Mandarin Chocolate Won Tons (Recipe)

Well, actually....there is no recipe to be found here.  That's because it's over at my favorite food blog Macheesmo!  Regular readers know that I tend to gush about Nick's creations, but now I have a reason to think kindly upon his blog in addition to all the great food I have been inspired to try out.  He's on vacation with his wife in Peru (and having a blast, no doubt) and he's done me the solid of letting me guest post on his much more trafficked site.  So go see the recipe for these delicious desserts over at his blog, and then keep looking around at all the amazing things he has to offer.  Just promise me you'll come back.   

DK Donuts (Review)

So..................................................................................................................who doesn't like donuts?

DK Donuts & Little Bean Espresso (1300 W State St, Boise, ID 83702 (208) 385-7480) has a special place in my heart.  For about a year I lived just across the street, in a dilapidated house that contained no less than four raging alcoholics at a time.  My place was in the basement, where I avoided much of the drama in exchange for mildew.  I didn't have much money at the time, and most of my food came in the form of Ramen noodles or canned food graciously given by churches.  Still, everyone needs an occasional treat, and mine was DK.  Every other weekend, said basement would be filled with a collection of my nerd friends, where we would stay up late into the night playing Dungeons and Dragons.  After the party had slain the heroes (because of course, everyone wanted to play as the bad guys,) we would venture over to DK, where plenty of fresh donuts could be found in spite of the late hour.

Chocolate Cranberry Chunk Cookies

I started this week off with a dilemma.  Although I got behind a bit during the holidays, I feel like I need to post at least once a week to remain a viable blog.  After all, I'm making money now-my first payment from the mucky-mucks who provide the advertising that frames this page will be here by the end of this month.  But there can be no clicks without content.  Problem is, I don't just write about food.  I read about it as well.  I've already gushed about Macheesmo on these pages but there is also Kayln's Kitchen, which has food so delectable I looked at it off and on for a month before I realized it was dedicated to the South Beach Diet, and The Food in My Beard, whose author must really take the whole "a picture is worth a thousand words" thing to heart-his step by step photos make any recipe seem easy.  I could easily list a dozen more, but I'm worried if I gave you that many great blogs to read you wouldn't come back.  The point of all this is that I ended up with a cooking conundrum.  I need content, but on all the days I allot to creative cooking (three days a week are for leftovers or such challenging meals as potatoes topped with chilli,) I filled the menu with other blogger's dishes.  Had they been written any length of time in the past I could have filed them under "Other People's Recipes" and hoped any slight modifications I made might make it worth reading about the process, but the things I am cooking are from recent enough posts that even fairly heavy modifications would still feel like theft.  Obviously, I could have scrapped one of the meals and replaced it with something of my own, but that isn't what I wanted to do.  African peanut stew sounds great.  Chicken tortilla soup simmering all day in the crock pot sounds wonderful.  I decided I would have to bite the bullet and find the cash to finish my half written review of the Salt Tears Coffeehouse and Noshery some lunch hour, and headed to the store.

Other People's Recipes: New Mexico Chocolate Cookie Crinkles

One of the nicest things about the fall and winter months is all the attention paid to tradition; while my family has rituals for the Fourth of July and the whole month of August is pretty much a party (with both mine and Wife's birthdays bracketing our anniversary over a three week period,) none of these things really stands up to the feelings generated between Halloween and the first week of the new year. Some of these traditions, like the yearly Zombie Walk I posted a picture of on Halloween, involve an activity, but whether it is roasting pumpkin seeds as a family or the deliciously unhealthy "sausage biscuits" Wife makes every Christmas morning, many of them revolve around the kitchen. 

That's why when my friend Mouse talked about the cookies her mom used to make for her, I knew I should try and make them myself.  I had been looking for something tasty to make for a friend who was in town, but even when that didn't pan out it I decided I would like to try and replicate the cookies Mouse had grown up on for her sake.  I had already tried to replicate her nostalgia once, on her birthday, with mixed results.  The candied apples I made in lieu of a cake looked beautiful, tasted wonderful, and played hell on your teeth.  My inexperience with candy thermometers made what could have been a perfect treat more reminiscent of the glass Christmas ornaments my punk friends used to eat to freak people out.  I wasn't going to let one mistake in the kitchen discourage me, however, so I set out to find a recipe.