Chili Hot Chocolate Cookies

Every year I host an amazing baking event at my house. I have invited my favourite friends and relatives to bake up some cookie goodness and come over to share them with each other. 

This year will be the 7th Annual Christmas cookie exchange, and since I try to make a new type of cookie each year, it was time to get baking and make a test batch of cookies!
Since I wanted to try something different, I thought I’d try a spicy cookie! I did some googling and found that Martha Stewart has a Chili Hot Chocolate Cookie that had great reviews. I usually don’t like Martha’s recipes because they seem to have random weird ingredients that I wouldn’t want to try in a cookie, or don’t keep on hand in my house.  This time around, I read the reviews and made a few changes and pulled together a yummy new recipe.

I brought these cookies, piping hot out of the oven with me to the school when I went to pick up the girls and all of the parents who got to try them out loved the chocolatey goodness and the bit of kick from these cookies.

Chili Hot Chocolate Cookies
Adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon chile powder or cayenne pepper
Directions
Preheat oven to 400F. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down side of bowl. Add eggs and beat to combine. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture and beat until combined. Add chocolate chips and mix until combined.
In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar, cinnamon, and chile powder/cayenne pepper. Using a medium cookie scoop, form balls of dough and roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place, about 3 inches apart, on two parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until cookies are set in center and begin to crack, about 10 minute. Let cookies cool on wire rack and store in an airtight container, up to 1 week.

I will hopefully be linking this recipe up to A Bowl Full of Lemons, Delightful Order, Doodles and Stitches and Joyful Homemaking.

Simple Living Lesson #6 - Outgoing

Do you love these flowers?
 I took this photo at a photography workshop last year.

Hey all! I am happy to have you back here, following along with the Simple Living Lessons from Simple Living: Thirty Days to Less Stuff and More Life. Last week we talked about streamlining the incoming clutter in the house - the junk mail.

This week involves finding ways to streamline the clutter going out of your home. For the two years or so I have been on a major cleansing, decluttering path. I have purged clothes, toys, kitchen gadgets, pretty much everything thing in sight.

How does your household deal with outgoing clutter? What works in our house is the Donation Station. We have an Ikea laundry hamper in the corner of our spare bedroom where outgrown clothing and unused household items are stored until I have a chance to take them to the second hand store. 

 
Between clearing the drawers and closets and bins and shoes for my Forty Bags in 40 Days Challenge (more on that later in the week) our donation station is pretty full! I think I'll be making a trip to the VV Boutique later this week.

Another way to help streamline the flow of excess clutter out of our home is to have an out-of-here shelf. We have a little area in our front entryway where I put anything that needs to be returned - library books, something to go back to my mom's house, something to return to the store. If I have all of the "outgoing" stuff in one place, hopefully I'll be more likely to remember to return it to its rightful owner when I leave the house.

Of course, if you are very organized, you may have a Sell Pile. I will be honest, I'm pretty lazy and most of the stuff I am purging I couldn't be bothered to try to sell. However, if you are purging things of value, you may benefit from some Craigslist postings. A couple of tips though - price things to sell, so you aren't holding on to them for ages and ages. And if it doesn't sell quickly, maybe you need to rethink selling it and just donate it!

Sometimes you need help with a big purge, I have a couple of cute little sidekicks!

If you are following along with these Simple Living Lessons, you are already practicing some of these decluttering techniques. Hopefully I can give you some tips on other ways to live more simply. I don't think I will ever be finished purging things out of the house (kids grow out of clothes and toys, I get bored with decor items) but hopefully with less stuff in the house, we have room for more living!

Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it! I will hopefully be linking this post up with A Bowl Full of Lemons, Delightful Order and Joyful Homemaking. Have a great week!

Menu Plan Monday - Nov 26, 2012

Recipe!

Good morning everyone! How was your weekend? We had a great time – ice skating, watching football and getting the last of our Christmas stuff done – cards, wrapping and decorations! This week I have a packed schedule, but I hope that by planning our menu that one stress will be taken off the table!

Sorry for the horrible photo quality, but this is last year's Basics for Babies donation!

The girls and I will be going to our family charity luncheon this weekend. Instead of exchanging gifts with our aunts, uncles and cousins, we take the money we would have spent on gifts (and then some!) and buy diapers, wipes, baby food and formula for a local charity (Basics for Babies). We have done this for a few year and between the yummy potluck lunch that we have and the outpouring of generosity, it is always an amazing day!
I think for the potluck I will try making a bulk cooking meal from my new cookbook (Not Your Mother’s Make Ahead and Freeze Cookbook). If the recipe turns out I will be sure to share it with you!

On the Menu This Week:
Monday: Teriyaki Salmon, with rice and veggies
Tuesday: Chicken Pot Pie
Wednesday: Lasagne Wednesday
Thursday: Stuffed Chicken Parmesan with roasted potatoes and veggies
Friday: Easy Quick Quiche
Saturday: Family Birthday Dinner
Sunday: Two Potlucks! One for brunch and one for dinner!

I will be linking my menu plan to Org Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday – Check it out for hundreds of menus and meal ideas!!

Simple Living Lesson #5 - Incoming

photo source

Hello everyone! Thanks for checking in for week five of the Simple Living Lessons series. I have been following along with a fantastic ebook that I read called Simple Living: Thirty Days to Less Stuff and More Life. So far I have made a plan, organized from underneath, attempted to find quiet and cleared off a major surface.

This week's challenge was easier than clearing off the surfaces in my kitchen. It involved keeping the counters clear by bringing in less mail! This challenge is an easy one for me because I receive and pay almost all of our bills online. I only check the mailbox once every week or two, because honestly, there is nothing in the mailbox! 

After we returned from Hawaii, I forgot to check the mail, for another two weeks. Three weeks our mailbox sat, unattended by its owner. And what was in there when I finally got around to checking it? One piece of legitimate mail. Fifteen advertisements for realtors, four pizza menus, one magazine and twelve flyers for random local things that were of no interest to my family.

Since I have been working to become minimalish, and spent hours cleaning my kitchen counters, I refuse to bring this paper clutter into my home. The best way I have found for sorting the mail? Sit on the front stoop, while the kids are riding their bikes and toss all of the unnecessary mail into the recycling bin, before it has a chance to invade your house!

Photo source

What's your trick for handling incoming clutter? Recycling bin by the front door? I wish there was a way to sign up to not receive any junk mail at all, but alas I haven't found it yet!! Check in next week when the challenge is called "Outgoing." I have a feeling with all of the purges I have done, this challenge will be one I will rock!

Menu Plan Monday - Nov. 19, 2012

What an amazing weekend. It had its ups (setting up our Christmas tree!) and its downs - our BC Lions lost the Western Final, and we were there to see it:(. 

This week I'm hoping to try out a few new baking recipes. Every year (this will be our 7th!) I host a Christmas cookie exchange with friends and family. We get together for appetizers, wine, and of course COOKIES!!

Everyone makes beautiful, delicious cookies and I can't wait to see what the ladies come up with this year. I am hopefully going to find time to test bake some cookies this week, starting with a chili hot chocolate cookie. If it turns out successfully, I'll be sure to share the recipe with you all!

On the menu this week
Monday: Chinese Food
Tuesday: Slow Cooker Chicken Bolognese
Wednesday: Butter Chicken Lasagne (I don`t have a recipe for this one, I`m just going to wing it.... the hubs saw someone make it on the food network, so I said I`d give it a shot!)
Thursday: Guinness brats, scalloped potatoes and beans
Friday: Chicken fajitas
Saturday: Eating out!
Sunday: Pasta with prawns in a boursin cream sauce

I'll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie's Menu Plan Monday, come check out hundreds of recipes and menu ideas!!

Caramel Chocolate Streusel Cake

It was my mom's birthday yesterday and we had a glorious brunch at my brother's house for my mom on Monday. I was in charge of toast, fruit salad and dessert!

Since we were having brunch I didn't want to do a regular cake. I also had some salted caramels from Costco on hand that I wanted to find a way to incorporate into our dessert. The caramels on their own were a little too salty to just eat on their own, but I knew I'd be able to find a way to bake them into deliciousness.

I melted down the caramels with a little butter and milk into a chocolatey, caramelly sauce that was the perfect topping for this light, fluffy cake.

Chocolate Caramel Streusel Cake
Recipe almost exactly from LandOLakes.com

Ingredients
Streusel
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cake
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Butter, softened
2 Eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup light sour cream
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Topping
14 Salted caramels (I used the ones from Costco, but regular Kraft caramels would work just fine)
2 tsp butter
2 tbsp milk

Instructions
Heat oven to 350F. Combine all streusel ingredients in small bowl; set aside.
Combine sugar and butter in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add eggs; continue beating, scraping bowl often, until well mixed. Add all remaining cake ingredients. Continue beating until well mixed.

Spoon half of batter into greased and floured 9-inch springform pan. Sprinkle half of streusel mixture over batter in pan. Spoon remaining batter over streusel; top with remaining streusel. Bake 45-55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Run knife along sides of pan to loosen edge. Remove side of pan. Cool at least 30 minutes.
Just before serving, combine caramels, milk and butter in saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until caramels are completely melted (5 to 8 minutes). Cool slightly; drizzle warm caramel over cake.

I am going to try to link this recipe up to Serenity Now, Delightful Order, A Bowl Full of Lemons and Doodles and Stitches linky parties!

Simple Living Lesson #4 - Surface

PHEW! This week's challenge was T-O-U-G-H!!! As I mentioned in last week's recap for the failed week three lesson called Quiet, the simple living lesson for this week involved clearing off everything from my kitchen counters. EVERYTHING.
If you like, you can catch up here: Lessons 1, 2, and 3.

I am happy to say that for the most part, I try to keep my kitchen counters pretty clear (except when baking, then it's all chaos). However, there are two areas where clutter, especially paper clutter have overtaken.

Area #1, my kitchen command centre. This is a space where I am supposed to organize our family schedule, store office supplies and coupons and keep two cookbooks. YEAH RIGHT!! It has turned into the place where all things paper live.

We also had a space on top of the hutch in the kitchen that was supposed to be the "Homework Station." It ended up being a place where little bits and bobs get contained, all manner of school supplies and art supplies get thrown and basically clutter lives. It drives me bananas.

I got to work, trying to tame the paper, trying to throw out everything I could. I recycled a LOT of paper and magazines and newsletters and kids artwork. It was cathartic! I had no problem letting things go!

I even put my little sidekick to work, putting away things into the cupboards on top of the fridge that this mama can't reach - Mom of the Year, I know...

At the end of the night (yes, it was well past dark when I finished the job!!) our command centre was back to it's organized glory, the homework basket had a new home (more about that in another post to come!) and the kitchen was CLEAN!
And how did the week go? I'm sure it helped that I was away for three days Christmas shopping, but my kitchen looks pretty much like it did after the initial hiding of "stuff."

I didn't remove the toaster, coffee pot or my Kitchenaid mixer from the counters last week, but put everything else away. The only thing that came back to live on the counter after the surface experiment was the kettle. Since we use the kettle at least twice a day, I think it's a worthwhile item to keep out. I just wish it were prettier!

Next week's Simple Living Lesson is entitled "Incoming." Check in next week to see how things work out!