Chocolate Covered Love

I always liked buying Dinner Mints at the dollar store, they just melt in your mouth. It was dangerous, I felt like I could eat a whole bag by myself. O_o 

So when I found this recipe online I knew I had to try it out. It is surprisingly easy and has very few ingredients. It doesn't taste exactly the same as the dollar store variety because it's made with butter so it has a slight buttery taste. If you made it with shortening instead it might taste closer to Dinner Mints. It's still delicious using this method though. And Aria agrees, as you can see below. :)

Homemade Butter Mints

recipe from here

no-bake, makes about 200 mints

- 1/4 cup butter, softened

- 1/4 teaspoon salt (if you use salted butter skip the addition of the salt)

- 3 1/4 cups powdered sugar, plus more if needed

- 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

- 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract (be careful not to add too much)

- food coloring

In a medium/large mixing bowl beat the butter and salt until creamy. Add powdered sugar, sweetened condensed milk, and peppermint extract on medium-low speed until a dough forms. If the dough seems a little wet, add more sugar. The dough will be crumbly, but will come together when pinched and squeezed into a ball.

Taste the batter. If you want a more intense mint flavor, add more extract. But be very careful adding more extract because it cannot be undone and the smallest amount can make a drastic difference in flavor.

Remove dough from the mixer and divide in half. Add one half back into the mixer and squirt a few drops food coloring of your choice onto the dough. Paddle on low speed until the color is mostly mixed in. Remove colored dough and put the uncolored half into the mixer and color with a different color in the same method. (I made pink and green candies, but feel free to do whatever colors you like.)

After the dough has been colored, either roll out immediately or keep covered so it doesn't dry out.

Roll out golf ball-sized balls one at a time into centimeter wide lengths (about the width of your pinkie finger). Cut the lengths with a knife or pizza cutter, about 1 centimeter long. Repeat with all the dough. Let the dough sit out and dry for a couple hours. (Can be eaten straight away but they have a more melt-in-your-mouth quality if allowed to dry out a bit.) Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Enjoy! 

Posted by Katrina at 11:54 AM | Labels: candy, dessert, easy, homemade, mints, sweets | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

 

I didn't follow a recipe for these, I just used my favorite ingredients for roast chicken and roast potatoes. It's a very easy recipe because you put it all together in the oven to cook and all you have to do is wait until it's done.

Easy Roast Chicken with Accordion Potatoes

serves 2-4

- two skin-on chicken leg quarters (thigh and leg attached together)

- four to five small/medium sized baking potatoes (like Idaho or Russet)

- one lemon

- several sprigs fresh rosemary

- three TB butter

- olive oil

- salt and pepper

--

To prepare the chicken, season liberally with salt and pepper and place in a foil lined baking dish.

In between the skin and flesh of the chicken, stick a sprig of rosemary and a slice of lemon.

To cut the potatoes into accordions, place each potato in between two chopsticks on the cutting board - so that when you slice down you don't go all the way through the potato. (It's harder than you'd think to do without the chopsticks!) Cut the slices about 1/4 inch thick each. 

Roughly chop up the remaining sprigs of rosemary and place in a microwavable bowl with the butter. Melt the butter with the rosemary in the microwave. Spoon the rosemary-butter into each of the slices of the potatoes. Place the potatoes alongside the chicken in the pan.

Slice up the rest of the lemon and place the slices in between the potatoes and chicken.

Roast in the oven at 350 degrees for about 45 mins. or until the chicken and potatoes are done.

Enjoy!

Posted by Katrina at 10:16 AM | Labels: accordion, butter, chicken, easy, lemons, potatoes, roast, roast chicken, rosemary | 2 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

I had been seeing a lot of silver looking dishes at the thrift store, but I wasn't sure how to check yo see if they were real silver or not. So I just searched it online and found out that any real silver piece will have an engraving on the bottom saying if it's solid silver or silver plated. So the next time I went to the thrift store I checked all the pieces that looked like silver and found some cute dishes.

The ones above were probably once part of a tea set, probably used for cream and sugar. These ones are silver plated copper. The two of them only cost me $3! You can see that they were super tarnished when I got them, the one in the back shows you what they look like when they are all polished and clean. 

Cleaning silver is super easy and all you need is toothpaste and a toothbrush! Things you definitely already have in your house. Use an old toothbrush, one that isn't going to be used for brushing teeth anymore. Just be sure to use paste toothpaste, not gel toothpaste. 

Just squirt a couple centimeters of toothpaste on the toothbrush and start scrubbing away at the tarnish! Add more toothpaste as needed. I rinsed as I finished one section of scrubbing so I could see how well it was being cleaned. You may have to scrub the entire thing a couple times depending on how many nooks and crannies there are in the dish. And don't forget to clean the inside as well!

That's it! Good as new. 

Below is a different silver dish that I found and cleaned and am now using as a sugar bowl.

I just love silver, so simple to keep clean and so beautiful!

Posted by Katrina at 8:51 PM | Labels: beautiful, clean, clean silver, easy, how to, silver, simple, thrift store, toothbrush, toothpaste | 1 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

I bought a jar of marshmallow cream to make this, so technically it's fantasy fudge, not true fudge. I don't currently have a candy thermometer [although I have one on its way from amazon] so I couldn't make REAL fudge - but this turned out pretty good too.

I absolutely love the flavor of cardamom and I don't have any ground cardamom so I used whole crushed pods and then strained them out at the end. If you put in too much cardamom it can taste kind of soapy, so I was afraid to use too much - but I think I should've used more because there was only a slight aftertaste of cardamom, not enough for my taste. So next time I make this I will definitely use more.

Cardamom-Infused Fantasy Fudge

adapted from Joy of Baking

- one can [5 oz.] evaporated milk

- four tablespoons unsalted butter

- two cups sugar

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- one [7 oz.] jar marshmallow cream

- five crushed green cardamom pods

- two cups [about one bag] of semi-sweet chocolate chips

- one teaspoon vanilla essence*

Line the bottom and sides of a 9x9x2 inch pan [I used a pie dish since I don't have any pans this size and it worked fine] with aluminum foil.

Pour the evaporated milk, butter, sugar, salt, cardamom, and marshmallow cream into a saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes to a boil. 

Adjust the heat and allow mixture to boil for five minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove saucepan from the heat and stir in the chocolate chips until smooth. Stir in vanilla extract.

Pour through a strainer - to remove pieces of cardamom - into the foil-lined pan and smooth the top with a knife or spatula.

Let stand at room temperature until cool [this took several hours, so plan accordingly]. Once cooled, remove fudge from pan by lifting out by edges of the foil. Since my fudge was still pretty soft at this point, I put it in the freezer until it was hardened. Then cut the fudge into squares using a sharp knife that has been dipped in hot water. 

You can store the fudge in the refrigerator or freezer, well wrapped, for several months. Let the fudge thaw to room temp, unwrapped, before serving.

*I use vanilla essence as opposed to vanilla extract. Vanilla essence has a lower alcohol content, only about 5 percent instead of 35 percent in most extracts - because of this I can use less since the vanilla taste is stronger. If using vanilla extract, use 1 1/2 teaspoons instead.

Enjoy.

Posted by Katrina at 9:22 PM | Labels: cardamom, chocolate, easy, fantasy fudge, fudge, homemade, infused, marshmallow cream, vanilla essence | 1 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |