Fritos Dessert Bars for Secret Recipe Club

It's Secret Recipe Club reveal day once again. Our group had the month of December off for the holidays but we are back in full force (albeit a little late...our apologies). This month we were assigned a blog filled with fun and creative ideas for families: Making Memories With Your Kids. The blog author is Erin, a single mom with two kids who loves to bake and craft with kids, and it shows. She has tons of wonderful recipes as well as craft and gift ideas, on this great blog.

But we went right for the desserts page and one of the first things we noticed was the Fritos Dessert Bars. Fritos are Amy's favorite snack chip, one of her guilty pleasures, and at first, we couldn't really imagine this recipe. It's a no-bake bar, so it's so easy to make. And when you bite into it, you get everything you could ever ask for in a dessert: crunchy, salty, sweet, and sticky plus a hint of chocolate and peanut butter. Good Lord! We've died and gone to dessert bar heaven.

Speaking of heaven, we brought these to our neighbor's baby's post-Baptism party and they were a huge hit! No one could believe they were made with Fritos or how easy they were, and everyone wanted the recipe. So we just said, "Check out the blog tomorrow morning!!!"

Thanks, Erin, for these magical dessert bars. Chris plans on cutting back the sugar and adding raisins or other dried fruits and making breakfast bars out of them. So good!!!

Fritos Dessert Bars

from Making Memories With Your Kids

Ingredients:

1 10.5-ounce bag Fritos corn chips

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 cup milk chocolate chips

Spray a 9X13 baking pan with cooking spray. Empty Fritos into a large bowl. In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, bring sugar and corn syrup to a boil. Remove from heat and add peanut butter; stir until smooth. Pour mixture over Fritos and gently stir to coat. Pour into prepared pan and using wax paper, press down to spread evenly into the pan. Put chocolate chips in a small zip-lock bag. Microwave for 30 second spurts to melt. Cut off a corner of the bag and drizzle over the Fritos bars. Allow to set, then cut into squares.

Update: Alas, whoever was assigned our blog wasn't able to complete their assignment, so we were "orphaned" this month. One of our recipes will show up next Monday during Group D's reveal day. We will update again then!

Here is a link to the blogger who was assigned to us:  http://rebekahrose.blogspot.ca/2014/01/secret-recipe-club-candy-popcorn.html

Christmas Countdown Wordless Version: Buckeyes

Julia Child's Petit Pots de Creme au Chocolat

Bon anniversaire, Julia Child! Yes, today would have been dear Julia's 100th birthday. To celebrate, we made her Petit Pots de Creme au Chocolat (chocolate cream custards) as the dessert for a small dinner party we are having later for out of town guests. The pots du creme are chilling as we write this, and in about three hours the guests will arrive for grilled ribeyes, corn on the cob and this silky, chocolatey, chilled dessert.

The recipe is from The French Chef Cookbook (Recipes from Julia Child's celebrated first television series), published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1968. It is organized by show number, but there are plenty of indexes to help you find that perfect French recipe you are looking for. There are tons of them, too, for every occasion.

To get you in the celebrating mood while you cook your dinner this evening, click on this - a WGBH-created mash-up of clips from Julia at her best to the tune of Sweet Child O' Mine. What a tribute! And take a look at today's Google logo! Love it!

Rather than publish copyrighted material, we will give you the recipe for the pots de creme via photos. Any one of her books is worth buying, so if you really want the recipe, do the right thing. And, as always, Bon appetit!

Glamping: The Rest of the Story (with recipes for Chocolate-Orange Campfire Cupcakes and Garlic-Scape Pesto)

We teased you with a quick look at our weekend "glamping" (glamour camping) adventure the other day, but today we'll give you the rest of the story, including two recipes. Amy's idea of camping is staying in a 2-star instead of a 3-star hotel. So when good friends T and J came over for a glass or two of wine a few weeks ago, and the subject of camping came up, Amy and J (girly-girls to the end) decided we'd do it as long as it was glamping. Bug-proof tents, blow-up mattresses, hot showers, flush toilets, and most of all, foodie food.

J and T prep our first glamping dinner

We met T years ago when he was working at Williams-Sonoma, so we knew the foodie food was going to happen. He assured us that he had everything we could ever need to create all types of dishes at a campsite. That promise, and Chris's two-burner propane set-up, was hard to resist. Next thing we knew, we found ourselves, with two cars filled to the brim with "gear," at the Barton Cove Recreation and Camping Area in Gill, Massachusetts. Since it was all about the food, we had decided beforehand which couple would take which meals, and now glamping was a go.

Glamping Meal #1 - Iberian Mussels

For our first glamping meal, T and J created an "Iberian Mussels" dish, served over brown rice, spiced with smoked paprika and chorizo sausage. Dessert was "Glamping S'Mores" - a tortilla stuffed with mini-marshmallows and dark chocolate, wrapped in foil and heated in the campfire. How brilliant is that? Let's just say, it was an incredibly tasty start to the weekend.

Leftovers frittata in a makeshift "oven"

In the morning, Chris made a frittata using the leftovers from the night before. When Amy saw T's camping toaster, she had to giggle. This was some serious stuff! After cleaning up the site, we got a call from (Chef) Lise who had plans the night before but was joining us for the rest of the weekend. While she set up, the two couples set off on a two-hour kayaking tour. Amy and J went in a two-person kayak while the boys set off on their own. Turns out Amy and J aren't that good at kayaking, but we had a fabulous time nevertheless.

Charcuterie for snacking

Hungry from all that paddling, we headed back to camp. Lise put out some cucumber, tomato, and onion sandwiches and Amy made a quick charcuterie platter while we prepped for dinner. At home, we had made a garlic scape pesto (recipe below), and the plan was to make a fresh pea risotto topped with the pesto. Lise sauteed some shrimp to go along with. It was a fantastic meal!

Ingredients for the risotto

Chris making the risotto

Lise added some sauteed shrimp

Dinner number two - Pea risotto with garlic scape pesto and sauteed shrimp

For dessert, Amy, having done a little glamping research beforehand, borrowed an idea from the blog Campfire Chic. It was an interactive dessert - everyone grabbed an orange and hollowed it out (saving the juice for Sunday morning mimosas, naturally). In the meantime, Amy made a dark chocolate cake batter and we filled the oranges with it. We wrapped them in foil and baked them in the campfire. If you love those chocolate oranges, or just the taste of chocolate and orange together, you have to try these!

How to make "Chocolate-Orange Campfire Cupcakes"

Step One: Hollow out an orange (keep the top!)

Step Two: Make a batter from store-bought chocolate cake mix

Step Three: Fill the empty orange about 3/4 of the way full

Step Four: Put the top back on the orange

Step Five: Wrap the orange in aluminum foil

Step Six: Place the oranges in the embers of your campfire

and cook for 20 minutes

Step Seven: Carefully remove, let cool, and serve with a spoon!

The next morning, as we wrapped up our glamping adventure, J made an amazing breakfast of scrambled eggs with fried onions, bacon, toast and silver-dollar pancakes. We feasted, broke camp and played a quick game of bocce before heading home. It was a great weekend filled with amazing food and fantastic company. Amy might even consider going glamping again!

Garlic-Scape Pesto

Ingredients:

1 bunch (7-8) garlic scapes

1/4 cup marcona almonds

1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon lemon-infused vinegar

olive oil, enough for desired consistency

In a food processor, chop the garlic scapes finely. Add the marcona almonds and continue to process. Add the parmesan cheese and vinegar and continue to process. Finally, drizzle in the olive oil and puree until you've reached your desired consistency.

Chocolate-Covered Sea Foam (Secret Recipe Club)

Chris writes:

If there is one sort of candy that Amy loves, it's molasses chips; her #2 would be "sea foam," also known as "sponge candy." Growing up, the only place that I remember having it was during the occasional family trip to Mystic Seaport when I was a child. I remember buying it in the general store for a penny (those were the days) and enjoying it until my sister told me it was made out of bad eggs which had turned foamy. Don't get me wrong, I still ate and enjoyed it -- I was a 10 year old boy after all! The next time had it was almost twenty years later when my then-girlfriend-soon-to-be-wife Amy told me the real ingredients when we saw it at Munsons, a local chocolatier. When I saw the recipe on our March Secret Recipe Club assigned blog, Melissa's Cuisine, AND saw how simple the recipe was, it was a no brainer to give it a try.

Chocolate-Covered Sea Foam

recipe from Melissa's Cuisine

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 cup corn syrup

4 tsp baking soda

6 oz chocolate chips

Mix the sugar and the corn syrup in a saucepan over med/high heat until the temp reaches 305 degrees. Add the baking soda. (This will cause the mixture to rapidly foam to almost three times its original volume so be careful not to burn yourself!) Immediately pour it into a pre-greased baking pan and allow to cool. Score lines into the bottom of the candy to help you break it evenly. Heat chocolate in a double boiler and dip pieces. Placed dipped pieces onto wax paper for cooling.

It's that easy.

A big "Thank You" to Melissa for this recipe and the memories it brought back. I am looking forward to everyone's comments (Did you ever lie to your siblings?) as well as hoping my sister will read this and see how much she affected my culinary tastes. Probably not as much as when my mother told me that tapioca was really frog eggs; but that is a different story.

Flourless Chocolate Walnut Torte with Pinot-Noir-Laced Strawberries

Valentine's Day is synonymous with chocolate. Heart-shaped boxes of it, faux-roses shaped from it, kisses and various red and pink and white candies made from it. Yes, we had to have chocolate in our Valentine's Day dessert. And for good measure, something needed to be red. So when Amy spotted this recipe from Dean and Deluca in an old folder on her computer, she knew it was The One, since it had all the necessary V-Day requirements: chocolate, strawberries and red wine. Perfect.

Amy entered into making this dessert a bit hesitantly, having suffered some baking fails in recent memory. And this one seems, at first glance, to be complicated. However, it's not so much complicated as it has several steps, none of which are very difficult, especially if you've made meringues before. Which we have.

Amy poured the berries out of the container and they formed a heart!

(okay, that didn't really happen...)

Use a nice bottle of pinot. You can drink the rest!

Strawberries, pinot noir and sugar

Start to finish, this recipe took about an hour, then it needed time to cool. We didn't bother with the whipped cream, but sprinkled each slice with a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. The torte was light as air, with lots of crunch from the nuts and hints of chocolate that weren't too overpowering. The pinot-noir-laced berries were divine, with their intense berry-sweetness. We loved it, neighbors B, D and J loved it, and Joanne loved it. This one's a real keeper!

Egg yolks mixed with sugar until pale yellow in color

Egg whites mixed with sugar, until stiff glossy peaks form

Fold ingredients together and pour into prepared springform pan

The finished product

Flourless Chocolate Walnut Torte with Pinot-Laced Strawberries

slightly adapted from this recipe found on epicurean.com

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup Pinot Noir

1 pound fresh strawberries, hulled and halves (reserve a couple for a garnish!)

5 eggs, separated

1/2 cup plus 5 tablespoons sugar

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

8 ounces chopped walnuts

confectioners sugar

In a medium bowl, combine the sugar and Pinot Noir. Whisk until the sugar is dissolved. Add the strawberries and allow to sit for 2-3 hours. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with a round of parchment paper. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks until pale in color. Gradually beat in the 1/2 cup sugar and continue beating until the mixture is thickened. In another large bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Gradually beat in the 5 tablespoons of sugar into the egg whites, one tablespoon at a time. Continue to beat until stiff, glossy peaks form. Alternately fold the chopped chocolate, chopped walnuts and egg white meringue mixture into the yolk mixture by thirds until well blended. Pour into the parchment-lined springform pan and bake about 30 minutes, until the torte is firm to the touch, does not jiggle when shaken, has risen to the top of the pan, and has turned golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool inside the pan on a wire rack. Once cooled, run a knife around the edges of the pan to detach. Invert onto a plate and peel off the parchment paper. Invert again onto a serving plate. Cut the torte into wedges and top with strawberries and a dusting of confectioners sugar.