Thursday, February 19, 2015

Thinking out loud Thursday & Homemade chocolate syrup

This week has been somewhat crazy... We had a snow storm Saturday, our pipes froze Monday morning because it is and has been SO DANG COLD here in Jersey... then we had another snow storm Monday night into Tuesday which gave me a snow day Tuesday! (WooHoo) Wednesday was so busy at work with catching up from 4 days off...
So today, it's a little  bit of this and a little bit of that...

Since we have been SERIUOSLY struggling to get out of the single digits lately, and have been "feeling like" its in the teen negatives, we have been doing a heck of a lot of staying inside under blankets. It's just been too dang cold to even move.
This was Monday morning.
The morning our pipes froze.
Luckily my handy hubby caught it before things got bad.

I mean....whyyyyyyyyy
 
The "plow" heading down the road sideways

I'm right there on the line of 4-8 & 5-9

I'm with this guy

I knew we were getting a snow day once I saw this happen in less than an hour...

Bundled up to the max people - wearing ted's grand marnier glasses from Latitudes haha


In other news..... I've been a cooking/baking machine lately. I've really gotten back into the swing of cooking every night (with the exception of Valentine's Day)

We had gotten steaks from Costco and I wanted to make them extra delicious, so I googled up a "rub" that involved coffee and chipotle.
I picked a few and kind of combined them and came up with this amazing rub that I did the day before so it had plenty of time to marinate those big steaks. I impressed myself with this one. O.M.G. it was amazing. I'll have the recipe up soon...

 
This will be included....look for it on Tuesday. 
Roasted Cauliflower

I made my favorite meatloaf on Monday night...
Recipe Here

Bacon wrapped meatloaf with this amazing spicy sweet sauce on top.
It doesn't get any better....oh wait, add creamy mashed potatoes!
Soooo good!!

Wrapped in Bacon, ready for the oven

Sauced up

Perfection!
 
 I also whipped up brownies...
I did a box of Duncan Hines and added chocolate syrup & chocolate chunks to the batter and baked at a lower temp for a longer time so they were nice and moist and chewy!
 
Brownie a la Mode anyone
 So here's the thing, I ran out of syrup - so I made my own....
super easy - 

Chocolate Syrup
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups cold water
1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract
(I halved this recipe because it makes quite a bit)

Whisk together cocoa, sugar and salt in a 2 or 3 quart saucepan.
Whisk in cold water, continue whisking until lumps are gone.
Cook on medium-high heat, bringing to light boil for 3 minutes
(Keep whisking occasionally, don't let burn)
After 3 minutes, remove from heat.
*it will still be thin*
As it is cooling, add the Vanilla extract
Pour into a re-sealable container after it's completely cooled
It will keep for a month!


This is what I'm dreaming about.....paradise...

 
Especially Aruba... sigh.... 


After all this cold ALL week/weekend, I'm seriously craving some warmer weather.
3 different people I know were in Aruba last week at the same time.
THREE!
Talk about torture
It's all I saw on Instagram/Facebook
(By the way, find me on IG: @Ladybugg07)

TGTF!

~Tiffany~

 

1 comment:

  1. Been in the cold, been to Aruba . . . right now with the cold days, most definately would pick Aruba.

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