“I wanna love like Johnny and June
Rings of fire burnin’ with you
I wanna walk the line,
Walk the line,
‘Till the end of time.” -Heidi Newfield

When I was younger I thought I knew all about relationships. Secretly, I thought I was a fifteen-year-old Carrie Bradshaw. I knew what love was, what it felt like, what it meant, of course I knew it all. We know where this is going. I was dead wrong. As I get older and hopefully wiser, I realize how this has effected my current and past relationships. I am young, married and for the most part, fearless. I know there are a million people out there whom are opposed to holidays like Valentine’s Day to show your significant other that you still think they’ve got it going on. I understand the thought, but to be honest sometimes there really isn’t time to show the proper affection to my husband every single day. I say this honestly because I know there has to be more people like me out there. School, work, internship, volunteering..etc. Sometimes these days (V-Day) are extremely good excuses to take off work and school and just spend the day together when a “normal” Thursday would be spent in classes or a meeting room all day. I am not saying that I NEED these days to show my husband that he rocks my socks, and I sure don’t need these days for him to do the same thing. I am saying that I think once in a while these days are necessary and if Hallmark has decided to add it to your calendar for you then why the hell not take full advantage?

It was a few years ago when I was talking to a woman in a shop about how she made fudge and piped it into cookie cutters to give as favors and gifts. I thought about the idea and couldn’t believe that I had never seen this before, and what a neat idea it was! You can literally pipe any kind of fudge into any shape cutter. The possibilities are endless for holidays and special occasions. For these I used Martha’s recipe. The half-ed recipe here fills roughly 6, 3″ cookie cutters.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 can (7 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (or any flavored extract of your choice, I used raspberry)
• 1/8 teaspoon fine salt

Procedure:

• Melt chocolate over double boiler or slowly in the microwave
• Add butter,extract, salt and condensed milk
• Stir together until smooth
• Place fudge into a disposable pastry bag without a tip and pipe into cookie cutters and top with jimmies or nuts
• Allow to set 2 hours in the fridge

This super easy chocolate fudge is a perfect gift for your Valentine next week!

Freezing weather and winter blues has had me in the kitchen more in the past few weeks than I have been in a few months. Life is speeding past, as always and I usually bypass time spent in the kitchen for time spent with my hubby. There is something to be said about a meal prepared together, and spending time in the kitchen together is probably my favorite way to unwind. Chopping, slicing, peeling and simmering seem to have calming and relaxing effects after a busy work day.

I used to make this soup from a recipe on Foodnetwork.com and since have stopped looking it up and started making it from memory. I am sure the recipe is different when I made it, but I think it turned out than ever! (And so did my hubby!)

This chicken tortilla soup can be made in less than an hour, or can be made over the course of a few days if time is something you are lacking. Don’t be afraid to change-up the toppings or the heat level, these things won’t alter the actual recipe.

This beautiful array of fresh toppings for our soup contains: avocado, scallions, fresh jalapeno, limes, cilantro and home-made tortilla strips.

The tortilla strips are made by cutting flour tortillas into strips and frying them in veggie oil for about 10 seconds per side. Dust with sea salt and they are a perfect crunchy topping for this dressed up soup. I thought when I was constructing my bowl that I may have overdone it on the toppings, but for this soup less is not more. More is more is delicious! The soup can withstand the additions of many toppings, each standing out among the rest.

The original recipe called for boiling chicken breasts and then shredding them up with a fork. I followed this same method but instead of boiling the chicken ahead of time in water, I bought very thin cut breasts and when the soup was constructed, brought it to a boil and dropped in the chicken. Because the breasts were so thin they cooked through in under five minutes and I was able to add more flavor to them by boiling them in the soup itself.

Ingredients:

• 1# chicken breast
• 2 small onions, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 large can whole peeled tomatoes
• 6 cups chicken or veggie stock (I used a combo of homemade stocks)
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 1 small fresh jalapeno pepper, minced
• 1 TBS olive oil

Procedure:

• Sautee onion and celery with the olive oil in the bottom of a heavy stockpot until soft.
• Add garlic and stock, bring to a boil.
• Drop in chicken until cooked, about 5-10 minutes, pull out chicken to cool on cutting board.
• Add in tomatoes and their juice by squeezing them into smaller pieces (you can chop if you’d like, but I find this step kind of fun!)
• With two forks on a cutting board, shred the chicken into desired size.
• Add chicken and jalapeno to pot.
• Allow soup to simmer at least 30 minutes. Serve with desired toppings.

Since October, I think I have either purchased or been gifted over 8 new cooking/baking/homesteading books. Most of which were written by some of my favorite bloggers such as Emily, Shauna, Ashley, Marisa and Alana. I have spent hours thumbing through each one, marking pages for dishes or treats I must try. Home-made marshmallows are something I have made now, a handful of times from the raspberry variety at my bridal shower, to the vanilla specked minis I gave my husband’s young cousins alongside a home-made hot cocoa mix this Christmas. I knew once I cracked open Shauna’s book, Marshmallow Madness I would be a marshmallow maker for life. These concord grape marshmallows were one of the first that caught my eye.

I have shared some of these sweet, puffy little treats with family, friends and coworkers and it seems as though the response is almost exactly the same each time. #1- “You can make marshmallows at home? How do you do that?!” #2- “These are so fluffy! They are nothing like the ones at the store.” I couldn’t agree more with #2, and #1 still makes me chuckle every time. Marshmallows are one of the simplest treats you can make at home that you are used to buying from the store.

My favorite thing about these concord grape marshmallows is their light, airy texture.There are not many varieties of mass-produced flavored mallows out there-yet, and even the ones you can find always have a slightly funny or dare I say, fake taste to them. As with any store-bought, manufactured products-I am sure everyone can somehow relate, or agree that the “grape” flavor in grape soda or grape candy is nothing close to the flavor of biting into a fresh picked concord grape. These are different.

The recipe in Shauna’s book calls for grape juice concentrate. After making this batch of grape jelly this fall from the grapes I picked at the farm, I had a few quarts and pints of leftover juice that I canned and stored away for a rainy day. I remembered those jars of juice and used that instead of the store-bought stuff. I simply poured the juice into a small saucepan and boiled it until it reduced by half. There is something so rewarding about sharing grape marshmallows that you not only made at home, but also picked, juiced and canned the grapes that made them taste so fresh and so, well, “grapey”.

Concord Grape Marshmallows

Recipe by: Shauna Sever, Marshmallow Madness

Ingredients:

• 4 1/2 teaspoons unflavored powdered gelatin
• 1/2 cup unsweetened grape juice concentrate
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup, divided
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup classic coating, for dusting*

Procedure:

• Whisk together the gelatin, first water and the grape concentrate, let soften for 10 minutes.
• Stir together the sugar, 1/4 cup of the corn syrup, water and salt in a medium saucepan.
•  Bring the syrup to a boil and bring to 250 degrees.
• Pour the remaining corn syrup on the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.
•  Microwave the gelatin until melted, about 30 seconds.
•  Pour gelatin mixture into the corn syrup in the mixer and set speed to medium.
• When the syrup reaches 250 degrees gently pour the hot syrup into the mixer.
• Beat for 5 minutes at medium, and then on the highest setting until the mixture is completely cool.
•  The marshmallow can now be set in a sprayed pan, candy or chocolate molds, or any other vessel to make a fun shape. Mallows
•  You can pipe the mixture right from the mixer before it begins to set using a piping bag and tip.
• Coat your mallows with the classic coating and let cure, 4-8 hours.
• Once set, cut or un-mold mallows and roll in more classic coating.

* Classic Coating= equal parts corn starch and powdered sugar.

I always have good intentions, I think most honest people do. I set out to make delicate, buttery spritz cookies for a party Troy and I were going to on Saturday night. This didn’t happen.  Have you ever had one of those days, you know the ones; the kind of the day where you ask yourself at noon why you even bothered to get out of bed.

But then sometimes, just sometimes, those no-good rotten days can turn right around. After my failed attempt at a cookie I have made half a dozen times before, I resorted to these amazingly delicious and addictive toffee bar cookies from one of my favorite holiday cookie baking books.

These bars would make a great gift wrapped in a celophane bag topped with a bow or as part of a cookie tray for your friends or family.

Everyone has to have bad days, without them how could we appreciate the good ones?

These are not what you are expecting. These are not some chocolate covered creme filled candies you would find in a lovely assortment. These are the kind of candies you would find in the natural, organic, or “healthy” section of the grocery store or specialty market. These super sweet, slightly sticky candies are only made of two ingredients: Sweetened coconut flakes, and dates.

My sweet mother in law went to Arizona to visit my sister in law who recently moved down there and brought me back a pound of super fresh and sweet dates from Dateland.

I knew as soon as I saw this bag of dates, I knew what their imminent future would be. These candies have been in my mind since this past summer when I tried them for the first time from the Lexington Co-Op Market in Elmwood Village. I knew this was the perfect opportunity and the perfect time of year for these sweet little treats.

It must have been destined to happen, because I already had a new bag of coconut flakes in my pantry, which is something I do not normally keep around.

These candies are perfect for holiday gifts or favors at a holiday get together. They can easily be packaged in small parchment bags with a satin bow (pictured at top of the post) or in a small (or large) canning jar for a fun package.

Happy Holidays, everyone! Today I am going to kick-start a little feature that many people are doing right now, home made edible Christmas/Holiday gifts. Check out Emily’s gift guide for an elegant gift under $100,  Jenny’s guide for everyone on your list, or Marisa’s guide for someone like, oh you know, yours truly. I have been working on my list of items for a few weeks now, and have my list now complete. I am now in the process of creating each of these items to feature here. The first item on my list is a tart and ruby-red cranberry syrup. I knew that I wanted to make the syrup this holiday season as soon as I saw it in Marisa’s book.

This syrup is a great in a cocktail or in an Italian soda. I mixed 6 Tablespoons of this syrup with 10 oz. of club soda and a splash of fresh squeezed orange juice and it was delicately refreshing, sweet, and put me in the holiday spirit. Sealed in a jar and tied with a bow this syrup is a great gift this season, especially since it only takes a total of about 15 minutes to make, plus jar processing time.

The life of a hunter’s wife is something all too familiar. The seasons come and the seasons go; weekends spent alone while my outdoorsman sits in a tree, unbathed waiting to snipe out a beautiful herbivorous creature. I ought to be used to it by now, and for the most part I am but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss my bearded, longjohn-wearing hubby. I knew my man would be hungry for a home-cooked meal when he came home last night, so I set to fixin’ him one of his favorite things: Jalapeno Cheese Bread. I had plenty of mashed potatoes left from the holiday, so a cheesy, bacon-laden loaded potato soup I did make.

The “recipe” I came up with is not really a recipe at all. I was making use of some left overs, however this soup may be something I will make again in the near future-it was so delicious! It starts off like my potato and bacon chowder, but contains no other vegetables other than potatoes and onions. I started by satueeing some onions and bacon, threw in some garlic and milk, and plunked the leftover heaps of mashed potatoes into the pot. I allows the mixture to cook through, and pressed the lumps of potatoes against the side of the pot to break them up. I then added 2 cups of finely shredded sharp cheddar to give it even more fat and deliciousness!

The star of the show, however, was  the soft and salty, slightly spicy jalepeno cheese bread. This bread is something Troy begs me to make on almost a weekly basis, but rarely do I find the time to do so. In the upcoming winter months, I plan on making quite a few loaves of bread and hearty soups to go with them.

I am going to pretend that my favorite holiday didn’t just pass with me not posting a single thing about it here, and so are you, okay? Good. The only thing I will say about that, is that I have been incredibly busy, as if the rest of the world isn’t, I know. But here is a little something that made me smile. (I recently began an internship with a local paper, and my first article was published last week, for Thanksgiving!)

I told you that after our amazing wedding, we spent a week in a beautiful resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. While we were there we had some great (and some not-so-great) dishes from Jamaican to Italian, and American classics. We found that most of the Jamaican foods that we tried were our favorites-go figure, right? Apparently Jamaicans know how to make Jamaican food well, but need a little schooling on the cuisine of the rest of the world, but that’s okay.

I will go on as promised with a recipe I came up with to mimmick a delicious soup I had while on our honeymoon in Jamaica. The soup I had in Montego Bay was slightly thinner and smoother, but I liked the thickness and texture of the soup I made much better.

Rainy fall days, slowly turning crispy leaves into slippery platforms to avoid along the pathway. The air is cool, and my nose and fingers go numb as I hike up the stairs to our second floor apartment. Avoiding burnout by keeping an evening or two free from plans allows me time to spend with my new husband.  I get to the front door and walk inside. The warmth begins to comfort me, as I think of a meal to make for this evening of togetherness. I come up with an idea, search for a recipe, and call Troy to get a few ingredients not to be found in our cupboards. I plop down on the couch to begin mentally preparing for the meal I am about to make and I glance to the floor. There it sits. The bag, the gift bag overspilling it’s contents almost onto the oak floor beneath it. Cards. Wedding Cards. These crisped and folded pieces of fancy paper symbolize the love and support we have been graciously given from our parents, family, and friends. It is difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea that we have been married for almost three weeks already, it barely feels like three days.

I know that soon we have to open these cards again, reading again the messages for a long lasting love, faithful marriage, and happy home. I wanted to send out “thank you’ cards within a few days of the wedding,even considered bringing them along on our honeymoon in case we had the notion to begin them there. It is not that I do not want to write them, or that it will take up too much time, I simply can not find the words to thank these people. These people have loved, supported, and cheered for us our entire lives and we are supposed to thank them for their gifts, words, and encouragement with a note card? It hardly seems fitting. I close my eyes for a moment and decide tomorrow is another day, the day I hope the words to come to my mind, just in time to flow from pen to paper. These words that in the end, say “Thank you, thank you for being our rocks, our cheerleaders, and our support systems for the past 20-something years. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.”

Bolognese Sauce is something that I have always loved, but seldom made at home. I found this recipe from Ree, and used it as a guide for my sauce. I wanted my sauce to be loaded with veggies, so I upped the amount of onions and carrots. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did, snuggled under a blanket watching our favorite TV shows.

Back into the world of cinnamon and autumn baking, I bring to you one of the most simple, fabulous fruit breads I have ever tasted. I was wandering about the blogosphere and came upon this recipe from one of my favorite bloggers, Ashley over at Not Without Salt. Her photography and truthful words inspire me on a daily basis. Once a professional pastry chef, now a full-time mother of three and multi-talented food blogger, I aspire to do the things she has done, and learn the things she has learned.

There is something to be said about being able to go to a local farmer and purchase produce freshly picked only days, or sometimes hours before your purchase. It amazes me how people take these things for granted, especially living in New York State one of the top growers of apples in the country. There is nothing “wrong” with purchasing produce from a supermarket, as I am known from time to time to do so, however when there is a beautiful bounty of fresh food for us grown by our neighbors, why would you choose the latter?

I have begun reading a fascinating book, American Wasteland, and it has given me a new perspective on the way we eat here in the U.S., and how I eat in my own home. I suggest everyone read this book, and I even considered contacting my high school principal to encourage him to get his students to read it as well. The book touches on all stages of food waste in the U.S, from the farm to distributer, distributer to grocer, grocer to your home, your home to the garbage. Although I was already a big advocate for the purchasing of local produce, it is still jaw-dropping to imagine most produce in our country is shipped in over-crowded, under-maintained tractor trailers, over 1500 miles from farm to table. The amount of food lost in this process is unfathomable. More than half of the food produced here is thrown away or left to spoil for no reason, other than America’s obsession with perfection.  It is a wonder people go hungry around the world, let alone in the United States. If people became more aware of the food loss in the country, things may be more susceptible to change.

Here is Ashley’s recipe for her great grandmother’s bread. We found that allowing the bread to age a day (if yo can stay away long enough) made for a more intense apple flavor.