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Chonky Boys: The Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches that Scream Summer!

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Featuring my thick and nuggy Chonky Boy Chocolate Chip Cookies, these ice cream sandwiches are the stuff that summer dreams are made of.  If you've ever had the Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich at Disneyland , you are going to LOVE these!  These big and bold chocolate chip cookies are based on a recipe from my culinary school studies at Auguste Escoffier, but with a few modifications to give them that Jennuine touch.  They make the perfectas book for a fat slice of real vanilla bean ice cream.  And those mini chips?  You just gotta have that extra cronch! Thank goodness this recipe only makes 8 sandwiches, otherwise I would be eating them for breakfast lunch and dinner.  This way, my big family can help save me from my inner child diet-saboteur.   Print With Image Without Image Chonky Boy Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches Yield: 8 Author: Jenn Erickson Loaded with chocolate chips and buttery, brown-sugary vanilla flavor, these mall-sized cookies form a perfect partnership with a
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Link-up Your Recipes, Crafts & Projects with A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME... #1

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Now, don't go gettin' scared off by the odd bird lady. That's just the quizzical Miss Aubergine Duchamp -- patroness of the creative arts and mustache aficionado  WELCOME, Welcome, Welcome to the premier of the very first weekly linky party here at Rook No. 17: A Little Birdie Told Me...   It's sure to be C arnival of Creativity & Curiosities ;  a veritable Three Ring Circus of Crafts, Recipes, and Stuff Struttin'.   <a href="http://www.rookno17.com"><img altsrc="<a href="http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f335/sarahjmorriss/a_little_birdie_told_me_revue-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f335/sarahjmorriss/a_little_birdie_told_me_revue-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a> Without further ado, let's get down to the nuts, bolts, and brass whirlyboos, shall we? What is "A Little Birdie Told
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Valentine Profiteroles -- Jump Start Your "Heart" with these Coffee Ice Cream Filled Pastries

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Have you ever made homemade cream puffs or eclairs? They're made from a simple dough called "pate choux" that truly couldn't be easier to make.  If you can boil water, it's likely you'll have no trouble making the "pate choux" -- opening up the doors to cream puffs, eclairs, all manner of savory appetizer puff, and the impressive tower of caramelized puffs -- croquembouches ! What I like most about making ice-cream profiteroles is that they can be made weeks in advance and kept in the freezer, so you can always have an elegant and delicious dessert on hand! The pate choux dough requires only five ingredients:  water, sugar, butter, flour and eggs. It comes together on the stove-top in less than five minutes and is ready to be put into a piping bag (or ziploc bag) and can be squeezed in to just about any shape. For Valentines day, I love to pipe the dough into heart shapes.  After baking, the hearts are sliced in half and the top half gets
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Hot Fudge and Caramel Rum Sauce Recipes for Your First SUNDAE of the New Year

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Hope your New Year is off to a SWEET start! For New Year's Eve this year we gathered with a few close friends where we shared our favorite chili recipes and finished off the evening with an ice cream sundae bar. My family's contribution to the ice cream sundae bar was a jar of homemade Hot Fudge Sauce and a jar of homemade Caramel Rum Sauce. These sauces are so delicious and take hardly any time at all to make. You'll never want to go back to those preservative laden store-bought sauces again. At the bottom of this post, I've shared a free download for the kitchy little labels I put on my sauces. They're designed to fit the Kerr wide mouth jar lids. I like to print mine on sticker paper, for easy application. Hot Fudge Sauce Makes 4 half-pint jars 2 cans (14 oz. each) Sweetened Condensed Milk 1 stick (1/2 cups) butter 10 oz. good quality semi-sweet chocolate chips 1/3 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoo
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BACONIAN MEASURES -- Bacon & Caramelized Onion Brie

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Bacon?  Brie?  Yes! Why?  Why not? It's Bacon for Pete's sake! A few weeks ago my good pal Holly and I were crafting and kibitzing over cheese and crackers when suddenly our brie was under attack by my eldest daughter who has a habit of extracting the creamy middle from a slice of brie with vampiric speed and accuracy, leaving only a flopping shell of white rind in her wake.  This is the same child who swears off all meat, but would (if allowed) devour an entire pound of bacon in one sitting.  So, Holly and I joked that the perfect food for my daughter would be a dish that combines both bacon and brie.  We laughed about it momentarily, but then the gears started turning and the room went deadly quiet.  "What if...?" we pondered.  There's already bacon popcorn, bacon candy, bacon pancakes, and my favorite -- Holly's Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies  ( recipe HERE ) .  Why not a brie with bacon then? And that is how the Bacon and Caramelized Onion
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NEW YEAR'S TRADITION -- Silver Dollar Pancakes for Luck & Prosperity!

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To achieve this celebratory look, you can use numeric refrigerator magnets, or print and cut out numbers from your computer.  Giving the paper numbers a quick dunk in a bowl of water will insure that the numbers stick to the pancakes (without affecting taste).  Sprinkle with powdered sugar, and remove paper numbers. click the thumbnail above to download  New Year stencil template All over the world, different cultures have unique ways of celebrating the New Year and symbolizing luck, happiness, and prosperity for the coming year. I've learned that in Spain it is customary to eat 12 grapes at midnight.  I'm looking forward to sharing this custom with my friends (it's perfect for the kids and those not drinking champagne) this New Year's Eve.  In the American South, Hoppin' John, a dish made with black-eyed peas is a popular first meal of the New Year.  In this tradition, dating back to the Civil War, the peas are said to symbolize coins, and are o
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Holiday Tidings -- Nutcracker Suite Inspired Mixed Media Christmas Card

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For our family Christmas card this year I created a mixed-media collage using bits of vintage paper, ephemera, and vintage images printed from the computer.  The Nutcracker is "played" by my youngest daughter (who fancies herself a bit of a tomboy).  The body of the "Nutcracker" is from an old French paper doll set. "Clara" is "played" by my eldest daughter.  Her body was made from a copy of a photograph of my paternal grandmother when she was a child.  After completing the collage, I scanned it in to my computer and uploaded it to an online service that printed the image on personalized postcards.  The postcards were a no-brainer, since they were unique, cost-effective, and a greener option than our usual Christmas cards, since they use less paper and don't require envelopes. To all of the wonderful people who've made my year special by being a part of the positive vibes and creative sharing here at Rook No. 17, I wish you the w
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GLITTERED FLOWERS TUTORIAL AND GUEST POST FROM 504 MAIN

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You've perhaps heard it mentioned that I have a particular weakness for glittery things.  It is, in part, what inspired the name of my blog (black birds have a natural attraction to shiny objects).  So, each time I visit my friend Holly's place and my eyes catch sight of one of the incredible glittered flowers she's fashioned out of simple wood pieces, I go into a sort of glitter induced trance.   Recently, Holly added some of her magnificent jewel-toned creations to her Christmas tree, and I nearly went catatonic from the glitter euphoria.  Fortunately she was able to lull me back to reality with the promise of brie and some of her homemade spinach dip.  But I digress... I'm truly honored to count Holly, the amazing gal behind 504 Main, not only as a great friend and ally in the blogosphere, but as a real-life friend as well.  I was thrilled when she agreed to share her Glittering Flowers tutorial here at Rook No. 17.   Without further ado, I give you H
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Snowman S'more Bar Kit in a Jar -- An Easy, Last Minute Gift Project for the whole Family

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There hasn't been a lot of time for cookie baking or candy making this year at our house.  Still, the girls wanted to continue the tradition of making homemade gifts for their friends, and I found the perfect project from Loralee at No Fuss Fabulous , by doing a Christmas twist on her Bunny Brownies . These adorable S'more Bar kits can be put together in just minutes and are fun for the kids to make.  I'm looking forward to keeping one to bake up and sample with the girls. Here's what you need to make 6 kits: 6 1-Quart Canning Jars 4 12.60 oz. bags holiday M&M candies 4 packages Peeps Snowmen 2 boxes (6 sleeves) Graham Crackers 2 cups light brown sugar Snowman S'more Kit Labels (optional) -- FREE download below Snowman S'more Kit Instruction Labels (optional) -- FREE download below To assemble a jar: Pour in 1 1/4 cups M&Ms Insert one group of Snowmen on top of M&Ms (The Snowmen are packaged 3 to a group) Com
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