Cross-blogging - Bartlett!

Just a note to let my regular readers for kuku4cookbooks know to check out Bartlett's posting today, so you can get to know him a bit better.

bartletttastestheworld!

Announcing my new blog, BARTLETT TAKES THE WORLD!

The Launch of my 2nd blog: BARTLETT TAKES THE WORLD!

Well, the poll from this blog, kuku4cookbooks, revealed that my new blog about the adventures of Bartlett, my lovably small plush moose from Alaska shall be named:  Bartlett Tastes the World!  Now, the greatest majority of the new blog's content will start off being a locale to display photos of the world travels that we, his newly-adopted family, have already taken, but along the way, Bartlett will gradually shine in more and more adventures along with us, traveling and tasting the world (and of course being photographed!).  

Taste:  to eat or drink a small amount of, to distinguish the flavor of, as in dining.  But, it doesn't have to be limited solely to food or drink.  Taste can also mean to have an experience, like a new adventure, meeting new people, seeing areas of the world you've never seen, enjoying a new experience.

It can involve getting just a small taste, or sample, of something, whether food, or the landscape of a country, or its people.  Taste may be the ability to appreciate an object that may be beautiful only in your own eyes, whereas others might shun such an item, and say it wasn't "to their taste".

Here's hoping your tastes run along the same line as my own - that you enjoy photography, travel, food, landscapes, and this ADORABLE moose named Bartlett (full name:  Bartlett Cove, or BC for short, as we brought him home from Bartlett Cove in Glacier Bay, Alaska).

Until I fully get into the groove, after choosing just a few photos out of the 7,000+ I shot while in AK, WA, and OR this month, keep reading my original blog, kuku4cookbooks, where I pull out one of my well over 200 cookbooks and critique a recipe, revealing what changes or tips I feel you might like having passed along to you.

Ciao for now!

P.S.  Please anticipate seeing the layout of Bartlett's blog morph over time, as I add more gadgets, etc. to refine the experience for you.  By July 1st, I will have subscribe/follow buttons up and going. 

Brownie Recipes for you to enjoy - part 2 - Kahlua Fudge Cream Cheese Brownies

As promised, following is the 2nd recipe, for Kahlua Fudge Cream Cheese Brownies:

KAHLUA FUDGE CREAM CHEESE BROWNIES (MK 10-1-06)

Amount	Ingredient
WHISK together, + set aside:
1-1/2 cups + 3 T	AP flour
½ tsp	Baking soda
½ tsp	Salt
BRING these 3 ingredients JUST to boil in saucepan, then remove from heat:
2/3 cup (5.34 oz.)	Butter
1-1/2 cups	Sugar
¼ cup	Water
Add to saucepan, and STIR in until smooth, then allow to COOL slightly:
12 oz (2 cups)	Chocolate chip morsels
1 tsp	Vanilla
POUR in and stir to blend:
¼ cup	Kahlua
ADD, 1 at a time, stirring after each addition:
4	Eggs
GRADUALLY blend in:	Above flour mixture

PREP:  Spread ~1/2 of brownie batter in parchment-lined 9” x 13” pan.  Prepare cream cheese batter below:

Amount	Ingredient
CREAM with paddle on LOW until smooth:
8 oz.	Cream cheese, room temperature
MIX in, on low, until uniform:
¼ cup	Sugar
1 tsp	Vanilla (or another flavoring, such as orange or almond extract, if desired)
ADD, and mix until smooth:
1	Egg yolk

Place spoonfuls of the cream cheese batter on top of the brownie batter in a random scattering, using ~2/3 of it.  Pour the rest of the brownie batter on top and spread it evenly.  Top with spoonfuls of the remaining cream cheese batter.  Using a butter knife or wooden spoon handle, gently draw it back and forth thru the brownies to swirl the 2 batters together lightly. 

BAKING:  325° – 35 minutes, until still slightly gooey.  Bake slightly longer if you like a less fudgy brownie.  This brownie can also be baked at 350° for a more cake-like brownie.

COOLING:  In pan 10-15 minutes, then remove w/parchment, onto rack.

YIELD:  20 squares – ~2” x 2” 

Brownie Recipes for you to enjoy - part 1 - Cherry Espresso Doubly Fudgy Brownies

Well, I see "Bartlett Tastes the World" has pulled ahead in the title voting poll.  It's just a few more days until Bartlett and I will decide for certain which title he'll be spinning off from this blog.  If you still need to vote, please do, or if you have a suggestion for an even better title, type me a comment.

As I've promised to Carrie, I'm posting 2 separate recipes, which are based on the same initial, original Nestle Tollhouse brownie recipe of the bag of their semi-sweet morsels, which a lot of potential variations.  Below is Cherry Espresso Doubly Fudgy Brownies:

CHERRY ESPRESSO DOUBLY FUDGY BROWNIES (MK 6-25-08)

This is a VERY forgiving, highly-adaptable recipe.  The original version is the standard one you get on the back of Nestle chocolate morsels.  Highlighted items are those changes I’ve made.  Have fun!

Amount	Ingredient
WHISK together, + set aside:
7.125 oz.  (1-1/2 cups)	AP flour
½ tsp	Baking soda
½ tsp	Salt
BRING these 3 ingredients below JUST to boil in saucepan, then remove from heat:
5.34 oz.  (2/3 cup)	Butter
10-1/2 oz.  (1-1/2 cups)	Sugar
¼ cup	Water
ADD to saucepan, and STIR in until smooth, then allow to COOL slightly:
12 oz   (2 cups)	Chocolate chip morsels
1 tsp	Vanilla
1 tsp	Cherry extract or orange extract, OR mint for that mint chocolate chip flavor we love in ice cream.  OR, even better, you can get away with adding up to ¼ cup of Kahlua, Grand Marnier, etc. – if you add more liquid fun, you may want to add a couple additional Tablespoons of flour
2 T	Coffee beans, finely ground on first setting (or more, if you’re looking for a caffeine bomb!)
ADD, 1 at a time, stirring after each addition:
4	Eggs
GRADUALLY blend in:	Above flour mixture – mix JUST to combine – don’t overmix or you risk developing glutens from the flour, giving you more of a bread texture, and not the FUDGY one we love in brownies!
PLEASE NOTE:	This is where the original recipe ended, and where YOUR fun begins.  These are mere suggestion, because the base brownies are still very good without additions.  You can add any variety of chopped, dried fruits, other chip morsels, like white, butterscotch, or milk chocolate.
STIR in:
3 oz.	Dried cherries, chopped fine (or another dried fruit, if desired
4 oz	Chocolate chip morsels
4 oz	Cocoa nibs (OR nuts, for those who enjoy them in brownies – I do not)

PREP:  Spread in sprayed foil or parchment-lined 9” x 13” pan.   Add miniature marshmallows, if desired.  I typically use 5 rows of 7 each, so 35 total.  I space them out so that you get one in each small square you serve, approx. 1-1/2” square.   

BAKING:  325° – 30 minutes, until still slightly gooey (or longer, if you like your brownies more firm).  Remove from oven.

COOLING:  Remove from pan by lifting brownies out using the foil or parchment you lined the pan with, onto rack to cool slightly, or until you can’t WAIT any longer to have a bite!

YIELD:  ~ 3# = 20 squares – ~2” x 2” 

If you have a difficult time reading the above (or the following post, for Kahlua Fudge Cream Cheese Brownies), contact me and I'll email those directly to you.  

Until then, enjoy.  It's a great day to bake brownies (always)!

For the remainder of June, I'll be spending a few more days away from THIS blog's topic (cookbooks, in case it's become less apparent lately).  We'll be generating some cross-interest for my new blog, before Bartlett actually launches it (see the two previous postings - he's an adorable stuffed moose who LOVES to travel).  The new blog is still unnamed - please help by voting, if you haven't already - there is currently an even amount for EACH of the four choices, so if you have other suggestions, please add them as a comment after this posting.

Today the girls and I headed out to explore an ice cream joint that sounded promising, with flavors like:  maple bacon with French toast, wasabi ginger with black sesame seeds, avocado with blackberry jam, pineapple with pink peppercorn caramel, or Mexican hot chocolate with cinnamon, orange, cayenne and marshmallows.  Immediately, Bartlett decided he needed to tag along on this road trip!

Being the responsible mother that I am, I insisted on lunch prior to dessert, so we decided upon another small restaurant right next door that we hadn't even heard of before, let alone tried.  Both places are in South Euclid in a shopping center.

At Piada, they offer a selection of salads, pasta bowls, and (what else?) piadas, which are Italian thin-crust dough baked on a stone grill then hand rolled with a grill item, such as chicken, plus house-made sauces and pestos, cheese and fresh vegetables.  Sophia chose the chicken basil pesto street bowl of pasta - something like broken strands of angel hair pasta.

 I picked their special, the farmers' market salad.  With the exception of a few harder pieces of romaine, the salad was tasty enough that I'd go back for it (and I never used to eat salad, 'cuz in our house as a kid, iceberg was the only kind we had, and somehow I've never been able to stomach it, whether to eat it, or even to smell it).  This salad is made-to-order with field greens, locally fresh, ripe, in season strawberries (OMG, SO good!), roasted chicken, feta cheese, avocado, grilled sweet corn, and candied spiced pecans, tossed in a lemon-basil dressing.

Bartlett gave it a good sniff, but by the time he'd decided to try it, I'd already drizzled the dressing over it, and he found the lemon to be off-putting.  Not something he'd find in the northern regions, in Alaska.  

Bartlett checks out the Farmers' Market Salad

Once the salad was finished, we strolled next door to A Cookie and A Cupcake, which also serves varieties from their other business, Churned Ice Cream Shop.  I have to admit, I never embraced the cupcake trend - when something gets so "in and hot" that you hear ad nauseum about it (like kale chips, bacon, pork belly, or burgers served between two donuts), I tend to want to run away, and hope the trend dies quickly.  

Side note:  even tho bacon is "hot", and has been for a few years, it's the one "trend" that I'll wholeheartedly embrace, wrapping my hands completely around whatever it's in - I especially enjoyed the chocolate-covered bacon that was so in near us a couple of years ago.  Smoked, thick-cut, center-cut slabs of salty goodness - here comes my Homer Simpson moment - "bacon, good, yum"!

  Sadly, of the above-mentioned flavors, they only had the maple bacon or avocado, and not the flavors I'd truly gotten my mouth watering to try.  So I settled for an espresso cupcake (chocolate cake with a ton of buttercream very lightly flavored with espresso), accompanied by a small scoop of black forest ice cream (chocolate with cherries and exceedingly-thinly-slivered almonds, to the point where I had NO idea what I was eating, and wondered initially if perhaps someone had left a cardboard wrapper of some sort in the ice cream).  

Bartlett wasn't impressed any more than I was...

So it was decided that, when passing thru that location, we'd drop in at Piada again, but then return to the car to locate another dessert shop.  I don't wish to sound negative, but life's too short to eat dry cupcakes loaded with fatty icing, when at home we already had the delicious brownies we'd baked last night - double fudge with chopped dried cherries, extra chocolate chips, and crunchy, slightly-bitter cocoa nibs, topped with mini marshmallows.

Double Fudge Brownies, with chopped dried cherries, chocolate chips, and cocoa nibs, topped with miniature marshmallows

As served, with fresh whipped cream (sorry, a little overexposed)

If anyone wants the recipe, I'll gladly post it later.  It's a very forgiving and high-adaptable recipe.  I often toss in different extracts, or even better, Kahlua, Grand Marnier, or other liqueurs.  Sometimes I make a cream cheese filling to swirl throughout the batter.  And on occasion, I heat it up with some cayenne to give it a Mexican chocolate note.

Ciao til later!

Introducing...Bartlett!

For inspiration in choosing the name for my new travel blog, here's Bartlett having fun in Washington and Oregon.

 

 



Notice the separation between Bartlett and my older daughter?

Just checking out the sights off the highway near Mount Rainier in Washington.

Bartlett enjoyed the Oregon coastline, and thought it was quite different from his homeland of Glacier Bay, Alaska.

Goodnight, all!

I'm Back! News about another blog?

Well, my friends, here comes the reveal on why you haven't been seeing posts these past 2+ weeks - our family just returned from a delightful, nearly 2-week long exploration of the Northwest, including Alaska, Washington, and Oregon.  I'm excited to be able to report that I now have 48 states checked off the "see all 50 states" from my Bucket List - just need North Dakota (which is probably doable, as I think we'll eventually link that with a trip to South Dakota and Wyoming), and Delaware (which is a drivable distance from home - maybe pair it with a visit to the Smithsonian, or the VA/NC coastline).  Anyone out there with a knowledge of interesting areas of Delaware?  I've never researched the area, and know nothing about the state except that Dover is there.

 

I'm hoping that I'm welcoming another subscriber soon - Hi, Julie!  We met while on a weeklong cruise exploring Alaska's upper inside passage from Juneau to Sitka, and Glacier Bay; most specifically, we both seemed obsessed with photographing the multitude of fungi while hiking.  Can't say enough about Lindblad - this was our second National Geographic exploration cruise with them, as we'd sailed with them in the Galapagos in 2011. 

 

Here's the thing - we've been most fortunate to be able to travel with our family quite a # of places over the years, and I'm thinking I should create another blog for the express purpose of sharing photos and stories about those travels.  Waddayathink?  The poll above reflects 4 choices I'm pondering over.  Sorry, I don't know why the actual title of the poll doesn't show up.  Please take the time to vote or offer your suggestions via a comment. 

 

I first began considering calling the new travel blog "Bartlett Takes the World".  Explanation - while in Glacier Bay, I purchased a small, soft, cuddly stuffed moose that I've named Bartlett Cove (BC for short), as that is where he's from.  I plan to take him with me on my future travels and allow him to photo bomb from time to time.  He's already been photographed in 5 states - AK, WA, OR, IL, and OH. 

 

Bartlett has somehow, though, become a bone of contention for my 16-year-old daughter.  She went so far as to make the comment while in Oregon that I was embarrassing myself, acting like a child (do you think, like I do, that she's projecting her own insecurities/issues with a stuffed animal accompanying us, and that it's in fact embarrassing HER?).  I replied that I myself was obviously NOT embarrassed, as I was carrying him in full view of anyone who passed us by, with the exception of the times that he peeked out of my hip pocket when we were choosing which meal options we wanted at one of Portland's food truck areas. 

At one point, I told her that my story, should anyone ask, would be that I am a teacher, and Bartlett is being photographed so that my students could see where he'd been over the summer.  But sadly, that still didn't appease her, and by the end of our travels, I was getting the right-royal stink-eye from her when I'd pulled him out for a quick pic. 

Quite frankly, somehow, I don't expect many people to take even a rudimentary, slight notice of me with Bartlett.  Uh, we were rubbing elbows with and dining alongside the creative culture of Portland - food trucks, multiple piercings, tattoos galore, hair dyed in colors absolutely NEVER seen in nature, etc.  Who's gonna take even a secondary glance at a 56-year-old woman with a barely larger-than-palm-sized stuffed moose?  Seriously?!

Upon our return to Ohio, I mentioned this issue of my daughter's to a friend of mine, and stated that it's just HER issue, and that I will not allow her to take away my delightful joie de vive!  I've already warned her that Bartlett WILL be going with me to Hawaii later this year.   
This friend's response was:  But I MUST rave about how happy I am to hear you are embracing your silly side.  I was raised by a woman who celebrated silliness, and it has brought infinite joy to my life and to MOST of the others around me.  Yes, some shy away from it, but I feel sorry for them. You’ve always had a great sense of humor and that’s a precious trait.  I agree with you, if Olivia poo poos it now, so be it.  Be strong.  Be silly.  That’s my motto.  That can be one and the same.  I am so proud of you to not let her squelch this desire.  And I promise that someday she will grow up and remember your silly antics with Bartlett (adorable name!) with equal joy as you felt in those moments. They will be some of the most priceless memories she’ll have of you.  If any of your silliness rubs off on her, then you’ve done her a great service!!
Never once did any of us roll our eyes when she insisted we take photos of her in front of glaciers, the ocean, etc. doing handstands or various gymnastics leaps/poses.  To each his own (though admittedly I'm a bit perplexed about a small report on the national news this week discussing people taking naked photos of themselves in front of landmarks, including Machu Picchu or the Eiffel Tower).  Not quite sure I'd wanna travel thousands of miles and end up being distracted by some dude's privates swinging in the Peruvian or French breeze, nor would I be in favor of my kids seeing these pics being posed for and snapped.  

BTW, I know I promised a post yesterday, and this WAS begun then, but we had quite a series of rather severe thunderstorms - lightning accompanying heavy, blowing, torrential flowing sheets of rain, etc. so I felt safer unplugging the computer, and thus I'm finishing it off today.

I am going to wrap this post up for today, but I promise I'll be back by the end of this month with food items again, though I reserve the right to infuse my posts with snippets of AK, WA, and OR stories and pics until the time I develop Bartlett's blog.  Along that line - please vote and help me decide what name it should carry.

Ciao for now,

Or, as the Alaskan Tlingit people say, "Tsu yei Eekwasateen", or "Until we meet again"

  

Surprise coming on the 22nd!

Those of you close to me know the reason why you've seen no new posts lately, but for those who are new to my blog, there's a FANTASTIC reason for my absence, which I'll reveal on the 22nd.  Stay tuned!