I’m changing the feel of this blog to cooking and crafting. More specifically healthy cooking. I am attempting to go lose some weight, be a runner and be healthy overall. Also included in, preparing for the wedding in 2012 
All these exciting new things need time to happen so why not start now.
I’ll try my best to update both blogs, but for now I’ll most likely be focusing on my fitness one. Check it out here: polkadottedrunner.wordpress.com
Apparently I’m going to stop making promises about updating this on the regular as I can’t seem to do it. Work, school and life seem to get in the way. Hopefully, with the end of the semester the craziness dies down and I’m able to catch up. I haven’t been cooking or baking as much because of time, but I have tried a few new recipes.
Additionally, a good friend of mine and I are starting our own baking business on the side of our already crazy hectic life schedules, just in time for the holidays. We’ll be offering cookies, cakes, cupcakes, pies and any other sweet treat your heart desires to sell. We’ll either make them for you or send you all the ingredients in a nice package and all you’ll have to do is add the perishables, like milk and eggs. Please check us out Also if you’ve had one of our tasty treats feel free to send me an email with a review so we can post it on our site! It would be great to get this up and running. I love baking, but I don’t need to eat it at all so it’s a great fix to sell what we make and guarantee a great home-made treat
Email us your orders or reviews here: courtingsweetness@gmail.com
For my next ice cream challenge I decided to go for gold and attempt a chocolate peanut butter flavor. This would be my favorite combination for ice cream, as well as NB’s so it was a win-win in my book. Again, I used Ben & Jerry’s chocolate as a base.
You will need:
4 ounces Unsweetened chocolate
1 cup Milk (doesn’t specify, I used 1%)
2 large Eggs
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Heavy or whipping cream
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 pinch Salt
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter Don’t use the natural kind, as the oil won’t freeze correctly)
4 5th Avenue Bars, or whatever chocolate peanut butter candy you prefer
First I chopped the 5th Avenue Bars into 1/2 inch chunks and put them into a covered container, so I could freeze them, while I made the base.
For the chocolate base, start with a double broiler with hot water, but make sure it’s not boiling. I don’t have a formal double broiler so I used a heat-proof bowl over a sauce pan. Place the unsweetened chocolate into the double broiler.
Stir until fully melted and smooth, it will be thick.
Next gently whisk in the milk, until smooth.
Remove the chocolate mixture from heat, cover and place into the refrigerator for 1-3 hours, until cold, the time will depend on your fridge.
After it’s cooled down, start mixing the basic base. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, until their fluffy and light in color. (I used a bowl that had been in the freezer, which is why the sides look a little different, this wasn’t necessary)
Next, add the sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, blend after each addition. Once fully incorporated, mix one minute more. When you’re adding the sugar, the mix becomes slightly thicker.
Now whisk in the heavy cream and pinch of salt. Once it’s added and blended, take the chocolate base out of the fridge and add to the cream base.
Whisk until fully incorporated.
Remove 1 cup of the ice cream before placing into the mixer and add the 1/2 cup of peanut butter to it.
Put the remaining mixture, into your ice cream maker bowl. Let mix for 20 minutes, or how ever long your mixer takes to become a thick ice cream consistency.
Once it’s reached a thicker ice cream state, add the frozen 5th Avenue chunks and the chocolate peanut butter combination and let mix for 5 extra minutes. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of this. Once you’ve let it mix, transfer mix to a freezer safe container and freeze for 6 hours (again, your freezer may take less or more time).
Now, it’s time for a tasty treat!
Over the summer I played around with the lovely ice cream maker that I inherited from someone who couldn’t master the ice cream process. Knowing full well that my boyfriend was a scream, as he called it, junky I quickly started doing research and practice to master the art of ice cream making. So began my quest, I consulted with the experts, Ben & Jerry, for this challenge, reading about the process or art of ice cream making.
Their book, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book, taught me a lot and from there I was ready to take on the art of ice cream making.
This is the basic sweet cream base, a creamy, medium, not too sweet, flavor.
Before you start make sure that your freezer bowl that attaches to your ice cream maker had been in the freezer for enough time to get frozen, or if you need rock salt and some friends to throw around a ball that you have that too!
2 large Eggs
3/4 cup Sugar
2 cups Heavy or whipping cream
1 cup Milk (it didn’t specify, so I used 1%)
1 tsp of Vanilla extract
Start with a large bowl and whisk the 2 eggs until light and fluffy.
Next you want to gradually add the sugar. I choose to do this 1/4 c at a time. Whisk after each addition, the base will begin to gradually get thicker, once fully mixed, whisk for one minute longer.
Once the sugar is fully incorporated, gently whisk in the heavy cream and milk all at once. Whisk until combined. Add the vanilla and whisk one minute more.
Now you can either put this into the ice cream maker of your choice for about 20 minutes or until gets to an ice cream like consistency.
I chose to add some chopped up health bar to mine to experiment with chunks. To do this you’ll need 4 bars of health bar, preferably chilled or frozen.
In Ben & Jerry’s book, it says they would drop boxed of Heath Bar from 6 feet high to break the candy into perfect size chucks. I didn’t have a box nor a place that was 6 feet up so I just chopped it into reasonable sized pieces.
Once the ice cream reached it’s semi-hard consistency I added these bits to the mixer and let it run for about 5 minutes more. I then moved the ice cream from the mixing bowl to a freezer bowl so I could freeze it for 4 hours.
And there you have it, Sweet Cream Heath Bar ice cream. It was creamy and tasty and the Heath Bar gave just the right amount of crunch!
This morning I woke up with the nastiest, non-alcohol, non-sleep deprived, driven headache I’ve ever had in my life (and I still have it!). The only thing I can attribute it to is having spent12 hours plus in the kitchen this weekend (or the impending storm that might be rolling through, but really I’m ignoring that more plausible cause). The later part of this weekend, after spending time with some of my favorites, was spent baking and cooking, perfecting family recipes and sampling new ones. Here it goes, I managed to make 3 loaves of bread, 2 kinds of ice cream, cookies, gravy (red sauce for all the non-RI Italians), meatballs and lasagna, phew.
I have pictures and recipes from them all minus the bread, which I’ll create separate posts for, but the bread was so easy. I used Nick’s bread maker and quickly tried to master the art of being an bread maker. The first loaf attempted was the White/French Bread recipe. I say this is easy because all you do is add the ingredients to the bread canister in the order given, press a few buttons and wait for (what is supposed to be) amazingly fresh bread. All recipes are for 1-1/2 pound loafs.
White/French Bread for the Breadman Bread maker:
1-1/8 c warm water
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1-1/2 tsp salt
3 c flour (I used bread flour, you can use all purpose)
1-1/2 tsp active yeast
Add all ingredients in the order listed. When using salt, add with liquids and keep separate from yeast (It will cause the yeast not to work correctly)! After you add all these together press the magic button and it’ll work its magic…hopefully. My first batch, I added the salt near the yeast and it made the bread way to salty. The second batch was much better, but it was still rather dense. I decided I would try a different bread and see how that came out (Much better!)
The second type of bread I tried was Cinnamon raisin bread, I had my doubts as I didn’t do too well with the white bread mixture. This bread was perfect, (besides being able to add more raisins), light, fluffy, and slightly sweet!
1 c warm water
1 Tbsp butter or vegetable oil (I used butter)
2 eggs
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp cinnamon
3 c flour
1 package bread maker yeast
3/4 c raisins
The most important thing about making bread is to keep the salt and the yeast separate. I added the salt to my wet ingredients before adding the dry and made a small well for the yeast in the flour. A note on adding the raisins: Some breadmakers have an add fruit or nuts feature that you can use to mix in, mine did not so I just added them in the beginning so I didn’t have to worry about the bread!
An office pot luck has me stumped. Dessert or main dish? Meat or vegetarian? I have plenty of ideas, but not sure which to execute. I’m leaning towards 2 smaller dishes, one side and one dessert. I’m also leaning towards vegetarian since I don’t know everyone’s preferences and I’m confident in my vegetarian skills. I’m thinking of making a play on a caprice salad with plum tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil and balsamic. I’m going to hallow out the plum tomatoes, put a small ball of mozzarella in, cut a small piece of basil and drizzle with balsamic, we’ll see how it comes out and if it can work out according to my vision.
For the small desert I’m thinking about a strawberry almond tart I’ve previously made for a friend’s bbq from a Cooking Light magazine or a challenging cookie. I wanted to make WANM’s margarita cupcakes but don’t think they’d be an appropriate lunch choice even if I don’t brush with tequila, I think they’ll have to wait for a happy hour luncheon. Steering myself away from the tart because I’ve made it before and I really enjoy challenging myself to make new things, although the tart is perfectly summer and oh so tasty, but I’m not exactly sure if anyone is allergic to nuts, as I try to stay away from any kind if I’m making for a group. I’m also the type to pick something that can wow people as that is my mission in challenging myself. As I make my decision I’ll be sure to send an update!
So in my earlier post I briefly mentioned that I have new subjects to test my food out on now. These people I’m referring to are the boy’s co workers because I’ve already subjected mine to a lot at the moment. Since NB has an amazing kitchen I’ve found myself fiddling around with his old, but amazing cooking tools.
I’ve made some airplane shaped brownies for his work as he is an aircraft mechanic and they were supposedly a hit. Also they have sampled my salty turtle cookies, which I wasn’t completely proud of, but they were okay. I’m going to have to tweak them the next time I make them. NB also has an ice cream maker, how long have I wanted one of those? A long time! Finally something to work out in my favor! Sues of WANM had a very tempting recipe on their site the other day for Mint Oreo and I desperately wanted to try it. I attempted it twice, the first time was way to minty and the freezer at my place turned it into a freezer burned rock overnight. The second time was much better and it tasted great! While NB was going through his cook books he found a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cookbook, I can’t wait to try making their ice cream!!
I’ve also been able to test out new dinner recipes on NB and his friends and I’ve also been taught some new things too! The other night I made mushroom and spinach manacotti, über easy and über tasty! I used the ricotta cheese, as I love ricotta and don’t know how I feel about cottage cheese in my pasta, one day I’ll give it a shot. Also the other night I grilled up some salmon, I usually like my salmon with lemon, but I didn’t have any so I whipped up some djion, sour cream, dill sauce and it was superb, I need to find other things to eat it with it was that good!
Recently, okay tonight I inherited a wii fit. NB bought it for his parents last Christmas and since they don’t use it he stole it for me. I need to play with it more, but I already knew I’d love the balance game of putting the marbles into the holes and then found alpine skiing one, which is the greatest! I can’t wait to do it everyday and get back on the fitness kick! No more eating like crap and not being able to get in my full workout due to work and traveling!
More cooking and hopefully more running/exercise updates to follow!
My 2007 Silver Toyota Corolla turned 3 today. It marks the day I picked up my car from the dealer and drove off the lot with this one and what did I get it for its birthday, but a total front end replacement. Yes, the front end needed some body work, but it wasn’t major so I didn’t feel the need to fix it. However, my lovely car decided it wanted to get itself a face lift and communicated with other cars to get it smashed 
so it got it’s wish and had a total overhaul of its front end. Happy Birthday Car!
Today also marks the anniversary of a very special meeting, I met one of my extremely good friends today, exactly 3 years ago today, who we’ll call T for turtle. Never have I experienced a life changing friendship as I had experienced with T, although this friendship started in a unique manner, a semi-chance meeting you might say, aided by the internet, fate is what I’d call it. My friendship with T grew strong quickly with 4 hour phone calls once or twice a day, an hour and fifteen minute drive, beer education and general understanding. It is from this short-lived friendship that I truly believe in the saying that people come into your life for a reason, no matter how long they stay, there’s a reason and meaning for it all. Through T’s and my friendship I learned to appreciate the small things in life and go through enjoying yourself. I still keep these lessons with me as I’ve gone through life, it’s really the only thing I can do to keep T with me. You see T took his own life about 235 years ago suddenly and it broke my heat. Although I keep in touch with family a bit, it won’t replace the friendship we had, nor can I aid in the missing piece of their heart, but I believe that this does help a little. Staying true to life lessons that T taught me has helped me be truer to myself than I would have been without our friendship, been more self-aware, introduced to great things that I might not have discovered without him, have amazing memories of our short, but meaningful friendship. This is a thank you to T for all the small things he has continued to do for me, even if he’s not here in person, but I still feel it in spirit.
It’s been 2 months and a day since my last blog post and much has changed. I can’t believe I’ve neglected this again, I’m going to try and work on being better about updating and sharing my new life path with you all.
Running has been held up a bit as the Phish show I attended in the end of June took apart of my knee and ankle with it as it left. Slowly I’ve been trying to get back on the horse, but it’s been hard due to other life movements, which I’ll update more on later. My goal is still to do 3 miles in 20 minutes, right now I’m at 31, better, but need to get up there.
Cooking has also taken a bit of backseat until recently. Last night I actually made amazing spinach mushroom manicotti from scratch, which I think confirms I’m back on the cooking and baking road, which has been easier than the running one for sure. Made some Salty Turtle (Chocolate cookies, light sea salt, caramel and pecans) cookies recently as well and they turned out okay, some changes need to be made in order to add them to the books to keep. Also made carrot cake whoopie pies this week, which were relatively easy and quite tasty, my coworkers clearly enjoyed as I had none left! I have a few things I want to try in the upcoming weeks, good thing I have new test subjects!
As far as Summer goes, it went by way too fast, it’s already August 4th! How did that happen. Last time I stopped to look it was the beginning of June! Oh my how things have changed in such little times, addresses, relationships, work and priorities. Since June I have moved, little by little, but completed the rest of that last weekend with some great help. It was sad to say goodbye to Vienna and my NoVA life, but I think I made the right decision for me and moved to a quaint little town in the Shenandoah Valley, which is gorgeous, but not near a major city or my lovely friends. DC is only an hour and a half way, so I will not be too far away and still able to enjoy all the area’s offerings. Being in the Mountainous area surrounding SV, I’ve been able to really get back to my roots and back to where I came from and enjoy gorgeous views and sites. The area is extremely similar to where I grew up in RI , which I find ironic that I love my new home so much, since I spent about 7 years running away from the possibility of in the rural area I called home during my childhood. I guess I’ve come full circle and the place I’ve come to love reminds me of my home a mere 8 hours away.
downtown Winchester, it’s so cute and quaint. I’ve always wanted to live in a town that had a main street and historical feel, I’ve found it!
I fell in love with this old building at the Blandy Experimental Farm ( VA’s State Arboretum) and how could you not love this place with this gorgeous view?
I was also lucky enough to stumble upon a great guy who will be referenced to as, NB, in my post from now on. We’ve had many adventures already, such as concerts galore and can’t wait to see what else comes up
More on life updates and progress soon. As for now I have a massive headache from looking at the computer for too long! Stay tuned!
I’ve been determined to become a better runner and have been trying to make good on running outside more than the treadmill. I’ve gone twice outside so far this week. Yesterday I pushed myself to run before going to Starbucks and I ended up doing a 2.38 mile loop around the metro. It was quite hot and I think that effected me a bit and made me not run as much as I could have as I stopped to walk a bit more than I usually do. I’ve been trying to find different paths around my house as I know you’re not supposed to run the same way all the time because of creepers! I’d really like to get up to doing about 4 miles or so. I’m on my way to it, but it seems like it’s harder to run outside than on the treadmill since it tends to pull you along with the track.
