chocolate truffles with sea salt

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a huge fan of The Pioneer Woman (and especially her recipes). When we were discussing extra Christmas presents for family, I thought a great idea would be to try PW's Chocolate Truffles with Sea Salt recipe.

This really couldn't have been easier to make something pretty sophisticated. I'll warn you that we got a lot more truffle "cores" out of the 16oz of base chocolate, and that didn't match up to the amount of coating we got from the (12oz) bag of milk chocolate chips I chose.

We easily could have used 2 bags of chips, and probably less core chocolate, but I don't want to mess with the core recipe because of the other ingredients involved. Suffice to say, you'll get a lot of it if you go with a teaspoon of chocolate for the core; do be sure to buy an extra bag of the chips for the coating. I melted the chips in the double boiler method, too, instead of microwaving. I don't always trust my microwave :-)

To dust the tops, I bought goooooood sea salt: Fleur de Sel Tresor from a bulk bin at one of our local gourmet food shops....Nice and fluffy, NOT MORTONS. If you can't find any, even kosher salt would be better than regular ol' table salt.

Overall, the hands-on process was longer than 15 minutes (but not obnoxiously so), and SUPER easy.

To package, I bought tiny little "cupcake" papers (one per "cupcake"); we then put 4–6 chocolates in little gift boxes. Tie up with a bow, and voila! a lovely little hostess gift or bonus holiday treat.

We met the Pioneer Woman!

We met The Pioneer Woman last night after waiting for eeeeeeever. She was super nice, it was SUPER quick, and I think she was super surprised that I'm an adult woman with a "pet" cow *laugh* She asked how long I'd had Maddie, and didn't quite know what to say when I say about a year and a half. Ah well. Very, very nice. I'm a huge fan of her blog, and she's a lot of why I've started cooking again. 

Thanks for coming to Atlanta, Ree! You have quite the fan base here.

do-it-yourself cliff bars

I found this recipe awhile ago, and have been meaning to post it (really I have!). Another allrecipes.com gem, this one is technically called Bird Seed Energy Bars but for us backpackers, it's really just Cliff Bars At Home.

I modified in my making of it, so have copied here with notes:

Ingredients

• 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats : Not the quick cook kind!
  
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed: I mixed dark and light because that's what I had
  
• 1 cup wheat germ : Use the toasted or raw kind, though I hear toasted tastes better
  
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup honey
• 1 cup canola oil: I was actually low on oil, so I upped the honey content. You might also try substituting apple sauce for oil to make it lower fat (though proceed at your own risk, I haven't done this yet)
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt

Goodies to mix in:

• 1/2 cup flax seeds: I didn't have any handy so I skipped this, but they're really good for you and worth trying
  
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds: I didn't have any handy so I skipped this
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds: I didn't have any handy so I skipped this
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips: Oh heck yes
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts: Because I like them and they're good for you
• 1/2 cup chopped cherry-flavoured Craisins: Trust me on the cherry-flavoured, and take the bars to a whole new level
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x14 inch ovenproof baking dish.
2. Mix the rolled oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, and flour together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, honey, canola oil, vanilla, and salt until evenly blended., and stir into the oat mixture. Stir in the goodies. Use your hands to mix the ingredients, and press the mixture into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven until the edges are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely in the baking dish before cutting into 2 inch bars.Took me a little longer to bake them since I was going for the golden brown.
   

We have LOVED these. Cut them into squares, store in the fridge in tupperware, and pull out as needed for hikes, snacks, trips, whatever. Mr. Man loves them so much he got fussy when he thought I was withholding one from him on a recent backpacking trip :-)