Save Money with Ozeri and try this Double Chocolate Crisp Cookies Recipe

Sometimes, I find baking easy but other times I find it a chore lol.  I guess, it all depends on the mood I am in.  Anyway, I baked this Double Chocolate Crisp Cookies last week and loved the result.  Here is the recipe for it.

Ingredients:
1 cup countrycrock butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 double  chocolate crisp candy, chopped

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375. 
• Mix butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla in a large bowl until well mixed. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda until blended. (Dough will be soft and creamy). 
• Add the chopped choclate candy. 
• Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls on ungraded baking sheets 3 inches apart0
• Bake 10-12 minutes until edges are lightly golden. 
• Cool 1 minute in a  wine  rack. 
• Remove from sheets and cool completely.
• Store in an Ozeri good storage container.

I love these Ozeri INSTAVAC BPA-Fee 8-Piece Green Earth Food Storage Container.  It has a nesting set with vacuum seal and locking lids.  I love its instant vacuum freshness without pumps, motors or confusing parts.  All you have to do is simply press down on the lid and air is forced out via the one-way valve.  The patented valve removes excess air to reduce naturally occurring bacteria.   It also releases pressure to prevent spills and splatters in microwaves.  As a Mom, anything that would save us time in cleaning  kitchen utensils is a  win-win.  

 The wave pattern on bottom of each container keeps cut fruit and vegetables elevated from water and juices.  My kids love fruits  so I always pre-cut   some of  the fruits that they like and  oput them in these containers  so it is ready when they want to snack.  It  saves me time also in preparing their school lunches in the morning.  There is a handy date dial allows you to record when food was first stored and monitor days kept in the refrigerator.  You can buy this set  via this  amazon link .

In three weeks, we will be moving to our new home  so I am glad that I have new pans to use in my new  kitchen.  I got this 3-piece Green Earth frying pan from Ozeri.  The sizes are 8", 10", and 12".

 I have  had their pans and  has been a huge fan of it ever since.  They are very easy to clean and as long as you know how to properly care for it, it lasts for a long time.  I love that Ozeri utilizes a new scratch-resistant dual ceramic coating which makes it easier to clean. Even though it has  a superior abrasion resistance, I always clean the pans myself because  sometimes, the kids would clean with the very rough  cleaning materials.  These pansa re made out of durable heavy-gauge die-cast aluminum with no heavy metals or harmful chemicals which I also love.  You can buy this set via amazon.

Disclosure: The owner of this blog was NOT financially compensated to write this review.  I was provided with the product/s mentioned  to help me  facilitate this review but  opinions are my own.

Game Changing Kitchen Gadgets from Joseph Joseph

When we were still in South Korea, I bought this two-tiered  dish rack.  I love it as it is stainless steel and I can fit  a lot of dishes in it after washing it.  I still love it but  we are going to move  next month and the kitchen that we have in that  new home is a little  smaller than what we have now so I don't think this will have space there.  I am bummed that we are leaving our current home because I  really love this  big kitchen of mine but  this home is getting smaller for our growing family so I have no choice  but to give up  something in order to get something else.  Oh well, that's life, right?

I am very pleased with this Arena self-draining dish rack  because it doesn't  take  so much space and you can  fit a lot of dishes in it too.  It doesn't accommodate  as much a space as my current dish rack but I am okay with that since my kitchen to the new home is  small.  I also love the fact that it is self draining so I don't have to deal with  water residue because of it's  innovative design.   Gotta love game changing kitchen gadget such as this one.

We are moving soon so I decided not to use this  here, I will  wait till we  moved to  the new home.    Other features that I love about this item  includes the flexible ribs that hold crockery securely in place.  It helps to prevent chips and scratches while the dishes are  drying. It can also hold extra-large utensils as well as plates, bowls, cups, glasses and cutlery as shown in the photo below.  Another thing is the compact feature.  The  stylish design means your sink area will look great as well as keeping things tidy and organized.  I don't like  wiping  dishes  after washing them  so a dish rack like this is ideal for me, I love dishes being air dried.

Another product that I got from Joseph Joseph is this Index color coded chopping board set.  I am all for  space saving gadgets for the reason I have mentioned previously so chopping board set is a great addition.  One thing about home cooks need to watch out is  cross contamination of food.  That's why I have two bamboo cutting board so I can use one for the  veggies and the other for the  meat.  With this chopping board, not only that  it is color coded, it  also  is a space saver.  It has  its own  storage case that won't take much space in the kitchen.

 Index™ has been a worldwide best-seller since it's launching in 2008.  I have to admit, I thought Joseph Joseph is a new company because I have never heard  of them till this year but I am so glad that through social media, I have seen the video of their  awesome products.  With this  original colour-coded chopping board set, you don't have to worry about  cross-contamination of food.  All you need to do is to use the simple-yet-effective tab system.

Index™ includes 4 cutting boards featuring index-style tabs to indicate which food type they should be used for –
 raw meat, vegetables, fish and cooked food. 

All boards have non-slip feet and sloped edges to catch any stray food and juices. They also have knife-friendly cutting surfaces and the case has a non-slip base. 

This stylish and practical set looks great in any kitchen and comes in regular or large sizes. 

Joseph Joseph definitely win my vote for functionality and sleek design when it comes to kitchen products. Please watch the video below and see how awesome their products are.  In fact, I want most of their  products in my kitchen lol.

Disclosure: The owner of this blog was NOT financially compensated to write this review. I was provided with the product/s mentioned to help me facilitate this review but opinions are my own.

Corn-Full and Delicious Yankee Cornbread Muffins #GlutenFree

The kids'  holy week break from school have started  yesterday.  They get bored pretty easy so finding  things for them to do is crucial for me  so that we will have a nice  break.  My son asked me if we could do something in the kitchen yesterday so I immediately dug in the Glutino box to see what we can bake from the Glutino goodies that they sent me this month.  Since I made them a chicken soup the other day, I thought of making the cornbread mix.   

Here's what inside the  Glutino box this month.  The baking mixes includes the  chocolate cake, brownies, cornbread, and  pizza crust.  They also included a box of  crackers, pretzels, and lemon wafer bites.  

 Here's the little guy sniffing  the milk (he loves milk!).  He  was the one who gathered the ingredients that we need:

• Entire bag of gluten free  Yankee cornbread mix
• 1 1/3 low fat butter milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 6 tbsp melted butter 

 Procedure:

• Preheat oven to 425.  Lightly grease an 8x8  inch pan, I used my muffin mix on this step.  
• Combine mix and sugar.  
• Add wet ingredients and mix to moisten.
• Pour it into the pan or  in the muffin  cups and bake for 25 minutes or until the top is brown.  

 My son love anything with cheese so he has this idea to add some cheese so I let him add 1/4 cup to the mixture.

 He did not stop there, he also  sprinkle some on top of the muffins.

 Whenever my daughter is sick, the only thing she would eat is some type of soup that's why I decoded to make her some chicken soup.  

 I also made a chowder  for me and my husband.  I had some leftover  Korean BBQ ribs in the  refrigerator so I chopped them in small pieces and added it in the chowder.  Asparagus is in season so it is  cheap  so I stack on them  while they are on sale.  We all love asparagus so I add   it  whatever dish I am making for us.  They even enjoyed it  just plain steamed or  grilled.  

 These corn-full and delicious Yankee Cornbread muffins were a great combo to eat with the soup.

The next time I get this  cornbread mix, I will make the  cheese spinach puffs.  

Disclosure: The owner of this blog was NOT financially compensated to write this review.  I was provided with the product/s mentioned  to help me  facilitate this review but  opinions are my own.

Making my Own Gourmet Square Burger

We recently bought a quarter of beef  from a friend's farm and we have been enjoying different  menus with beef.  Most of the cuts that we ordered is  ground beef since we cook a lot using ground beef and my husband love a good burger.  That's why I am so stoked when Cavetools offered me to review their new product, the burger press and storage container.  

This  burger press is awesome because it serves as  a storage for your burger as well.  I love that it's a  square so if you are using the regular  bread for burgers. it  is  shape exactly like bread which is perfect.  You can make larger and thicker burgers.  This design is inspired by the by the size of world famous Bubba Burgers. I love that they even imprinted the  instruction on how to use it in the trays.  

You can get this  through their website or via amazon.  You can use  this  Amazon Coupon Code LZEN8T4G to enjoy a  15% Off the original price.  I love the built in  BURGER DIMPLER as it is scientifically proven to make sure your hamburgers stay flat and cook evenly.

I think that the right amount of gropund beef to make  six burger is two pounds.  I used three pounds plus the  onions that I added to it so  the burgers are a little bit thicker than it should so it was a bit   longer to cook.  The good thing is, I know how much I would use the next time I make  my own  gourmet square burgers.

There's only four of us here at home so I only cooked three of the burgers out of the six that I made.  The kids are not big burger eaters so they   each get half  of one burger.  I had a hard time  finishing mine because it was thick!  The  burger press seals tight and stacks easily in the freezer so  keeping the burger  fresh is easy.  I also love that it is  dishwasher safe because you can throw it in the dishwasher for easy clean up.  I added 1 tablespoon of  curry paste to this burger for a different twist and my husband   loved it!  

 As you can see, the burgers I made was overflowing and that's because I put too much in it but I won't do that again next time lol.  If you want a non0-traditional burger shape, you should get this burger press.  

Disclosure: The owner of this blog was NOT financially compensated to write this review.  I was provided with the product/s mentioned  to help me  facilitate this review but  opinions are my own.

Grill Brush Triple Stainless Steel Bristles #BBQBrush

I am excited for this week because we will have a nice weather.  The temperature is suppose to go up to 70 degrees which is really nice.  By weekend however,  the temperature is going to go back down to freezing again.  It is hard to get used to this weather changes but I will take any warm day I could have.  It would be nice to go out and  do some BBQ but I will wait till summer time because we will be moving soon and I don't want to get the grill dirty yet until we finally settle to the new home.

I  am glad that I have all the tools  that I need when the right  time comes.  The recent BBQ tool I got from Cavetools is this triple stainless steel bristle BBQ grill brush which is supposed to be  100% RUST PROOF DESIGN.   

I like it that you  don't have to  worry about forgetting your brush outside again because it won't rust.   It is designed to keep all 3 brushes tight together for maximum cleaning power on all types of grill grates.  IT also has the HIGHEST BRISTLE DENSITY. 

 You can get this via amazon for $14.99 but you can enjoy an extra 15% off  using this Amazon Coupon Code V9BW7SDN.  You can also visit directly the link  I have provided above at Cavetools website, it is on sale for $12.99.  

  Disclosure: The owner of this blog was NOT financially compensated to write this review.  I was provided with the product/s mentioned  to help me  facilitate this review but  opinions are my own.

Cocoa Brownies with Cream Cheese

As I have mentioned many times before, I am not a baker.  I am not fond of baking but once in a while I feel the urge to bake  some  sweets for my  kids and hubby whe love sweets!  I do however rely on   ready-mixes for baking because I don't like too much measuring and all that kind of stuff lol.  Yesterday however, I did not have a  mix so I searched for a doable  recipe to  make  brownies and found two different recipes that interests me.  The recipe was posted by Alton Brown and Bobby Flay.  I thought of combining their ideas into one.

Free farm eggs given by my husband's co-worker. Thank you Randy!

 Here is Alton Brown's Cocoa Brownie recipe
Ingredients

• Soft butter, for greasing the pan
• Flour, for dusting the buttered pan
• 4 large eggs (I used 5  medium size ones)
• 1 cup sugar, sifted
• 1 cup brown sugar, sifted
• 8 ounces melted butter (2 sticks)
• 1 1/4 cups cocoa, sifted ( I only used 1 cup)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup flour, sifted
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Bobby Flay's Cream Cheese MIxture Recipe

• P package cream cheese
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup sugar

Direction: Using an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese, egg and sugar until smooth.

 Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square pan.

• In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the eggs at medium speed until fluffy and light yellow. Add both sugars. Add remaining ingredients, and mix to combine.

• Pour the batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square pan  and dollop the cream cheese mixture on top of the brownie batter. Swirl together using a knife or skewer and bake for 45 minutes. 
• Check for doneness with the tried-and-true toothpick method: a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan should come out clean. When it's done, remove to a rack to cool. Resist the temptation to cut into it until it's mostly cool.

Okay, I admit, these brownies tasted so good but I am warning  you, there is too much suggar in this!

Bobby  Flay called his recipe Cheesecake brownies.  He  required for one box of ready mix brownie.  I thought why not have fun with these two  recipes of  famous chefs and combined it in one, so hence the Cocoa Brownies with Cream Cheese.
Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown and Bobby Flay.