holiday decorations and a pizza

Yesterday morning I decorated our chalkboard for the holidays:



and we made a southwestern pizza from a recipe found in Self magazine:



It was awesome! I was thinking it would turn out okay, but we loved it.

1 100% whole wheat pizza crust
1 cup prepared tomato salsa (we used some corn and poblano salsa and used more than 1 cup!)
1 1/4 cups mozzarella cheese (we used some good monterey jack instead)
1 1/3 cup black beans
1 small sweet red pepper
2 scallions
1/4 cup cilantro
(We had some cherry tomatoes left so we added those too)

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Top crust with salsa, cheese, beans, pepper and scallions. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. (We baked directly on rack.) Remove from oven and garnish with cilantro.

We put hot sauce on ours after taking it out of the oven. So gooooooood, quick and easy. pretty healthy too!

Accidentally Delicious Cookies

Okay, so yesterday I wanted to bake something. Cookies. Chewy, cocoa cookies specifically. I looked at more than a dozen recipes, read reviews, searched through food blogs...finally I stopped on a recipe. The reviews were good and the recipe used ground oatmeal. I love oatmeal in cookies.

So I measure everything, mix all the dry ingredients, get going on the wet...and THEN I realize the recipe is for chewy chocolate-CHIP cookies. crap. I only had 1/4 bag of chocolate chips, was craving cocoa cookies, and had already measured and mix everything for this recipe.

I tried to alter it. I put in 1/2 cup cocoa, a tablespoon of instant espresso, and added 1/4 cup of butter and 2 tablespoons of butter. At this point I was convinced that I had really fudged the cookies up because what are the chances of altering the recipe that much and them turning out okay?

THEY ARE DELICIOUS! Chewy, oatmeal-y, chocolate-y. I'm into them and will definitely make them again. This is the first time a mishap pulled through!

Original recipe:

1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 c. oatmeal (powdered in blender)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 pkg. chocolate chips (semi-sweet)
1 1/2 c. nuts (optional)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream butter and sugars. Blend in eggs; add oatmeal. Mix dry ingredients. Mix will be very stiff. Mix in chips and nuts. Put 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 9 minutes - no more!

(from cooks.com)

My altered recipe:

1 1/4 c. butter
1 + 2 tbs. c. sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 c. oatmeal (powdered in blender)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tbs. instant espresso
1/4 pkg. chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

The instructions for preparing remain the same.

Cake pop decorating class

My friend Kathy co-taught a cake pop making and decorating class yesterday and I got invited!

The owner of Objects of Confection was the other class teacher. She brought us dozens of her cake truffles. They are ridiculously good. and rich. And I love rich dessert.

Kathy taught us decorating tips and techniques. She had a few specific ideas planned including a santa, penguin, and a snowman.

I've thought about making cake pops, but still haven't. I'm really glad I hadn't tried baking them before I went to yesterday's class because they revealed a few tips they've learned through trial and error. I'm pretty sure at least two of the common mishaps would have happened and I get pretty upset after spending a long time making something that goes wrong.

Here are some of mine from yesterday:

(santa featured up top)

Happy Friday!

Eric and I got to meet up for lunch in a food trailer park in East Austin. Eric had a huge bbq brisket sandwich and I had a black bean burger and sweet potato fries with homemade ketchup. The burger tasted really fresh and the ketchup was awesome. It had more of a salsa-ish texture I assume from all the water from the fresh tomatoes.