That’s right, Window Shopping Wednesday is back!!

I just love handmade and vintage shops too much to not post about them. I also have an incurable addiction to baking/crafting supplies so there’s that too. Lately I have been drooling over the vintage kitchen gear at French Attic Finds. It all reminds me of my grandmother and makes me want to do my entire kitchen up with items from this shop.

French Attic Finds is a weekly updated Etsy shop with treasures from France!

Just look!!

It’s been a super busy, super fun Valentine’s Day around here today! Here’s the parade of the love fest we sent to school!

First up, for the teachers, we made the same caramel corn as for Miss America but I halved it and made the other half purple. I packaged them up in baggies, and used these super cute tags from Our Best Bites – here’s the PDF for them. They say ‘Just popping through with a Valentine for you’. I used red and white baker’s twine that I just ordered from Keeley Behling to wrap them all up. There’s just something about baker’s twine that makes me feel like a serious domestic goddess. I also dipped pretzel rods in melted chocolate and rolled them in pink sprinkles, then wrapped those in parchment paper and tied with more baker’s twine. Love!!

These adorable little friendship bracelets were for Wee One #2’s class. They are just three strand braids that we made together; green/orange/blue for the boys and pink/light pink/purple for the girls. They’re strung through another sweet printable that says ‘our class would knot be the same without you’. Ha! I know, it’s mega uber cheese, but dudes please, it’s Valentine’s Day, what do you want from me?! The printable for these is from Dandee Designs over here.
These are my favorite treat I’ve ever sent to Wee One #1’s class. They are jumbo Rolos (the kind with 10 in the package) wrapped in red construction paper. I secured the construction paper to the wrapper with double sided tape so it couldn’t be seen and I also rolled half a black pipe cleaner in with it! Instant stick of dynamite! Love it! I made the labels in Photoshop with a similar font from the one it was originally pictured with. This idea came from Make It Do. Our oldest will be 12 this summer, so he’s borderline too old for this shit, you know? It’s hard to find ideas that still fit the holiday without being too lame for him to be down. This? Totally worked!
Wee One #2 wanted a little something extra for the kids in her class so we made a fairly classic chocolate covered Oreo for each of them and to keep it festive we added red and pink sprinkles! They’re pictured drying with the equally festive chocolate covered pretzel rods included in the teacher’s loot.
The Oreos were hard to package, because short of bringing a tray of them into the school, how do you wrap an individual chocolate covered Oreo?! My solution was to plunk each one in a pink cupcake liner, wrap with pink tissue paper and secure with — you guess it! BAKER’S TWINE. I need help, is there a support group for this sort of thing?

I’m participating in Menu Monday at Organizing Junkie

My oven died a few days ago, so this Menu Monday is a creative one! Just as I had finished mopping up my tears over discovering it wasn’t just a fuse issue, my wonderful husband delivered another striking blow – it could take over a month for us to get the part our oven needs. Shake it off, May! It’s ok, there are plenty of stove top, no bake and slow cooker options. Deeeeep yoga breaths. Ok so I think I’m alright.

This Week’s Menu (Feb 13-19)
*In case you’re wondering why I’m making two meals every night, I made some dietary changes that were important to me earlier this year and my family is a little slow to jump in. They usually join me in a healthy breakfast and lunch and I refuse to bicker over dinner.

Sunday – Tacos for the fam, Tofu Nuggets for me (yes again, I’d eat them everyday if I could with homemade BBQ sauce)

I know this recipe is not mentioned at all in my menu for this week but let’s totally ignore that and be thankful for moderately healthy cookies. If you like your Oatmeal Cookies Granny-style, just add a cup of raisins at the very end and mix them in with a wooden spoon. None of us are fans of raisins in baked goods (except maaaaybe cinnamon buns but even then not really), so I didn’t use any.

Grandmother’s Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies – From Good Housekeeping Cook Book (p. 722)

3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats, uncooked

As you’d expect, cream the butter and the sugars together first. Then add the egg and vanilla.
Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a smallish bowl before you tip that bowl into the wet mixture. Beat till just combined.
Finally, mix in the oats with a wooden spoon (this is where you’d add raisins if you’re so inclined).
Bake for about 15 minutes at 350!

I love how no matter the time of year, no matter the holiday – there is a candy corn for it. Of course I was aware of the original orange, yellow and white candy corn of Halloween, though honestly, I never really liked it. Two years ago I needed some for a recipe and my husband, the saint that he is, came home with like three times the amount I asked for so the kids snacked on it for weeks till it was gone. Then a couple of months later he was back at the bulk store buying some rando ingredient like arrowroot flour or chia seeds or something and he texts me that there is red, white and green Christmasy candy corn. I was way too excited about this discovery but had a lot of purposeful Christmas baking to do and none of it included candy corn, so I totally forgot about it. Months later, he found himself searching for candy that I could use as bunny ears for the Easter cake pops I was making (the post on that to come in time for Easter this year) and came across, yes – pastel candy corn in various colors with yellow and white (pink, green, blue and purple). He brought home way too much of it, I used a lot of them as bunny ears and way too many of them as late night snacks. Theeeen, just a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for pink and red M&Ms to make Valentiney cookies and in the bulk bin right beside them was…wait for it…Valentiney candy corn. Red, pink and white.

I bought two scoops with absolutely no plan for them at all, because I’m a total rebel like that.

Eventually I decided that poking them into a tray of blondies during their last few minutes in the oven was an excellent place for them to go. I was totally right, these babies are serious good. They’re good without the candy corn too but I think the colors make the tray look more festive, yes?

The original recipe was found over at Simple Recipes.

1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch salt
1 cup of all-purpose flour

It comes together as simply as you’d expect it to!

First whisk the melted butter and the brown sugar, then whisk in the egg and vanilla.
Now just whisk in the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt) and spread it into a greased brownie pan. Bake for about 20-25 minutes at 350F! I took mine out at the 20 minute mark to poke the candy corn in and then popped them back in for another 10 minutes.

Reeces Pieces are one of those things I cannot possibly just have one handful of. I can usually restrain myself if they are in the room, but if I cave and have one, I will likely just keep noming on them until they are totally gone. I know people who are not so into the combining of peanut butter with other already delicious things (like chocolate), and I’ve decided they are totally insane. Peanut butter and chocolate? How does that pose a problem!?

Anyhoo, moving along. I made these a few months ago – actually a little longer ago than that even, but the recipe is good and the pictures make me want to whip up another batch and go hide in the laundry room to eat them. Ahem.

The peanut butter cookie recipe is straight from the much loved (and much falling apart and really super sad looking) Good Housekeeping cookbook I’ve had since just after I got married. For those of you playing along at home, that was approximately eleventy billion years ago. When you’d normally toss in a cup of chocolate chips at the end of the recipe, I tossed in a cup of Reeces Pieces instead. Mmmmm.

Oddly, I was texting with my cousin Jenn while I made them and she had made these cookies the day before, that’s a little weird, yes? Or just proof that we are connected on some weird culinary level? You know because Reeces Pieces chocolate chip cookies are such culinarily advanced treats, dontcha know?!

Via Good Housekeeping Cook Book

1 1/14 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup Reeces Pieces

It’s the simplest thing in the world. Well, very close to it anyway. Mix sugars with butter, add the egg and vanilla. Mix the rest in a separate bowl and then tip that bowl into the wet ingredients. Voila!	When it’s all mixed up and you have peanut butter cookie dough, fold in the Reeces Pieces with a wooden spoon (your mixer paddle may crush them) and spoon them onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. About a tablespoon each.
Bake them for 15-20 minutes at 350F.

There are times when you want to come out of the kitchen with a decadent several-layer cake to a room full of friends. Or when you want to serve homemade ice cream on the back deck to your family after a barbecue. Then there are times when you want to make something so simple and yet addicting and amazing that it borderlines on ‘trashy’. I mean, maybe any recipe that includes mini marshmallows can be classified as trashy. I’m not smack talking, I’m a serious fan of trashy food. Dips for fruit that include marshmallows? Yes please. Ice Salad (aka Jello set with ice cream)? Um, totally. Tater Tot Casserole, the king of all trashy food? Give it here! So when I call this trashy, that’s not a bad thing – just honest. More honesty for you? You’ll eat as many as the kids will (if not more) and then you’ll make another batch.

So, just as you would do for usual Rice Krispie squares, melt the butter and marshmallows together.	Once the marshmallow is pretty much melted, add the peanut butter.
Mix! Mix! Mix!	Now add the cinnamon and honey, use less if you don’t want them so ‘cinnamony’.
Now you have a magnificent peanut butter marshmallow mound of goo.	Pour that goo over your Rice Krispies!
Mmmmm, peanut buttery goooooo.	Mix it quickly!
I used my tablespoon to shape these balls. If you have a mini ice cream scoop it works even better. Whatever you use, you’re going for a uniform shape.
You could stop there – but no. Melt about a cup of semi sweet chocolate (either in the microwave or over a double boiler) with a little vegetable oil and dip the balls in it.	If you have small children in the kitchen, they will likely suggest you add candy to the tops.
If you’re really feeling it, use candy melts instead of chocolate! You can use whatever color or combo of colors you want!	Purple is sort of a big deal around here.

Phone calls and notes in the mail can convey love and thoughtfulness over a long distance, but I have found that nothing says ‘we love you’ like homemade treats in the mail. 🙂

These treats were made for the brother of one of my best friends. Her brother and my husband have also become friends over the years and those are the connections that make me happiest to see happen. They’re totally random and stuff like that can’t be forced so when it happens on it’s own, I just love to witness it. He has always been a fan of my cooking, baking, and slightly odder kitchen experiments – so this year I’m sending him a random treat in the mail once a month. January’s treat was Homemade Twix Bites.

This is one of those times when you go all out when you say you’re making something from scratch. If I had said I was making these from scratch and used store bought caramels I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night (I’ll let you decide if I’m kidding or not). Essentially, you make the caramel first, then you measure it out and find that you need to make another batch of caramel because you’re half a cup short. Ahem. Theeeen you make the shortbread base, make the caramel layer (with the scratch caramel of course) and pour it over the base. Once it’s set you cut out bar shapes, dip them in chocolate and you’re done. HOWEVER, that last step sounds a lot simpler and prettier than it really is. When making cake pops, or chocolate covered nuts or berries, it’s a lot easier to handle because you’re dealing with much smaller pieces to dip in chocolate. Also, those things don’t melt when they come into contact with liquid chocolate. The caramel, even chilled in the fridge for hoooours was totally running and falling apart on me when I tried to add the chocolate layer. So I took a moment, made a martini and wished I had bought the chocolate bar molds when I bought the wee chocolate square molds – and then I thought oh yeah those wee chocolate square molds!! I cut my bars into bites and tah dah!! Much, much easier and way prettier looking too.

To make the caramel put all the ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Just dump it all in.
Mix it up.	Microwave it for 6 minutes, taking it out every 2 minutes to stir it.
Let it set.	Now start the cookie base! Preheat the oven to 300F, and combine the icing sugar with the butter and the vanilla extract.
Add the flour and mix till incorporated.	Mix! Mix! Mix! Spread it in a 9″ x 13″ (ish) pan and bake for about 35 minutes.
Mmmm fresh caramel….	Mmmm fresh shortbread….
While the cookie base is cooling, it’s time to make the caramel layer. Pour 2 cups of caramel into a saucepan.	Add 3 tablespoons of heavy cream to the caramel and cook.
This sheet of shortbread is about to be seriously upgraded.	Cover it evenly in caramel sauce.
Now it needs to be popped into the fridge for AT LEAST a couple of hours, leaving it overnight will save you much heartache.	The chocolate layer is just the standard, melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or in a heat safe bowl over a pan of simmering water) and add the vegetable shortening.
This is where it got tricky. It is near impossible to ‘dip the bars in chocolate’ without the caramel sliding off. So I put down a layer of chocolate for the bottoms.	Then I slathered the chocolate over top. My husband ate these ones. They’re good but ugly.
See? Yummy but ugly. So very ugly.
This is when I had that stroke of genius I mentioned earlier. LE DUH. So I filled the mold with chocolate & put a bite sized version on top.	I covered those babies with more chocolate and voila!
Just as yummy and now even prettier. I recognize they will not be winning any presentation prizes, but that’s alright.
Since they were mailed, I wanted their little caramel souls to be protected so I wrapped them up in tin foil.	Individually!
In case you were wondering, yes he loved them! I’m sure he felt the love that was my husband & I messing around in the kitchen at 3am making these chocolate treats!

My most eager baker assisted me with this one. Actually, it’s gotten to the point now where I’m the one assisting her, which I totally adore! She gets really into it and unlike the usual ‘dump, stir, lose interest’ category that most kids fall into (including Wee One #1), she really wants to be involved in every part of it. So sweet!!

The weird thing about cooking and baking your way through cookbooks is there will eventually be a recipe no one wants to try. For some reason the word ‘cheesecake’ doesn’t sit right with the kids, and my husband and I are not huge fans of dairy. Well, correction. Dairy isn’t a fan of either of us. Once it was out of the oven though, and the whole house had this wonderful cheesecakey smell going on, the kids caved and each had a piece. And then another. And then more the next day till it was gone.

This was recipe #11 from Baking With Kids!

The recipe has you crushing crackers, you could just use ground graham (or wheaten) crackers.	Melt the butter and mix it in with the crumbs and the sugar.
Mix it till it’s mostly combined.	Once it’s in the well greased springform pan, press the mixture flat.
Now mix the ricotta and sour cream in a big bowl with your mixer (or a spoon).	Crack the eggs into a separate bowl to avoid shells in your cheesecake!
Tip the egss in!	She likes to watch the kitchen power tools very carefully.
Now add the icing sugar and the ground almonds. This is also when we grated the lemons and added both the zest and the juice from the lemons to the mix.	Sooooo creamy. Pour it over the crust!
Normally I’d say ‘sprinkle the slivered almonds on top and away you go’ but this Wee One is very specific about the placement of each almond sliver.	It’s her work of edible art!
Bake at 300F for 1 1/4 hours, then turn off the oven and leave it inside without opening the door for another 1 1/2 hours till the oven cools off. Then take the cheesecake out of the springform and serve it either as it is or with fresh berries!

When I first read this recipe, courtesy of non other than the most delicious Bakerella, I sat stunned. I was in awe of the amazingness of the overall concept, I was totally paralyzed by the urge to get up and make it right now and I was also a little concerned for my waistline. She even put a warning on the most decadent picture of this extremely sinful treat that says MAY COMPLICATE WEIGHT LOSS. Indeed, Bakerella. Indeed.

I did get up and make them right away though. They were ready for the kids after school treat and dudes – they were extremely happy kids when they walked in and smelled this seriousness. I was declared best mommy ever once they tasted them – duh.

The simplicity of this recipe makes it all the more awesome. If you can make chocolate chip cookies and you can make brownies, you’re golden. The only thing I am ever not keen on with Miss Bakerella is all the boxed stuff used in the recipe. So the original recipe calls for a Betty Crocker brownie mix and a Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix.

I however? Just. Couldn’t. Do. It.

So I made a double batch of Good Housekeeping’s cocoa brownie batter and a double batch of Good Housekeeping’s chocolate chip cookie dough.

Brownie Batter: 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 cup butter 1 cup sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract	Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract
Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan.	I doubled the recipe so I’ve got a whopping 2 cups of sugar here!
Mix the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder.	Melt the sugar in the butter and add the eggs and vanilla.
Then add the dry ingredients and mix till it’s all combined. Brownie batter done!	Start on the cookie dough now by measuring out the sugars and the butter.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, with the egg and vanilla.	Measure out the chocolate chips and add them in too.
Cookie dough done!	Now comes the magic!
Grease a 13″ x 9″ pan and pour the brownie batter into it. Then dollop the cookie dough over it. Just look at it! YUM!	Bake it for about 35-40 minutes at 350F!
These brownies turned out so well words cannot describe.

So I know this will sound like gushing, and we have only ‘bumped into each other online’ a couple of times, but I’m a little in love with Mama Pea of Peas and Thank You. If you read her blog with any regularity at all I have no doubt you are a little in love with her too. Last week, for example, ‘Tonight we all needed a little comic relief (or a horse tranquilizer)…‘, I read that and thought, HOLY CRAP!! THAT’S MY HOUSE! Also? One of her blog tags is ‘pissing and moaning’. Love!!

I know, I’m such a creeper but really I love her extra for these bars, she concocted a recipe for gluten-free vegan chocolate chip granola bars that Wee Ones #1 & #3 love. They’re called Zee Bars because she was lamenting in her post on these little babies about the food marketed specifically to kids and how it’s exactly the same as the food marketed to adults, except they’ve slapped a little chocolate on it and spelled kids with a z. Right?! Dammit, my kids can spell! Anyhoo, I am still cooking and baking my way through her cookbook (I made the Fabulous French Toast today for brunch actually….), and I’m still not going to post any recipes from her book. However, this recipe was posted on her website so it’s fair game.

They’re way easy to make and even easier to eat! All you need is:

1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup oat flour (just run 1/2 cup of oats through your food processor)
1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (or another 1/2 cup oat flour)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp non-dairy milk (I used almond)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
stevia to taste (or be a cheater like me and use 1/4 cup brown sugar) I have stevia, but no one likes it!
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I also cheat with this and use 1/2 cup)

If you throw on a little drizzle after the bars are cool you’ll also need:

3 tbsp chocolate chips
1 tsp coconut oil

So first, preheat your oven to 350F and spray your 8×8-ish pan. Theeeeeen, mix the oats, oat flour, protein powder, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and your brown sugar if you’re using it.
Mix up the applesauce, vanilla and almond (or whatever) milk.	Now mix your wet into your dry.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.	Mama Pea describes it as ‘pulling away from the pan’, when you know it’s done.
So so so good. I could knock back a tray of these in an evening – no problem!