Chewy Peanut Butter Brownies

Religiously I follow Megan from What’s Megan’s Making, love her food posts, specially her sweet plates. While browsing the net (a couple of months back) and thinking to myself what to do on such a beautiful weekend; I saw a recipe that we just had to try. Chewy Peanut Butter Brownies.  Happily we had all the ingredients in the house too!

Plus my daughter is a peanut butter lover. She’s into trying any dessert with peanut butter in it! This recipe was a winner for sure!

Try the recipe out and let me know your thoughts. I’m sure you will be hooked with these brownies, we sure are. Enjoy!

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Corn Bread

Baking is one of those things that just makes my soul feel so much better after any given day, specially those days that tends to suck your energy up. We’ve all had those days once in a while. For some people is a Friday afternoon and for others a middle of the week kinda day. Well for me baking something that reminds me of a happy moment is all it takes to lift me up.

While growing up in Boston we had many cold days. After a long day of work my dad used to come home and bake corn bread from scratch. Let me tell you that it was the best corn bread I’ve ever tasted. This particular recipe reminds me a lot of my dad and takes me back to fond memories of us as kids waiting around the table for the corn bread to come out of the oven and dig in.

My dad paired his corn bread with a big mug of coffee. He took a piece of the bread and slathered some butter on it and let it melt a little before digging into it. Sounds great, ha! He had his coffee black, I can’t even think about having mine without cream or milk. He was the baker in the house. He has an extremely sweet tooth too!

I do miss those days, while growing up very close to my parents. Now, we live in different places and in order to see each other we must take a plane.

He was a man that enjoyed baking and was pretty darn good at it too (was, because he doesn’t bake anymore), but was horrible with recipes. He wrote nothing down. My sister is just like him, cooks amazing, but writes nothing down. They can so easily cook and even bake by eye. I just can’t!  It has taken me many trial and errors to come to a recipe that reminded me of his corn bread.

While in the process of trials and errors I came across some good recipes that had good results. Let me share my recipe with you.

Corn Bread

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk (or milk)
1/2 cup unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
2 large egg

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch square or round pan.
Mix in dry ingredients and set aside. In a small bowl mix the buttermilk, melted and cooled butter and the eggs.
Combine wet to dry ingredients and mix until well combined without over mixing.
Bake for 25 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and cool on a rack for 5 minutes before cutting.

Note: you can add cream corn or spices if you wish (like cinnamon).

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Food Blog Bake Sale 2012

Last year I participated in the National Food Blog Bake Sale for Share our Strength and it was great experience not only for me, but for my whole family too. The girls got to go with me and they couldn’t hold their excitement. When Julie from The Little Kitchen sent me the email about this years bake sale, I jumped and replied in a flash. Even though that by then the place where the bake sale was going to take place was not chosen yet, I knew I wanted to bake for a wonderful cause.

My girls are my heart and soul and the thought that a kid goes to be without food just breaks my heart. It pleases me to see how many food bloggers get together in events like this one to make a difference in our back yard, our community and as far as the organization may reach to.

This year I wanted to change things up a bit and decided to make some cake pops, which are very popular amongst the kids, like my two girls! The cake pops are made out of a chocolate cake mix, but you can make them out of any recipe you have in hand that you just love or any other cake mix flavor of your choice.

But, my second choice for the bake sale was a mason jar cookie mix! Doesn’t that sounds like something you would love to give away as a special gift? It may be the kind of homemade gift you think about for Christmas time, right? Well, you can have it any time of the year too! My mix makes Toffee Blondies! Doesn’t it waters your mouth? It does, I knew it!!! LOL

I can’t take the credit for this recipe, it came from an article from Better Homes and Gardens. The recipe they included was for a quart glass jar, but since the jars I had in hand where pint size glass jars I went on and cut the recipe in half to fit the jar. I’ll give you the recipe for the mix in case you ever wish to make some to give away and the directions on how to bake them too! This way you can enjoy them both ways!

Toffee Blondie mix in a jar
Recipe:
Note: for a pint which is the one I did!
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp (a pinch) salt
6 tablespoons mixed nuts (or any choice of nut)
1/4 cup Toffee pieces
1 Pint size mason jar

NOTE: For a Quart size mason jar just double the recipe!

To make the Toffee Blondie’s:
mix in a large bowl the contents of the jar mix
1/2 cup melted butter
1 lightly beaten egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven at 350 degrees.
Mix all the above ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Grease a small dish a 6x6in or a bit smaller maybe a 4x4in. For the Quart size jar recipe which is double my recipe above you can bake the blondies in a 8×8 inch pan.
Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until blondies are set and you can see them like pulling apart from the sides. Oven temperatures tend to vary from oven to oven.
Keep an eye on them specially if it’s your first time baking them.
Cool completely and cut on desired size! Enjoy!!

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Tech Munch Tampa 2012 ~ Recap

Last weekend April 20-21, 2012 a handful of food bloggers got together in Tampa, Fl for some “food” talk. The event was hosted by Babette Pepaj founder of Techmunch, Bakespace.com and Cookbook cafe with a collaboration in the Tampa area of Jeff Houck, Food Editor of The Stew-Tampa Tribune.

Friday evening, was the kick-off cocktail party at the Tampa Museum of Art. I couldn’t attend to this part of the event. I was carpooling with Robin from Simply Southern Baking and had decided to drive up to Tampa on Saturday morning. We did just that.

The next morning we arrived at Roosevelt 2.0 where our conference was being held. It was a great place, very artistic and eclectic kinda place. Loved it! The best place to hold about 50-60 of “us” food lovers together!

Breakfast was complements of Datz with fruits and smoothies made fresh thanks to Driscoll’s Berries.

The moderator of the event was Erik Deutisch (ExcelPR). Which by the way did an amazing job with his questions to the panel and connecting all of us present to the speakers! 

The first round table was about Tapping into Leveraging Food Trends and Social Media with Todd Sturtz (Tastingtampa.com), Julius Mayo, Jr. (Droolius.com), Brian Roberts (from Roosevelt2.0). I’m missing the name of the last speaker in this picture (above), but couldn’t seem to find it. If you know his name, please comment and pass on the info, please! Wouldn’t want to leave anyone behind!

The next panel group consisted of: Sara O’Donnell (AverageBetty.com), Merry-Jennifer Marham (MerryGourmet.com) and Sandi McKenna (MidlifeRoadTrip.tv). They were collaborating on the topic: Developing, Organizing and Syndicating Multimedia Content. These busy women showed us that you can do it all and keep a sane life! Enjoyed listening to them and learned that it’s ok if I can only do one post a week. Don’t hurt yourself if you can’t go above your goal of posts per week on any given time. Be honest with yourself and enjoy blogging! Have fun!

Right before lunch time we all enjoyed Josh Unseth, SEO expert. He brought us his insight of effective SEO. It’s super important to maintain your writing to its best, “keeping it real”.

When you have food bloggers together, no matter if you are two or more, there is nothing you look forward to most than the meal. It’s all about the “food”! 

We all enjoyed a wonderful Mexican meal thanks to Chef Rene from Taco Bus. Do I need to say more? Well I will, it was scrumptious! 

My husband would’ve loved it, he is a big fan of Mexican food. I can show him the pictures, or will that be too mean?

After lunch we had the pleasure of enjoying the company of Laura Baddish (The Baddish Group), Ray Lampe (DrBBQ.com), Jaden Hair (SteamyKitchen.com) and Jeff Houck (Tampa Tribune). They all talked about Pitching Your Brand: Lessons from the Pros. And pros they are!!!

Here are Babette Pepaj (BakeSpace.com), Steve Wilson and Tom Setzer (both co-founders of GrillingChampion.com). They have all pushed the boundaries of the digital kitchen and got together to talk to us about it with the topic: The Future of Food Content…The Digital Kitchen.

The last speaker of the day was Susan Filson (Stickygooeycreamychewy.com). She asked for some companions and Julius (Droolius.com) volunteered along side with Todd (Tastingtampa.com). They became “her people“. They are hilarious!!! Her topic was: Top 10 Tips to Boost Your Site’s Photography.

Another picture of me with Robin (Simply Southern Baking) 

and Katie (Katie’s Cucina)

Had a real good time last Saturday surrounded by a very talented group of Food Bloggers. Even though I had the worst allergies ever seen. Well, that’s my opinion! The event was organized to have an intimate group of bloggers together and create that perfect atmosphere for networking and getting to know each other better. A very smart idea if I say so myself!! Plus, it worked!

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Olive Oil Cake with Brown Sugar

Many years ago while laying down in my sofa I saw an olive oil cake in the making and that blew my mind away. I said to myself, “olive oil?, no way!” So I dismissed it. Then last week I had a deja vu moment. While sitting in my sofa just minding my own business and flipping channels here and there, I just couldn’t believe my eyes, there it was again…another olive oil cake. This time I became very intrigued and thought “hum” I can do that!

Let me share with you my intake on Laura Calder’s recipe. She is the host of French Food at Home. You can find this wonderful food program in the Cooking Channel. I enjoy seeing her cook, she’s a fun gal! Like the kinda person you may wish to be when you grow up. Great chef, smart and funny!

 

 

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