Sticky Chocolate Gingerbread

T'was Christmas Day and all through the house wafted the smell of  Chocolate...

Oh Yeah!

I love chocolate!  Chocolate dipped strawberries... raspberries in chocolate sauce... chocolate chip cookies...
And this time of year is an excellent excuse to indulge.

A chocolate gingerbread just seemed so... perfect.  This is the same recipe as for the Black Sticky Gingerbread, minus the pepper, with the addition of cocoa.  And it is delightful!  Yum!

Black Sticky Gingerbread

Oh the weather outside is... well, rather tame actually.  It isn't looking like a white Christmas here in New England.  And I'm a bit out of sync with the season.  I've done the bulk of my Christmas shopping this week.  Christmas cards too.  And the Christmas baking.

I've been collecting interesting gingerbread recipes and ideas.  And today I finally got around to making two of them.  Yay!

Sticky Chocolate and Black Sticky Gingerbread

Strawberry Vanilla Jam

Strawberry Vanilla Jam

 My favorite fruit in the whole world, contrary to popular belief, is not mango.  It is strawberries.  I have fond memories of eating wild strawberries at my grandparents house.  Eating until I was absolutely stuffed!

Absolutely my favorite. Now that being said my favorite fruit combination would have to be strawberry, mango and pineapple.  Mmmm that may have to be jam for another day.  You'll come back, won't you, for that one?

But we're not playing with mangoes today.  Focus... or you'll miss this one.  And you don't want to miss this one.  Strawberry and vanilla blend to make a taste sensation that will make your taste buds sing.  And your friends rave. 

Ginger Spice Cookies (Rice Free)

Let the Christmas baking begin!  Shortly after moving into our new house, one of our new neighbors invited me to the annual Christmas cookie swap and then comes the bake sale at school.  Fantastic, except, I haven't made Christmas cookies, per se, for years.  So I began going through old recipes and thinking.  As I was growing up, my family always made lots and lots of cookies at Christmas: ginger snaps, molasses crinkles, lemon bars, cherry pinwheels, raspberry turnovers, sugar cookies, etc.  What to make... and how much tweaking do I want to do?

Ginger Spice cookies

Apple Butter

This is one of those posts that was put on the back burner due to life.  Fall in New England is apple time.  And we do love apples in this house.  The kids eat apples sliced with their favorite butter (peanut or sunflower depending on the kid), we make pies, crumbles and more.   But the apple butter is a family favorite and I thought I'd share it with you.  Not only is it great on biscuits, or, simply, on a spoon... but stir 1/2 cup into spice cake or chocolate brownies and up the "Yum"!
  

Apples ready to be made into apples butter

Vanilla Pear Jam

My friend, Tree, brought this to my attention several months ago.  She had made it and was enjoying it with a biscuit and Irish cheddar.  *sigh*  How I wish she lived closer!!

She found the recipe on the Food in Jars website.  It is a great website to check out especially if you are into canning.  I found recipes for pear lavender jam, pear with brown sugar and cardamom, and strawberry vanilla as well as the vanilla pear made here.

Vanilla Pear Jam- flecks of vanilla bean.  Yum!

A move and finally some new recipes coming

My apologies to all of you.  I got caught up in life and have neglected to post.  My husband was transferred over the summer and my time was split between work, kids and trying to get things organized to move to western Massachusetts.  We moved on weekends starting in October and are now settling in and getting back into our routines.

That doesn't mean we haven't been eating though!  And I have been taking pictures of the new things we've eaten so there are several new recipes coming.  Some of them will be a bit out of season and I apologize for that.

On the home front look at the kitchen we found!

Our new kitchen!  Yay!

It is fantastic!  Very inspiring and great to cook in.  There is so much more to come.  I have recently been exploring roasting. And should have some great recipes for you shortly.

Thank you for your patience!  And I'll be posting recipes soon.  Later today in fact!

Michelle