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With our SPCA Bake Sale looming on the calendar, I've been busy planning and test-driving a couple of new recipes.  The last thing I need during the baking frenzy is a recipe that doesn't work!  I have a bunch of tried-and-true favorites that I'm making, but still wandered through my cookbook collection in search of some new goodies to try.  I flipped through Carole Walter's “Great Cookies”, and found a dark chocolaty recipe called Triple Chocolate Peppermint Bars that sounded crazy good.

You make a dark chocolate shortbread base and then top it with a dark chocolate brownie filling that has peppermint schnapps in it.  Then you cover the whole thing with a thin chocolate ganache that has even more schnapps in it.  How bad could that possibly be!  It certainly deserved a test-drive!

I didn't have schnapps so I used peppermint extract instead, and left the ganache layer off since I thought it might be too smeary and messy once it's packaged in a cute little treat bag.  The top got a sprinkle of crushed candy canes instead.

Can I just say YUMMY??  Oh, mommy, these have an incredible chocolate flavor!  Maybe I loved them so much because I adore chocolate shortbread and brownies and peppermint.

Only one little problem…my bars didn't come out looking anything like the photo.  I expected the bars to be kind of chunky and thick, but mine came out very thin; only about 1/2″.  Phooey.  I can't figure out what I might have done wrong, if anything, but I guess it doesn't matter.  I think the bars are too thin and fragile to work well for the bake sale, which is a bummer, but this recipe is a keeper!  If I make them again and don't need to package them, I'll definitely add the ganache layer!

~BigSis

Posted under Food

It's official, we've chosen our charity for this year's Bake Sale. Drumroll please…it's In-Sync Exotics in Wylie, Texas!

In-Sync Exotics may be new to many folks.  It was to me and my fellow bakers until a year or so ago.  In-Sync is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the rescue of unwanted, neglected and abused felines.

And by “felines” we aren't talking about little housecats. We mean BIG cats; much much bigger than my 16 pound Gaby whom LilSis calls the fat cat with the little head.

In-Sync was founded in 2000 and is currently home to 59 tigers, lions, leopards, bobcats, cougars, cheetahs, lynx, servals and one honorary cat named Nugget who is a Coatimundi.

This is the fifth year for our Charity Bake Sale, which has been held to benefit the SPCA of Texas for the last three years.  We decided to select a smaller charity this year – a bit below the radar – who might benefit from our little fundraiser and the attention it could bring to a group in need.  We still support the SPCA of Texas personally, and continue to appreciate the crucial work they do every day in North Texas.

Back to In-Sync now.  I had the chance to visit their big kitties last weekend, along with a couple of my fellow bakers.  We spent a few hours enjoying the annual Pumpkin Bash, where the cats all get a pumpkin to play with/eat/destroy/ignore.  We absolutely fell in love with the cats and the place, and the work that's being done here.

In a perfect world, these cats would be running free in their native habitat but this world isn't perfect.  Not even close.  These guys have suffered at the hands of humans, and needed a safe place to recover from the physical and emotional damage inflicted on them.

In-Sync is that safe place.  Big wild cats can't be placed in furever homes like cats and dogs can, and they can't be released into the wild.  Big cats need a place to live out the rest of their days, where they can receive medical care, a clean environment, nourishing food, enriching playtime, and love.

Since these cats will stay at In-Sync forever, and more cats continue to unfortunately come in, In-Sync's need for funding will only grow as time goes on.  They are currently trying to raise $30,000 to build a home for the two cheetahs who recently joined them.

The four of us girls are going to bake our little hearts out to try to help in our small way.  Stay tuned for more details as we approach this year's Bake Sale on December 12th.  Meanwhile enjoy a few photos of Jett the spotted leopard enjoying the Pumpkin Bash!

For the record, the final score was Jett 1, Pumpkin 0.  ^..^

Note: All photos were taken by BigSis and published with the permission of In-Sync Exotics.

~BigSis

Posted under Animals

Cherry-Pecan Meringue Bars

Gearing up for the SPCA Bake Sale, I had one more promising recipe to taste-test.  Like the Double Chocolate Peppermint Bars I tested recently, the inspiration again was Carole Walter's “Great Cookies” – a James Beard Award winner and IACP winner.

These bars took a little doing – about an hour to put together – and are a touch too fussy for the Bake Sale.  You have a brown sugar shortbread base, with a cherry filling and a meringue pecan topping.  The combination of flavors was great, especially if you're a nut lover.  All in all, pretty delicious, and lighter than a lot of the things that come out of my oven this time of year!

So, these bars gets thumbs up for flavor but don't get invited to the Bake Sale!  I'll be making Cookie Madness' White Chip Raspberry Bars for the sale again, since they were well-received last year.  You get a similar zip from the berry jam (I use my homemade cranberry jam) with a nutty complement from sliced almonds.  If you double Anna's recipe, it fits nicely in a 13 x 9 pan, and will give you 12 healthy-size bars.

If you have a little bit of time on your hands, do try these Cherry-Pecan Meringue Bars.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Cherry-Pecan Meringue Bars
(adapted from Great Cookies)

Filling:

1 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup water
1 cup cherry preserves or jam (I used homemade cranberry jam)
1 tsp fresh lemon zest
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
pinch of salt
2 Tblsp POM Wonderful juice (the original recipe called for Cherry Heering liqueur which is a bit pricey, and unnecessary IMHO)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 13 x 9 pan with nonstick foil.

Place the cherries and water in a small saucepan. Cook, covered, over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes or until cherries are tender and almost all of the liquid has evaporated.

Add the rest of filling ingredients. Bring to a boil. Place the mixture into a food processor and pulse 5-6 times. The mixture should still have some texture, rather than being a puree.  Chill mixture for 30 minutes or up to 1 week.

Crust:

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter (I used salted)
1/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1-3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt

Place the butter in a medium saucepan and barely melt over low heat, remove from heat and allow to finish melting. Set aside to cool to tepid, then stir in brown sugar. Blend in the flour and salt all at once.

Drop 8 spoonfuls of dough onto the prepared pan. Press dough evenly into bottom of pan. Bake at 350 for 15 to 17 minutes. Let stand for 2 minutes then spread the cherry filling evenly over crust.

Meringue:

8 oz pecans (2 cups chopped)
3/4 cup sugar
3 egg whites, at room temperature
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Place the pecans in a food processor and add 1 tablespoon of the sugar and pulse 3-4 times, or until finely chopped. Set aside. In a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment, beat the egg whites on medium speed until frothy.  Add the salt.  Increase the speed to medium high and beat until firm but not dry. Add the remaining sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, taking about 1 minute.  Add the vanilla and beat 30 seconds longer to form a shiny meringue. Fold in 1 cup of the chopped pecans.

Spread the meringue evenly over the cherry mixture, smooth the top, and sprinkle with the remaining pecans. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack. Remove from pan, using the foil to lift it out, and cut into bars.

~BigSis

Posted under Food

You know that age-related memory loss that some of us get?  We forget names and appointments, and sometimes, even simple everyday words evade us.  For some reason, I can't remember the word Pomegranate to save my life these days.

99% of the time I try to come up with Pomegranate, what my brain gives me is Pomeranian.  It makes no logical sense, but in my mind, these little pink guys have been called Pomeranian Cupcakes more often than they've been called Pomegranate Cupcakes.  Sorry cute little yappy doggies, you know I'd never make cupcakes out of you!

But forget what I call these; you should call them delicious! Hannah Kaminsky calls them Pomegranate Ginger Cupcakes in her book My Sweet Vegan.  I successfully baked a bunch of things from this book for our SPCA Bake Sale last December, so I thought it would be a great source for a Valentine's Day treat.  I'm not a fan of crystallized ginger so I left it out of the cupcake batter, and I also omitted the ground ginger in the icing.  I didn't miss it a bit.

One bite missing...

This was a super-easy recipe, and I loved that it used 2 cups of the uber-healthy Pomeranian juice.  I mean Pomegranate juice, of course!  Everybody knows you can't juice a Pomeranian! 😀

The color of the cupcake looks a bit off in the photo, but these were really tasty so don't let that discourage you from making them.  They were moist and really flavorful!  Half of the POM juice was reduced to a syrup and drizzled over the unbaked batter, and it turned into a nice gooey tangy unexpected treat at the bottom of the cupcake.

I ad-libbed the icing with a stick of Earth Balance and powdered sugar and a bit of tart cherry juice, since I'd exhausted my supply of POM juice.  With a dash of good vanilla and some pink food coloring, the icing was finished.

2 bites gone now...

Make these for your sweetie this Valentine's Day!  And remember, they're Pomegranate Cupcakes!

~BigSis

Posted under Holidays

Since our next SPCA Bake Sale is only 6 months away, I better get myself busy building a repertoire of vegan recipes!  I'm almost 6 months into “eating vegan”, but I'm not a big sweets eater so I haven't done much baking.

After my coworker K-to-the-T brought these awesome Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Coconut Cookies to the office the other day though, I knew this was a recipe I had to adapt asap!  They were scrumptious, and reminded me of a Cowboy Cookie I used to make.  She had made a few tweaks of her own to the original Epicurious recipe, and I tweaked it even more.  Voila and ta da!  Here's my first adapted cookie recipe, sans eggs and dairy products!

Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Vegan Cookies

Adapted from K-to-the-T and Epicurious

1 stick (1/2 cup) Earth Balance, softened
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon ground flax seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup + 2 tablespoons old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup semisweet vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

~BigSis

Posted under Food

Happy new year, everyone!  I hope that you had a wonderful holiday time, and that you're fired up about the new year and ready to get it rolling!  I love that it always feel like a fresh start to me.  Who among us doesn't need a fresh start in some area of their life?

I talked last year about how I don't really like resolutions because I feel like I'm setting myself up to fail somehow if I make official “resolutions”.  Instead, I like to think about what I did the previous year…what worked, what was a disaster, what do I want to do differently, what do I want to add to my life.  For me, a new year is about reflection and reevaluation.

This new year, I can see that it's going to take extra workouts to achieve and maintain the level of fitness I'm comfortable with.  I was on that train for several months in 2009, but wandered off it and have to get back on now.  I'm not totally out in the weeds, but I'm a bit off course, and that slight veering off the path can quickly turn into a full-blown physical train wreck when you're forty-plus!  If you don't know what I mean, you will eventually!

The biggest change for 2010 is one I've been seriously contemplating for the last few months, after having it in the back of my mind for 15 years. It's time for me to stop fiddling around and finally go vegan.

When I first stopped eating all meat products, I also stayed away from eggs and dairy for quite a while, but finally succumbed and adopted a purely vegetarian diet rather than vegan.  Since I know that the egg and dairy industries are probably more abusive than the factory meat farms, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and stop putting eggs and dairy there.

I started out telling myself that this vegan business was going to be really hard; harder than going vegetarian was since that was pretty darn easy for me.  The biggest challenge is definitely going to be learning how to bake in a completely different way, and for me this is pretty major since I love to bake more than I like to cook.

I've decided this change will be fun, as well as the right thing for me to do, and one thing I'm going to do from square one to make it funner is to blog about it.  I realize that most BigSisLilSis readers aren't vegan or even vegetarian, so I'm going to start a brand new blog for my vegan ramblings. I'm still noodling it around, so I'll bust it out when it's a bit more finalized.  I do know it's going to be a little adventure, and I'm excited to start.  I'm in the process of cleaning all the butter and eggs and other holiday baking remnants from my kitchen, along with the holiday leftovers.  Once that's gone, away we go to Vegan Land! Wheeee haw!

So, my goals or resolutions or whatever I'm calling them, are to:

• Exercise with a new motivation and keep it up, with the goal of building more muscle and getting stronger. That means getting back to Jillian Michaels' videos, yoga class, and using the new Wii Fit I just bought myself with Christmas money.  I also joined RecipeGirl's 10 in 2010 program as LilSis did.

• Adopt a vegan diet asap and blog about it.  You'll notice a lot of new cookbooks in my left sidebar reading list now, since I'm going to need some help to keep my food interesting and nutritious!

• Learn how to bake without eggs and dairy!  The 2010 SPCA Bake Sale is only 11.5 months away!

• Find a new church and plug in.  It's time already; stop messing around and commit to one.

• Work toward balance between all aspects of my life: work, blogging, social, health, and spiritual. This is a toughie when you're an all-or-nothing personality like me!

There you have it.  I bet that some of my goals and LilSis' goals are the same as yours, so let's all rally around each other, and make some positive changes in 2010!  We can do it!

~BigSis

Posted under This & That

We still have donations coming in following Monday's SPCA of Texas Bake Sale, so I'm not telling you yet how much money we were blessed to collect!  Maybe by the weekend I can let the cat out of the bag.  Not that I would ever put a cat in a bag; that wouldn't be very humane.  Unless I had to do that to get the cat out of a dangerous situation and couldn't do it any other way.  ^..^  Do I have a touch of rambling Christmas delirium?  Think so.

I also have some recipes that you have to make if you're trying to figure out what to bake for Christmas!  These were my favorite things to make for the bake sale, but it occurred to me that they are also awesome things to make for Christmas gifts.  I'm not burned out on baking yet – weird, I know – so I may make more of these before we hit the new year since we had nothing left after Monday's sale!  I would feel comfortable mailing all of these except for the Snowballs.  They're a little fragile so keep them at home.

• Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies: plain, with mint Oreos, or with chocolate chips and walnuts.  I know I talk about these ALL of the time, but they're my favorite brownies and I love them.  We sell the HECK out of them at bake sales.  Not because of my baking prowess, but because it's an awesome recipe!

• Vegan Pumpkin Bread: no one believes there are no eggs or dairy in this bread.  It's moist and flavorful, and absolutely one of my favorites.  I have to add walnuts.  Have to.

• Fudge: chocolate, cinnamon and peanut butter.  Just use the regular fudge recipe on the marshmallow cream jar, and substitute cinnamon chips and peanut butter chips for the semi-sweet chocolate chips.  I like to pour the fudge into little silicone molds with Christmas shapes.  When they're cool and set, you can easily unmold them, sprinkle with sparkling sugar (brown on gingerbread boys, green on Christmas trees, and red on stockings).  For a final touch, add some royal icing accents here and there.  For the sale, I packaged them two different shapes to a treat bag: one chocolate and one cinnamon or PB.

• Pecan Pie Bars with Chocolate and Bourbon from the Pastry Queen: these got a little oozy, but they were fudgey and boozy, so who the heck cared?  Nobody!  I love the original flavor of these, and was shocked that I loved this over-the-top variation even more.  Wicked!

• Chocolate Mint Snowballs: based on RecipeGirl's Snowballs. I used mint chips and pecans instead of peanut butter chips and peanuts.  Roll these in green sugar and powdered sugar, and pack in a cute treat bag with a ribbon, or a box with a window so you can peek at them.

Happy baking, little kitchen elves!

~BigSis

Posted under Holidays

I'm so mad at myself.  Livid and disgusted and sick, in fact.  Is there anything worse than being mad at yourself, for something you did or didn't do?  It's so much more satisfying to be mad at someone ELSE.  You can punish them and demand that they make things right.  Whatever those “things” are.

I can't be mad at anyone else this time.  I'm responsible.  I killed my plants.  All of them.  All.  Of.  Them.  Every last one.  The curly hoya and the regular hoya I've had for close to 25 years.  The ficus that LilSis gave me when she moved to California, along with the other plant she gave me that I never knew the name of.  The gorgeous new hoya hanging basket I found last year.  And the dracaena  from our dad's funeral.  They're all dead.  I put them in trash bags and hauled them to the dumpster.

How did this happen?  How did I keep these living things alive…some from my very first apartment, to the condo, and then to the dark apartment building, only to kill them all here?  Last December 15, on the day of the SPCA Bake Sale, we had the mother of all sleet storms here in Dallas.  I had been baking non-stop for 3 weeks, and was punchy from a 14-hour day of raising money for one of my favorite charities.  By the time I got home and unpacked things and cleaned up my kitchen and fed my furkids and myself, I must have fallen into a coma because I didn't give one thought to all of the literally freezing plants on my north-facing patio.

If I had even one working brain cell at that point, I would have just put a couple of sheets over the poor things to protect them from the sleet and temperatures in the teens.  But did I do that?  Nope.  And so they all died.  I've been watering and watering the little stumps, hoping to see one little green sprig, but none appeared.

I'm a little surprised at how upset I am that all of these living things are dead.  I've taken care of them, watered them, fertilized them, trimmed them, nursed them, moved them, enjoyed them and loved them for so many years.  And now I'm responsible for their deaths.  I know I can get new plants.  But they won't be MY plants.  They'll just be plants.

~BigSis

Posted under Home

Hey LilSis, I think it's a really appropriate time to talk about stress since we're all about to go into Turbo-Speed Stress Season. We all have holiday stress for different reasons. Many of us get so excited at the holidays that we overcommit and underestimate how much time all of these things will take. We may have financial issues that make the holidays stressful, and unless we decide to be smart when it comes to our financial planning, there is a chance that this money may not see us through the rest of the month. When we start the holidays off on the wrong foot, like not having enough finances, it could seriously affect how the rest of the break goes. It nearly happened to my friend once, but luckily he decided to invest in things like Bitcoin and even went one step further and decided to Buy Bitcoin with other payment methods, or Bitcoin mit anderen Zahlungsarten kaufen as they would say in his native language of German and because of the trading that he did, it wasn't long until his financial issues were no more. He managed to get rid of them and could live the remainder of the holidays in a much better way. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen to everyone and they may have other pressing matters to worry about.

Some people are sad at the holidays and dread going through it, and feeling like they have to do things they really aren't up for. Other people have family issues that can't be avoided at get-togethers. Many us of just feel pulled in too many directions at one time. One of my friends was having a lot of stress surrounding caring for her elderly parents, who could no longer care for themselves, therefore they could try and get some in-home assistance to give her a break and enjoy her time with her parents again. There are many places that can provide this service such as Seniors Helping Seniors Baton Rouge, and help take the weight off a family member's feet.

For whatever reason, we're ALL going to have stress to some degree over the next couple of months. Maybe we can all help each other out by sharing some ways to tame stress since it's such a universal experience! I'll start us off.

• My favorite way to manage holiday stress is to plan and start early! I already mentioned that I'm doing another Christmas bake sale for the SPCA on December 14th. How can I commit three full weekends to baking, just before Christmas? It helps that I'm kuku/kookoo (how do you spell that?), but I actually started planning a week ago. The baking team has already had a meeting, and we all know pretty much what we're baking, except for a couple of new recipes that I'm going to test-drive this week. I'm going to have all my Christmas shopping done before baking time starts, as well as all the bake sale shopping, and packaging for the bake sale goodies will be ordered this week.

How does my bit of planning translate to organizing your holiday season?

• Even though it seems way too early to start thinking about the holidays, do it now! How often do you hear yourself say that the holidays just “snuck up on you”? There's no sneaking! Christmas comes at the same time year after year! We just haven't planned for it!

• First of all, have a brainstorming session with yourself. Find half an hour of quiet time, and just make a rambling list of everything you can think of that you need to do between now and New Year's Day. As more and more things come to mind later, add them to your list. Just getting thoughts out of your brain and onto paper will give you a serious chunk of peace of mind. Sign me up for some of that!

• Now go back over the Master List you brainstormed, and start making Detailed Lists. If you included “buy gifts” on your Master List, then make a Gift Idea List. List everyone you want to buy for, and then start listing any gift ideas you have. You can see where the holes are. If you have no ideas at all for Uncle Paul, then make yourself a note to call Aunt Paula to find out what Uncle Paul wants. If your list includes “send Christmas cards”, then start a separate list of the recipients, and check to see if you're missing any addresses. Look for those addresses now, and not on December 22nd! You'll also know how many cards to buy when you're in the store, and won't have to run back out for more at the last minute.

• Make yourself a notebook, folder or binder with all of your lists and keep it with you! If you work outside your home, take it with you in a tote. It doesn't do any good to have a plan if you don't have it available to refer to when you need to.

• Now that your lists are in the works, next get yourself a calendar going. You might like a big wipe-off calendar that can be displayed in the kitchen for everyone to see, or maybe a calendar in your planner or on your phone works bet for you. Whatever it is, start adding every party, every cookie exchange, every school function and every travel itinerary on it as you find out about them. Grill your family for all of their commitments. Update this calendar immediately as new functions are discovered. Threaten your family that failure to notify you of a commitment means they have to eat the fruitcake that's been regifted since 1974. Or you could say that Santa will bring them a lump of coal, but that would be pretty mean. 😀

• Practice saying “no”. The reality is, you won't be able to do everything that is asked of you for the next couple of months. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. You can say “no” to good things in order to say “yes” to the best things!

That's how I get my holiday season organized, and it really seems to help me to just write things down! It's a simple thing but it has a huge impact. You won't wake up in the middle of the night worrying about whether you're going to forget to bake the two dozen cupcakes for the school if you've already put that on the calendar.

If you have other ideas, please pass them on. Over the next few weeks, we're going to be on a mission to find other thoughts and tips that we think might help us all enjoy this glorious season even more!

~BigSis

Posted under Holidays