While I really like Nordicware’s Stadium Pan for its great design and versatility for celebrating sporting events of all kinds, it’s not the best pan to pick up if you really want to show support for your favorite team. It is a bit difficult to decorate in your team colors, for instance (and looks so good plain that you never really need frosting anyway). To show a little more team spirit for an event like the upcoming Super Bowl, you might want to pick up one of Wilton’s Football Pans or Helmet Pans. These pans each hold the same amount of batter as a standard 9×13-inch cake (or 1 cake mix) and make cakes that are very sporty, but very easy to dress up, whether you support the Saints or the Colts in the big game. The pans are made of annodized aluminum and are fairly lightweight. To ensure that your cake pops out of the pan without a hitch, make sure to grease and flour the pan before pouring in the batter.
Aprons are useful tools to have in the kitchen. I say tools because they can do quite a lot: protect your clothes, give you a place to wipe your hands or hang a dishtowel, and even provide you with pockets to hold extra spices, spoons and spatulas that you just don’t have room for. And if the apron is cute and fun to wear, that is even better. Flirty Aprons is a company that specializes in cute and – of course – flirty aprons. They have some great patterns to choose from, all with wide fabric belts that tie into a big bow and a beautiful ruffled trim. I recently got to test out one of their most delightful designs: the Frosted Cupcake apron. The apron is made from soft cotton and has a nice strong feel to it. I like the pockets and I love the cut, because these aprons were designed to be flattering. For instance, the ruffle stopped right at my waist, so there was no bunching of extra fabric, and the wide tie makes your waist look slim, not shapeless. And the adorable cupcakes are a nice finishing touch to the whole thing.
This week, I’m giving away the Frosted Cupcake apron pictured above! To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment at the bottom of this post with your favorite frosting flavor - in honor of the frosted cupcakes on the apron. The winner will be chosen randomly on Thursday, January 28th at midnight. Don’t forget to leave your e-mail address when you comment so that I can contact you if you are the winner.
If you don’t win the giveaway, check out some of their other aprons as a gift for yourself or as a fantastic Valentine’s Day gift. Flirty Aprons makes mens and kids aprons, as well. I really like the Cherry Blossom Apron, too, and will be adding that to my own wish list!
Update: This contest is closed. Thanks to everyone who participated!
There are many ways to make fudge that start out with some sugar and a candy thermometer, and while I’ve had plenty of excellent fudge made this way, I’ve also ruined more than a few batches by not watching the temperature closely enough. The idea of a worry-free fudge, therefore, appeals to me. And, fortunately, it is very easy to make a delicious batch of fudge with virtually no effort at all.
This fudge recipe starts with semisweet chocolate and sweetened condensed milk – and those two ingredients make up the bulk of the recipe, with just a little butter and a little vanilla to round things out. All the fudge ingredients are combined in a a double boiler and melted together. You can actually do this in a large saucepan instead of a double boiler, but you will need to stir constantly to prevent the chocolate from scorching (the pan will get quite hot where the burners make contact) as everything melts together.
To make the fudge more interesting, I turned it into a big batch of s’mores by stirring in marshmallows and chopped graham crackers. They help break up the intensity of the chocolate a bit, so you get a nice mixture of rich chocolate, chewy marshmallow and crisp crackers. It’s a great variation on a s’more. Mini marshmallows are already the “right” size for this recipe, but it is very easy to cut large marshmallows (or homemade ‘mallows) into quarters with a pair of scissors and stir them in instead.
Store these in an airtight container to keep the graham cracker bits nice and crisp. The fudge will taste best within the first few days it is made. I try to keep the pieces medium-sized, but you cut cut them down to bite-size squares to serve a crowd.
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If you like chili peppers, The Ultimate Insanely Super Hot Chili Pepper Cookbook is the book for you – as if you couldn’t tell from the name alone. The book is absolutely dedicated to chili peppers of all kinds, and it serves as a great introduction to cooking with chili peppers if you haven’t used whole peppers much before in your own kitchen. The book starts off with an introduction to working with peppers and descriptions of about 30 chili peppers from around the world, from the mild pasilla chili to the super-hot (hottest chili in the world, actually) bhut jolokia, or ghost chili. Once you have a feel for what you’ll be dealing with, you can head into the recipes.
The book is divided into seven chapters: appetizers and soups; salsas, marinades and pastes; fish and seafood; meat and poultry; vegetables; pasta and rice; drinks and sweets. There really is something for everyone in this very diverse group of recipes – especially considering that the dessert recipes in the last chapter also include chili peppers! The recipes are straighforward and easy to follow along with, and every one includes a beautiful photo of how the finished dish should turn out. For those who like chilis but are a bit sensitive to heat, it is also worth noting that every recipe has a note indicating how mild or spicy the finished product will be.
This is a really fun book to have in the kitchen because all the dishes are made from scratch and you can really get some experience trying new techniques that you might not get in other cookbooks. This is because many books not only rely on the same types of chilis in their recipes (most are common in this book, but a few might require careful shopping to find), but also rely on powdered or dried chilis instead of fresh. Working with fresh chilis gives you a whole new dimension of flavor and kicks things up in the kitchen just enough – especially when you go for the spicier recipes!
Some people like to wake up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee, or a plate of hot bacon. You could count me in for both of those things, but freshly baked cookies would make the list, too. That said, I would be very suspicious if I woke up in the middle of the night and suspected – by smell or by the sounds of pots and pans moving around – that someone unknown was in my house baking them for me. This is exactly what happened to a man in Michigan this week. He heard some suspicious noises coming from his kitchen and called the police to report an intruder. The police arrived and found a woman in the kitchen baking cookies. It turns out that the man’s wife had stuffed some clothing under the covers in bed so it looked like she was there, then went down to the kitchen to bake a surprise batch of cookies!
Who knew that a simple batch of cookies could turn into such a big deal? I hope that there were enough to share with the police who responded to the call as well as with her husband.
