Pour brownie mix in bowl and mix with a Diet Coke.  Pour in pan and bake.

It seemed too simple. So, what better to do on a cold, rainy evening? Bake brownies!

The Cast

I followed the directions on the website, with a slight alteration. We had one caffeine-free Diet Coke in the fridge leftover from a party a while back.

The baking time on the back of the box says 25-30 minutes. Because these were pretty soupy when I first poured them into the pan, I baked them for 35 minutes.

The results?  Well, they weren’t pretty ~ definitely not show-stoppers.  The problem was that I found them difficult to cut neatly.  BUT.

I found them to be very tasty!  My children loved them! And my husband was just happy that I made dessert!

The Curtain Call

I also altered from the prescribed recipe upon cutting these.  Because they were so messy, I didn’t even attempt to cut them into 24 pieces.  Going by the calories listed on the brownie box and dividing it by 16 (the number of brownies I cut.)  These moist and wonderful brownies are about 137 calories each. Yummy!

If you want people to fall down and kiss your toes because it’s so good, make this AND serve it on a buttered-toasted sub roll.

Chicken Spiedies (Cooks’ Country)
You will need metal skewers for this recipe.

Ingredients:

1/2 c. olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 T finely chopped fresh basil
1/2 t. dried oregano
2 t. grated zest plus 1 T juice from 1 lemon
1 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
1/4 t. red pepper flakes
3 T mayonnaise
1 T red wine vinegar
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 lbs.)
6 6-inch sub rolls

Instructions:

1. Make sauces: Combine oil, garlic, basil, oregano, lemon zest, salt, pepper, and pepper flakes in large bowl. Transfer 2 tablespoons of the mixture to a separate bowl and whisk in mayonnaise, vinegar and lemon juice; refrigerate. (Sauces can be refrigerated, covered, for 2 days.)

2. Prick chicken breasts all over with a fork, cut into 1 1/4-inch chunks, and transfer to bowl with remaining oil mixture. Refrigerate, covered, 30 minutes to 3 hours.

3. Remove chicken from marinade and thread onto six 12-inch metal skewers. Grill Chicken over hot fire, covered and turning frequently, until lightly charred and cooked through, 10-15 minutes.

4. Put chicken on sub rolls and drizzle with mayo sauce.

5. Serve to your family and be prepared for comments of how wonderful you are.

Notes (Things I Did Differently) or Tips:

I used the juice of 1 lemon rather than 1 tablespoon of juice because I wasn’t paying attention.  It made for a very lemony marinade, but it was delicious none-the-less.

I’ve only made this using the sub rolls, but I’m pretty sure I could get away with making just grilled chicken using this marinade.

I used the mayo sauce on other items later in the week. It is divine!

I’m also participating in this week’s edition of and .

This was one of those recipes I saved for when Hubby was out of town.  Because generally speaking, he doesn’t like “food that touches other food.”  Anything that could be called a casserole is not accepted at our dinner table when the picky man is home.  This recipe definitely falls into that category, but even Mr. Picky ate the leftovers and said it was pretty good.
Skillet Sheperd’s Pie (Cooks’ Country)

Ingredients:

8 C. frozen shredded hash brown potatoes (country style, not cubed)
4 T unsalted butter, melted
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 lbs 85% lean ground beef (could use lamb if you like)
1 Onion, chopped fine
1 1/2 t. minced fresh thyme
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
2 c. low-sodium beef broth
2 t. Worcestershire sauce
2 c. frozen pea and carrot medley, thawed

Instructions:

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat broiler. Toss potatoes with 2 T. butter, 1 t. salt, and 1/4 t. pepper in large bowl.  Wrap tightly with plastic and microwave until potatoes are tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

2. While potatoes are cooking, cook beef and onion in a large heatproof skillet over medium-high heat until beef is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Drain beef mixture in colander.

3. Return drained beef mixture to pan. Stir in thyme and flour and cook until incorporated, about 1 minute. Stir in broth and Worchestershire and cook until sauce is thickened, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir in pea and carrot medley and simmer until heated through, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Scatter cooked potatoes over beef mixture and brush with remaining butter. Broil until potatoes are golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Serve.

Notes (aka Things I Did Differently):

1. I don’t have a large enough heat proof skillet, so I used a Dutch oven.  I think it worked okay, but it would have been easier to serve out of a skillet.

2. I used the whole bag of potatoes.  The boys LOVED all of the potatoes.

3. It took more than 5 minutes to brown the top of the potatoes, but I don’t know if that is because of the depth of the Dutch oven, or if I have an oven issue.

4. The recipe is supposed to serve 4, but we were able to have 7 servings. Maybe because I added extra potatoes?

Anyway this was scrumptious.  The first night it was great. The boys & I both loved it.  The leftovers were good, but not great. (It’s hard to get that crunch in leftover hash browns.)  The boys and I still liked it, and amazingly Hubby, the Anti-casserole King, thought it was good.

I’m also participating in this week’s edition of and .

After nearly 8 years of marriage, I learned that my husband likes apple muffins. Not applesauce muffins, but apple muffins.  So began my quest for Apple Muffin recipes.  This is a take-off from a recipe I found; I tweaked it by making it lower in calories and fat.

These turned out just marvelous. Warm and tender, straight from the oven. Not too sweet. Just a hint of spice, and lots of yummy apple bits.

Apple Muffins

Ingredients:
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. Splenda
3 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 t. Penzeys Ground Vietnamese Cinnamon
3/4 c. apple juice
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 egg
1 medium apple – peeled, cored and diced

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 ° F.  Insert liners into muffin tins or grease bottoms of muffin tins.

2. In a medium bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.  In a larger bowl, combine apple juice, oil, and egg – blend well.  Once wet ingredients are blended, add dry ingredients.  Stir just until the dry ingredients are incorporated, but don’t mix it well – (if you do, your muffins will be tough instead of tender).  Stir in chopped apples.

3. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool for a moment before removing from the tin. Serve warm.

Makes 15 muffins.

Nutritional information according to my calculations:
111 Calories
4 g Fat
17 g Carbohydrates

Hope you enjoy these as much as we did!

I’m also participating in today’s edition of  and .

First, we placed ice in a gallon size ziploc and then added rock salt.  Next, into a cup, we added our half & half, sugar, and flavoring.  After mixing, we poured it into a quart size ziploc and sealed it (with a bit of packing tape at the top just to be safe.)  After placing the little bag into the big bag, it was time to shake things up.  Minutes later, we had ice cream!

What a fun and delicious way to spend a 101° afternoon.

I made caramel apples!  For the first time ever! (Yes, I know I’m nearly 40.  I’ve lived a sheltered life – sue me.)

Since I had never done this, I decided to go the “easy” route and buy a kit.  It said all I have to do is get apples and voilà, I’ll have 6 amazing caramel and candy covered apples.

I purchase huge, beautiful Granny Smith apples.  I gather children.  We proceed to make caramel apples, well, sort of.

Mistake #1: Buying huge apples ~ It really would have been better to have smaller apples.  With the large apples, the caramel in the kit didn’t go far. Not to mention, huge apples on little wooden dowels were cumbersome and difficult for little hands to maneuver.

Mistake # 2: Buying a kit ~ Having just the right sticks and the cute candies were handy, but there just wasn’t enough caramel in the little nukeable tray. Need more caramel. And a large sauce pan to dip the apples into would also help.

Mistake #3: Cold apples ~ cold apples have a way of making warm/hot caramel seize rather quickly when cold apple touches said caramel. Which means instead of having a thin pretty layer of caramel on your apples, you have thick gobs of caramel on your apples and you run out of caramel rather quickly.

Mistake #4: Eating the results ~ While we only had 4 caramel apples, they were amazingly delicious.  Now that we’ve had some that were freshly made, I’m afraid we’ll have to do this again next year. Only, next year, I’ll learn from my mistakes and they’ll be even better.

]]> http://www.texastanya.net/2010/11/lessons-learned-caramel-apples-%e2%80%93-10-23-%e2%80%93-106365/feed/ 2 http://www.texastanya.net/2010/09/got-cookies-9-19-%e2%80%93-72365/ http://www.texastanya.net/2010/09/got-cookies-9-19-%e2%80%93-72365/#comments Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:31:36 +0000 TexasTanya http://www.texastanya.net/?p=4629

I feel like I have done a very bad thing.

Tonight, I made these homemade oreos and oh. my. merciful. heavens.  They are divine.

So glad I’ve got plenty of milk!

This was my first time trying this recipe from one of my favorite TV chefs, Alton Brown.  They certainly were good eats. [ha! ha!]  If you’d like to try the recipe click here.

Well.  As it turns out – no.  A while ago, I started investigating better/cheaper/more organic ways of cleaning.  (Unfortunately, I still haven’t found the magic genie in a bottle that will clean my house while I sleep.  If you find that, would you let me know?)  One of the first things I searched for was laundry detergent.  Last year I purchased several bottles of laundry detergent from Costco.  While Costco is one of the less expensive places to purchase it, the cost was still pretty large considering it’s just a bottle of soap.

I remembered watching the Duggar family (of 18 Kids & Counting fame) make their own laundry soap.  I was certain that would not be the method that worked for me.  Because no matter how much I want to save money or improve the chore of doing laundry – I knew that having to cook my laundry soap would immediately turn it into drudgery for me.

Ergo, google to the rescue.  If you search for “homemade laundry detergent” you’ll get a slew of sites with multiple recipes.

I came across one that looked simple enough for me, and I didn’t have to cook it (or stir it before every use.)

Laundry Detergent

• 2 cups grated bar soap (like Fels-Naptha, Zote, Ivory, or Castille soap)
• 1 cup borax
• 1 cup washing soda

Put all of the ingredients into a air-tight container and stir together.  Use 1-2 tablespoons per load of laundry. This recipe makes enough for 32-64 loads of laundry.

Things I’ve learned since then:

Grating soap – you can do it by hand, but it might take forever and you might lose a knuckle if you are not careful.  If you use a food processor to grate, you end up with pretty curls so you’ll want to use the chopping blade after grating to help make the soap pieces smaller.

If your air-tight container is large enough, you can double or triple the recipe.

If you don’t like the way the soap smells, don’t use it in the laundry detergent.  Personally, I hate don’t like Zote.  It won’t be going into my detergent – ever.

If you love the way a soap smells, you’ll love smelling your clean laundry.

If your husband is forever bringing home fancy little bars of soap from hotels across the country, you can use them in your laundry detergent and clear a space on the shelf in the closet.  What a deal!

If your husband watches silly youtube videos of what happens to Ivory soap when it is put in the microwave and then has to try it all by himself.  The end result substitutes quite well for grated soap, once it cools and dries.

Making your own laundry detergent is frugal-minded.  Last October, I bought the original supplies.  Borax was about $2.50, Washing soda was about $3.00, a 10-pack of Ivory was on sale for $2.50 – which makes the total  about $8.00.  I’ve lost count how many batches of detergent I have made from these supplies.  I just recently ran out of washing soda.  So $8.00 worth of materials has lasted from October to the end of July.  That’s not bad – considering I know I would have used at least 2 $20 containers of Costco detergent in that same time frame.

Finally, I’ve learned that there is a certain satisfaction that comes from making a product that I once thought could only be purchased.

I used the same recipe and cooked it on the stove top in about 30 minutes.   Sure the flavors might not have been married like they would have been if I’d let it sit all day, but still – this was great.   And, I’m really looking forward to tonight’s leftovers!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

• 1 pound shredded, cooked chicken
• 1 (15 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, mashed
• 1 (10 ounce) can enchilada sauce
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups water
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen corn
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
• 7 corn tortillas
• vegetable oil

The original instructions:

1. Place chicken, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, onion, green chiles, and garlic into a slow cooker. Pour in water and chicken broth, and season with cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Stir in corn and cilantro. Cover, and cook on Low setting for 6 to 8 hours or on High setting for 3 to 4 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
3. Lightly brush both sides of tortillas with oil. Cut tortillas into strips, then spread on a baking sheet.
4. Bake in preheated oven until crisp, about 10 to 15 minutes. To serve, sprinkle tortilla strips over soup.

The quick instructions:

I started by sauteing the onions.   When the onions are transparent, add the garlic and spices.   Stir until it becomes fragrant, about 30 seconds.   Next, start adding the canned stuff, water, broth, corn, and shredded chicken.   Stir. Let it simmer for 10-15 minutes, then serve!   I used tortilla chips instead of making my own strips – because, let’s face it, I’m all about easy.