Another belated post

Hello everyone. Are you read for a ton of recipes to be thrown at you today? I hope so, because in an effort to catch my blog up to my cooking, I am doubling up on recipes for this post (and probably the next few posts as well) :) I do have a few winners in this post, so keep reading to find out more.

The first, and in my opinion, the best, recipe for today is these Black Bottom Coconut Bars. Generally Martha Stewart recipes don't steer me wrong, and this was no exception. I thought these were fantastic. I didn't know how the slightly drier coconut top would go with the chocolatey bottom, but the answer is . . . amazing. I took these to a dinner party at a friend's house and everyone loved them. Plus, the color contrast makes them very visually interesting too. If you like coconut macaroons and brownies, give these a try.


I also wanted to make some potato chips to go with sandwiches I was trying to copy from a favorite lunch spot and this recipe did the trick. To prep the potatoes I rinsed the slices and then soaked them for about 30 minutes in cold water that I changed every ten minutes (based on some other suggestions that I had read). Once they were cooked, I sprinkled them with garlic salt, and . . . yum. They kept well for a few days in a plastic container, and were the perfect accompaniment to my tasty veggie paninis (sauteed portobello mushrooms with garlic, hummus, avocado, tomato, shredded carrots, and a little ranch dressing).

Not quite as good as the restaurant, but very tasty! 

I even made my own bread for the sandwiches. I figured ciabatta would be a good bread for paninis, and since I've been obsessed with "The Great British Bake-Off" lately, I tried Paul Hollywood's ciabatta recipe. I can't say I was perfectly successful. It was good, but got kind of funky shaped and not as ciabatta-like as I would have liked . . . there weren't as many holes in it. Oh well, it still tasted good and made a good sandwich.

Another "British Bake-Off" inspired recipe that I tried was this Hot Chocolate Cake Roll. They had made cake rolls on an episode and then I saw it on Pinterest and felt inspired to make it, especially since I had never made anything like it before. I think it turned out pretty well. It wasn't my favorite type of cake, but it was pretty impressive looking, and everyone that had it liked it :)

Okay, last recipe for today, I promise. I saw a picture of ice cream in hollowed out apples with caramel sauce  (like this) on Pinterest, but I figured that they would taste better if the apples were cooked, and I didn't want to wait to bake them in the oven, so I found this microwave method. I stopped at step two, because I definitely didn't want cheese in my baked apples, I wanted ice cream with caramel sauce. The skin got a little tough, so it was best to cut it up with a sharp knife before putting the ice cream and sauce on top. That way it was much easier to eat with a spoon, Not the fanciest dessert, but it was very tasty :) I didn't take a picture, because once cooked, they didn't look very pretty, but this blog post is long enough as it is, so you'll have to forgive the lack of a picture.

Whew, you made it though this ridiculously recipe-packed post. Stay tuned for another one soon :)