Dark Chocolate Merlot Cookies

Remember when I made chocolaty goodness like a month ago? Finally blogging about it :]

I help my mom clean a house every other weekend and the lady we work for has a cabinet full of wine! She is super sweet and gives us a few bottles every now and then, but unfortunately it's merlot and I can't really put down any wine other than muscato.

A few weeks ago she gave us like 6 bottles of merlot and 2 of chardonnay so I'm kind of scrambling to find recipes to use the wine in!

Dark chocolate merlot cookies were on the list. I haven't posted a recipe in a while so for anyone that's new to reading my blog, you should know I'm hopeless in the kitchen, so every time I try a recipe, it legit is a disaster waiting to happen.

I found this recipe on pinterest but tweaked it a little...I made just under 3 dozen late one night and among a family of 4 and within 30 hours they were gone, so I'm gonna say this was a success.

What you'll need:

1.5 cups of all purpose flour

1 cup of cocoa powder

1.5 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of baking powder

0.5 cups of softened butter

0.5 cups of granulated sugar

1 cup of brown sugar

2 medium sized eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

0.5 cups of merlot

8 ounces of good quality of dark chocolate

-Pre-heat the oven at 375.

-Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and baking powder, and set to the side. 

My favorite part of baking other than eating the final result is mixing the dry stuff. I think it looks so pretty! Hahaha.

-Mix together the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter until the mixture is "light and fluffy" and then mix in the eggs, vanilla extract, and merlot. 

As a rookie baker (...or whatever you'd call me) the "wet" mixtures always make me a little weary and am convinced that I will end up with some kind of sweet soup concoction that I'll have to throw out instead of in this case chocolatey goodness. I'm still working on trusting all these internet recipes, because I don't know what stuff is supposed to look like. 

-Add the dry ingredients you've already mixed into this wet batter and stir together. 

-Chop up your good quality chocolate and mix it into your batter.

                                           

                                                        

Originally, I purchased that Godiva bar thinking it'd be enough, but it wasn't so I ran over to Sprouts and grabbed what I thought was dark chocolate...instead I purchased this:

I didn't realize it had hazelnut and dried currants [I'm gonna pretend you all know what that is because I have no clue] in it, but it gave the cookie some extra flavor and some crunch.

Marty Mess-up: cocoa powder, and then decided that it'd be too rich so I added more flour, and then decided it had lost the sweetness of it so I added a little cinnamon sugar mix. Don't add any of the extra stuff. Stick to the numbers and steps above and you'll be good to go. 

-Butter a cookie sheet [I used a cake pan because for some reason I thought the batter would run some...it didn't] and dollop about 1 teaspoon of the batter about 2 inches apart. I was kind of messy with this so do whatever works for you

-Bake at 325 degrees for about 12 minutes or until they set but are still soft. Pull the sheet, let it cool. I had some left over chocolate crumbs, so I sprinkled that over the cookies as they were cooling.

Once they're done...enjoy!

If you follow this recipe, or the original one...let me know how yours turn out!

Bleh

A quick Wednesday post... Bleh is how I feel today when I think about how much I weigh right now...especially since I totally fell hard off the wagon during my 6 day staycation last week that included concerts and baseball. I logged all of my food and booze and managed to put down about 16,000 calories in 6 days!  Barf city. I know a lot of people (including myself) are like “Meh, it’s okay…it’s just a slip up. No big deal. I love my body. Blah, blah, blah” but 16k calories is totally NOT okay. Excusing this kind of shit is why I’m a fatty in the first place. No slacking though, I’ve already been paying for last week in the gym this Monday and Tuesday with a run/walk combo of 10.5 miles and an arm workout. I’ve also been flushing my system of all the grease and booze I ate last week by drinking water and eating fruit. I’m pushing the moment of truth back a week because I don’t really want to know what I gained last week! Hopefully I can make up for it!

Easter Sunday

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. My family and a lot of our friends get together at a lake/campground about an hour north called Lake Skinner and have such a fun filled day.

As with any celebration, there is always SO. MUCH. FOOD. Our potluck/buffet/whateveryouwannacallit consisted of carne asada, chicken, hot dogs, lots of pasta, salad, rice, beans, and a bunch of dessert…including my 1^st ever from scratch carrot cake cupcackes [recipe will be posted later this week!]

We do so much during the day and it usually pans out like this:

11:00-2:00 Grub on food. No pictures of that…it isn't very pretty.

2:00-3:00/4:00 Volleyball tournament.

Our net kept sliding down...duct tape to the rescue!

4:00-5:00 Potato sack races, Egg balance & dizzy bat, Three-legged race.

5:00-sunset Easter egg hunt, four and confetti egg bomb war!

our easter egg hunters!

sweet action shot!

minus her dodger jacket...super cute little girl

Such an awesome day! I always have so much fun. How was your easter?

Brunch Deliciousness

O.M.F.G.

I am indebted to the person who created this recipe for life. 

I came across this on Pinterest like 2 months ago and it's all I've been able to think about since then. 

I decided to make it for my friend Holley and I for brunch Sunday morning after I realized I'd have left over brie cheese from that appetizer I had the day before. 

Roasted Strawberries, Chocolate, and Grilled Brie Cheese

Ingredients: Makes 2 sandwiches

- 4 slices of whatever bread you prefer. [I used 12 grain. You should probably stay away from sourdough, I can't imagine that would taste very good.]

- brie cheese. [I have no idea how much I used, the original recipe calls for 2-3 ounces]

-8 strawberries, quartered.

-1/2 tsp of canola oil. [Confession: I have no idea how much I used, I just filled the cap of the oil when that part of the recipe called for it.]

-1 pinch of salt.

-2 tbsp of butter.

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Wash and quarter the strawberries and throw them in a bowl. Mix them with the canola oil and pinch of salt. Spread them across a banking sheet and place in the oven at 250 degrees for 20 minutes.  

Marty Messup: I wanted to see what the strawberries looked like mid-roast so I opened the oven and within seconds the fire alarm went off. Crap. It normally wouldn't have been a big deal except Holley has 2 boston terriers and the alarm pretty much scarred them for life. I seriously got death stared from them. Oops. Sorry Addie & Mabel!

Anyways, next step...once they're done roasting [idk if roasting is the right word, but it is what it is...] pull the sheet out of the oven and let them cool. 

In the mean time, butter one side of each slice of bread and place two on the baking sheet, butter side down. Stack the brie cheese, chocolate, and strawberries for as many layers as you'd like and then place the other two buttered bread slices on top.

Left: Milk Chocolate for Holley         Right: Dark Chocolate for Marty

So I didn't do this next part like the recipe or making a traditional grilled cheese calls, instead of flipping it over on a skillet, I just threw the sandwiched onto the baking sheet and slid that back in the oven and let it bake [? i guess...] at 250 degrees for like 15 minutes until the cheese melted.

Even though I already posted a picture of the finished product, it doesn't hurt to look at it again because it was oh. so. delicious. It was perfectly paired with a mimosa and some leftover [un-roasted] strawberries.

Weekend Update: Spring Break

Whoooo hooo, weekend update :] This is gonna be a long post so hopefully you have some time on your hands!

I go to two different schools right now, the local 4 year univ. [where I will graduate from in May!!] and the community college where I take 2 classes that fit into my schedule since the ones available at the 4 yr. don’t. As much as it’s a pain in the ass to go to both schools, I gotta get it done to finish! One of the sucky things about this situation is the spring breaks don’t match up. My break for the community college is this week, and the 4 yr. break is next week. That kind of puts a damper on any kind of celebrating because I still have crap to do. Hahaha.

Instead of a tropical drunken vacation to Cancun or Cabo San Lucas, I did a weekend getaway to my friend Holley’s place in Irvine, CA which is about an hour North of me.

I was planning on taking the train up, bought my ticket and everything, but I took the back way of connecting to the 76 to the 5 but didn't realize that connection was past the train station! Not even kidding, the next exit for me to turn around and go back to the train station was like 20 miles down the road in San Onofre/San Clemente! By that time I’d already be halfway to Irvine! Hahaha. I made the executive decision to just continue driving all the way up instead of turning around and catching the train. Big Ol' Fail. Hahaha.

Got up there Friday night, stopped by the Ralphs across the street and grabbed some movies…and wine. Props to the cashier for upselling me and convincing me to buy 2 more bottles to complete our 6 pack and save like $37.00! IDK how that works, but it did…and I’m okay with that :]

Woke up Saturday morning, had some Einstien’s bagels [best in the worldddd.] and made our way to Laguna where Holley’s grandparents live. It’s a super nice community called Emerald Bay. We hung out with her family for a little and then hit the beach…the community has their own private beach! We walked along the shore and did a little house shopping before we ventured to the rocks and checked out the sea life! 

^^ Found my dream home :] ^^

It’s crazy to see star fish and sea urchins and sea anemones for real in their natural habitat! I’ve seen them at the aquarium but hey’re in captivity, and that’s not that cool.

How freaking beautiful is this?!! 

#artsyfartsy

We then cruised over to downtown Laguna, and tried to be as tourist as we could by getting some toe rings and pooka shell bracelets! Hahaha. We went out for a late lunch/dinner but only have like an hour before we headed out to the comedy show which was our entertainment for the night. We called ahead to a place called Nick’s and were told that the wait was 5 minutes. We were about 3 minutes away but by the time we crossed the street and got to their door, the wait had increased to 40 minutes! WTF?!! Ugh. There was a BJ’s down the road but their service is always super slow so we didn’t want to risk it and went to an emptier place called C’est La Vie. The picture of a chocolatey/strawberry crepe pulled us in. We sat at the bar and has quite possibly the worst bar tender ever! Not friendly and got pissed off at the servers right in front of us!

Thankfully our food was delicious. I ordered the brie cheese platter as an appetizer and some burger sliders for my dinner. 

We weren’t allowed to photograph or record the comedy show, so there’s no pictures of that :[ but it was fun! The opening act was also the MC for the night, some dude named Nick, a chick from MadTV, and the headliner named Aires Spears from MadTV. No idea who any of them were, but all super funny! I’ve heard of people walking out of shows because they’re offended but I never thought I’d actually see it in person! Super cool people acting totally dramatic. A white dude got called out for not laughing at the black jokes. The comedian kept saying “nigga” and the guy wasn’t laughing so he got called out about it, especially since he was sitting next to a black guy! The comedian told him to lighten up and that it was cool for him to laugh. The wife of the white guy got pissed and they took off. There were some jokes that crossed the line that I wasn’t comfortable laughing at, but for the most part they were all pretty funny!

We got home and poured some wine and headed to the Jacuzzi! It felt so good on my feet after climbing rocks ALL DAY! Ouchhh.

Sunday morning, I woke up and headed to the grocery store to grab some stuff for brunch…

I made the brie grilled cheese with roasted strawberries and chocolate! SO GOOD! Washed it down with some yummy mimosas!

I'll post the recipe later this week :]

Holley lives in a super nice complex that has it's own theater! We slept through most of our reservation for it, but figured we'd go and chill out for an hour or until people kick us out. One one had it reserved at 3:00 but never showed up so we got to see 2 of our movies!

The sunset from Holley's place!

I wanted to go out for a nice dinner but felt kind of bad because Holley wasn’t feeling too well :[ She summoned all her strength to go out and it was probably totally worth it! There’s this restaurant called Seasons52 in South Coast Plaza and it’s supper cool because they change their menu with every season change, and also change their side panel of the menu once a week! Also, everything under the menu is under like 480 calories! Too cool! And I must say, when you tell cooks in OC you want something medium rare, they know what medium rare means! San Diego isn’t so good at that. We ordered their famous flat bread, some steak and dessert!

WOOP WOOP WINE! 

Dinner collage :]

I love the fact that I don't have to fly out of town to enjoy some beautiful scenery, the ocean, etc. It was such an awesome weekend, so great to get away and hang out with my friend all weekend! I owe Holley big time for for letting me come over and crash :] I had such a great time.