Po Cha

Po Cha is a Himalayan tea also known as buttered tea. When I was in elementary school, I read a book where everyone was constantly drinking this warming beverage and ever since then I have wanted to try it.
And so, instead of doing homework or going on a run today, I decided to craft some buttered tea. Oh boy was it worth it. Normally, Po Cha is made with rancid butter and yaks milk, making it a VERY acquired taste but I made mine with more familiar ingredients. This tea tasted like buttered toast and english breakfast tea rolled into one, it was light and buttery and sweet with a hint of salt, SO DELISH.


My tea was created as follows:
- 2 cups water
- 1 earl grey tea bag

not the most photogenic, but oh so yummy

- 1 cup milk
- 4 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 tablespoon butter


1. Boil that water with the tea bag fully immersed.
2. After the water has reached a steady boil, turn the heat down to medium and add milk and sugar.
3. Whisk as the mixture comes back up to a boil, making sure the sugar is fully dissolved.
4. Turn the temp. back down and as the tea simmers, slowly add butter and whisk to incorporate.
5. When everything is incorporated, pour tea into a cup and drink up!

weetabix baking

Today, on the first day of SPRING BREAK (woohoo), i spent my day in pajamas, lazing about the house and drinking tea. Oh, and also making up recipes. This one was insprired by this weird cereal that has been sitting around my house and not being eaten. I thpought, hey, people make cake out of oatmeal, why not out of...Weetabix?
And so i began concocting and mixing and tasting in a devilish frenzy until I came up with this final recipe:


2 crushed (well crushed!) Weetabix chunks? pieces? rounds? cakes? WHATEVER THEY ARE CALLED.
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup sugar

ginger, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves

1 and 1/2 teaspoons combined of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and fresh ground cloves (those spices are listed in order of how much I put in)
1 cup milk
1/8 cup (-ish, just for moistness) of plain yogurt 
2 teaspoons vanilla


1. CRUSH YOUR WEETABIX. I cannot stress eough how important this is, do you want clumps of gross dryness in your loaf? NO, you do not.
2. Add CRUSHED Weetabix, flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar into a large/medium mixing bowl.
3. Add your ONE TEASPOON TOTAL of your own personal spice concoction, not one teaspoon of each spice, ONE TEASPOON TOTAL.
4. Mix up those dry ingredients.
5. Add yourself some milk, yogurt and vanilla and mix/whisk until everything is well incorporated.

6. At this point, taste your batter (if you have restrained yourself until now), and add extra milk or spices for taste and texture issues that you discover--IF you discover any issues at all. 
7. Bake at 325 degrees for forty five minutes.
Remove from oven, let cool, slice, EAT!

The bread just came out of the oven and, although its oddly chewy, its pretty damn good for some ingredients i threw into a bowl :)

banana brownies

• So this friday after three and a half grueling hours of gymnastics jordan zoe and I went on back to my house to bake. We were really feelin some brownies so we decided to whip some up. Like the geniuses we are, we did not check to see if all of the indgredients were available BEFORE cooking. So halfway through someone discovered there werent enough eggs. 
• Although I was tempted to panic and give up, i didnt. GO ME! instead, a banana to egg equivalent was googled. We just mashed up half of a banana with a fourth teaspoon of baking powder for each missing egg and added that.
• In the end, everything worked out and we ended up with a delish banana-chocolate explosion of brownie goodness. 

• THIS was the final recipe:
• 
  
• 6 (1 ounce) squares 100% unsweetened chocolate
• 1 1/2 cup butter
• 4 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 4 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 over ripe bananas

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Melt chocolate in a double boiler (over hot but not boiling water).
3. Add in butter and stir until melted.
4. Remove pan from heat.
5.  Stir in sugar. Mix in eggs and vanilla. 
6. Stir in flour.
7. Mash bananas and baking powder in a separate bowl.
8. Add banana mixture to chocolate mixture and mix thoroughly.
9. Spread in greased 13 x 9 inch pan. Bake for 45 minutes (except maybe more...)

The above recipe does have one flaw...ZOE decided to pull the brownies out of the oven a little before they were done. Or a lot. We ended up with some brownie like substance around the edges of the pan and some...pudding? Which was admittedly delicious, and even turned into sliceable brownie by the next day.

But yeah, we ate our "brownies" with spoons :)

the turduken of cookies (an oreo stuffed inside a chocolate chip-less cookie)

(http://ilovemesomefood.blogspot.com/2011/02/double-cookie-love.html)

We've already featured the famous oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies here on ilovemesomefood.blogspot.com, in Heather's lovely post "double cookie love" --------> 
Our lovely friend Jenna baked the cookie featured in that post, and last night I figured it was time for me to take a crack at it as well!

Since there were no chocolate chips available in my household, I decided to just bake the cookies along with the recipe and completely disregard the chocolate chip part of it. I found the official recipe for these puppies here: http://picky-palate.com/2011/01/06/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/. Apparently this is THE original recipe for the cookies, and all other recipes I read linked back to this one. 

Obviously, they didn't turn out as I hoped because of their...tumor-like shapes. The whole point to these cookies is that the oreos are a surprise!

But as Jenna put it, they look like dainty hats!!

Now, if you're smart, you know that EVERYTHING is best underbaked. That is not a matter of opinion; it's pure fact. That's why these cookies are def best straight out of the oven. The whole top layer of cookie is basically hot, oozing cookie dough! and the cream in the oreo melts in your mouth. ufgpj, so good. 

they're awesomely photogenic the next day though...

oh, and did I mention that I stuffed two of these with THIN MINTS?! yeah, thats right. But only two lucky cookies got to be thin mint-ified, because it was kind of an experiment. Let me just say that those experiments didn't go to waste. I ate both of the thin mint ones, long before anyone else got a chance to try this batch of cookies. mwahaha.

it's girl scout cookie season!

...and that means that we are going to be purchasing, eating, and creating new things out of GIRL SCOUT COOKIESSSSS!
SO, you tell us. girl scout cookie ice cream sandwiches? girl scout cookie ice cream? girl scout cookies BAKED into OTHER cookies?

well....stay tuned for updates :)