Salted Caramel Chocolate Turtle Cookies

I usually stick to recipes, not changing one little detail. I found this recipe and I loved the idea of making a spectacular, different kind of thumbprint cookie. The original recipe used melted caramel candies but I knew that I have a salted caramel recipe up my sleeve that kicks that idea's butt.

I'm going to just announce that this recipe stinks. I think maybe then I won't have to share with anyone else. Okay, maybe my husband will get a cookie or two :)



Seriously, these are great. I don't even like pecans. You know, I keep saying that about nuts. I think I may have changed my mind after my husband's pecan pie. I think I just don't like plain nuts but if they are encased in sweet gooeyness or coupled with chocolate and salted caramel... well, what's a girl to do? EAT IT!

In this picture you can see that I didn't even wait for the caramel sauce to cool and harden a bit before putting it together. I need to learn patience!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chocolate Turtle Cookies.
Click here for the salted caramel recipe. This sauce is included in one of the best brownie recipes ever.

Tortilla Soup

The food blogger described this soup as easy and one pot (low mess in my mind) so I was on it. I'm glad that I tried a new recipe today. A soup was a great idea for a very cold, wintry day. And I love an enchilada/tortilla taste. Yum. I do need to say that this isn't very authentic Mexican. It felt like cheating but that's okay.

I think maybe I didn't use enough chicken. I'd probably add more vegetables of some sort too. I guess I'm used to a chunkier soup but the flavor was there. I used a mild canned enchilada sauce. I wonder if hot would have been too hot?

I garnished with avocado, baked tortilla strips (strips with oil and salt, baked at 400 for 10 minutes), cilantro, lime, sour cream, pepper jack cheese. Yum-o!

I've noticed that I don't print out a recipe until I've committed to making it again. I did send this recipe link to my husband so he can print it out tomorrow. I need to add it to my binder for future meal rotations.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Easy One Pot Tortilla Soup.

FAIL?

Well, Jim is eating his but maybe he's just being polite?

I made these "apple pies". I followed a recipe for the caramel apple pies and then just sauteed apples with butter, sugar, and cinnamon for James' pie. I call them pies but they're not really. Well, they have pie crust but only on top. I made little star and moon cutouts on the tops, so I knew that the star was James'. I guess I didn't figure that the caramel would ooze up and out of the ramekins.





Well, the crusts were fine. I think I'd make that recipe again. The caramel filling? Well, I didn't have Southern Comfort so I substituted another liqueur, Jim's ginger stuff. It seemed very thick and rich, but I thought it would bake up thick and rich too like a pecan pie filling. Well, no. It ended up kind of gloopy, for lack of a better word. The consistency of a raw egg white, you know, when you let it drip from the egg shell. It just hangs there, not really breaking off but just hanging on. Gloopy.

I didn't care for it.

Click here for the recipe for Spiced Caramel Apple Pie.
Click here for the recipe for Martha's Perfect Pie Crust (Pate Brisee). (I would make this part again. I am imagining using this for pot pies, minus a bit of the sugar.)

Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookies

I made these cookies, thinking they'd maybe make it on my Christmas cookie plate later. Yeah, maybe. There are just so many cookies I'd like to make, so now that I've made these they might be out of my system, no matter how good they were. They were good! I found the recipe because I knew they'd be similar to Panera's cookies.

The first batch came out too dry. I overbaked. They were so soft to the touch that I kept adding minutes and more minutes to the baking time. Mistake. I guess they set a bit after you pull them out, more so than other kinds of cookies. So I learned. I made them smaller with the next batch and took them out earlier. They were crunchy on the outside but chewy on the inside. Yum. And so minty!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookies.