S'mores Cookies

So, I’ve finally found a really good s’mores cookie recipe. It’s taken a lot of searching and failed attempts. For all the s’mores recipes I’ve discovered, it can be unusual to find one that actually works out.

One of the biggest issues with s’mores cookies is the marshmallows. Lots of cookie recipes tell you to throw in some mini marshmallows. The problem is that when these cook, they melt and get super sticky and chewy. Usually they just end up stuck to the pan.

What intrigued me about this recipe is that it used marshmallow bits. Here’s a picture so you know what I’m talking about.

The only place I’ve found these so far is Target, but please let me know if you’ve seen them elsewhere. They work so well in these cookies. Take a look at this:

I really don’t have a lot else to say about this recipe than MAKE THESE COOKIES. You won’t regret it. They may not be the prettiest cookies you’ll ever see, but they taste incredible. Besides, real s’mores are far more messy than pretty.

HERE’S THE LINK FOR THE GOOEY S’MORES COOKIES RECIPE. Since I made these directly from the Kevin & Amanda blog, I’ll just direct you there. (The only difference being that I used regular graham crackers instead of cinnamon, and I used a Ziploc & a rolling pin to make the crumbs instead of a food processor.) I noticed some of comments mention making them as bars, which I guess I’ll have to try next time.

Scallops with Balsamic Cherries

I usually get on a cherry kick during the summer. I’d tried cherries with scallops last year, which quickly became one of my favorite ways to prepare scallops. As much as I enjoyed it, I’ve always wondered about ways to improve it.



I’ve talked about how much I enjoy Devo’s Olive Oil Co,’s products before, especially the balsamics. Given my love of cherries, I’d been waiting for a chance to try their black cherry balsamic. The cherry scallops seemed like a great recipe to test it on.

When I was figuring out my recipe, I remembered that Devo’s also has a blood orange olive oil. My mom had used it on our Thanksgiving turkey last year, so I knew how good it was.

The blood orange olive oil and black cherry balsamic turned out to be a fantastic pairing. The balsamic really made the cherry flavors pop, while the olive oil added a slight citrus flavor to the scallops.


Scallops with Balsamic Cherries

7-8 large scallops
Devo’s blood orange olive oil
1 ½ cups cherries, halved and pitted
1 shallot chopped
1 tbsp white wine
2 tbsp Devo’s black cherry balsamic

Pour enough blood orange olive oil in a skillet to barely coat the bottom. Once oil is hot, add scallops. Cook for 3-4 minutes before flipping over. Cook on the remaining side for another 3-4 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small skillet, add ½ to 1 tbsp blood orange olive oil. Once heated, add shallot and sauté for a couple minutes. Add cherries and sauté for a couple more minutes.



Add white wine and let cook off. Add black cherry balsamic and allow it to cook for a few minutes until the mixture thickens. Plate scallops. Once cherries have softened and the balsamic has gotten to a thicker, syrupy consistency, spoon cherry mixture over scallops.



Disclaimer: I received free sample bottles of blood orange olive oil and black cherry balsamic from Devo’s Olive Oil Co. in exchange for providing a recipe and/or giving a fair and honest review. I received no other compensation over than the use of the sample product. The opinions I’ve expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review.

Bistro Burgers

If we must suffer through summer, we might as well grill. During the miserable heat of last summer, I contemplated duct taping a couple yard sticks to my grill spatula. My goal was to be able to grill in my backyard without actually leaving the house.

It’s also important to get a really good burger out of this suffering. Fortunately, I managed to find one in the last issue of Food Network Magazine. I added a few of my own touches to their Bistro Burger and came up with something really delicious and, dare I say, worth the agony of spending time outdoors. These burgers are loaded with rosemary asiago cheese, crispy bacon, fried egg, Dijon mustard, and mixed greens tossed in a Dijon (or balsamic) vinaigrette.

Bistro Burgers:
(four servings)
• 4 slices bacon
• 1 ½ lb ground beef
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• 4 hamburger buns
• 1 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard, plus more for spreading
• 1 shallot, thinly sliced
• mixed greens
• rosemary & olive oil asiago cheese

Form four (6 oz) burgers. Grill to desired doneness. If desired, spread small amount of butter on buns and toast on grill. While burgers are on grill, cook bacon in skillet, reserving some of the bacon grease. Fry eggs.

Whisk Dijon mustard with EVOO, shallots, and 1-2 tbsp bacon drippings. Add salt & pepper to taste. Toss with mixed greens.



Spread bun with Dijon mustard. Add the burger, asiago cheese, bacon, egg and mixed greens.



We’ve since tried a version of these burgers with the mixed greens tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette. It adds a nice flavor without overdoing the Dijon taste.

We had purchased a french fry cutter awhile ago that we’ve used quite a bit. We bake our fries using different flavored olive oils and spices. The most common way we make them is tossed with a little EVOO, cracked pepper & sea salt, some minced garlic, and some type of Italian herb mix.





For the record, not everyone in my house dislikes summer. Some of us really appreciate the sun. It's just not the human members.

Gorgonzola Filet Mignon with Red Apple Balsamic Reduction

One of my absolute favorite meals is filet mignon topped with blue cheese or gorgonzola. I’ve stated before that the rules for a perfect steak are not that complicated. In fact, here’s all you need to know: Grill Steak. Place handful of blue cheese crumbles on top. Eat.

I’ve added one more step to this process. I’ve since realized how much a nice balsamic reduction can improve an already fantastic steak. You can imagine how excited I was to get my hands on some red apple balsamic vinegar from Devo Olive Oil Co. While I’ve written before about all the Devo olive oils and vinegars I’ve tried, I still think the red apple balsamic might be my favorite of the bunch. A good steak combined with gorgonzola, balsamic, and a hint of apple flavor is really hard to beat. This steak may seem simple, but the combination of flavors is outstanding.

Gorgonzola Filet Mignon with Red Apple Balsamic Reduction

• Two 6-8 oz filets

• salt & pepper

• 2-3 oz gorgonzola crumbles

• 1/4 cup Devo red apple balsamic vinegar

Crack some fresh pepper and sea salt over both sides of the raw filets.

Grill steaks to preferred degree of doneness. Immediately sprinkle with gorgonzola crumbles until covered.

Tent with foil to retain heat. Pour ¼ cup of red apple balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan. Heat over a medium low heat until it starts to bubble. Continue to whisk until the liquid gets thicker.

Drizzle desired amount over gorgonzola steaks.

I decided to go with gorgonzola crumbles this time, although I bet the balsamic reduction would work well with a blue cheese sauce.

Our steaks were accompanied by some grilled corn on the cob with honey-lime butter and a batch of The Pioneer Woman’s crash hot potatoes.

Disclaimer: I received a free sample bottle of red apple balsamic vinegar from Devo Olive Oil Co. in exchange for providing a recipe and/or giving a fair and honest review. I received no compensation other than the use of the sample product. The opinions I’ve expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review.

Watermelon & Mozzarella Salad with Jalapeno Balsamic

Watermelon is one of the very few things I like about summer.* This year I already had a plan for my first watermelon. Back around the holidays, my mom had brought me back some olive oils and vinegars from Devo Olive Oil. The first time I tried their jalapeno white balsamic vinegar, I knew I had to try it with watermelon. I realize this doesn’t seem like the most obvious choice, but I’ve given up on trying to understand how my brain works when it comes to flavor combinations.

Part of this idea may have stemmed from the watermelon, mozzarella, and cucumber salad with balsamic vinegar that I made last summer. I learned then how well watermelon and balsamic vinegar go together, so the idea of combining the sweet and spicy flavors of watermelon and jalapeno balsamic was something I really couldn’t wait to try. The problem was that this thought occurred to me a few months ago, so I’ve been trying to make my jalapeno balsamic last until I could buy a watermelon. This was not an easy task.

I combined watermelon with mozzarella again, but this time cut them into discs. For my first plate, I drizzled the salad with extra virgin olive oil and the jalapeno balsamic. It was delicious, but the color didn’t really pop. I made another plate the next day, only with an improved dressing.

For the dressing, I began by combining extra virgin olive oil and white jalapeno balsamic vinegar. The standard ratio for oil to vinegar is 3:1, but since I wanted plenty of jalapeno taste, I used 2:1 measurements. I added a little cracked pepper and sea salt, a drizzle of honey, and a little bit of lime zest. Once stirred, I drizzled the mixture over the plated watermelon and mozzarella. The lime zest and pepper added just a little color that the salad had been missing.

The jalapeno balsamic vinegar makes a fantastic dressing for this salad. I’ll probably be eating a lot more of this to get me through the summer.

*Although I could list for you plenty of reasons I hate summer, I'll refrain from doing so. Not only would this turn into a huge list, but you'd also probably start to understand why my mother refers (affectionately, of course) to my rants about summer as "obnoxious whining".

Jayhawk Cupcakes 2.0

Remember how in my last post I said I might not attempt the Jayhawk cupcakes again because they were so time-consuming? Well, that lasted about two whole days. Since I made that statement, which in my defense probably wasn’t a true declaration, KU won Saturday night and will now play in the championship game. I figured that was as good a sign as any that I should try to improve the cupcakes.

I’m not going to repeat the basics here since I’ve already described those in the first cupcake post. In order to keep this somewhat short, I’ll just explain the changes.

First off, I need to point out that my husband had a big part in improving these cupcakes. Although he doesn't bake, he contributed a lot. (He also reads this blog and told me he's expecting an acknowledgment of his brilliant ideas.) He’s far more creative than I am and was responsible for designing the new beaks and eyes. He also came up with the idea to use pretzels to secure the head to the base and helped by cutting out the wings. By the end of this process, his attitude was a lot like mine when I finished the first batch. They look neat, but probably aren’t worth the hassle to make them again.

This batch was also helped by the fact I had time to run to Michael’s and buy actual cake decorating supplies. I was finally able to get real royal blue frosting by using a small canister of the Wilton gel dye. This is definitely closer to Jayhawk blue. (If you do make these, it's probably a good idea to warn the people eating them that this will turn their mouths blue.)

Instead of messing with frosting cookies for wings, I found a metal cookie cutter that looked a lot like a wing. They also had sugar paper in royal blue, so we were able to stamp out nice looking wings.

The eyes were made by using a serrated knife to cut the ends off of mini marshmallows. He then applied a blue dot using blue decorating gel. Lining all the eyes up on parchment paper let them dry evenly. They were also easy to peel off when it was time to apply them.

The beaks were still made out of Starburst, but this time my husband turned it into a bit of an art form. He used powdered sugar to keep the Starbursts from sticking while shaping the beaks. The finished beaks were placed in the freezer to harden until we were ready to place them in the cupcake. Although he made a piece to anchor the beak in, the biggest issue is still getting the beaks to stay secure in the head and not fall out over time.

This time we also used two pretzels to anchor the cupcakes to each other. I also used a pretzel like a popsicle stick in order to frost the heads and secure the heads to the base.

So, there you have it. Jayhawk cupcakes 2.0:

Next time I'm feeling ambitious, someone remind me that this is probably good enough:

So what did the Helpers think of all this kitchen activity? I think they were a bit nervous about all the Jayhawks in their kitchen.

Jayhawk Cupcakes

(This is the first attempt. For the improved version, see this post.)

You know those blog posts where I tell you that the recipe is totally easy and actually simpler than it looks? Well, this isn’t one of those times. These cupcakes took up my entire evening, required two different trips to the store, left me with blue and red stained fingers, and turned my kitchen into a complete disaster. I'm still finding frosting everywhere.

I should also warn you that this all happened because I saw a cute picture on Pinterest. I’d been warned that Pinterest is a major time waster. I’m guessing the people that told me this meant that you can spend hours looking at things and repinning them. In my case, I waste hours replicating recipes. One of the most infuriating things about that site is when I find something that looks really cool, only for it not to have a recipe attached. That is exactly what happened with these Jayhawk cupcakes, which I set out to replicate with nothing more than a single picture and absolutely no knowledge of where it came from.

After deciphering the picture, I thought that the body was probably an upside down cupcake placed on top of another cupcake. I thought the head was probably a cake pop, although I heard a really good theory today where it was suggested the head could also be a donut hole. I finally decided the beak must be a yellow starburst. I’m still not entirely sure I have the wings figured out, but I decided to use half a vanilla wafer for each wing. Now that all the parts were figured out, it should be easy, right? Nope, think again.

I don’t do a lot of baking with food coloring. If I had, I would have known that an entire bottle of royal blue liquid dye could go into a batch of white frosting and still come out baby blue. (However, my hands and fingernails had no problem staining dark blue.) What I had created was maybe North Carolina blue, but definitely not KU blue. (Had I done this before last week’s game, I might have considered it rather ominous.) I did a little research and found out that gel based dye is recommended for dark colors. That created the need for my second trip to the store. There was some improvement with the gel, but still not the royal blue I was hoping for. My poor Jayhawks were just going to have to be a little lighter. That would probably turn out to be the least of their problems.

I should probably back up and explain some of the basics. First, I made the cake pops. Most cake pop recipes I’ve seen are just crumbled cake or cupcakes mixed with either canned frosting or cream cheese. I let my cake cool before crumbling it all in a large bowl. Next I mixed in about one-third to one-half of a can of frosting. Next, I rolled the cake into balls and placed them on a cookie sheet in the fridge.

I made one batch of blue frosting and one batch of red frosting. I started with a vanilla buttercream.

• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Mix cream, vanillas and salt together in a small bowl. Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy. Slowly add the confectioners' sugar until completely combined. Add the cream mixture and beat for 3 or 4 minutes until fluffy and smooth.

I cut the tops off of the cupcakes to give them a flat surface. I placed one cupcake upside down on top of another, using a little frosting to stick them together.

I next attempted to frost them, which proved to be fairly difficult. I was having trouble getting my frosting smooth enough, which left some of the Jayhawks looking a little like they were molting.

Next I frosted the cake pop heads, which I had anticipated would be difficult. I stuck a toothpick in the bottom of each cake pop to hold it while I frosted. I figured I could also use the toothpick to secure it to the body. Not that this is surprising, but it turns out these are extremely difficult to frost.

The faces actually proved to be the most problematic. In the picture I was using, it appeared the Jayhawks had write frosting eyes with an M&M candy in the middle. I had bought some decorating gel for the eyebrows and figured I’d just use the blue gel for the eyes. I tried to place a white dot on the faces, but my frosting kept smearing & mixing with the red. I finally gave up and just tried the decorating gel. It wanted to string horribly and I ended up having to redo most of the faces. Some of the poor faces ended up looking somewhat sad or droopy.

For the beak, I cut down a starburst to a triangle, and then cut a slit in the middle. You’ll have to overlook this horrible picture, as it’s apparently impossible to get a decent picture of a yellow starburst.

I did the wings last. I cut vanilla wafers in half and frosted them blue. As you can tell in some of the pictures, I was getting fairly exhausted by that point and some of my wings may have gotten dipped in frosting more than actually frosted.

And here’s the finished product:

Granted, they need some work. I figured for a first attempt, they’re not all bad. My husband commented they look more like cute birds than fierce Jayhawks, which probably has a lot to do with the difficulty I had with the faces.

If I try these again (which may be a big if) I would have to look at some different options for food coloring. I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be possible to use some fondant to create a more uniform look for the eyes.

I’d made a small batch to test it out, so the few remaining Jayhawks went to work with my husband. He figured the KU fans would enjoy them and the KU haters would be ok with tearing them apart and devouring them. Everybody ends up happy.

Finally, here is one of my Helpers, who either thought the Jayhawks needed a fuzzy sweater, or saw them as easy prey. Those who ate the cupcakes can rest assured that she wasn't allowed any closer to them.