sweet potato-cheddar and oat cookies

Do not let the word cheddar turn you off. You hardly notice it. To be honest, I have never in my life tasted a cookie as good as these. I only had two of them and the rest were sent off to friends as I knew I would easily eat them all. I worked hard on finding the right balance of sweet to savory in a gentle way, and I finally found it. I wanted a cookie that was moist hence the sweet potato, wanted a savory cookie hence the cheddar cheese, and wanted a bit of sweet with some texture hence the chocolate chips and the nice texture of raisins. I knew they would all work together nicely in a cookie. And there is a healthy aspect to this too with the sweet potato and oats. These cookies have all that nice savory and sweet, but not overly so on both. Trust me you will love these; they tasted so good with my morning coffee and were the kind of cookies that 'stick to your ribs' and fills you up.



sweet potato-cheddar & oat cookies
recipe by vanillasugarblog.com
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1 and ½ sticks of unsalted butter, room temp.
¾ cup brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup + 2 TB cooked & mashed sweet potato
1 and ½ cups of mildly sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ts baking powder
¼ ts cinnamon
¾ ts salt
¾ cup old fashioned oats (or quick cooking)
¾ cup milk chocolate chips
1 and ½ cups pecans
1 cup raisins

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt, whisk a bit; place to the side.
In another separate bowl combine the oats, raisins, pecans and chocolate chips, mix well.
In a big bowl, cream the butter and both sugars together. Add eggs, then the sweet potatoes, and then the cheddar cheese, combine. Then fold in the dry ingredients; then pecan, raisins and oat mixture.
Don’t over mix, just fold in.
Drop by tablespoon size onto a non stick cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. These cookies do rise a bit. You could shape them into smaller sizes if you want.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Or until a light golden brown around the edges.
Should make about 30 cookies,depending on size +/-

bbq chicken

Too cold to grill outside! But I've been craving grilled anything! So I grabbed my cast iron grill pan, heated the oven to 500 degrees and viola! I have fire! Or I have grill, inside, where it's nice and warm. And you know what? It came out fabulous. My cast iron has grill-nubby thingee's on it so I got the grill marks. It's all about the grill marks right? Oh yeah! Since it was night time I don't have the best of pics, but you can imagine how good this tasted. I used a wonderful barbeque sauce from my buddies at Stonewall Kitchen.

my kind of "missing" cat...

It was such a nice day today, the sun was finally out, it was a warm 33 degrees outside! That's warm for us that have been stuck in the artic tundra for the last few weeks. I decided to get out early and do all my errands, get in my exercise of walking while the sun was still high and strong in the sky. Now normally when I go out and come back home my cat always, I mean always greets me at the door. Not today. He's such a friendly loving little guy. He always hears my car pulling into the driveway, runs over to the sun room watching me get out of the car, walk up the pathway, and at that point he runs to the other side of the house to the front door to greet me. No kitty to be found. I was so scared. I thought the worst....and told myself not to panic. I thought maybe he got outside? We don't let him outside because of all the coyotes we have around here. And then I remembered this did happen a couple times before and I eventually found him in my bedroom closet (he knows how to close the closet door, and for whatever reason he loves to close the closet doors and have a nap on the floor of my closet). He was not in the closet. I searched everywhere in the house, nothing. More panic came over me. I started thinking maybe he got into the back of the washing machine? You know how your mind starts thinking the absolute worst and craziest outcomes? Yeah, that's where I started thinking towards. And then all of a sudden, as I was walking down the stairs to go check out the laundry room, I looked over to the post & beams of the ceiling, over by the skylights and found this.....

Relief flooded over then a little bit of anger as it's not the safest place to be since the drop to the ground floor is a long way down. How did he get there? Upstairs in the bedroom, there is a little lookout window, that overlooks the downstairs. He jumped up onto that little railing, hopped onto the post beams and over to the windows.

This is the little opening. Crazy right? He got down fine and now, goes back and forth like it's nothing. I think everyone in this house has a bit of cabin fever lately, so maybe that's why he was feeling 'creative & daring'. So after that mini heart attack, I put away the groceries and wanted to go outside and see where my duck buddies were. Lately there have been a few ducks brave enough to kind of come close to me and say hi, but only if I feed them some treats. So, I wanted to give a few stale pieces of bread to them. As soon as I opened the slider, they heard that noise and came right over.

But as I was feeding them I turned to my left and looked at what was coming....

I had never seen this before! I was in shock and slowly, walked into the house to get my camera. I mean is this a shot or what? And if you can see in the distance, there are more crossing the little pathway heading over! And just behind that bush, by the pathway, are tons more coming over! It was so cool! I was lucky to get this shot, and wanted to feed them more, so on my way back to the house (to get more bread) a ton of them got spooked and flew back into the river. The fly-away wind they created was INTENSE!

chai crumbcake

My love for crumb cake runs deep. I love NYC style crumb cake with a thick, thick crumbly topping and a rich buttery cake. I love how it's a 2 to 1 ratio for topping and cake. But some of the recipes I've found only give it a 1 to 1 ratio, so when that happens I just double the ingredients for the crumb topping, just like I did with this recipe below. I mean the best part is that darn sweet and gently salty topping filed with spices or just plain cinnamon, right? Oh yeah! And I also love what you can do with crumbcake: you can add fruit to it, add nuts, glazes, drizzles, chocolate, and now I've found you can add chai. I love that strange but warming flavor of chai, every once in a while I love to get a hot chai tea from Starbucks. I highly recommend this recipe from Baking Bites; it's really good and has a gentle flavor of chai.

If you were going to kick up a crumbcake, what would you add to it?



chai crumb cake (with extra crumb topping)
adapted from Baking Bites
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Topping: (I doubled this for an extra thick topping. Below is the regular size, if you want double crumb topping, then double all the ingredients for topping)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp cardamom
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup butter, melted and cooled slightly

Cake:
1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2/3 cup butter, soft
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9″ square baking pan with parchment paper or lightly greased aluminum foil. (I used an 8inch pan and sprayed with Pam)

In a medium bowl, combine all topping ingredients except butter. Whisk to blend.
Gradually stir in the melted butter, using a large fork or spatula to mix. When all the butter has been incorporated and the mixture looks like wet sand, squeeze small clumps together to make large crumbs ranging in size from that of a pea to that of a grape. Set aside. (I doubled the amount of crumb as there was such a thin layer of it).

In another medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light. Beat in eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla extract. With the mixer set on a low speed (or by hand), alternately add in flour and sour cream in two or three additions. When no streaks of flour remain, pour into prepared pan. Top evenly with crumb mixture.
Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack before slicing. (I baked at 325 degrees for 15 minutes, turned pan, then another 15).
Serves 9-12, depending on how you slice it.

honey sesame shrimp

A fabulous taste sensation of flavors in this shrimp dish. Just like I love my sweets with a hint of salty, I love my spicy foods with a hint of sweet. The key to this dish is the marinade, but then again isn't that always the case? The longer something sits and marinades in a good sauce, the better it tastes. So, if you can, let this marinade overnight. I also added in more of the Thai chile sauce, you don't have to, but the flavor is a deep spice, not an instant HOT, but a slow warming heat as you eat it; that's why I love spicy Thai chile sauces.
Sorry I don't have better pictures this time around as this was a dinner meal and it's so dark here by the time we get around to eating. But I had to share this recipe with everyone as the sauce was soooooo good. And when something is good you just have to share it with friends.
I don't know about you, but I am a huge lover of ginger root. I am amazed at it's healing powers and more importantly it's taste. Whenever I eat sushi I always ask for more ginger. I'm the person in Whole Foods buying the jars of pickled ginger and bargaining with the sushi chefs to pile on some more ginger onto my sushi lunch rolls. In this dish, I added big chunks of thinly sliced ginger...you can see it in the first pic, on the left side. When those chunks of ginger marinaded in that sauce and then were cooked through, oh the taste! I ate all the chunks in this dish as the hubby won't touch it.

Honey Sesame Shrimp
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1 ½ pounds jumbo shrimp peeled and deveined
4 slices fresh ginger 1/4-inch thick (I did 6 slices)
5 trimmed scallions
6 TB dark sesame oil (also called Asian sesame oil)
4 TB rice wine sake (or dry sherry)
6 TB soy sauce
5 TB honey
3 TB sesame seeds
1 TB Thai sweet chile sauce or paste (I did 2 TB)
1 ts Chinese five-spice powder
4 cloves garlic crushed

Flatten white parts of scallions with the side of a cleaver. Finely chop green parts and set aside for garnish. Rinse the shrimp under cold running water, then drain and blot dry with paper towels. Set aside while you prepare the marinade.

Combine 3 tablespoons of the sesame oil, the rice wine, soy sauce, honey, sesame seeds, chile sauce (if using), and five-spice powder in a large bowl and whisk to blend.
Stir in the garlic, ginger, scallions, and shrimp to coat, then cover and let marinate, in the refrigerator, for 30 to 60 minutes.

Preheat the grill to high. Using a slotted spoon, remove the shrimp from the marinade to a bowl and toss with the remaining 3 tablespoons sesame oil.
Pour the marinade into a saucepan; remove and discard the garlic, ginger, and scallion whites, using the slotted spoon. Bring the marinade to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, uncovered, to a thick, syrupy glaze, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.
When ready to cook, oil the grate.
Arrange the shrimp on the hot grate and grill, turning with tongs, until nicely browned on the outside and firm and pink inside, about 2 minutes per side. Brush the shrimp with the glaze as they cook.
Transfer the shrimp to serving plates and or a platter and sprinkle with the scallion greens. Serve immediately with sticky rice

Serves 3 - 4
(I've also stir fried this dish and it came out just as good. Right now the grill is buried in snow...somewhere)