Caramel Apple Cookies

Fall is here (or as we call it in Florida slightly cooler summer) 

but never the less it is the time I enjoy the most.   

 To celebrate we decided to try out a recipe we found and kinda follow the directions.

You will find the original recipe HERE.

But here is what we actually did:

1 cup flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp cornstarch

1/8 tsp salt

2 tbsp salted butter (melted)

1 large egg

1 1/5 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup dried green apple

1/4 cup diced caramel squares

We doubled the recipe so both our families could have some.

For the dried apple in this recipe we took 2 granny smith apples and diced them up and placed it in a dehydrator overnight at 135 degrees.

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

So in the original recipe it said to use 3 caramel squares... It just didn't sound like enough, we also just love caramel. I didn't keep track of how many squares we cut up, but it came to about 1/2 cup by the time I was done.

Start by mixing all your dry ingredients minus the brown sugar.

Find yourself an adorable panda cub to help with the wet ingredients.

Whisk the wet ingredients.

Wait for your panda cub to loose interest in what you are doing and resume on your own, add in the brown sugar and stir until the lumps are gone. 

Mix your wet and dry ingredients together to form a soft dough.

And add in the most important parts.

Apples

and caramel, may need to break this one up some to mix well.

Use a tablespoon to measure the cookie dough and place on a greased baking sheet,or parchment lined baking sheet... in fact we highly suggest the lined baking sheet. 

The cookies did stick to the pan a bit.

Bake for 10-12 mins

When they were baked they didn't flatten, so next time we may squish them beforehand.

Now these cookies were very good, they however did not taste like caramel apples.

You could taste the caramel and when you got a piece of apple you could taste the apple. 

It just didn't taste like the caramel apple I was very much hoping for.

Rachel said she liked them fresh, right out of the oven. They most defiantly needed more apples.

It was also panda cub approved!

We will be playing with this recipe more and we hope you try it out.

This weeks cat pic is of the adorable Thorin! And his big eyes that get him almost anything he wants.

^o.o^

Eggplant Lasagna

First I would like to start off by apologizing (yet again) for the few and far between posts.

A combination of work schedules and Rachel planning her wedding we have not been able to get together as much to cook. We are trying to work things out so we can do more when we do meet up.

Without further ado here is our Eggplant Lasagna recipe, you will need:

1-2 eggplants 

(depending on how big you eggplants are, we ended up using 1)

a jar of your favorite pasta sauce

15 oz ricotta cheese

2 tomatoes

1 1/2 cup cooked Meat of your choice

(We used gator meat, we are southerners, we eat gator ^_^)

2 cups Italian shredded cheese

and 1/2 shredded cheese set aside

Slice you eggplant in the thinnest slices that you can. Rachel's knife sucks so we could not get them very thin.

Put a bit of sauce on the bottom of your baking dish and add your first layer of eggplant. 

Dice up your tomatoes (about 1 per layer)

Layer with your meat and tomatoes

Pasta sauce on top and add another layer of eggplant

Next layer is ricotta. 

And more tomatoes! You just keep layering until you reach the top of the dish you are using.

Our last layer was just sauce and gator meet.

and 2 cups of cheese on top!

bake at 350 for 40 mins.

The cheese on top will be crispy (it's the way we like it)

We add 1/2 a cup of cheese after it is done baking.

Wait a few mins for it to cool and serve!

It was wonderful, and in case you are wondering gator taste like a weird fish/chicken hybrid.

Rachel said it was perfect. When we make this we usually end up under cooking the eggplant, but we finally got it right.

This weeks cat pic will be put on hold because we have an adorable panda cub who tried our recipe this week. She thought it was yummy.

 

Jalapeno Popper Dip

This past week my Best Friend and her husband threw a housewarming party, but not just any housewarming party, it was a masquerade!

I was so excited I couldn't wait to start working on masks for my husband and I to wear.
We also needed a dish to bring to the party, I couldn't think of anything to bring right away so I searched Pinterest for some inspiration and recipes.
I came across a popper dip recipe.
It looked and sounded amazing and you can find the original recipe HERE.
Of course as you know we change the recipe a bit to suit our tastes.
The only problem with the original recipe is that my friend is Jewish and the recipe calls for bacon.
Substitute for bacon is usually turkey bacon, but I think we can all agree turkey bacon is bleh.
But there is hope that was found in the bacon isle at our local Walmart.
BEEF BACON!!!
How awesome is that? It fries up like pork bacon too which is amazing!

Alright to the recipe, you will need:
2 8oz packages of cream cheese
(make sure you let the cream cheese sit out to soften)
1 cup of cheddar cheese
1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese
1 6oz bag of frozen jalapenos (or 5-6 fresh)
1 cup mayo
1/4 cup green onion
1 package of beef bacon (minus 2-3 pieces... things happen...)

For the crust you will need:
1 cup of crushed crackers
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 stick melted butter

First you need to preheat your oven to 350, then fry up your bacon nice and crispy.

Like I said things happen and sometimes you loose 2-3 slices of bacon through the cooking process.

Bacon is delicious...

Next you put your cream cheese in a large bowl with your green onions

all your cheese and jalapenos then mix it up until everything is evenly distributed.

Next chop up your bacon. But if you crisped it enough it should fall apart in your hands like so.

Add to the cheese mixture.

Put the mixture in a baking dish.

Little one on the side for our roommate to try ^_^

To make the crust for the top you crush up some crackers and add the Parmesan cheese and spread it over the top of the mixture. 

My sincerest apologies I failed to take pictures of the last few steps and the final result because I didn't plan my day well, had to rush to finish, and get ready for the party. I plan to make this again and will post pictures once I do so.

The last 2 steps are to melt your butter and drizzle it on top of the cracker crust.

You then place the dish in the preheated oven (350 degrees) for about 30 mins until hot and bubbly.

Serve with crackers or chips!

The dip taste just like a jalapeno popper, super creamy, I loved it.

Rachel was quoted as saying "Awesomeness" and great with chips, crackers, and veggies. She liked it most with broccoli.

Everyone at the party loved it and they were very happy that it was kosher.

The party was awesome and almost everyone made their own masks.

(Rachel with a panda inspired mask and myself with a lacey gothicy mask) 

Here are some of the awesome party people!

Bat inspired

Meow =^.^=

Amazing crow inspired mask 

Ichigo inspired

Beautiful

My husband and his steampunk inspired mask!

Groot inspired and lovely peacock

Green Tea Soda

Rachel and I live in Florida, and just in case you didn't know it gets freaking hot here.

So swimming pools, beaches, springs, and lakes are must visit spots in summer, fall... spring... you know every season in Florida is hot!

So we always look for refreshing drinks that are both delicious and can cool us off.

This week we decided to give Green Tea soda a try.

For this recipe you will need:

4 green tea bags

4 cups water

1 cup of pineapple

1 cup blueberries

1 apple

a bottle of raspberry seltzer water

(not pictured) sugar or stevia to taste 

and a pitcher

You start off with boiling your water.

A little tip with your green tea bags, go ahead and cut off the tags. They would just end up in the water anyways.

Add your tea bags and boiling water to your pitcher.

Slice up your apple.

Add all fruit to the hot tea.

Put the tea in the fridge until it is cold and the fruit has helped to flavor the tea.

(about 3 hours)

Now you get yourself a glass fill it halfway with the fruit tea mixture and some ice.

Fill the rest of the glass with the seltzer water and add sugar.

Voila a healthy and delicious poolside drink to share with your friends!

And once you finish the drink you have a nice pool side fruit salad!

Rachel isn't a fan of green tea to begin with, so while she wasn't the biggest fan of it she said it wasn't horrible either. (She did drink 2 glasses of it)

This weeks pet pic is of Spot. He is a 16 year old Peekapoo (half pekingese, half poodle)

Fun story, when we got him as a puppy and I found out what he was I wanted to call him Pikachu, but my mom not wanting weird names for pets named him Spot.

He enjoyed some vanilla ice-cream while I ran my errands.