins-Leukin farm,

across the bridge and down the street, and we picked up a half bushel of apples for $12. have i mentioned that i love the farms in the area? love love love. anyway, while we were there we picked up an area guide called "visit vortex" - which has a ton of recipes in it: including the following 3.

Quarter and Core 8 apples. If you don't want to have apple skins in your apple sauce, then remove the skins. they're kind of good though.

2 tsp lemon juice (opt)

couple dashes of cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick

a couple of cloves (one of my new

favorite things - i feel like oprah)

1/2 cup of water

set crock pot on high, cook for about 4 hours. when soft and juicy, mash-em with a fork.

Quick tip - make sure that your crock put has been

washed out well from the last time yo

u made veggie broth. just sayin'. otherwise instead of smelling delicious, it'll just smell like broth. although it'll still taste delicious. Have i mentioned recently that i love this crock pot?

3. Pumpkin puree

Tyler and I had no idea that we would make soooooo much pumpkin puree with 2 small little pumpkins. they will last us most of the winter i think. I think we got about 6 or so cups from them (we're planning pies, breads, delicious delicious things. have i mentioned yet that i love fall???)

Steps:

1. heat oven to 350

2. Split the pumpkin in h

alf and seed it. (there's a game we used to play called "don't let miriam play with knives". i think you'll see why. these sugar pie pumpkins had such hard shells.)

3. Remove the fibers from the inside with a metal spoon

4. place the pumpkins open side down in a baking pan with about 1 cup water.

5. bake pump until it's soft, and can be pulled away with a fork .

6. scoop the pumpkin out and blend it in a magic bullet

7. freeze as needed.

4. Pumpkin SEEEEEEDDSSSS- IT'S FALLLLLLL!!!!!
after you've already scooped out the seeds from your pumpkin puree, before they're dry, separate the seeds from the stringyness. Rinse in cold water. Heat the oven to 325.

We made three different types of pumpkin seeds.

1)regular salt

2) bbq (with tylers rub, ohhh it's spicy),

3) about 2 tsp pumpkin pie mix and about 2 tsp brown sugar. yum yum yum (this turned out better than i could have expected)

mix the seeds with either oil or non-stick spray. arrange on a sheet in a single layer

bake for about 25 mins - stirring every 10 mins or so. Store in air tight container- if they last more than an evening, that is.

Some pumpkin seeds are better than others, if you know what i mean. Sugar pie pumps make great seeds. i think the hulls are less i don't know- gross than the others? Those sweet ones are delicious (they're in the dark blue bowl, the spicy bbq are in the light blue, salt in the black)

Are you pumpkin-ed out yet???? TO BAD - WE'RE NOT DONE YET.

5. PUMPKIN ROLLS

Tyler asked us to make pumpkin rolls about 2 weeks ago- and tonight we finally got around to it. As Tyler said while we were making it: "I wish i didn't know what was in this" Sometimes (often) i wish I didn't know what was in the food i made. too late!

i'm going into a food coma , so the pumpkin roll recipe will have to come at a later day. soooo fuuuuullllllll.

xoxo.