the best sweet & salty chocolate bark

Quite a title to live up to right? I know. But trust me on this one? I've made a lot of barks in my life and I tell you this one is the best hands down. It's not just me who claims this. I gave a sample of this to a few people who said the same thing.
Why does it taste so good? I'm certain it's the combo of the peanut butter, honey, butter and chocolate. That alone is a creamy good taste--and you could actually just make that alone and it would be fabulous. But I added in toasted coconut (for texture), salty pretzels (for salt), and pecans (for extra crunch).
I know I've said this before to you, but if you make one bark, this is it.

the best sweet & salty chocolate bark
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the base:
1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
1/3 cup + 1 TB local honey
1/4 cup unsalted butter
¾ cup milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks

the add ins:
1/2 cup toasted coconut
½ cup salty pretzels, rough chop
½ cup salty pecans (any kind of salty nut)

Cook notes:
You can add in anything you want to this. But keep the add ins to 3-4, as you don’t want too many add ins or it won’t set up right. I found using a thin pretzel works best than a thick one. I think using potato chips would be fabulous for this. Have all your add ins at the ready; you want to add them in fast when the chocolate base is all melted.

Get all your add ins at the ready and lined up ready to go. If you want uniform bars instead of bark, use an 8 X 8 square pan and really grease it up and line with parchment paper. If you want bark, then line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper.
Melt butter, peanut butter and honey in a pot over medium to low heat, stirring constantly.
Add in the chocolate chips and keep stirring—takes a while for everything to incorporate and you want to melt the chocolate slowly (almost like tempering). When all is melted, remove from stove.
Pour in all your add ins, mix well, and immediately transfer to the jelly roll pan or square pan. Using a spatula flatten out bark mixture. Don’t spread it too thin! Let cool at room temperature about 2 hours. When bark has set up, use a sharp knife to cut into chunks.

double dip glazed chocolate donut muffins

You know those old fashioned cake-like donuts be it chocolate or vanilla that have that 'almost' crispy, sweet milky like glaze on top? Yeah I love that, and I think I've found the closest glaze recipe to it.
After playing around with various glazes I found one that really works well and most importantly, dries/hardens up just right. You know if you're gonna make a donut, you need a good glaze. It's really all about the glaze for me ? Why go through all that work for a crappy glaze?
If you do make these, please heed my advice and use mini muffin tins or use mini donut tins. The regular size muffins work good, but to be honest there is just too much muffin to glaze ratio; it's just not even enough--even with the double dipping. Too much muffin and the muffins are a tad dry, but I'm certain if I did these again and used a mini muffin tin or mini donut tin, reduce the baking time they would be spot on.

Now isn't that better and easier than all that yeast, waiting for the dough to rise, cutting dough, rise again, deep fry, etc...?
I thought so.

double dip chocolate glazed doughnut muffins
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Muffins:
1/4 cup + 3 TB unsalted butter, room temp
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup + 1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup dutch cocoa powder
1 ½ ts baking powder
1/4 ts baking soda
1 ts cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
½ ts pure vanilla extract
½ cup whole milk
½ cup buttermilk

Glaze:
4 TB butter; melted
1 cup + 3 TB confectioners’ sugar; sifted
A giant pinch of salt
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 TB hot water

Cook notes:
The next time I make these muffins I highly recommend using mini muffin tins or mini donut pans. I just think there was too much cake and not enough glaze. These would be perfect as donut bites, thus being able to glaze the mini donut all around. Also, keep in mind that these bake very fast. So please check them at the 10 minute mark! And watch the baking times if you do use mini muffin/donut tins.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
IN a bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.
In a glass or cup, mix the whole milk with the buttermilk; set aside.
Line 12 muffin cups with muffin liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
In the bowl of a stand mixer or by hand, cream the butter, vegetable oil, and sugars till smooth.
Add in the eggs, vanilla extract, and mix well.
Stir half the flour into the wet/butter mixture, stir, then add half the milk mixture, then add in the remaining flour mixture, stir, and finally the remaining milk mixture.
Using an ice cream scoop, scoop the batter into cups, filling the cups to the “almost” top.
Bake muffins until the tops are slightly springy to the touch, 13-16 minutes; rotating halfway through baking time.
If using mini muffins pans, bake 10-12 minutes; definitely check at the 10 minute mark.
Cool muffins for about 15 minutes before glazing.
For the glaze: in a shallow bowl mix the melted butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla and water; whisk until nice and smooth. Dip the muffin tops in glaze and let cool and harden on wire racks.
For double dipping: reheat glaze in microwave for 20 seconds (or shorter) and re-glaze again.
The glaze takes a couple hours to harden up—worth the wait though!
Should make: 12-14 regular muffins or 24 mini

toasted coconut-cream cheese bars

Remember as a kid when you made your first batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch? How hard you worked and how amazing they tasted? Then remember when you found out you could make them into bar form? How cool and fancy that sounded to make them into bar form? Oh I sure do. Then I finally figured out the bar form is a lot easier; just throw it in a pan, no scooping or forming. Then came the add in's, the chopped up candy bars, nuts, etc...and you still thought how cool is that? Thinking I'm going to add in something that nobody else has ever added in before? Then you found out everyone was actually adding in peanut butter cups all the time, and you were so bummed.

These coconut bars reminded me of those past days. Long ago I did a cookie post (coconut cream cheese cookies) about 2 years ago, that is still, today, one of the most searched for recipes via google. It's kind of nice knowing there are that many coconut lovers out there. I've always wanted to re-create those cookies somehow, someway, and only came up with these bars. Not exactly the same recipe, this one is more of a crispy crumb cake with a cookie taste. Just as good though.
Lately I've been craving coconut; I do almost every winter.

Curious as to what is in coconut that my body craves, I did a little research and found a coconut research center. LOL How very cool. It seems legit; I did do some fact-checking to confirm their sayings. Apparently coconut is very useful for almost all things related to healthy gut, kills bacteria that cause ulcers, throat infections, urinary tract infections, gum disease and cavities, pneumonia, and gonorrhea, and other diseases. Helps in the absorption of calcium and magnesium, is good for utilizing the blood glucose...the list goes on and on. Read here for all the facts.

And for those of you who (like me) love real coconut to nosh on. Try these little gems. Inside are real pieces of coconut, not processed. Dipped in dark chocolate. Really good. I found them at my local natural health food store. I think Whole Foods carries them too.



toasted coconut-cream cheese bars
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dough:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
¼ cup (or more if desired) shredded coconut (not toasted)
½ ts sea salt
1 large egg
1 ts pure vanilla extract

cream cheese filling
8 ounces cream cheese, room temp
1 large egg yolk
½ cup toasted coconut
Pinch of salt

Cook notes: This bakes up very fast, so please check it at the 30 minute mark. These are very crispy bars. I’ve said that you need half the dough for the bottom and the other half for the top (crumb topping) but you may need a little more dough for the bottom than just half. It might be a nice addition to add some toasted pecans or walnuts to the cream cheese mixture.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease up a 8 or 9-inch square baking pan with butter. If you feel safer using parchment paper, then go ahead and butter up your pan then line with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl mix the cream cheese, egg yolk, toasted coconut and salt until well combined; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, and salt.
With a pastry cutter, fork or your hands, cut up butter and mix in with the flour mixture until you have large coarse-like crumbs. No need to over work.
In a small bowl, beat the egg and vanilla extract. Add this into the flour mixture and mix until it all just comes together.
Divide dough in half. Take one half and place in pan. Wet your fingers to smooth out the dough and make sure to get all the corners.
Take the cream cheese mixture and place over the dough. Keep the cream cheese mixture at least ½ inch away from the edges; this way nothing will seep out as it bakes.

Take the other half of the dough and crumble on the top, do not pat down. Just crumble as you would a crumb cake. Take the untoasted coconut and sprinkle over top (optional but wonderful).
Bake until topping is deep golden brown; which should be about 30 - 45 minutes.
Let cool completely in pan. Run a sharp knife around edges to help loosen it up. Then using a spatula to help you lift it out, place on cutting board and finish slicing.
Should make about 10-12 small bars.

friday fun stuff

The winner of the Aeropress is lucky number 19. Ruby of That's So Vegan you won! Congrats! Please email me and give me your address!

Trendy fire alarms? Absolutely. Check out these bird chirping fire alarms. Love these and would rather have a couple of these instead of the annoying, loud ones I have now.

You've all heard that coocnut oil is really good for you and thankfully we are beginning to see more and more recipes for it. Like this coconut oil granola, not only healthy but healthy food that will not suck. Sounds good to me but I would like to add a bit of chocolate to it--I just love coconut oil with chocolate, they go really well together like here when I made the chocolate hard shell for homemade donuts.

There is a pie shop in Brooklyn called 24 Blackbirds. You might have heard of them and you might have seen them on the cooking channel "Unique Eats". I have their salty caramel apple pie on my to bake list. They are also famous for their "chocolate-oatmeal pie".

Have you ever had a black & blue lemonade? It's a strange little concoction and I was hesitant at first but it really was tasty.

Have you seen these adorable merit badges for the home? Just like the boy or girl scouts but now for the home. A great way to motivate your kids or even your spouse to help out around the house.

Human camouflaged. The 3rd from the bottom is my favorite. Love that wallpaper for a fancy guest bathroom. Right?

Are you into what kind of homes do the celebrities have? How much did they pay for them? Me too. Check out this site: The Real Estalker.

I'm not that into the "instagram" craze. Are you? Here are some fabulous photo app alternatives. I have the Camera+ one and I love it. The app has everything all in one place. Definitely worth the money.

What do you like to collect? Or fancy for a hobby? One of mine is terrarium's. I just love them. Have any good links for them? Please share. I love to collect small and unusual ones.




Terrarium pendant--just love this.

Some reviews of various eBook apps. I love them all. Which one do you have or want?

A lot of the links I share I get from the website called thekitchn.com They share a lot of questions on their website and let the readers answer them in the comment section. Like this one, where they asked us "Are the any foods that should never be stored in the fridge?" See all the helpful answers in the comments.

I love the ginger beer that's sold at Trader Joe's. But it's quite pricey. Here' s way to make it at home. Do you like ginger beer?

Unusual elevators. Very cool.

What are you making for Super Bowl? I really want to make:

Bacon Guacamole. I could eat all that in one sitting.

How about this: bacon double cheeseburger dip. Yeah dip. Wow.

Philly cheesesteak sliders!

Greek Quesadillas

Beef Barbacoa

Baked Jalepeno Poppers

Mocha Cream Tart (oh heavens yes)

But hubby wants these ham & cheese sliders. Easy peasy to make and loaded with lots of topping.



And these sliders too.




But you know, I really want a kicked up hot dog this weekend. So I might make some sort of Chicago Dogs; I do have jars and jars of relish in the fridge that get used once and are left to sit there for years.


Or maybe some spicy buffalo chicken chili, because I truly crave that blue cheese drizzle on top the most.

Lately it's been really nice on cape cod, not a lot of snow and not a lot of bone chilling cold. Thank goodness. Last year at this time we were up to over 51 inches of snow by now. This year, so far 3-4 inches? Let's keep it that way and just slide right into spring.

Not quite sure what possessed me to be on the beach this day. It was very windy. Can you see the sand blowing around? Crazy day to be on the beach, but it was so very photogenic too.

Woods Hole Ferry.

Harwich port, MA. I could live here. No problem.

He's getting there!


Winter winds blow so much sand the roads have to be plowed for sand.

The best sloppy joe's

Are you a BBQ sauce junkie? I am. Some of the best BBQ sauce I've ever had in my life. I've made 1001 uses for it. The best part? It's all ingredients you can understand and are familiar with. And has real maple syrup in it! Maple syrup is one of the best ingredients for chili's, BBQ sauce, glazes for grilling, etc....

When I find a really good product, I can't help but tell all. I'll even make sure to tell people in the grocery store.

They did not pay me to do this post (I mean I wish they would in cases of BBQ sauce for me and my fans--I would gladly take that). But this post is all my own opinion. You need to try this if you are a BBQ sauce junkie like me.

Next time you go to whole foods, look for this special sauce. It's amazing on grilled chicken, steak, and even tofu. And I have used this on salads too. Amazing.

the best sloppy joes
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Note: found this BBQ sauce at whole foods and am in love with it.
It’s very tangy, sweet and not too salty. Has a list of ingredients that you can understand; very versatile with almost any dish.
You can use chicken or even grilled tofu works really well in this dish. Feel free to use any veggies you desire.

1 lb of meat (hamburg, chicken or tofu chunks), cooked/fried/baked/etc.
3 or more bell peppers, sautéed
1 large onion, sautéed
½ bottle (or more) of the Butternut mountain BBQ sauce
Toasted onion buns

Fry up or grill up the meat of your choice; sauté the veggies. Then mix all together in a pot with the sauce; heat up and serve over toasted buns.
Leftovers are amazing on salads!