Oatmeal Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies - Review

These cookies have a back-story. Which is funny because this is the first time I have personally ever made them. This is kind of a public confession too, so maybe I'll feel better about it. Maybe.

from oceanspray.com

Back in 2000, I was a freshman at college. There was a recipe contest at the cafeteria, and any recipe that was entered gave you a free milkshake. Who can resist that? I mean really? BUT, as a freshman in dorms that did not have a kitchen, I also did not have recipes on hand. But I did have a bag of crasins. Which had a recipe on the back for white chocolate chip crasin cookies of sorts. So I scribbled that down and handed it in. Free shake! Wahoo! BUT, I did not credit Ocean Spray with the recipe. Nor did I credit anyone else. I actually am not sure whether I felt bad or not for not crediting the source, or if it even crossed my mind that I was not being honest. I'm sure there was a part of me that felt bad, but if there was it got washed down with my free shake.

(Aside here: I would like to think that generally I am a very honest person. I give change back if I received wrong change. I pay for things that were accidentally given to me, even when I wouldn't be required to pay for them. I claim things on my taxes that would probably go unnoticed. Etc. Just to get that out in the open - I am not a chronic liar.)

I had actually completely forgotten about this experience until two months later when I was walking through the cafeteria one day and a friend from high school came up to me and said, "Kat! Your mom's cookies are so good!" I gave him a blank stare and tried to figure out what he was talking about, and where he had gotten my mom's cookies from. I asked him what he was talking about and he said that they had a big plate of crasin white chocolate chip cookies in the cafeteria that said "Kat Thomas's Mom's recipe" near them. I about died. Partially because I had forgotten about the recipe, and was pretty sure that I had not given my mom the credit for the recipe (though she does have some very tasty cookie recipes of her own), and partially because this guy was the type of person that you would never tell a lie to, and I felt like I had basically lied to him by the fact that he was happily munching down on a cookie that he was sure was one that I had grown up eating. I honestly cannot remember whether I cleared the air of that one with him, or if I was just too shocked to know what to do....at any rate, I felt terrible. I had lied for a shake. A shake that I could have purchased with my own dining money. Maybe I'll need to go donate some money to my college cafeteria or something........

Twelve years later, I found this recipe and decided that it was time to finally try one of "my mom's" famous cookies. And they were good. I prefer real chocolate to white chocolate, but they were good. And now I know what I have been missing all of these years..... :)

Family Rating: ***** (my youngest kept stealing them off of the counter - winner there)
My Rating: ***1/2
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy. It's a cookie. :)

Carmelitas - Review

These little bad boys are delicious. And dangerous. Yum. I described this to my kids as an oatmeal cookie sandwich. But stuffed with chocolate and caramel. This has safely made it on our family favorite list. I doubled the recipe to make a 9x13 pan so we could give some away. They are fairly rich, so a little goes a long way. I took some to the office ladies at my son's school and told them what they were, then left to go help in the classroom for a bit. When I got back the lady at the front stopped me and said that she needed to write down what they were called because they were so good, and she wanted to remember what they were.

from luluthebaker.blogspot.com

Yeah, they are super delicious. And the side pieces were some of the best because the caramel got a little crispy on the sides - YUM. Here's how ours turned out:

Well, at least how the little piece I was eating turned out. That was a good size for a piece. Yep, they are rich and yummy. I had to get the kids to help me unwrap the caramels because I have little patience for that, and they were more than happy to help. Many hands makes light work. And sometimes gets a caramel as a reward at the end. :)

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: *****
Cost: $$ (if you do the 9x13 size - once you factor in the caramels, chocolate, and other stuff)
Difficulty: Easy. The hardest part is waiting for the caramels to melt in the pot.

Cookie Dough Brownies - Review

These are just wrong. In a good way. My sister called me yesterday and said something to the effect of, "Curses to you and your food blog!" She'd seen the link on the sidebar and tried them too. They are good. SUPER rich (or, as my sister put it, "intense"), but VERY good.

from sissistersstuff.com

Since these are done in layers, and you need to let each layer cool/set up before dumping the next layer on - prepare for these to take some time. Again, I am a very impatient person and tend to underestimate how long something will take me to make. So, warning - it will take time. Not hard, just time.

These are rich enough to enjoy, and to want to share with others. You can seriously eat four of them and feel like you have had a good experience, and then share some with friends. We gave a good-sized plate to each of my boys' teachers. One of them stopped me this morning to say that she is not a brownie person, but LOVED them, and wanted the recipe.

The one change I made from the recipe was that I made it all with margarine instead of butter. After the super-rich experience of the BYU mint brownies (which I still liked slightly better than these), I thought I would try and help a bit. They turned out great. One difference from my brownies and the brownies in the lovely photo above is that my layers were not quite so equal looking. The brownies were more thick and the cookie dough layer was a bit smaller. I thought that was a good thing - more cookie dough flavor would have been overkill, I think.

See? Not a pretty picture, but the brownies turned out a lot thicker.

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: ****
Cost: $ (esp. with margarine)
Difficulty: Easy - you just have to mentally prepare for each layer as far as time goes.

Peanut Butter Bars - Review

Anything with peanut butter and chocolate automatically gets vaulted to the top of my favorite things in the world. These peanut butter bars (scroll down the post a bit until you find them) were very, very easy to make. They are no-bake. As in you don't have to bake them. You melt things in the microwave. Then you mix stuff. Then you pour into a pan. Then you wait while it sits in the refrigerator. Awesome.

from morganmoore.typepad.com/one_more_moore

Here is how ours turned out:

They actually looked the same as the ones pictured above. I'm just afraid to cut more to put in a picture because, as you can see, we (I) have made quite a dent in these in the past few hours. (cough).

We all agreed that these were tasty. They surely did not taste just like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (which is what someone had said, so my hopes were all high), BUT, they are very easy to make, and, as you can gather from the picture, we weren't rejecting them at all. More like inhaling them.

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: ****
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy....Melt. Mix. Dump. Melt. Mix. Dump.

BYU Mint Brownies - Review

Holy cow. That is all I can say about these brownies. YUM. And super rich. And yum.

from the-girl-who-ate-everything.com

This author got the recipe from BYU dining, and switched one thing - she changed the margarine from the original recipe to butter. Of course, I didn't actually READ her comments until the end, so I made them with butter. Next time I would just do the margarine. That makes them quite a bit cheaper to make.

The mint frosting is fantastic, and the brownie itself is a nice, thick (but moist), delicious brownie. As I was making these (and grumbling because you have to make THREE layers) I had thought that maybe you could just do a box mix with these frostings and be good to go. No way - you need a brownie that can stand on its own two feet with these super rich frostings.

I made the frosting (both the mint from the recipe and this chocolate frosting) just after I put the brownies in the oven. That is when I had time to do it, so I got it done and just left the frosting out on the counter while the brownies cooked & cooled.

Two notes:
1) When you are making the brownies, DO NOT try the cocoa and butter mixture in the beginning. It is so gross. I knew it would be awful because there is no sugar in the beginning, and yet I still had to try it. Don't do it. Butter and bitter chocolate is not tasty at all.
2) The freezer is your friend. If you don't use your freezer, these will be a gooey mess. I stuck the brownies in the freezer to cool them down faster (yes, I am impatient). Then once they were cooled, I put the mint frosting layer on. THEN YOU FREEZE AGAIN. If you don't, the chocolate layer will be hard to get on. If you do, it is so easy. Then I stuck it in the freezer again once the chocolate frosting was on to make it easier to cut. Two layers of frosting can be a bit gooey.

Other note here too: One brownie is PLENTY. I promise. I eat sugar like it is my job, and my subconscious kept telling me to get at least two brownies because I usually eat two (or the whole pan), but I seriously couldn't do it. These are great to give away because you make a huge pan, and they are impressively delicious, but there is no way you can possibly eat more than a few.

My 7-year old is reading over my shoulder and said that he eats chocolate like it's his job too. Apparently that is hereditary. :)

Family Rating: ***** (emphatically)
My Rating: *****
Cost: $ (especially if you use the margarine instead of the butter - and maybe it wouldn't be so rich....)
Difficulty: Medium. Mostly because you have to make three layers, but those three layers are so worth it.

Lemon-Lime Bars - Review

If you need a super-yummy dessert, these are fantastic. I was attracted to the picture in the Taste of Home magazine (they make things look so good!) and decided to try them. They. Are. So. Yummy. Really.

from tasteofhome.com

When I start most recipes, I do the painful stuff first. Like chopping the vegetables, grating the peels, etc. And I make sure to preheat the oven. Pretend like you are watching a cooking show where they say, "Look how easy this is!" and then they take ingredients that are magically cut or grated and measured, and they just dump, dump, dump - voila! They don't show the painful prep part. The part where you have a toddler screaming at your heels because they want you to pick them up, and you look down at them, look back at the huge knife in your hand, look back at them, back at the knife, back at them and say, "Um. I kinda need both hands right now. For like 10 minutes. And then I'm going to be using dangerous heating instruments....Baby Einstein video?" Yeah. They don't show that. Long sermon short: Grate your lemon peel first. But even before you do that, WASH your lemons with soap and water. You are putting peel into your food. Don't grate the pesticides in there with the peel. Always wash your fruits and veggies. And then cut/peel/dice/slice/grate whatever you need to do before you start your recipe. Then you can fly through the other techniques of the recipe without going "BAH! I need 2 MORE teaspoons of lemon peel. What next?!"

After you grate your lemon peel (it took me 1 normal-sized lemon's worth to get 4 tsp. - I had washed six lemons. Apparently I have no ability to gauge peel yield. If you budget 2 normal-sized lemons, you should be set), squeeze your lemon juice. It took me 3 lemons to get the 1/3 cup required. So that left me with 3 clean lemons....to put back into my fridge and wash again later when I'm using them for real. Haha!

If you have lemons, use lemons for the crust. Lime tastes great in the crust. Lemon tastes great in the crust. It's all the same.

As far as the crust goes, follow directions as listed, BUT when you get to the part where you are supposed to "press the crust into the pan" - don't use your fingers. Use the back of a measuring spoon. Or use slightly wet fingers. Otherwise you'll have a bit of a mess and find yourself washing your hands a few times before the crust is pressed. Margarine works just as well as butter.


The filling is straightforward. Mix and dump. When the lemon bars are nearly done, keep an eye on them. The longer they get "cooked", the "eggier" they taste to me. Unless you like eggy tasting lemon bars. I, of course, didn't follow my own advice as I got distracted with other things and had to smack myself in the head when the timer went off and the lemon bars were browned. They were still SOOOO melt-in-your-mouth good. That's a winner.

Family Rating: ****
My Rating: ****
Cost: $
Difficulty: Moderate. Mostly because it requires a "crust" step and a "filling" step. And peel grating and lemon squeezing. It's really not awful once you've worked through it, though.