Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

20 Feb

Chocolate chip cookie dough truffles. Need I say more? These little beauties came across my radar while on Pinterest a few weeks ago. This may be the BEST no bake dessert ever created. Who doesn’t love cookie dough and because this recipe doesn’t contain egg, you don’t have to worry about possible salmonella poisoning, like you do with traditional cookie dough (but seriously folks, if you’re not eating cookie dough because of the raw egg you are missing out on life!). So without further ado, here’s the recipe!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

14 oz dark chocolate candy coating

Directions:

Beat butter and sugars and in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt, until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.

Cover and chill dough for 1 hour.

Chilled cookie dough

When dough is firm enough to handle, form dough into 1″ balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. I used a cookie dough scoop to help do this, the dough didn’t get as warm or sticky by using the tool. Place sheets in freezer and let chill for 30 minutes.

Cookie dough balls

Now comes the hard part…the dipping.

Melt chocolate candy coating in a double boiler or in microwave according to package directions. I used NESTLE Toll House Chocolate Chips and melted them in a double boiler. Using forks or a dipping tool like a toothpick, dip cookie balls into candy coating to cover. Make sure to tap the fork on side of pan to remove any excess coating, and return to waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Chill until set. Store, chilled, in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

These truffles are super easy and quick to make and honestly if you show up to a party with these you will be a rockstar.

Finished truffle

And there you have it, probably the BEST no bake dessert ever.

~cdog

Original recipe courtesy of love & olive oil

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#YouGottaTryBoston – Help bring Top Chef to Boston

9 Feb

You know that little show on Bravo called Top Chef? Yeah the one in its 9th season and the one that keeps me glued to the TV week after week waiting to see what awesome challenges and dishes they come up with… well, Digitas Boston, a integrated digital brand agency, has started a campaign to get the next season of Top Chef to be filmed in Boston! Yep, that’s right, good ole Beantown, The Hub…

How can you help spread the word and get Top Chef to come to Boston? Check out the YouGottaTryBoston Facebook page and tell them why Top Chef should come here. Check out the Twitter hashtag (#yougottatryboston) and add your thoughts to the conversation. Don’t forget to mention @BravoTopChef to really get their attention.

Print this off, take a picture of what you love about Boston and tweet it or post it to FB!

We truly have some great restaurants that should be shared with the world and if you agree, I hope you join in! Here are some of our reasons.

The list goes on and on, but I’ll stop here and let you add some of your favorites…

Why should Top Chef come to Boston?

Digitas posed a challenge, I say “Challenge Accepted!”

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Wings: It’s What’s for the Super Bowl (and other things)

2 Feb

According to the National Chicken Council‘s 2012 Wing Report, Americans will consume 1.25 billion chicken wings during Super Bowl weekend – totaling more than 100 million pounds of wings. That’s like music to my ears. Another fun fact – “If the wings were laid end-to-end they would circle the circumference of the Earth- more than twice – a distance that would reach approximately a quarter of the way to the moon.” How about them apples… er wings.

In case you didn’t know, I love chicken wings and so does Cdog. My favorite wings is one that has a lot of meat on it and is like on fire hot. The hotter the better. I also like to dip my wings in ranch dressing (no chunky, nasty bleu cheese for me).

If I had an overactive metabolism, I would eat wings every single day, but I don’t, so I can’t. However, this weekend being the Super Bowl and all (GO PATS!), I have the opportunity to eat wings! Thanks to Cdog and Love Muffin I will get to indulge in some wings that will surely compete with some of the best around Beantown.

4 days until I get to have wings and 4 days until I get to watch the Pats crush the Giants.

What’s your favorite flavor/type of wing? Where can you get the best wings ever? I’m always in search of the best wings!

And in case you are looking for some drink recipes… check out the cleverly named recipes (after the jump) from the mixologist crew at William Grant & Sons.

- Kteb & Cdog

New England Tea Party

2 parts Bols Sweet Tea

1 part fresh lemon juice

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled teacup. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

Picture Courtesy of William Grant & Sons


The Super Bowl

1 part Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur

1 part Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey

1 part Earl Grey Tea

1 part simple syrup

¾ part fresh lemon juice

1 part dry, sparkling white wine

Combine ingredients in a large punch bowl over block ice.  Stir to chill and incorporate.  Garnish with lemon footballs*.

*To create lemon footballs, cut the lemon along its body to create ovoid slices.
4th & 1

-Peel 4 Lemons

-1 part sugar in the raw

-2 part black currant tea

-1 part fresh lemon juice

-2.5 part Sailor Jerry Rum

-1.5 par canadian blended whiskey

Add lemon peels, sugar in the raw, juice, tea and spirits slowly into punch bowl. Add ice and slowly stir ingredients. Keep punch chilled and serve over ice.

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What to do in Boston this week… Food edition.

31 Jan

Happy Tuesday. Today is not a terrible Tuesday on The-Eats. Today is about my love for food events. I love hearing about different food events happening in and around Boston and I wanted to share the wealth. I saw a few posted on BostInno’s page and on BostonChefs.com and thought some of you would be interested. So check out the following…

Tuesday, January 31 – #Guacaritas – 6pm– Lolita – Like chips, guac and margaritas? Join local startuppers for all of the above at Lolita on Tuesday night. T3 Advisors has stepped up to cover the guac/nacho deliciousness so you can gorge without taking a hit to your wallet. Bottoms up!

Tuesday, January 31 - Tuesday nights get all kinds of cheesy in the bar and lounge at dantewhere chef Dante de Magistris and his clan host Grilled Cheese Tuesdays. Fans of crispy-on-the-outside, melty-on-the-inside goodness can come back week after week to see the sophisticated little twists they give the classic sandwich – for just $2. Call dante at 617.497.4200 to see what they have in store or just drop by any Tuesday after 5:30pm and let it be a surprise.

Wednesday, February 1 – Sel de la Terre‘s long-running dinner series, Wine Wednesdays, continues at the Long Wharf location throughout the winter. Wine Director Erik Johnson keeps on keeping on, plating and pairing seasonal food and wines for a four-course tasting menu of French-inspired fare. The prix fixe, and the aforementioned accompanying wines, costs $44 per person and is served (at 7:00pm) at large communal tables to encourage convivial conversation. To reserve your spot, check the schedule below and call Sel de la Terre Long Wharf at 617.266.8800 for reservations and more information.

Thursday, February 2 – Masa’s Salsa Thursday - Adding a little Latin flavor to the end of the workweek, Masa and Masa Southwest Bar & Grill in Woburn both host evening’s of food, music and dance at Salsa Thursdays. Pick your location and grab your dancing shoes for a complimentary lesson from 8:00-9:00pm, followed by dancing ‘til midnight (1:00am in the South End). You can swing by for dinner or just pop in for a margarita or a mojito and 50¢ tapas in the bar – either way, stick around to show off your moves on the dance floor. Call Masa at 617.338.8884 or Masa Woburn at 781.938.8886 for more information or directions.

Saturday, February 4 –  Poe’s Kitchen “Burrito Bowl II” – 1pm – 4pm – Poe’s Kitchen – In honor of Super Bowl XLVI, Boston’s celebrity chefs will be taking to the kitchen to kick off “Burrito Bowl II.” Chefs such as Tremont 647’s Andy Husbands, Poe’s Kitchen at the Rattlesnake’s Brian Poe, Lolita’s Brian Roche, Boloco’s Jason Hutchinson, Church’s Jon Gilman and many more will each create a signature burrito reflecting the city of their favorite NFL team.

If you attend any of these events, please let us know, we’d love to hear about them!

-Kteb & Cdog

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Happy National Popcorn Day!

19 Jan

Happy National Popcorn Day! Since this blog started our as an ode to all things snacks. I thought it would be appropriate to mention today as a day of celebration. We all have co-workers who make popcorn in the office and it’s like a chain reaction. Everyone makes popcorn. And then there are those who burn said popcorn and are shunned from the office. But in all seriousness, who doesn’t like popcorn. It’s super versatile, fun to make and healthy (unless you’re pouring massive amounts of butter on it). In celebration of the day give one of these recipes a try – here are some fun and traditional twists on popcorn.

Caramel Popcorn (Recipe courtesy of AllRecipes.com)

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup corn syrup
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 5 quarts popped popcorn

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (95 degrees C). Place popcorn in a very large bowl.
  2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in soda and vanilla. Pour in a thin stream over popcorn, stirring to coat.
  3. Place in two large shallow baking dishes and bake in preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, for 1 hour. Remove from oven and let cool completely before breaking into pieces.
  4. Yields five quarts.

Sweet & Salty Kettle Corn (Recipe courtesy of Everyday with Rachel Ray) Yes, I can still eat a whole pot!

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup popcorn kernels
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt

Directions:

  1. In a large pot with a tight-fitting lid (I’d recommend the Whirley-Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper), heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the popcorn. When the oils sizzles, sprinkle the sugar over the kernels. Cover and shake the pan or turn the pan handle until the popping slows down (about 3 minutes). Remove from the heat and toss with the salt.

.

Cocoa-Cayenne Popcorn Balls (Recipe courtesy of Chow)

Ingredients:
  • 9 cups plain popped popcorn
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/3 cup light corn syrup
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick), cut into small pieces
  • 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • Zest of 1 medium orange
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Candy thermometer*
Instructions:
  1. Coat a large heatproof bowl with butter, vegetable oil, or cooking spray and place popcorn in the bowl.
  2. Place sugar, corn syrup, water, vinegar, and salt in a medium saucepan and stir to combine. Place over high heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved, about 2 minutes. Bring to a boil and cook until mixture registers 260°F on a candy thermometer, about 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter, cocoa, orange zest, cayenne, and vanilla until melted and smooth.
  3. Immediately drizzle sugar mixture over popcorn. Stir continuously with a rubber spatula, scraping the bottom of the bowl, until popcorn is thoroughly coated and cool enough to handle, about 3 minutes.
  4. Using buttered or oiled hands, tightly press mixture (it may still be a bit warm) into 3-inch rounds. Place on waxed or parchment paper to cool completely, about 15 to 20 minutes. This recipe makes 6 3inch popcorn balls.

*A good candy thermometer is needed for this recipe. The Love Muffin just bought me one. Check out CDN TCG400 Professional Candy & Deep Fry Thermometer.

And if none of these strike your fancy, I would recommend tried and true Orville Redenbacher’s.

Happy National Popcorn Day!!

~cdog

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Terrible Tuesdays: I hate ketchup

17 Jan

Now, I’m going to say something that will most likely shock you…I hate ketchup. I hate it. Ick. Just the thought of it makes me cringe. All of you people who put ketchup on everything GROSS. Ketchup is nothing but sugary tomato paste, made to mask flavorless American meals one bite at a time. Anytime I’m out with people and we are eating something that goes with ketchup, say french fries, people are always so shocked to learn that I don’t like it.

Ketchup nastiness

This isn’t something new, I haven’t liked it ever since I was little. I distinctly remember when my family stopped at a Wendy’s to get lunch. As a kid (probably 7 or 8 years old) I ordered a hamburger. When I got it out of the wrapper it was drenched in ketchup, oozing out the sides, dripping all over everything and that was it. I was done with ketchup (not to mention Wendy’s square burgers, what?). For years, I refused to eat it, even when it came prepared on something. I’ve started to come around, but only when it is combined with mayo on a burger (sorry DennisF). You will NEVER see me put it on the following foods:

Eggs – Disgusting, really? Eggs should be combined with veggies and cheese.

Mac & cheese – Sick! I had friends who did this when I was little. Luckily I haven’t seen anyone do it recently.

Grilled Cheese – Seriously? Can you just stick with dipping it in your soup?

French Fries – Nasty – fries are perfect ON THEIR OWN. LEAVE THEM ALONE!

Hot Dogs/Brats - No! No! No! These sausages are made for MUSTARD! Don’t ruin them with your ketchup.

Steak – Don’t even get me started.

Tomatoes yay! Ketchup nay!

What a waste of a perfectly good fruit. Tomatoes deserve so much more than to be pulverized and have their flavor changed so significantly that it’s unrecognizable. Ketchup = GROSS. Agree or disagree? Am I the only one in this world who hates ketchup?

~cdog

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Recipe: Blueberry Stuffed French Toast

16 Jan

This dish is probably one of the best I’ve ever had. Blueberries. Bread. Eggs. Syrup. Cream Cheese. Not much, but so good. It feeds at least 12 people and is the perfect brunch option! I like to serve bacon with this (shocker) to balance the sweetness.

Ingredients:

1 unsliced challah (egg bread) cut into 1” cubes (you can also use a French loaf)

1 c frozen blueberries

2- 8oz cream cheese (can use soft) (I also used fat free cream cheese and it didn’t alter the taste at all)

12 large eggs

1/3 c maple syrup

2 c milk

How to:

In a large greased 9X13 pan, arrange half the bread. Scatter cream cheese and berries on top. Add remaining bread. Whisk together eggs, syrup, and milk. Pour over bread, Cover with foil. Spray pam on the foil first. Refrigerate overnight. Bake @ 350 degrees 30 minutes covered & 30 minutes uncovered

How to make the blueberry sauce:

1c Sugar

2 T cornstarch

1c water

2c blueberries

1T butter

Combine sugar, cornstarch and water. Cook over medium heat stirring until thickened. Add 1c berries. After berries burst add 1 c berries and butter.

Cut half the loaf of bread and place in pan

Add cream cheese

Add bluberries

Mix eggs, milk, syrup

Pour over, add the remaining bread

The Sauce

Voila!

-kteb

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Happy New Year!

11 Jan

Holy crap, where did 2011 go? It seems like yesterday Cdog and I were in Moscow and I was still working at KLAB. Before I know it, I will be at SHIFT a year. When I was younger, time seemed to stand still. Now, it flies and I’m left in the dust wondering where it went. I know there is a reason for it, but sometimes reason is just blah.

I personally want to thank all of you for coming along on the ride with us. I know that Cdog would agree. We have had a blast writing about our culinary adventures, things we hate, more importantly things we love, people we love and everything and anything in between.

My blog highlights this year had to have been the most recent Q&A with Top Chef Season 7′s Tiffany Derry and my experience in the Atomic Wing Eating Contest. I’ve acquired the nickname Baconator at work. I have shared an amazing year with the Stud Muffin. We have had so much fun cooking together and trying to create new awesomeness. There are so many more highlights, but I don’t want to keep you here all day. But this little bloggy blog would never be what it is without the best blogging buddy (and friend) around. Cdog and I started this as a snack blog and it has turned into so much more and I couldn’t be more excited for 2012! Happy New Year. I hope this year brings you all love, luck, joy and happiness.

Holy Old School!

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Terrible Tuesdays: If It Grows In Poo, It’s For You? Sick Freaks!

10 Jan

Fatman is yet again gracing us with his writing prowess. This time for Terrible Tuesday! Enjoy!

With all due respect to DennisF (mayonnaise), K-Teb (pickles) and M_M (bananas) in their previous Terrible Tuesdays posts, you’re all wrong. While I would have to agree with DennisF that mayo is flat-out nasty, I can’t think of anything more repulsive, more disgusting, yet somehow  more polarizing than any other “food” on the planet than…mushrooms. Ewwwwwwwww. I gag at just writing that word. For all of you mushroom lovers out there…eat shit. Oh wait, you already do. Well, you at least eat something that grows in the dark…in shit. And you swear by it. WTF?!?!

Seriously? C’mon people. “Eat shit” is only a saying!

I have previously written that bacon, cheese and BBQ sauce make everything better. I lied. There is nothing in this world that can make mushrooms taste good. Grill them. Sautee them. Drown them in bacon, cheese and BBQ sauce and you will still be left with the most dirty and vile of the vile. The smell. The texture. The taste. Heck, even the appearance. Mushrooms look like Cosmo Kramer took his meat slicer to an alien. Gray alien looking shit. Heck, it may actually be alien shit.

And if mushrooms as a food aren’t good enough, you are in luck – they double as a hallucinogen. And I am here to tell you…they ALL suck. Including the drug. And to be clear…I have tried them all (just one time on the illegal kind). Though, the caps did lead me to the munchies and having my very first Jamaican Beef Patties while vacationing in the British Virgin Islands following college graduation. Ahhh, when at the Bomba Shack on Tortola :)

Fatman returns to The Bomba Shack 10 years after the ‘shroom tasting.

You will never read anything I write — criticizing or giving propos to — that I have not personally tried myself. Mushrooms are just gross. And you KNEW this was coming from Fatman: DO NOT even get me started on putting these dirty, slimy piece shit on pizza. People that do this had better damn well be on the drug first.

I can see Bostonians adding shit-based food to shitty pizza, but shit, man!

While I may have failed to be as eloquent in illustrating my hatred of mushrooms in the written form a la my aforementioned The Eats blogging peers, I prefer to “take it to the streets”. Look no further than the Facebook page for Mushroom Haters – “A place for mushroom haters everywhere to discuss their hatred for mushrooms”.

There is a reason they are called SHIiTake

When you eat something nasty, they say you turn green. Well mushrooms are so nasty that if you lived in a village of them, you’d turn blue. If you don’t get that reference, you are too young!

Fatman signing off — hint coming — la, la, la la la la…la, la la la la.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY KTEB!!

28 Dec

Hello everyone! Today is one of the best days of the year…no it’s not Christmas (that was 3 days ago), no it’s not 4th of July (hello, it’s cold outside) and no, it’s not YOUR birthday (well maybe it is) – it is KTEB’s Birthday! YAY!

I love birthdays, especially when they are for people that I really care about. The Love Muffin can attest, I talk about birthdays for other people, like they’re my own. And today’s birthday is super special because it’s not only for a friend and blogging cohort, but for someone that I admire and am so happy that they are part of my life.

She’s celebrating in South Carolina today, so let’s make her feel really special and send all of the good thoughts and wishes down to her!

Bacon chocolate cake

Here’s wishing you a bacon filled, Chick-fil-a eating, and pickle-less birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KTEB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~cdog

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