I love Girl Scout cookies

Since a little girl, I have always begged my parents to buy Girl Scout cookies from the little girls selling them out front of grocery stores. Now as an adult, I beg my boyfriend to buy them, so not much has changed. Not too long ago, I came across Baking Bits and discovered that they have recipes for all my favorite Girl Scout cookies.

I'm not positive how these recipes taste (I'll assume they're amazing and I'll be sure to update when I get the chance to make them myself.) but I wanted to share them with you since I know I've had trouble trying to find a recipe for these for a long time!

Samoas

Do-si-dos

Tagalongs

Thin Mints

Lemon Drop Coolers


I hope you all enjoy the links and just keep in mind that there's only 96 days until the next Girl Scout cookie season begins!!

Yumbots!

If there's one thing I love more than cupcakes, it's adorable cupcake molds. Thanks to Yumbots, we no longer have to worry about plain, old, boring cupcake molds! Now the only bad thing about these is that it only makes 4 cupcakes, unless you decide to buy more than one set. So good idea if you have a nerdy boyfriend at home much like my own or kids who enjoy robots. Not so much a good idea if you're having a big get together or the class requires your kid to make 27 cupcakes.

The website World Wide Fred also has lots of nifty nerdy cooking trinkets that should definitely be checked out! Everything on the website is kid friendly and it appeals to everyone's kid at heart!

1/13/10 Edit:
If you're from the tri-state area (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Deleware) make a trip to the Franklin Institute. They have tons of Fred stuff! Even these cupcake holders. :D

Drunken Irish Stew

To change things up a bit from all the sweet things I've blogged about, I'm going to blog about something savory that I'll end up making and eating myself until my boyfriend realizes that it's delicious and sneaks out while we're sleeping to eat the rest of it. Now I generally am not a fan of stew, probably because carrots and celery are my least favorite vegetables and that's generally what all stews have in them. But after I discovered this recipe for Drunken Irish Stew, I'm willing to put that hate behind me. I love meat and I love potatoes, so at least I know if they recipe still doesn't catch my fancy the first go, I can emit the vegetables.

The recipe isn't complicated in the slightest, but with tall the ingredients, it may get a little pricey and produce too much stew, unless you either have a large family or have some sort of gathering. But don't let this put you off, left overs are always fantastic and I can't see the alcohol in this recipe letting the food go bad very quickly. Also, this recipe probably isn't a very good one for the kids, not only cause I doubt all the alcohol gets cooked out, but most kids don't even like stews. Now, if you're a parent that has a miracle child who eats anything (I've actually experienced this a lot for some off reason) removing the alcohol from this recipe doesn't seem like it would make it inedible in the slightest.

The recipe calls for:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1-1/4 pounds stew beef, cut into 1-inch pieces
7 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup red wine
1 cup Guinness
6 cups beef stock (or broth)
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1-1/2 tablespoons white sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon dried thyme
4 bay leaves
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound russet potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (peeled or unpeeled, gentleman’s choice)
1 pound baby red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (again, gentleman’s choice)
4 stalks celery, chopped
2 cups carrots, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large yellow or white onion, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon cornstarch + 1 tablespoon water
salt and pepper, to taste

The rest of the recipe can be viewed on Crepes of Wrath

Happy Drunken Stew makings! :D

Treats on a stick

Opening this post, I would like to state that everything taste better on a stick. Corn dogs are amazing and you don't have to put your hands all over the bun, eating lollipops is more fun than just eating hard candy (I love baby bottle pops), and popsicles always taste better than water ice from a cup. Now Bakerella is inspiring all sorts of new takes on old food; throwing a stick on it! If you've never been to Bakerella's website, I suggest you do that immediately and commence drooling all over your keyboard. She has recipes for everything from Mini Maple Pancake Muffins (I love maple syrup) to Mickey/Minnie cake pops!

My mother tends to do a lot of birthday/wedding treats and favors, so I try to keep a look out and help as best I can. So when I found the "Things on a Stick Taste Better" article on Intimate Weddings, I had to post them on here as well. They link to a Poptart on a stick recipe, cheesecake on a stick recipe, pie on a stick recipe, sugar cookie on a stick recipe, and brownie pops recipe. Now, maybe I'm just a kid at heart, but I would rather eat/make something on a stick rather than something on a plate. It just seems more fun and slightly more entertaining.

In closing, if you're as amazed by Bakerella as I am, I suggest buying her book. I also suggest puttting anything you cook on a stick. :P

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Update: The recipe I linked for the pop tarts had a few issues with it and I figured I'd point it out after I had used it. Put a tablespoon of water in your filling while you're cooking it, vanilla extract works as well as almond extract and saves you the money, and when making your icing, use more milk than the recipe calls for, at least enough to make the icing thinned out. Also, putting egg wash on top of your tarts will stop the pie crusts from bubbling. This recipe is good to have up while using the other one: Bake Me More. Now, I'm not saying the recipe is bad at all, it's delicious, I'm sure the blogger might have just missed a thing or two, it's hard to keep up with exact amounts of what you're using and not forget things from time to time. :) And besides, whenever I'm cooking something for the first time, I like to look at multiple recipes so I can attempt to make my own variation or figure out what I can include/exclude.

Puppy chow

I think i've said before that I'm not a huge chocolate person, but I am a woman afterall and these feminine instinct will kick in every now and again. While once again using my StumbleUpon toolbar, I came across a recipe for something called "Puppy Chow." Now, I'll be the first to say that people who feed their dog expensive treats should have something better to waste their money on. So as soon as I saw this, I was going to skip it and find something else to look at and occupy my time, until I realized, there was chocolate in it. After seeing pictures I became concerned that someone would advocate feeding chocolate to dogs, which is obviously toxic, so I continued reading. It had soon came to my attention that it was just a silly named recipe and was basically chocolate covered chex mix, which I haven't had since a kid and find delicious.

This recipe is extremely easy and a cheap buy, as long as you're not shopping at Winn Dixie and paying 8 dollars per box of chex mix. Other than that, it's butter, chocolate, peanut butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar, which is all pretty common household fatty items and if not, they're inexpensive for a tasty treat that goes a long way.

Also, this is a very kid-friendly recipe and only involves the use of a microwave. So obviously some adult supervision should be used so no one is scalded with hot chocolate, but at least falling in an oven or catching the stove on fire (which I actually did a few hours ago trying to make pierogies) isn't a concern.

The actual recipe can be viewed on Savory Sweet Life.

Hot dogs

Let me start this post out with saying, I love nostalgic foods. As a kid going to barbecues, I always went for the hot dogs, usually multiple ones. Even to this day, if I need something quick and tasty, I usually go for the hot dogs (preferably Nathan's skinless dogs, my boyfriend and I can eat tons of these). The only thing I love more than hot dogs is weird variations to them. For a full meal, throw some baked beans with it and everyone loves it. For an adventurous meal, throw maybe some onions and sauerkraut on it, or maybe some mac and cheese. And for an extremely strange meal, go to Woman's Day and check out their "10 Off the Wall Hot Dogs."

The website includes: Eggroll wrapped hot dogs, Bacon wrapped hot dogs with avocado, corn dog cassarole, and my least favorite and probably the most disgusting, the Speghetti infused hot dogs.

These recipes make hot dogs fun again for kids and adults alike. And hopefully the more gross ones won't turn your off to hot dogs too much! ;)

Himalayan Salt Plates

So one night while stumbling using my StumbleUpon toolbar (which I highly recommend downloading if you find yourself bored and wanting to see things that are relevant to your interests at the current moment) I came across these Himalayan salt plates. They're used for cooking, which allows your food to become salt infused (my Mother loves this idea) or as a interesting looking plate that will leave your guests probably licking them, just to see if they're really made out of salt. ;) Now the interesting this about these plates, besides being cut from the earth and being all natural (for your hippies out there), they are anti-microbal due to the salt content, which means, no cleaning! Now I don't know about you, but if possible, I always try to dump the dishes on my boyfriend. I'm not sure why I have this severe aversion to washing dishes, but it's always been something that I'm happier not doing.

Now, to cook with these plates, it's pretty simple. Just put the salt plate on the stove and throw whatever foods you like on it; Meat, veggies, eggs, pretty much anything that would be tasty with a salt infusion taste. Eventually, the salt becomes warn and may change the color of the rock, but this is normal wear and tear. I'm not sure how often these plates have to be replaced, but most websites that sell them usually include some sort of care instructions.

So far the cheapest plates I've found are located at: Salt Plates, Who's Closet, and Dean & Deluca.

And to find more information on the salt plates, I suggest checking out The Italian Dish.