Easy Potatoes

Mom made these for me on, I think, Wednesday night. They were the best things ever. I used to hate potatoes because they were bland, but Mom has a way of working magic in the kitchen, don't even ask me how she does it. If you asked me right now, I'd have to say I have no idea except for a few vague things because I didn't watch her make these potatoes, but I recreated them (or something similar...it might have just been a replica) and I think I did a lot better than I thought I would, but either way here they are in all their glory.

Ingredients

• potatoes (as many as you think you can eat)
• cheese
• sour cream
• green onions
• salt

Directions

1. poke lots of holes in the potatoes, wrap them in damp paper towels, stick them in a potato baker thing (you know those things). If you don't have one (or time), just stick them in the microwave. This worked for my dad who started making them and apparently worked for Mom, who finished the job (lucky for me, probably, because Dad's the only one I know who can burn water -- and I'm only mostly joking and I love Dad to pieces so I don't care what he does to my food). Microwave for 2 minutes.
2. take them out, slice in half from top to bottom, but slice them along the longest side. I don't really know how to make myself clear, but cut it in half. Fish out all the insides, put them in a bowl for later. Scrape like you would scrape burned toast. Get everything out like cleaning a deer -- you don't want to leave anything in that might make it not-so-great later. 
3. now stick just the "shells", potato skins, in the oven, turn on the broiler (on "HI"), and leave them there. Go back to your bowl full of potato guts.
4. get the sour cream, cheese, onions, and salt. Put in the sour cream until it's creamy and looks like mashed potatoes. Throw in some cheese, mix up, then chop up a couple green onions, throw them in too, and mix up some salt. Taste it and see if it agrees with your taste buds. Adjust as needed.
5. pull out the skins, put in the "filling" -- whatever you call that. Sprinkle lots and lots of cheese on the top, and try to avoid getting any on the pan (unless you've lined it with foil) because it will be a major pain to clean that pan off, trust me!
6. stick back in the oven until cheese is melted and potatoes have that great look where it's browned on the tips of the potato...mmYUM!
7. take out, eat!
8. and enjoy ;)

have a great...winter! Only 12 days until Thanksgiving and 43 until Christmas!

Biscuits for One (Or Two!) + Monkey Bread

Google "monkey bread single serve from scratch" and all you get are pages and pages (and pages) of recipes with packaged, store-bought dough.

Huh?

How is that from scratch?

I was raised with a mom who just pulled stuff out of a hat. Or, her brain. She just knew what would go together, what tasted good, and how to make it.

The opposite of me.

So tonight the church had a 25th anniversary dinner and so she and Dad went with my two sisters went and I made apple crisp for people who stayed at home.

Well, one thing I don't like is apple crisp. It's "eh" for me.

So Mom said I could eat anything I wanted, so I decided to get a little crazy and go for something pretty ambitious (for me). Monkey bread.

We have never carried store-bought dough, ever, I don't think, because Mom doesn't like the taste (I've never had it, so I don't know what it tastes like).

But that meant I was sunk. Without store-bought stuff or bread, how could I make the recipe?

Simply put: make the dough. Google "biscuits for one" and there you go.

Here's what I did. It takes, like, twenty minutes. But it's supposed to take seventeen. Oh well, words can be deceiving.

For the biscuits:
followed the recipe. When she says it should resemble course sand, don't believe her. It resembles flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar with some butter chunks that aren't mixing in well. But keep at it until you can't tell what's butter. Or just play by ear. You'll be fine.

And then, if you're going to just make biscuits, do it now. And enjoy, because it goes really well with tea, which is why I added the "tea" label. Just because.

If you're not making biscuits, get a custard cup and put some dough in it (dough is a little too wet for monkey bread), and add two spoons of flour and mix until, when you rip open the dough, it isn't wet and sticky. It should be a little bit stickier than pizza dough.

Then melt 1 Tbsp butter and mix 2 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Then roll the pizza-dough-biscuit-dough (PDBD) in the melted butter, until it's covered, and then plop it in the cinnamon-sugar-mix until it's well-coated.

If you run out of PDBD, and you don't want to go through the whole dough-"thickening" process a-gain (it's a huge pain), just get some wet dough, roll in butter and cinnamon sugar and there you go. It will be more like a cinnamon-sugar-biscuit (with the deceiving appearance of a sugar cookie), and become flat because the extra flour will stabilize it and keep it upright and more monkey-bread-like. So. That's the monkey bread. Bake it with the biscuits, if you're doing both (like me), at the same temp (400 degrees F), for the same time (10-12m...I did 11m).

And that's it.

Decadent Hot Chocolate - Single Serve

You know that post I made, like, forever ago about the hot chocolate/cocoa? It makes about 5 servings and sometimes you just feel like one serving -- you know?

I always feel like just one serving. Of a drink. Not food.

Well, today I got home from the Y and felt like making myself some cocoa/chocolate while I enjoyed my great hair day (haha). Turns out we almost never have cocoa mix unless it's the dead of a snowy winter and we're going to be sledding all day, so I had (just had) to make myself some. I really like the decadent cocoa stuff, so I decided to make that except, um, one problem -- I can't make a single-serve mugful of that stuff.

Ohh WAIT.

I just did.

I cut the recipe in half, basically, and bingo, there you go -- Single-Serve Decadent Hot Chocolate.

Enjoy.

Ingredients

• 3/4 c milk (I used 1%, but any kind will do)
• 1/4 c heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 T cocoa powder, unsweetened
• 1/2 T gran sugar
• 2 T choc chips, semi-sweet (not important, but to get that not-quite-too-sweet flavor, semi is the best kind)
• 1/4 t vanilla extract

Directions

1. Mix milk, cream, cocoa powder, and sugar together. I used a measuring pitcher thing (Pyrex) because my whisk didn't fit in my cup and besides, it's easier when it's bigger. Much easier to whisk. So, whisk it all together or stir, it doesn't matter, but it's cooler to watch the cocoa powder mix in when you whisk it, so I'd suggest you whisk it. 
2. Microwave for 1:30m or until steaming (I microwaved mine for 1:30m and it was perfect -- just warm. If I had done it for 2m, it would have been tongue-burning hot, but as it was it was right there on the spot. Perfect!)
3. Add chocolate chips and vanilla extract, stir and then cover for 30s, to give the ch. chips enough time to melt a little bit. Whisk until smooth.

The chocolate stuck to the side of my measuring pitcher, so I'd say look at the edges to make sure it's all off. Unless your cup isn't glass and then bummer for you because once you reach the bottom, you'll notice streaks of chocolate on the side. Yich, it sounds really gross the way I put it.

But it's really delicious, and a little bit creamier than the original. If you don't like the taste of creamy in your drinks, I'd suggest you put in an 1/8 c and leave it at that. What I would do if I were you and didn't like creamy tastes in drinks, I'd try it first and see how I like it and then try it without so much cream. Or without cream at all. But that might fail -- I've never tried it without cream.

But that might be because I made it, for the first time, (and made it up, too) today.

Your thoughts?

P.S. I have a lot more recipes that I'm hoping to get around to posting so eek! Very excited but I'm technically still not blogging on here. I'm not coming back, but I'm posting occasionally. Just pretend I'm a guest poster...without a post host. Or whatever they're called.

June Wrap-Up

I labeled this as "review" because it's a review over the month.

Ummm...

Yeah, that's it.

Thanks!

Arrivaderci

Hello, all!

I have recently started a blog called Remodify and have been working on that for a long time. While I was working on it, I started thinking and realized that three blogs was too much to handle all at once -- and still post frequently. Since Remodify will need pictures, I need to aim my focus on that blog. And since I don't have any more recipes to post, I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to stop posting on Salt Water Taffy. I will leave it open for the general public (but mostly for me) so they can have access to recipes (so that I can have access to recipes, nobody else reads this but me) and if I get new recipes I will definitely post them (if I find time, that is).

Right now I'm working on Remodify and Stars on the Sea.

Since I won't be posting on here anymore and someone may come along and read this in six years, I might as well tell you all about me. Mostly about this blog, but about me, too.

I am, yes, thirteen (do I write like it?), and no, I do not have any sense of humor whatsoever (have you noticed?), I only pretend to (have you noticed?). I've read a couple of my posts in the past and it sounds like I'm living on my own. That's not the case. If you've forgotten, I'm still thirteen. If I say I called my mom, it means my mom was out and I called her. On the phone. If you were wondering how I fit everything in after school and why Mom doesn't just shop while I'm in it (school), answer is I'm homeschooled so she stays home. Her job is to teach, so she doesn't have time to go to the store or get her nails done or gab about with friends and do fun stuff. She likes hanging out with me too much (oh boy).

On last thing -- the other reason I wanted to stop blogging (I didn't list another reason, but there is one) is because, next to Remodify, this blog looks grey, dingy, UNAPPETIZING (get it because it's a food blog lolololololol there's my fake humor again), and unprofessional. My sister Skye is a graphic designer and I've seen websites she's in favor of. I can tell you right now that Salt Water Taffy's never been on there.

I was joking.

Of course it's never been on there (how in the world would she find it and why would she look at it for more than 2 seconds), it's just a way of saying SWT looks ugly. It's just not very good-looking. Yeah, I could totally fix it up, but I don't really want to because I don't have any more recipes and now I'm just repeating myself and now I'm just repeating myself.

Well so long, Screwy.

~Mairi, age 13 (14 on June 6th)

P.S. I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation, though!

Blog Hiatus

I'm going to take a few weeks off (this week and next week -- maybe longer, but I'll tell you when the time comes) for a break and a vacation. This week is going to be really busy getting ready for the vacation and next week will be the vacation. I might take a longer one because I'm getting a little tired of blogging and because I only have so many recipes I can post.

But I have a delicious recipe (obviously -- I'm not going to give you something gross) for pumpkin bread and another for... well, I'm calling it pasta soup (because there's pasta salad, so what about soup?) but my mom said it actually tastes pretty similar to Hamburger Helper and since I personally don't like Hamburger Helper, I'm not going to call it that and turn off potential eaters by giving it the wrong title. So.

I'll see you in two weeks! Until then,

(like, your break)

Decadent Hot Chocolate Rewrite

Updated the Decadent Hot Chocolate recipe, if you guys want better cocoa (if I do say so myself -- though the America's Test Kitchen one was pretty good too).

Check it out and tell me what you think!