chocolate – Peaceful Reader

Scholastic Book Fair's in town.

And I made muffins for the teacher all-day preview. It’s my way of luring the teacher’s in to the fair to make a wish list so parent’s will buy books for their classroom. I wanted them to be yummy and enticing (and unfortunately my idea of yummy is healthy than what the rest of the world is interested in) so I scrolled through a few cookbooks to find something that spoke to me. I found it in my King Arthur Flour cookbook; Chocolate Breakfast Muffins. I made a double batch. Groovy Girl thought they were delicious.

Chocolate Breakfast Muffins (makes 12 large)

2/3 cup cocoa, Dutch-processed or natural

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups light brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips

2 large eggs

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp vinegar

8 T butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 425*

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt ,and chocolate chips. Set aside.

In a large measuring cup or medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla, and vinegar. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, along with the melted butter, to the dry ingredients, stirring to blend. There’s no need to beat these muffins; just make sure everything is well combined.

Scoop the batter into 12 lightly greased muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Don’t let them burn-they do cook quickly and my oven cooks high. Remove them from the oven, and after 5 minutes remove them from the pan, allowing them to cool on a wire rack before serving.

I love baked goods warm. I ate a few of the mini muffins just after they’d cool a bit and they were delicious. The chocolate chunks (which is all I had) and the toffee bits (I added for fun) were perfectly melty.

When I served them on Monday I heated them up also so the first few smart teachers had warmed up muffins-melt-in-your-mouth chocolate breakfast muffins.

Check out King Arthur’s amazing website.

Enjoy!

Crazy day

Some days are just blow-your-mind crazy busy. Take today for example:

1. I had a full day of classes, my busiest day with seven classes.

2. Lunch time was filled with helping 5 3rd grade students with assessments on the computers-they are less experienced with logging in so it took them longer.

3. After lunch had a fellow teacher-librarian come over to fulfill time, to achieve balance within our district. She works at a school with low enrollment.

4. Worked until 5 trying to finish a school project.

5. After school: ate a quick dinner, a leftover veggie burger from yesterday’s BBQ with friends.

6. School board vote: went to city hall and voted for new and positive peeps.

7. Quick stop at public library: I had to renew a stack of books and had trouble getting it done on line.

8. 6:30 PTA meeting at school where I am part of several committees and we needed to vote in several new officers.

9. 7:00 religious education meeting at church-I was 25 minutes late but glad to be there. My friend Kathleen took over my husband’s job and it was a great start for her position.

10. Grocery store stop: G.G. Birthday week and we needed COOL cupcake liners.

11. Home by 8:30 and We made 30 + chocolate cakes for cheer squad and birthday friends on Friday.

12. 11:00 and I’m still up waiting for last batch to come out of the oven. I’d be feeling pretty good right now (although sleepy) if they were coming out better. I overfilled cups and they are not pretty. Hopefully frosting will help them tomorrow.

And how was your day…?

I did stand at the kitchen counter and eat 1/2 a container of my favorite Ben & Jerry’s frozen yogurt raspberry/chocolate chunk.

Weekend Cooking; Fat chocolate chip cups

This has been quite a year for my school book clubs. They’re organic matter constantly changing and shifting. Generally I’ve had two book clubs and they start out large and then dwindle to a small handful of die-hard book fans that didn’t know they were fans when they started. The whole process is amazing to me.

This year has brought new challenges as I started off bold with three groups; two girl groups and one boy group. Luckily another 5th grade teacher has been willing to help me all year with the second girl’s group. She took the stronger reading group and they’ve read a wide variety of challenging fifth grade material. They just finished The Lightning Thief. Now the gaggle of girls I lead is another story. I like have to lead them like little baby lambs to the book. They are much more concerned about drama and excuses. I’m trying to raise them up and they are all like “this is so hard” but yet they keep coming back. I’ve had a few drop out and I’ve asked a few not to come back and yet we’ve had others join up mid-year and this is why is has been a very natural and organic book club year.

This has also been the first year we’ve served snacks consistently for every meeting. Amanda, the 5th grade teacher, and I alternate bringing treats for the Wednesdays that the girls meet and I solely bring treats for the boys. It is MUCH easier to bring treats for the boys!! They about die for anything I bring for them which in turn make me excited to bring them treats. It is a dynamite cycle. The girls tend to be a bit more picky. I made them little cookie cups near Christmas that had a chocolate mint kiss in the middle and several girls threw them away after just one bite because of the mint. Geez!

This week I made these top notch treats from a recipe I found on Pinterest. I love when a pin takes you to to a blog worth reading and Averie Cooks is just such a blog. The Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups were a huge hit at book club and the children I live with were a little upset that the whole pan wasn’t staying home with them. The cool thing was it was such an easy recipe I’m going to surprise them this weekend with more. This board of Averie Cooks is dedicated to recipes she’s made and I’m especially intrigued by this post about her Top Ten Favorite Chocolate Cake recipes. I’m searching this week for an extreme chocolate dessert for College Boy as he turns 18 next Sunday, the 28th. His only requirement is that it be like chocolate heaven.
Any suggestions?

If you need a special treat this week try those chocolate cups!
This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking post-click there for more food-related links.

Weekend Cooking; The true meaning of brunch…

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We love breakfast at this house and because we are like passing ships on weekday mornings it is great when we can gather for brunch on the weekends. Brunch has such wonderful memories for me; I remember as I child huge meals that my dad would make either on Saturday or Sunday after church, My dad loved making huge skillets of scrambled eggs. He sauteed the onions in butter first while he whisked the eggs together using a fork and then he’d pour the cool egg mix into the hot cast iron creating a sizable sizzle. I remember that sound like it was yesterday but I don’t think it has anything to do with why I love brunch today.

In my 20’s brunch meant meeting friends for food and beverages at classic little joints from Minneapolis and St Paul to Denver and Boulder, Colorado. These gatherings could take the better part of your day but what an excellent way to relax and enjoy your friends before husbands and children came along. Bloody Mary bars, crispy hash browns fresh off someone else’s griddle, patio dining, and laughing all come to mind when I think of those shared brunches around big round tables. We were free with our time and you only had to pay for what you ate and drank.

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Now as a family it is not only much harder to take the family out for brunch price-wise but also what we can create at home often tastes much better. Our local nature center hosts a maple syrup festival this weekend and I had my heart set on going though but with the snowy week we had I didn’t make it over there until Friday to pick up tickets and once I parked my car and trekked the long winding path to the lodge I was not happy to find the door locked. Searching the assortment of signs I saw they had closed 10 minutes ago. “Aaargh” is how I felt. I told myself it was okay I didn’t really want to go anyway and now I really didn’t plan to go! I got in my car to drive away and 5 beautiful mama deer (does) ran right in front of me through the snowy park path and my mental balance was completely restored. When I got home and explained how I’d screwed up getting the tickets, and the deer running in front of me, my husband and I decided what was most important was the maple syrup after all. For the price of the tickets I would be better off with a big bottle of their syrup anyway.. I broke the news to the kids by telling them I would be hosting my own maple syrup festival in the morning around 10 am. We ate pancakes, fried eggs, pineapple and cups of steaming homemade hot chocolate. There was laughter and good food, which is really all it takes. Bliss.

A new tradition is born; The Holt Family Maple Syrup Festival: to be held any Saturday morning we can all get together.

I followed Katie Workman’s pancake recipe but it is quite similar to this one from the recipe girl. I use whole wheat flour and I don’t add sugar. I couldn’t find Katie’s recipe online and if I keep copying her recipes to my blog they’ll be some kind of copyright issue I’m just sure…You’ll have to buy the book as I’ve done.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekly Cooking meme. Click her link to find many other marvelous food-related posts and lots of lovely conversations.

Have a peaceful Saturday.

Rocky Road Brownies

I did make the brownies. They are delicious. I groaned three times while eating my one little square. I forget all the time to photograph my cooking but this time I snapped two pictures as we were dishing them up. Here for your viewing delight…

They are yummy dense squares of chocolate delight. I will make them again. My kids ate them even though they had pecans on them. My daughter and I shared a second one quietly in the kitchen. It’s been a good day and now I’m going to bed, to read. See last post for recipe.