duzibatz » chocolate

Car Accident, Cheesesteak, & Chocolate Room

chelsea — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:55:10 +0000

My sister got into a car accident Friday night while turning left at a light. A car trying to beat the yellow sped around the car in front of it not realizing it was letting her go. The car hit her passenger side causing her to swerve into a telephone pole. Everyone was ok, but it’s important to sloowww dowwwnn. Life is too short to rush through. Relax and enjoy the ride…

I was worried and upset about my sister and her wrecked car so my S.O. made me amazing blueberry pancakes in bed on Saturday morning. Then he continued to cheer me up by taking me to the Philadelphia Zoo, the oldest zoo in America, and then Pat’s for their famous cheesesteak. I’m convinced Taylor is Dr. Dolittle because all of the animals came out of hiding to pose for the camera. I have 450 pictures from the zoo and some of them are pretty amazing so I will be posting the best of those soon. I also may have witnessed a drug deal go down at Pat’s so I’ll have the yelp review on that.

So easy to make:

Mrs. Butterworth’s Pancake Mix Complete Buttermilk (Just add water!)

blueberries

Make sure it is a good consistency… If it is too watery looking, your pancakes will not be fluffy enough. Flip when bubbling and golden brown.

Last night, Sunday, I had RSVPed to Yelp’s Hornblower Infinity Cruise, but it was overbooked so Taylor and I didn’t make it on the boat. We didn’t want to waste the drive to the city so we made our way over to the Chocolate Room in Brooklyn for a beer and brownie Sunday. Check back for the review on that as well.

Thanks to some extreme cheering up, this weekend was actually quite fun and adventuresome.

Witch’s Brew & Bake

chelsea — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:56:09 +0000

Don't lose your head!

If I had my own house or at least a bigger apartment, I would definitely throw a Witch’s Brew & Bake party. The theme would revolve around Halloween and alcohol based drinks and food. This would be a great girls night or pregame. Everyone could dress up as a witch and bring something to drink or eat- buy or make, it doesn’t matter!

Here are a few things that could be at the party:

Whiskey and Cider – I love this fall drink. If you haven’t tried it, then you should.
Pumpkin Ale – There are so many to choose from! Pumpkin Ale is by far my favorite type of seasonal beer. I like Saranac Pumpkin Ale, but this year I want to try Ichabod Pumpkin Ale.
Chocolate Stout Pumpkin Brownies – I just tried this healthy beer recipe from Women’s Health. It was an easy, healthy recipe if you follow the serving size suggestions.
Yalumba Y Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 – I bought it because of the colors and the scarecrow on it. It’s actually really delicious (about $11)
Yalumba, I love ya

Chocolate Stout Pumpkin Brownies

Serving Size (1 of 16 - 8 inch baking pan)

What would you bring to the party?

Spider WebSticks: Halloween Dessert Recipe

chelsea — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:37:23 +0000

When I was looking for Halloween dessert recipes I came across this really simple, easy one on Mom Endeavors via Pinterest. I figured it looked easy enough for me to try… soooo this is my attempt. I dedicate my Spider Websticks to the huge spider that lives outside my window.. I’ve named him Ferdinand. Ferdinand has made the most elaborate web and I love it. It’s hard to get a good picture of him because he is so popular (and a huge backstabber) – he leaves in the morning and is gone all day.

Spider WebStick

For 6 Spider WebSticks You Need:

little pretzel sticks (not rods)
white chocolate/bark candy coating - I used 1 bar of Ghirardelli White Chocolate and didn’t have enough
chocolate (baker’s, candy coating, or chips would probably all work)
raisins
baggie or pastry bag - I used a freezer bag
wax paper

Carpe Diem

At least my spider looks good

Make room in your fridge for a few trays of completed Spider WebSticks so that they can harden afterwards.
Lay out a few trays with wax paper
Arrange sticks in a asterick * type web (I used 8 sticks)
Melt the white chocolate & put into baggie
Cut off the tip of the baggie
Connect the sticks together in the center by squeezing out dollops of white chocolate onto pretzel stick ends (make sure you cover each stick)
Pipe out spirals of white chocolate to make the spider web
Put 2 raisins in the center of web as the spider’s body
Melt the chocolate & put in baggie
Cut off tip of baggie and pipe out spider legs (I worked outside to inside so I could cover up any mess)
Completely coat raisins with chocolate for spider’s body
Place in fridge a few minutes to harden, peel off, and ENJOY!

Oops (still tastes good though)

Wisdom

I am craft challenged. Even though this looked like a pretty simple Halloween dessert, I still manged to kinda screw it up.

These were the problems I experienced:

White Chocolate – I ate one of the Ghiradelli squares because I couldn’t contain myself and ran out of white chocolate. I recommend buying 2 bars of chocolate just in case.
Spirals – I don’t think I melted the white chocolate enough because it wouldn’t come out of the baggie tip easily. I cut a bigger tip and it ended up coming out thick, and in squirts.
I didn’t have any room in my fridge to fit trays so I turned into a mad woman cleaning it out real quick.

I was also drinking Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale, which might be why my spider looks like he was drunk spinning.

Don't drink and pipe

In the end, they were super delicious – Even the excess chocolate one that I made for kicks. It was fun and will definitely be easy for most people (I have a lot of room for improvement).

Next year I am going to do this again, but try dipping the pretzel sticks in white chocolate first.

If you try it let me know!

Any helpful tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!