Store Bought Fortune Cookies with Your Own Message

I love custom things.  I don't love paying the extra money for customization.  Here is a simple tutorial on how to take store bought fortune cookies, remove the fortune and add in your own.

First print out custom fortunes using any text editor.  I used the font Calibri in size 8.

Wet a paper towel and ring slightly.  You want the paper towel to be damp but not dripping wet.
Wrap towel around fortune cookie and microwave for 20 seconds.
Unwrap fortune cookie from towel carefully, towel may be hot.
The fortune cookie should now be pliable enough to open.
Quickly removed existing fortune cookie message and replace with your custom printed one.
Reshape fortune cookie (should be fairly simple, as the cookie already has its form) and hold for 10 seconds to keep form.
You want to do the last two steps quick, the fortune cookie cools very quickly.

Custom message fortune cookie.

Wrap damp towel over fortune cookie and microwave for 20 seconds.

Open fortune cookie, insert message, hold closed for 10 seconds.

Message in fortune cookie before closed.

Stay tuned, the next post will be on how to customize these fortune cookies by dipping them in chocolate and adding a gumpaste flower.

Chocolate Covered Jalapeno Potato Chips

I love the flavor combination of sweet and salty.  What I love even more is sweet, salty, and spicy.  This to me is the holy trinity of flavor combinations.  I decided to experiment with this flavor combination by making Chocolate Covered Jalapeno Potato Chips.  I used semi sweet chocolates which added a bit of bitter to the flavor combo, but looking back I could have done without the bitter and just used milk chocolate instead.  These are so simple to make, you can do it for any party or just as a fun snack.  All you have to do is melt chocolate in a mug and drizzle onto the chips.  Here are a couple of my posts on how to melt chocolate:  white chocolate and dark chocolate.  Remember the key is not to overheat the chocolate!

Thai Fried Garlic (Gratium Jiew) Recipe and a DIY Mason Jar Spout

When I eat at my parents house, my mother always brings out a small jar of fried garlic.  These little morsels of heaven have a very distinct garlic flavor (more mellow than raw garlic, but more bite than roasted garlic).  They also add a nice crunch to "kao thom" (a thai rice porridge), noodle soup or Hainan chicken.  I asked my mom for the recipe to share with you.

There are two versions of this recipe.  The images below show the dry version where the oil is strained out.  You can use the strained oil as garlic oil for cooking.

Ingredients:
1 head of garlic pealed and minced
1/4 cups oil (canola or vegetable)

Place both garlic and oil into a medium sized saute pan or wok (do not preheat).  Turn on heat to high and stir garlic and oil. Continue stirring for a one to two of minutes or until garlic starts to turn very light tan.  Once garlic is medium color, turn off the heat.  Keep stirring the garlic in the pan.  The residual heat will continue to cook the garlic to a nice golden brown  You do not want to burn the garlic or else it will be bitter.  Once garlic is golden brown remove from pan and put though a fine mesh metal strainer.  Catch the oil in a container and use as garlic oil.  Let garlic sit in strainer for 15 minutes so oil is mostly drained out.  Transfer garlic into jar and place both oil and garlic into refrigerator or you can use immediately.

Fried garlic in a mason jar (with pour spout from salt container).  You could also add some dried peppers into the mix if you like spicy.

Mince garlic and add to oil.  I know it seems like a lot of oil, but you will strain it out to make garlic oil.

Once garlic is medium brown turn off heat and keep stirring.  Do not burn the garlic.

Yum..

To create a pour spout for your mason jar cut out the top of a salt carton.  Cut to size of mason jar top.

Morton Salt top placed on top of mason jar for easy pouring.

I took apart the spout with pliers and glued piece of wrapping paper on top.

Finished product.  Perfect to give as a gift or keep for yourself.

Salt Dough Ornaments and Gift Tags

You gotta love Pinterest. I find so much inspiration on there such as salt dough ornaments. I've never even heard of salt dough before.

Here is the recipe for salt dough:
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
1 cup warm water

Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl and kneed until play doh consistency. Roll out, cut and out with cookie cutters.  I used stamps to decorate, but you could also let it dry completely and paint on them.

Below are gift tags that I made.  Be sure to cut the holes on the top with a straw before the dough dries.  Drying can take up to three days.  You could do it in the oven at a very low temperature (200 degrees) but the ornaments will puff up a little.

Update:  I have received many questions about where how i stamped the text.  I used rubber stamps similar to these ones here on amazon.  To color the stamps I used a stamp pad for some and just a crayola marker for others.

Left image are the stamps I used.  Purchased at the dollar section from Michaels.
The two ornaments on the far right that have the little indent are thumb prints of my daughter and nephew.

Stamping before cutting the shape out makes it much easier.

Let the kids make some too!

The one on the left is dry.  I was a little surprised at the texture after it dried.  My friend came over and asked me if he could eat one.

Marshmallows With My Name Written All Over Them

Ok, my name isn't Avery, that's my daughter's name and this is her sweet simple treat. Simply cut out letters printed on regular printer paper, slice marshmallows in half, place the cut out letters on the sticky side of the marshmallow and push marshmallow into a tub of colored sugar. Peel off the paper cut-out letter and viola, custom marshmallows.  I'm think of making these as baby shower favors for an up coming baby shower.

Custom marshmallows

Oh, I wish I owned a Silhouette, but I don't.  It's actually not that hard to cut out the letters.  Only took 10 minutes.
I printed a couple of different font sizes because I wasn't sure how big it needed to be. Arial Black 72 font worked perfectly.

Cut marshmallows, stick letter on cut side (sticky side), then dip in sugar.

Dipped on left, then remove cut-out letter.

Treats for my sweet.

Boo! Chocolate Covered Gummy Bears Halloween Edition

I did a previous tutorial on how to make chocolate covered gummy bears. In the spirit of Halloween, I used white chocolate for the body and dark chocolate for the eyes to make ghostly chocolate covered gummy bears.

I'm actually not a fan of white chocolate, but my sister loves it. I decided to make her a batch of these ghostly gummy bears. Trader Joe's carries a white chocolate bar  that claims to me more chocolaty than regular white chocolate. I decided to give it a try. While it is not as good as dark chocolate, it actually tastes more like chocolate than other white chocolates.

White chocolate is harder to work with because it melts at a lower temperature so you can burn it if you are not careful.  When heating any chocolate for melting/dipping, over heating will destroy your chocolate. I usually melt chocolate in a mug (so that it retains the heat) in the microwave (easier clean up). For white chocolate, set the power to 5 and melt in 10 to 15 second intervals. If the chocolate comes out melted, it is probably already burnt. You want to heat it just to the point where when you start stirring, it comes together. It took me only 30 seconds of heating to melt this white chocolate. You do not need to add butter or shortening to this recipe, just straight chocolate, because white chocolate seems to be runnier.

White Chocolate from Trader Joe's.  It is better than most white chocolates out there.

Cut chocolate into equal sized chunks for even melting.  Pop in microwave for 15 seconds at power of 5.
Take out and stir.  If chocolate seems too hard then pop back in for 10 seconds at power of 5.

Melted white chocolate after a lot of stirring.  Skewer gummy bears for dipping with toothpicks.

Dip gummy bears into chocolate. Wait for them to dry.
Then melt a little dark chocolate and using a toothpick, paint the eyes.
 You could also use those edible ink pens to draw eyes.

Packaged for my sister.

Toasted Roasted Pumpkin Seed Recipe

We carved our one year old pumpkin today (more on the one year old pumpkin in a future post).  The best part for me about pumpkin carving are the pumpkin seeds.  If you are looking for iron rich foods, pumpkin seeds are a great source of iron.  I was iron deficient when I was pregnant so tried to eat pumpkin seeds often instead of constantly taking Slow Fe (an iron supplement).

Seeds from our carved pumpkin.

Rinse seeds and drain.  I spun the seeds in a salad spinner to remove excess water.

Sprinkle olive oil, kosher salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin (or whatever spices you like).
I eyeballed all the measurements, you can't really go wrong.   

Place in oven for 25 minutes at 325 degrees or until golden brown.

Fruit Tart Attempt Numero Dos

Fruit Tart using Smitten Kitchens' Unshrinkable Crust recipe and Ina Garten's Pastry Cream recipe. The pastry cream recipe is easy to make and to die for! You could used store bought pie crust and the pastry cream recipe with some fresh strawberries, so yummy.  One alteration I did make on the Pastry Cream recipe is to add a bit more milk or a little less corn startch so the cream isn't as thick. This was my second attempt at a crust and it wasn't half bad. I the tart dough is a little hard to work with because its so crumbly, using alot of saran wrap helped.