The Many Moods of Oreo

Okay - I've gotten a few e-mails about the book - and I sold two!!!! I'm so excited!!! Thanks to my buddy Don Johnson for being so supportive!! And the first buyer!

Don't worry - this is not going to turn into the sales blog - but if you are interested, signed copies are available for $24 (that includes the shipping). If you have a friend who needs a fire lit under them, this might be the perfect gift! : ) Seriously it is a really cool book and the photos and layout are amazing. But enough of that! Let's talk chocolate!!

Tracy and I had so much fun in Walmart, we decided to go back for floor mats for her new car. So, of course, I had to see if there was anything chocolately I might have missed. And, of course, there was!

As you know I was sorely disappointed with those heinous Peppermint Oreos. Well, Oreo is about to make a Christmas Comeback!

They are just calling these Winter Oreos (the ultimate in political correctness), but they have four non offensive festive designs:

And check out the festive red filling:

This red looks and tastes like the quantity in double stuff Oreos - which is fine with me! In my book, it's the filling that really makes the Oreo. I think all Oreos should be double stuffed or perhaps triple stuffed. Maybe they could be called trillion stuffed Oreos in honor of the federal deficit. These are delish and completely restore my faith in Oreo as a viable holiday cookie choice. O Come All Ye Faithful!!

These, however, (which are new to me) are lame:

I mean, it's cool that they have the chocolate in there instead of the vanilla, but it's not enough. These are just plain boring. ZZZZZZZ Pass - not worth the calories.

Tracy found these crazy things:

This, my friends, is a bad idea. Who really wants those hard, dry cookie sticks? It's all about the filling! If Oreo doesn't control the portions for us, we'll all just scoop out all the icing. (Well, that's what I did anyway.) All this packaging, all this craziness, stupid cookie sticks, and then you have to lick out the rest of the filling anyway. I give this negative points for being way too much trouble. Not everything works well as a Handi-Snack. The Oreo already WAS a handy snack. This makes it a Pain-in-the-Ass Snack. Not joyful or triumphant.

All this was a heck of a lotta fun for those low, low Walmart prices. Try something new this holiday season and see what your friends and family think. Experiment - you might find something new you really love. Success this year is more about how much you're laughing than how much you're earning. I hope you are rich with laughter. (And if you're not laughing, give me a call and I'll take you to Walmart.)

Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies Made With Pure Peppermint Oil

by KG Stiles

This Aromatherapy Foods™ recipe made with pure essential oils makes very flat, crispy chocolate chip cookies. They will spread a lot on the pan while baking. If you enjoy cookie pieces these cookies are ideal for cutting into bite-sized pieces before they cool. Or you can remove them immediately from the baking sheet and allow to finish cooling on a rack.

Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ingredients

Half pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus some for baking sheet
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 - 6 drops pure organic peppermint essential oil
3 cups all-purpose pastry flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 - 2 cups chocolate chips

Preparation and Baking Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment; set aside.

In small bowl, cream butter until smooth, then add sugars, and beat until smooth. Beat in eggs, vanilla and peppermint oil.

In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Slowly stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips.

Drop 2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie onto baking sheet; space dough 2 inches apart to allow for spreading.

Bake until golden, 8-10 minutes. Remove cookies immediately and allow to cool. Makes sixty 3-inch cookies.

PLEASE NOTE: There are many cheap, synthetic copies of aromatic oils, but these are not recommended for cooking. For best flavors and results purchase the highest quality oils you can possibly find. Use organically grown and wild crafted essential oils that have been tested for purity and are pesticide free.

About the Author

KG Stiles is a certified aromatherapist practicing in Ashland, Oregon, USA. She has utilized essential oils in her professional practice for more than 30 years, and teaches aromatherapy workshops, including cooking with essential oils. KG is the Director of PurePlant Essentials Organic Aromatherapy and a specialist in formulating aromatic blends for healthy living. Click to learn more & order peppermint pure essential oil.

Do You Burn?

Some of you may find this shocking, but I have written a book. Besides randomly blogging about chocolate and touring Walmart, I do have a day job. I do motivational speaking and this book is about how to keep yourself motivated. Look at this sweet cover:

It's a gorgeous book - my designer, Larry Lynn, is a rock star - and it has all sorts of questions and stories to help readers live their lives on fire. Woowee, I say!

I'm pretty excited and I think the timing is great - a new year fast approacheth. (I didn't use any old English in the book, so don't be scared. I didn't use much new English either. I work a little fast and loose with the rules of grammar as you know). The book is cool because it gives you six steps for setting yourself on fire. Not literally. I mean, who needs a book for that? Gasoline, matches, that's it.

What are the steps?

First you have to really want to be motivated and fired up. What? You think this stuff is easy? If it were easy, we'd all be happy and living our lives to the fullest. Getting fat is easy, staying motivated is hard. When you want it badly enough, move to step two.

Step two is waking up. I believe most of us get so caught up in our busy routines we miss our lives. Years fly by us. Think of your next major birthday (mine will be 45 - good God), maybe you will be 30 or 65. Think about what it will be like to be that age if you continue on your current path. Are you good with that? Years ago when I played that out I was living in Fayetteville, NC renting an apartment. My next major birthday was 40. I thought, "Holy smokes, I don't want to be 40 and still renting an apartment in Fayetteville! AAIIEE!" I woke up, moved to Raleighwood and bought a house. Yay!

What do you want for yourself? Better health? Children? More friends? Better work? Wake up now and start working on it - or go back to sleep and miss your own life. It's up to you.

Step three will help you stay awake - you have to conquer your fear. Fear is the biggest barrier we face to staying motivated. We are afraid to live. We are afraid to tell someone we love them, afraid to ask for a raise, afraid to look for a new job, afraid to travel alone, afraid to do something we have never done, afraid of rejection, of criticism, of embarrassment. You have to get through your fear (which exists only in your mind) so you can take the next step in having a great life.

Step four is set some red hot, exciting goals for yourself. A new year is coming, the timing is perfect! In 2008 I paid my house off, in 2009 I became bionic, in 2010 it's time for a big trip. I don't want to pass through this life without having seen Greece or Italy or Spain or so many other places. I'll decide where I'm going soon. But if I don't, guess what? I won't go anywhere and another year of my life will slip by. What about you? What would you regret never doing? Get on it - you don't have forever. Stop living like you do.

Step five is belief - you have to believe you can save enough to go on the trip, get the time off, start the business, have the baby, run the marathon, lose the weight - whatever it is that you want. Because if you don't believe it can happen, you won't even try to make it happen. And it never will.

Step six is action - you have to do something. We have become masters of activity with no purpose - how many hours have we all wasted surfing the net or watching TV or playing Facebook games. That's great, but unless one of your life goals is having a virtual farm, what the hell are you doing? Did you know that if you save $27.40 a day that's $10,000 a year? Little actions toward your goals add up. But you have to have a goal and they have to be the right actions. Most people think a lot about exercise, but won't walk around the block. Action toward your goal is the only thing that's going to make a difference in your life. That's it - that's the real deal. Stop thinking, dreaming, journaling, tweeting, and start doing.

2010 is a brand new year. What are you going to do with it?

It's a Pirate's Life for Me!

Hotel Chocolat http://www.hotelchocolat.com/ is a British chocolate company that just opened its first US location in Boston. I reviewed some of their chocolate bark in an earlier post (and still have more to review!). This is their Christmas box. The first thing that struck me when I opened the box was the odor of alcohol. Odd, right?

But when I looked a little closer, I saw that several of the confections had booze in them, so I guess it makes sense. Now here's the downside, I'm not such of a drinker, so I don't really love the alcohol/chocolate combo. So this was a bit of a bummer for me. But hey, most people would probably really like it.

I loved all of these - great designs, great chocolate. I loved the mistletoe - a smooth caramel milk chocolate. Wonderfully sweet and creamy and a very cool design. The ornament is an equally delicious milk chocolate with a hint of hazelnut. YUM!!! Dark chocolate fans will love the penguin - a 72% dark chocolate in a lovely design. These were all terrific.

The one with the red top has some strawberry liqueur in it. I didn't like it. The other milk chocolate one is better - it has milk chocolate and caramel and those round things are mini shortbread cookies. It was good, but not as good as it sounds. It was maybe a seven, but really should have been a ten. And the white chocolate one? Finely milled macadamia nuts in creamy white chocolate with a hint of coconut. Hmmm....I found the white chocolate overpowered everything else with its sweetness. Macadamia nuts are sweet too and I couldn't really catch the hint of coconut.....maybe if you bit off the penguin's head first, it would give a better blend of flavors. Nothing like a little holiday violence!

The yellow star was my worst nightmare - lemon and ginger - glacck! Now many of you might really like that creative combo, but not me. The ginger was too strong for me and with the lemon - eek!

The one at the top is a rum and raisin star - no rum for me - too strong. I'm not a pirate for God's sake! I just like chocolate!

And the pink star has raspberry and prosecco (I didn't even know what that was! It's a sparkling wine). Again, I didn't like it. These guys are killing me with all the alcohol. To me the alcohol overpowers the subtle flavors of the chocolate.

The little round guys are mini whisky truffles. Eew. Sorry, I'm just doomed with these.

Now I liked the other two - the white chocolate one is the smoothest and creamiest hazelnut and milk chocolate praline ever enrobed in white chocolate and topped with a Christmassy cranberry. Yum, yum, yum!!!

And the square is a pecan nut praline blended with crushed feuilletine pieces (I had to look that one up too: Usually only seen in the professional kitchen, feuilletine (foo-ye-teen, more-or-less, from the French "feuille," meaning "leaves") tastes like crispy, thin little shards of sugar cone. You can mix it in to mousses to add some crunch.) Great - some leaves are in here. Anyway, those sugar leaves are pretty damn good!

Overall the collection had too much whisky, rum and liqueur for yours truly. But hey, I learned two new words and I don't think I'm drunk. Although I'm thinking about flying the Jolly Roger and I already have a peg leg........

Wanting Candy at Walmart

My Sorbet Sistah Tracy has been hauling me around since the surgery (what a great friend, right?) and this weekend we took an evening trip to Walmart. She wanted to buy an air freshener for her new car (way to go, Trace!) and I wanted to check out the candy. American Express sent me a "spend $50 in Walmart and get a $10 credit on your statement" offer, so I felt compelled to go. (And, of course, spend $50.)

Some good news is that I can now drive myself short distances. It would be easier if I didn't drive a 350Z, but hey, what can I say? My first drive was to the gym. Yep, I was back in the gym lifting on Sunday. (Today is three weeks after the surgery.) I loved it when one of my girlfriends said, "Geez - someone who just got a hip replacement is doing more exercise than I am!" Whoohoo! Hey, us motivational speakers gotta walk the talk (or at least limp it).

Just in case you all think I'm making the whole hip replacement thing up, here's an x-ray they took Friday:

There it is! Holy smokes! It pretty much freaks me out, but hey, airport security will love it! It will give them a chance to wand someone. The docs said I might have to show them my scar. Great.

Okay - back to Walmart. The first thing that caught our attention was this giant white chocolate snowman:

Look how big that bad boy is! There was a small crowd of us standing there just admiring them. We were like deer in headlights. Were these decorations or something you might eat? They were like giant chocolate Easter rabbits, but we couldn't seem to get our brains around them. They were huge, they were hollow, they were $9. I love you guys, but I could tell by looking at this thing that I didn't want to taste it.

On the Christmas decoration aisle there were lots of those dancing stuffed things that if you push a button on their hand or foot or some other body part they move and play music. One was a snowman brandishing a giant peppermint lollipop. Tracy pushed his foot and he played, "I want candy! I want candy! I want candy in the morningtime, I want candy in the hot sunshine, I want candy!" Ever since, Tracy and I have been singing "I want candy!" We are particularly fascinated by the fact that someone wants candy in the hot sunshine. Why? Who says, "Jesus, it's hot out here. Somebody get me a Reese's." "OMG, I'm burning up! Let's get some fudge!" "Delores, it's so damn hot, pass me one of those Snickers!"

I don't think so.

Then we saw this act of merchandising genius:

Yes, my friends, that is Ghirardelli chocolate next to spray paint. It was actually the spray paint and home repair aisle. Who thinks like that? What is wrong with these people?

"I want candy! I want candy! I want candy when I paint my house, I want candy when I trap a mouse. I want candy!"

I actually bought this TWO AND A HALF POUND box of candy we found in the dog food aisle:

At least it was on an end cap. The remote is for scale, it didn't come with it.

Now, I have very low expectations for this gigantic box of chocolate - it too was $9, apparently a very popular price at Walmart. I mean, how good can it be? But I couldn't stop myself - hey, I had to get to $50 somehow! But don't worry - you'll hear all about it! Maybe we'll open it on Christmas morning!!

"I want candy! I want candy! I want candy when I feed my dogs, I want candy when I chop up logs! I want candy!"

Whisky next post, I promise! And no, Tracy and I weren't drunk when we went to Walmart, although we were laughing so hard and taking pictures of chocolate, so the employees probably thought we were. I figure some of them were, so what the hell.

"I want candy when I stock the shelves, I want candy for Santa's elves, I want candy!"

Chocolate Fudge Bars

Chocolate Fudge Bar Recipe

1 stick butter
2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate squares
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla or peppermint extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp. milk (approx)
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate together. Let cool.

Stir in the sugar, beat in the eggs, and mix in the flour, salt, and baking soda. Add the vanilla. Spread into a greased jellyroll pan.

Sprinkle with the chocolate chips, and bake at 350 degrees F for 8 minutes or so. Spread on the glaze. Cool slightly, and cut the chocolate fudge bars while still warm.

Glaze: Mix together the ingredients into a glaze that will pour thickly. Add a couple of drops of food coloring, if desired.

A Quick Kiss

I'm a sucker for Hershey's Kisses. I love all the great flavors, love the shape, love the wrappers. So I'm always excited to see the new flavors. This one isn't new (I reviewed it last year):

Still a solid choice. I stand by last year's comments. There's also a really good looking cookie recipe on the back of the package.

These I haven't had before:

The dark chocolate is a nice offset to the mint. No candy chunks as in the peppermint ones and not as sweet with the dark chocolate. More sophisticated. And pretty darn good, I might add. No Lindor Truffle, mind you, but good.

And these I hadn't seen either:

Wow!! Yum!!! I didn't think I would like these at all (not a big fan of whiskey), but they are really good! Once again, I have no idea what I'm going to really like until I try it. I hope this won't interact with my Percocet.....

More on whiskey, rum and liqueur tomorrow! Woowee!!