Wordless Wednesday

Foodie Friday

I had so much fun making Christmas cookies this year, that I'm almost starting to think I might like baking! ;-) Here are two of the recipes and a couple pictures of the goodies since, unless you live in my neighborhood, you probably won't get a taste of these (Sorry Christy!).

Flourless (Gluten Free) Peanut Butter Kisses

2 cups peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1.5 tsp. vanilla

Mix all ingredients together, shape dough into 1.5" balls, and roll in sugar. Bake at 350 F for about 9 minutes. Gently press Hershey's kiss on top of warm cookie (or just place the kiss on top, and it will melt a bit, as cookies have a tendency to crumble.). Makes around 3 1/2 dozen.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Cream Cheese Filling

(based on this recipe)

2 (18.25 ounce) packages spice cake mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
1 container of whipped cream cheese frosting

Blend the first 4 ingredients together, and drop quarter-sized balls of dough onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 F. Let cookies stand on cookie sheet for 5-6 minutes before placing them on a cooling rack. After cookies have completely cooled, spread cream cheese frosting between 2 cookies. This recipe easily makes 4-dozen cookies (or 2 dozen "sandwiches). So you could definitely cut it in half and have at least a dozen servings, especially if you actually used "quarter-sized" drops (most of mine were 50% larger than that and required 12-14 minutes of baking).

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PhD Comics

Foodie Friday

We discovered an amazing, and fairly healthy snack/side a couple of months ago that I wanted to share with you. I've made "homemade" potato chips in the past by thinly slicing up some potatoes and putting them into hot oil in the pan. Well, that works decently, but (unless you have a deep fryer) it makes quite a bit of mess and it's sometimes difficult to get the oil at the right temperature and keep it there...not to mention all that oil that the potatoes soak up! Anywho, I discovered a great way to do it in the microwave with practically no oil! I didn't believe it when I first read about it online, but sure enough, I tried it and we liked these as much as the oil-saturated fried version! Here's how you do it:

Clean and thinly slice (1/16"-1/8" thick) potatoes. I found that about 1 small-medium potato per serving worked well, and I didn't peel them, since I'm looking for easy, not time consuming. Also, I used our food processor (which meant cutting the potatoes in half), but you could use a mandolin, vegetable/cheese slicer, or just a knife.

Rinse/soak the slices in cold water for 5-10 minutes. Some recipes I saw online don't call for this, but I figured it removes some of the starch and couldn't hurt. If you're looking to shave off a little more time, try eliminating this step.

Arrange a single layer of potatoes on a piece of parchment paper that has been lightly coated with oil (vegetable or olive), and try to keep the slices from touching each other since they will stick together during the cooking process.

Spray/drizzle a little oil over the potatoes and add seasoning (salt, garlic powder, chili powder, creole seasoning, etc.). Some recipes do not call for any oil at all, so you could try leaving this off, but I think it might help prevent sticking and potentially add to crispiness.

Microwave the chips on high for about 5 minutes until they are lightly browned and crispy. You might need to flip them over halfway through, but we had success even when we didn't do this. Make sure to check every minute or two (and maybe do a taste test) since cooking time will vary based on the thickness of your slices and your specific microwave.

Repeat until all the chips are finished, and store in an airtight container for 3 days. This is the one thing I've yet to try...for how long can they really be stored? We've always just eaten ours right away...in fact, so fast that I wasn't able to take a picture of the final product!

So, there you have it...a quick and fairly easy way to make healthy, homemade potato chips! Next, I want to try the salt and vinegar version, which involves dipping each potato slice into cider vinegar before putting it on the parchment paper, then sprinkling with salt before microwaving. :)

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