Chocolate Nut Cereal Cookies

'Tis the season for another holiday dessert to share. Yesterday, I decided to experiment again with some melted chocolate over cereal and nuts. This recipe is a combination of ingredients we had in the pantry.

12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 cups Kashi Go Lean cereal

2.5 cups Kashi 7 Whole Grain Puffs cereal

1 cup chopped True North Pecan Almond Peanut clusters

2 tablespoon Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

2 tablespoons Trade Joe's unsalted natural peanut butter

1. Start melting the chocolate. There are various methods to melt chocolate. We have the chocolate melter, so I just dumped the whole bag of chips and turned it on.

2. While the chocolate is melting, mix the cereal and nuts in a mixing bowl.

3. Stir the cocoa powder and peanut butter into the melting chocolate.

4. Once the chocolate is smooth, pour it into the mixing bowl. Stir until all the cereal is coated.

5. Pour the chocolate cereal mixture into a greased 9x13 glass dish and chill until firm

6. Cut into squares and serve.

These cookies were easy to make and didn't require the oven. The extra cocoa powder gives them a rich chocolate flavor, almost like dark chocolate. An added benefit is that the Kashi cereal is healthy, so having an extra piece isn't too naughty.

Sweet Potato Cookies with Orange Glaze

Friday, I made roasted sweet potatoes/yams for a work party. There were some leftover potatoes so I decided to use them to make cookies. I based the cookies loosely off this recipe, omitting some ingredients since they were already in the roasted sweet potatoes.

Cookies
1-2 cups seasoned mashed sweet potatoes (these were the leftovers)
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup raisins
1. Mash the sweet potatoes
2. Add the eggs and milk to the potatoes and mix until blended
3. Add the flour (I sifted it), baking powder, sugar, and oatmeal and mix
4. Add the raisins
5. Drop spoonfuls onto a baking sheet
6. Cook for 15 minutes in a 375 degree oven
7. Remove from oven and let cool

Glaze
3/4 cup of powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons orange juice
1. Mix the orange juice in to the powdered sugar
2. Adjust amounts as needed until the desired consistency is reached
3. Drizzle over cooled cookies

These cookies were really good. My husband, who doesn't like yams, actually liked the cookies. It's a good thing that I wrote down the recipe as I went along. I will definitely be making these again.

Winter Wonderland

Overnight, a blanket of snow covered the landscape. This was the first view I saw when I looked outside.

First stop was to check the chickens. The chicken run had sustained some damage but it should be repairable since we didn't glue the joints.

The chickens were ok, but they seemed a little confused about the snow.

Next stop was the upper orchard. It was surprising how much snow had fallen. We decided to shake it off the branches so they wouldn't break under the weight.

Once all the trees were clear, we headed doen the hill to tent city, aka the Mandarin grove. Since all the trees are young, we put lights and sheets over them. The deer protection came in handy to make little tents over each tree. I was able to find this lovely array of sheets at the local Goodwill store.

As the day grew brighter, the scenes were even more beautiful. This is a view down our street.

There continues to be a mixture of rain and snow this morning and there is freeze warning tonight. Winter has officially arrived.

Roasted Pumpkin Pulp

In preparation for Thanksgiving, I decided to roast some of the pumpkins I'd cured from the garden this summer. I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do with the pumpkin, but I proceeded to roast anyway. I searched online for different methods and ended up using this process:

Prep:
1. Wash the outside of the pumpkins
2. Slice in half and cut out the stem
3. Scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff
4. Place pumpkins with the cut side down on a foil lined baking sheet

Roast:
5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
6. Bake the pumpkins face down for about 10 minutes and flip
7. Continue to bake for another 20-30 minutes or until the flesh is soft.

Store:
8. Let the pumpkins cool to the touch, about 10 minutes
9. Scrape the softened pulp out of the shell and discard the skin
10. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a week or freeze.

The 3 small pumpkins I roasted yielded 4 cups of pulp.

In general the process was fairly simple. Scraping the seeds and strings from the pumpkin shells was the most difficult step. I took an extra step of saving the pumpkin seeds. Separating the seeds from the strings was pretty messy, but they came in handy as a quick snack before our pre-Thanksgiving dinner. I still have some pumpkins left, so it looks like I will be roasting again soon.

It's Mandarin Time

It started with our grove...

Next came the blossoms...

Then tiny, tiny fruit...

and finally, Mandarins!

This is one of the 13 Mandarins we grew this year. At least we are averaging a little more than 1 per tree.