white chocolate brazil nut heaven

I think I've died and gone to cookie heaven. I am addicted to these cookies. So much so that I've had to limit myself to only baking one batch a week, and then Chris and I both have to try extremely hard to make each batch last more than 24 hours. When they are gone, we pout. It's not easy. We have a serious cookie addiction, but I'm ok with that. Yarn and cookies, things could be much worse for us. 

This is the delicious white chocolate macadamia nut cookie recipe, but I'm too cheap to splurge for the pricey macadamia nuts, so I've substituted brazil nuts, which roomer has it are some kind of super food. So it's a win-win really. This week I was running low on white chocolate so I tossed in a little bit of everything that I had - white chocolate, brazil nut, dark chocolate, skor bits cookies. They were awesome. 

So here ya go. A little cookie tip from me to you. Bake them and enjoy. Good luck getting them to last the weekend though... I know mine won't!

Cake!

It was my mother in law's birthday yesterday so Chris and I hosted the family for a lovely birthday dinner. I made this awesome cake. I'll share the recipe another day, but for today I wanted to show off this awesome marshmallowy white frosting with confetti sprinkles while it's still available for photographs... I have a feeling that by lunch time this leftover cake will be significantly less "photo-ready"... or at least significantly less "on my counter" and significantly more "in my belly"!

Thanks to everyone who commiserated with me over bad socks.  After I published that blog post I re-read it and found myself to be very complainy, and nobody likes a cranky blogger... but I guess that everyone can relate to a good second sock rant! I didn't manage to finish the socks this weekend but I am very close. I am definitely going to love these socks when I'm finally finished with them!

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

source

Ah Pinterest... I'm still as hooked as ever. I pin craft ideas that I will probably never tackle, images of that dream home that I will never, ever live in, and outfits that I will never be able to afford. I have no problem with Pinterest being a bit of a fantasy land, it's fun to day dream. 

I also pin recipes, and they seem to be the one thing that I get an actual practical use out of. I decided it might be fun to share a few of the recipes that I've pinned, tried and loved. I baked these Lemon Crinkle cookies for the first time well over a year ago, and have turned to this simple and delicious recipe time and time again whenever I get the hankering for a sweet baked good. These cookies are chewy, sweet-but-not-too-sweet because of the tart lemon flavour, and really easy to make! Chances are you have most of the ingredients in your pantry already. I've made them for friends and they are always a hit. This recipe gets an A+ from me!

You can find the recipe online here.

First home-grown tomatoes!

Chris and I desperately wish that we were good gardeners... but we just aren't. Every year we start off really enthusiastic, but then things get busy, we forget about our gardens, things get overgrown, weedy, they die, it's all very sad. This year we've worked a little extra hard at maintaining the few plants that we chose, and it seems to be paying off. Who knew, if you water them, they will grow! Today for lunch we had our first meal of home grown tomatoes (a few different varieties) basil and parsley, all form our very own garden. The bocconcini, prosciutto, lettuce, olive oil and balsamic vinegar were from the grocery store. It was all delicious!

Confit Tomatoes - cooking with Chris

Today I'm doing something a little different. I'm sharing a simple recipe. Before Chris found his calling as a professional yarn dyer he worked for years as a professional cook. Having a chef in the house is amazing. Chris showed me how to make confit tomatoes and now I'm hooked. I like to cook as well, but mostly on the weekends when I've got lots of time and energy. This recipe for confits tomatoes is something that I like to do on a Sunday when I've got nowhere to be. The tomatoes last for weeks in the fridge and are so incredibly delicious. You could compare them to sun dried tomatoes, but the flavour is much more intense and vibrant. They are precious little bites of heaven.  

Start with a bunch of roma tomatoes. We go to a local produce store that sells produce at ridiculously low prices. These 32 tomatoes cost less than $5. 

With a very sharp knife, score the tops of the tomatoes with an X. In small batches of 5 or 6 tomatoes at a time, submerge them in a pot of rapidly boiling water for about 25 seconds, or until you see the skin just starting to pull away from the flesh. At that point, scoop out the tomatoes with a sieve and dunk into an ice bath. You'll see the skin start to peel back.

If the tomatoes have been blanched correctly the skin will peel off very easily. Just start at one of the points of the X and pull back. 

Cut the tomatoes in half and lay, cut side up, on a pan lightly coated in olive oil. Season with salt, pepper and the secret ingredient, a little bit of icing sugar! For all these tomatoes I sprinkled about 3 tbsp of icing sugar over top. 

Place pans in a very low oven and walk away. I put them in at about 225 F and leave them there all day. I would say a good 8 hours. You could probably even do this in the evening and leave them in overnight. I usually do this in the morning and take them out before I go to bed. You are basically dehydrating the tomatoes, and we all know tomatoes hold a ton of liquid, that's why it takes so long. 

When they are done they are these delicious, extremely flavourful, sweet, explosions of the best tomatoey goodness you've ever tasted. :) 

They are fantastic in pasta, salad, vinaigrette, quiche, pizza.... you name it! 

Have a great weekend! Take some time to eat something delicious.