Apple Pie Cocktail

This recipe is in response to the book Antigoddess by Kendare Blake.  Check out Nikki's review of Antigoddess HERE.

Antigoddess takes place mostly in upstate New York in the fall.  The leaves have already fallen from the trees and its starting to flurry snow just a bit some evenings.  What's more comforting on a cold evening than a warm Apple Pie?  Save yourself all the mess of baking and make an Apple Pie Cocktail instead.  With a nod to what started the whole Trojan War (the Apple of Discord) thrown in gor good humor.  I suggest making this redipe and keeping it warm in your crockpot.  Serve them in mason jars and toast "kallisti" or "To the fairest!"  Invite the girls over and tak books, men and life.  The entire house will smell amazing too.  Cheers!

This recipe is originally posted on Allrecipes

Ingredients:

1 gallon apple juice

1 gallon apple cider

3 cups white sugar

8 cinnamon sticks

1 (750 milliliter) bottle 190 proof grain alcohol

Directions:

1. In a large pot, combine apple joice, apple cider, sugar and cinnamon sticks.  Bring to a boil, the remove from heat and let cool completely. 

2.When juice mixture is cool, stir in the grain alcohol.

 About Nikki:

Nikki spends half her time at the gym and the other half of her time wondering why she is single, which gets old really fast so she reads instead.  She loves cats, shopping, cartoons, good music and great friends.  She loves to read dystopian, paranormal, steampunk, horror, erotica and even a bit of sci-fi.  She is an avad Manchester United fan and a total dork.

Eggs in a Frame

This post is a direct result of Stephanie's review of the book,

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Eggs in a Frame

Ingredients:

1 egg
1 slice of bread
butter
salt and pepper

Directions:

Take a  glass or cookie cutter and cut a hole in the middle of the bread.  Butter both sides of the bread.  Put the bread into a skillet then crack the egg into the hole.  Fry the egg to your personal level of done-ness turning over to cook on both sides.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cake Mix Chocolate Chip Cookies

The boys were asking to make cookies this week.  We have a couple of cake mixes in the cabinet so I decided to just use one of those to make the cookies.

Ingredients:

(original recipe)

1 (18.25 ounce) package cake mix (we used Golden Vanilla)

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 Eggs

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (we just added them until we thought it looked like enough)

(We followed some online comments and added)
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F 

2.  In a medium bowl, stir together all of the ingredients except for the chocolate chips.  Stir until smooth and well blended.  Add in the chocolate chips

3.  Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.

4.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven.  Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies were gone within 24 hours.

Greek Almond Butter Cookies

In honor of a fantastic book that I recently read (Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller) I decided to make this morning's home school lesson a science experiment about predicting and measuring.  

First I had the boys create a recipe for what they thought should go into making Greek Almond Butter Cookies.  Two of them got pretty close.  The fourteen year old is not allowed in my kitchen ever again.

Next, we looked at the real ingredients and compared it to theirs.

 Finally, we followed the recipe and baked the cookies.

RECIPE:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened                                 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

3/4 cup white sugar                                     2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 egg                                                          1/2 cup confectioner's sugar for rolling

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).  Grease cookie sheets.

2) In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and egg until smooth.  Stir in the vanilla and almond extracts.  Blend in the flour to form a dough, you may have to knead it by hand at the end.  Take about a teaspoon of dough at a time and roll into balls, logs, or 'S' shapes.  Place cookies 1 to 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.

3) Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned and firm.  Aloow cookies to cool completely before dusting with confectioners' sugar.

We had fun and made different shapes.

Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller is a YA book coming September 24, 2013.  If you enjoy reading, I encourage you to give this book a chance.  You can read my review HERE and enter before September 24, 20013 to win a hardcover copy.