pb and bacon cookie bark w/ smokehouse almonds

Ready for another foodie christmas gift idea? And boy is this one super easy too. Tasty lil nuggets too. One could easily eat a cookie sheet portion of these with an ice cold glass of milk and call it a good day. These got rave reviews from my clients and friends.

And yeah, I am loving Top Chef All Stars. Did you see last nights episode at the museum? Hilarious! So funny when Dale said he was going to make "corn muffins with Nyquil".
Love every single one of those chefs. What a super, energy-packed group of chefs. They are ALL extremely friggin talented, would pay anything to just hang with them; they ALL make me want to do more, be more creative in the kitchen and rock on with my bad ass foodie self!

Cook notes:
I have given you a peanut butter cookie recipe to use, but in all honesty you can use whatever one you prefer and I also think a plain sugar cookie recipe would work here too. Remember when you are spreading the dough not to make it too thin. You might have to increase your cooking time as you are making one giant cookie in essence. Don't over cook, you want it slighty, a tiny bit, underdone because you want a moist bark, not thin and crispy. I mean one could try thin and crispy but I don't know how that would taste. Please make sure to finely mince the cooked bacon bits--this is not the recipe for large chunks.

pb & bacon cookie bark with smokey almonds
From vanillasugarblog

peanut butter cookie dough w/ bacon
(cookie dough slightly adapted from Baked: New Frontiers)
print recipe

1 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour
2 ts of baking soda
1 ts sea salt
1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 ts pure vanilla extract
1 cup creamy peanut butter
½ - ¾ cup of cooked, FINELY chopped bacon chunks (add as much or as little as you like)

For bark:
8 ounces of high quality dark chocolate (semi sweet)
A couple large handfuls of Smokehouse almonds

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together until fluffy.
Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated.
The mixture will look light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla and peanut butter and beat until just incorporated.
Add half of the flour mixture and mix for 15 seconds. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until just incorporated.
Using a spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the bacon chunks. Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.  I did NOT do this, I went ahead and baked them and it was fine. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. (I like to spray them with nonstick spray too). Spread the batter out fairly thick, not too thin. I would wet my fingers or spatula with water and press cookie dough down. Don’t worry about making an even square or circle, this is bark and its supposed to look rustic. Remember, don’t press it too thin!
Bake for 12 - 17 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until the edges of cookie bark are light brown. We don’t want to make this crispy; we want it still soft.
As soon as the pans come out of the oven this is when you want to sprinkle the chocolate chips over the hot cookie bark. In a few minutes the chocolate will melt and you can easily spread it around with a spatula. Then top with the smokey almonds and press them down in a bit to make sure they stay when dry. It’s not advisable to put this in the fridge to set as you will lose the glossiness of the chocolate. Takes a couple hours for chocolate to harden.

pumpkin spice cookie bark

Are you one of the many who is, at the last minute, still wondering what the heck to bring to your family Christmas gathering/party? You know Christmas is like in three days right? Ut oh! You're making me nervous! But I think I can help you and make you come out absolutely fabulous. Not that you already don't look tres fab, you do, but you will look super fab if you show up with these super tasty treats--they will be the talk of the dessert table, trust me. Plus you will wow your friends and family--you will, totally. This will not take a long time to make either, it's super easy and crazy-good tasting, plus it looks all professional, you know like you worked really hard at it.

 
pumpkin spice cookie bark
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All you need to do is take your favorite pumpkin-spice cookie mix, instead of making them into cookies, flatten the dough out (half inch thick is good) as a thin brownie in a jelly roll pan.
You might have to reduce the cooking time too as they are thinner and might not need as much time to bake.
Then as soon as they come out of the oven put on some chopped good quality dark chocolate, let it melt, then spread it around evenly with a rubber spatula (I used about 2-3 cups of chocolate--use as much or as little as you like). If you want to add toasted pecans like I did, this is the time to sprinkle them on before the chocolate hardens. Let it cool and harden. Then you can drizzle with a little melted white chocolate. And you're done! Easy right? (if you don't have a favorite pumpkin cookie mix here is one from allrecipes.com)
Note: I did add a bit "extra" of sea salt to the cookie batter. You know me and my sweet & salty fix. It makes all the difference. All I did was sprinkle some sea salt (fine, not course) over the cookie sheet BEFORE I put the pumpkin cookie batter on--just a light, light dusting of sea salt.). Please use high quality chocolate when making these, it really make all the difference in taste and texture; the higher the cacao the better.

chocolate dipped pretzel shortbread

I am asked, often, about how I come up with my crazy-kicked up ideas. Well, I admit I watch a lot of food tv shows, either on the Food Network or on PBS. (btw, Emeril Green on Planet Green is pretty good too). When I watch these shows I see what they are doing and always, always, always want to do it differently than what they did. The only time this does not happen is this seasons' Top Chef: Las Vegas; I'm blown away by the huge amount of talent. Almost every single dish they've made I am sitting there saying 'holy moly how very clever'! You know? Season one was sooo good too.
I keep a notepad with me almost at all times: there is one in the car, one on my nightstand, and one at my desk. The others times I carry one with me because I do get a lot of ideas when I'm at the gym or walking about. I'd say I get most of my ideas at night just before bed, and in the middle of the night to as I'm trying to fall asleep my mind just races with ideas. My list of 'to-make' is long, oh so very long; I finally resorted to typing them into my computer years ago or else I would be like those old college professors with papers, stack of papers, and stick-it's all over the place. I'm sort of a neat freak so that wouldn't fly. I am up to over 30 typed pages of ideas, not to mention the stack of recipes I printed from other food bloggers. I am very guilty of making more sweets than meals. My first love is french cooking, and I haven't been good about keeping that end up lately it seems.

Just like every chef and cook alike I have a fairly large cookbook collection. A lot of inspiration comes from cookbooks. One of my favorite things to do is look through a newer cookbook, ear-mark something, then go research almost the same thing in an old cookbooks and try to fuse the two together. Collecting old cookbooks is an addictive behaviour of mine that I don't get to practice as much as I'd like. Here on cape cod there are a lot of old, rotting bookstores with ginormous piles of neglected books; it takes hours to find the cookbooks because nothing is labeled and most of the people who go there prefer literary novels and the like, so the cookbooks are like those rug warehouses where the best carpets are at the very bottom! Don't get me started on the old, mile-long bookstores in NYC. That is heaven!! What I love about the older cookbooks: those food stains/mug stains on the pages, the withering ear-marked pages, and of course the old book smell--Love that old book smell!

There are so many food-creations I make that never make it to the food blog or are sitting in the photo archives. But I shall change that as most of you said you have no problem seeing my recipe-fails. This pretzel shortbread inspiration came from an old food & wine magazine--orignally it was a pretzel crust with chocolate filling type pie. I wanted to see if I could make shortbread with it. Came out ok, but for whatever reason they go stale fast--lasting only a couple days after being baked & dipped. Will I make this again? Not so sure, this is one of my recipe-fail ones, but I might if I add in more sugar and a hint of vanilla to it next time around.



pretzel shortbread
inspired from food & wine
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1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups coarsely crushed thin pretzels (I used 1 & ½ cups)
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
A small pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 large egg

Chocolate dip:
About ½ cup of melted milk or dark chocolate (milk is way better)

In a standing electric mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter with 3/4 cup of the pretzels and the confectioners’ sugar at low speed until creamy.
Beat in the flour, egg, and salt.
Add the remaining 1/2 cup of pretzels, being sure to leave some pretzel pieces intact.
Flatten the dough between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, at least 30 minutes. I only flattened them to ½ - ¾ inch thick—you don’t want them too thin.
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Roll out the dough between the sheets of plastic wrap. Cut them into circles of strips, whatever shape you desire. Place onto parchment lined cookie sheet.
Bake for about 10 minutes or until tops are almost light golden brown. These bake FAST! Once they turn a medium brown they are no good.
Let them cool a bit before dipping in melted chocolate. When you are ready to dip them make sure to let them set on parchment paper.
Note: these do not keep more than 2 days. They get stale fairly fast for whatever reason.

chocolate-coconut covered Cheez Its

Another crazy craving of sweet and salty then sweet. The salty Cheez It's mixed with the sweet milk chocolate and then the coconutty coconut. Man, I'm telling you, a wonderful little flavor blast happening in the mouth.
I loved these little gems. Easy to make too.
All I did was use the large size Cheez It's, dipped them in good quality milk chocolate (I used ghirardelli), placed on wax or parchment paper and sprinkled with dried coconut (not sweetened coconut too wet, but dried coconut). Pop them in the freezer to harden up. Easy!



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white chocolate, pineapple & coconut bark

I'm not the biggest fan of white chocolate, but I did change my mind on this creation. This was good, really good. I had a small bite and then made sure to send it away to friends as I knew I would eat all of it. It's that type of candy that you have a piece, vow to have one more piece, then seal it up, then end up going back for a third, fourth and so on.



Are there a lot of people out there that like white chocolate? I know my hubby loves it. I love my high cacao chocolate--give me my fix! For the longest time I had been craving a pineapple & coconut type bark, every since spring came about actually. But mixing the pineapple and coconut with the dark or even milk chocolate was ok, not my thing really. I gave the white chocolate a try. But trust me, I was hesitant because melting white chocolate is a pain in the ciuco! You really have to watch the chocolate because it goes from melted directly to dry and crusty. But if you have all your ingredients lined up and work fast it comes out okay.



So, was this good? Yes, it was really good. I love the sweetness of the pineapple and coconut mixed with the almost salty-like white chocolate. And I used a dried coconut to give the bark texture (not a sweetened coconut, but dried). Plus the salty macadamia nuts were crazy good with this. Did I forget to mention the salty macadamia nuts? My bad--yes there are macadamia nuts in here and they are salty gooooood.



white chocolate tropical bark
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about 16 oz of white chocolate melted (about one bag and a half bag)
1/2 cup more or less dried pineapple, chopped
1/2 cup more or less dried coconut (not the sweetened kind but the dried)
1/2 cup more or less rough chopped salted macadamia nuts

You can use as much or as little of the ingredients above as you like. Have all your ingredients (in separate bowls) at the ready because as soon as the white chocolate is melted you need to pour it onto a sheet pan and add your mix in's. Get a small jellyroll pan ready; either use a non-stick one or cover it with parchment paper. Melt white chocolate over double boiler. (I don't microwave my white chocolate, it's never ever melted right for me). Keep stirring until it's melted, then pour onto jellyroll pan, spread with nonstick spatula, then sprinkle on the pineapple and then the nuts, push them down a bit to make sure they sink in a bit to the melted chocolate, then top with the coconut. Put in freezer to harden, about 30 minutes. After it's hardened, then let it sit at room temp for a bit before breaking into pieces.

Cheez It Bark

I'm sure you've all seen the "ghetto toffee" recipe floating around food-bloggerland for the holiday season. But my question to you is, have you seen it this way?

Yep, I totally went there--I used the ever-so-tasty Cheez-It crackers. Trust me on this one. It is WAY better than saltines. The sweet buttery toffee mixed with the salty taste of Cheez-It's. Oh yeah! Now we're talking tasty toffee.

cheez it bark
from vanillasugarblog.com
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1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 cup, packed light brown sugar
2 bags of 11.05 ounces of milk chocolate chips
½ box of the Big-size Cheez-It’s (use the big ones, as they cover more room)
1 cup of crushed toasted pecans (or walnuts or whatever you crave)

Preheat oven to 400ºF.
Line jelly roll pan or cookie sheet with foil and spray with non-stick spray. Or just use a non-stick jelly roll pan.
Lay a flat layer of Cheez-It crackers out on the foil. I did a layer and a half, making sure to cover up any gaps with Cheez-It’s.
In a saucepan, melt the sugar and butter until a boil is reached. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 3-4 minutes or until mixture is thickened and sugar is completely dissolved. Pour this mixture over the crackers and spread to coat evenly. Do not mix! Just pour, and fill in any gaps with a spatula.
Bake in pre-heated oven for 5-8 minutes, or until the toffee becomes bubbly. Turn off oven, then take out of oven and let it sit for a couple of minutes. Then sprinkle on the chocolate chips. But tray back in oven to help the chips melt a bit. When chips are melted a bit, spread them into an even layer like you would frosting a cake. After done spreading the chocolate this is the time to sprinkle on the chopped nuts or whatever else you want to add.
Let cool and/or refrigerate until hardened. Once firmly cooled then break into pieces.
So good. Trust me the Cheez-It’s make all the difference!