As Promised...Sweet Tooth Recipes

Chocolate Covered Popcorn w. Sea Salt

3 tbs veggie oil

1/2 cup of unpopped popcorn kernals

2 - 3 tbs of butter (or to taste)

12 oz dark chocolate

1 tbs kosher salt

Heat the veggie oil in a medium sized sauce pan. Once hot throw in the popcorn kernels and cover with lid. Once the kernels start popping make sure the hold the lid down and continuously lift the pot up and shake.

You want to be sure that all the kernals are touching the bottom of the pot so that none of them burn. Same as you would in a microwave, once the kernals stop popping (i.e. about 15 seconds of no-poppage) take off the heat. In a separate pan, or in a double broiler, melt the chocolate and butter together. Pour over the popcorn until evenly covered. Place the popcorn on a tray and sprinkle with sea salt. Let it cool (or throw in fridge). Finito!

Chocolate Peppermint Bark Sugar Cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter,
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
6 ounces dark chocolate chips
6 crumbled candy canes
1/4 cup white chocolate

1. Line a cookie tray with wax paper and preheat oven to 325°F (convection).

2. Whisk flour and salt in medium bowl. 

3. Beat butter in medium bow until smooth and then gradually beat in sugar. Continue beating until mixture is light and fluffy. Next, beat in vanilla, then egg yolk. 

4. Gradually add the flour and salt mixture, just until blended.

5. Drop dough by spoonfuls into the cookie tray and space them as evenly as possible. Use water to wet the tips of your fingers and press dough to form even layer over bottom of pan. Pierce dough all over with fork.

6. Bake the sugar cookie base until light golden brown - this took about 18 minutes, but will vary based on your oven.

7. Once finished, take the tray out and immediately sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. Once you see that the chocolate is starting to melt, spread it into an even layer using a spatula. Then, sprinkle the chopped candy canes over the top.

8. Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler, or over boiling water until smooth. Using fork, drizzle white chocolate all over cookies. Chill until white chocolate is set, about 30 minutes.

9. Once the cookie is cooled, you can easily take it off the wax paper and break it up into as big or small pieces as you want! 

Christmas In Connecticut

So Santa made a nice little pit stop in Connecticut last week! It was so nice to be home and to see my dogs, and my family, and the tree (not in that order..). I have been appreciating the country life and my house in Connecticut so much more now that I live in the most hectic city in the US. It's amazing what a little fresh farmland air can do for the psyche ;)

And Santa left me a large package of Angela's Oh She Glows! bars. Seriously they are soo good! 

I also had my first interaction with a real pomegranate. It was a lot easier to tackle than I had been expecting, and they were gorgeous to boot! Of course the seeds ended up making a beautiful addition to my oatmeal that (and most) morning/s of my holiday break. There were plenty of other food concoctions that came about..but those were more for satisfying my sweet tooth - and I'll post the recipes later ;)

Now if only I could get my family to eat oatmeal and organic skim milk for bfast with me...instead of whole milk and dunkin' donuts....I think it's a lost cause ;)

The Photo Elf!!

Although I have been away from the ol' blogosphere for about a week (sorry!) it did not go undocumented. Here are a few Christmas photos for your viewing pleasure:

It's that time of year...Office Holiday Parties!

Yesterday was my office holiday party! While I was a little bummed because it was right after work and we had to wear business casual, it was still pretty fun.  Normally I look forward to these things because I LOVE to dress up! Now that I'm not in college anymore there are no more formals or socials to wear dresses to so if I get an excuse to play dress up then I'm all in :) 

On our way to the venue we passed the Rockefeller Xmas Tree so I had to take a picture. It looks awesome this year!
This shot didn't work, but I thought it came out kind of cool anyways...
I think that this year has been really hard on alot of people and a lot of companies, so it's nice to have events like this to keep people happy and to just relax and celebrate!