It's teacher appreciation week. I love teachers. I was a seventh grade teacher until I gave it all up for the the glamor of motherhood. I think teachers should get paid enormous amounts of money because the work they do is of the utmost importance. And they take my kid for seven hours a day.
The way that my PTO asks me to contribute to this week is by baking for a luncheon tomorrow. And boy have I been baking. I've used my trusty Dorie Greenspan book (here's her blog) called Baking: From My Home to Yours. From there I made the chocolate chip espresso cookies and her blondies. Both are just wonderful. I found a recipe for maple pecan shortbread bars from some magazine I can't even remember. It's a mini pecan pie in bar form. I had these amazing banana/chocolate/toffee bites at a party some years ago and figured out how to re-create it in my kitchen. And tomorrow I finish off with a lemon lime frosted cookie. My wonderful husband contributes to the PTO and teacher appreciation week by doing dishes.
I'll get a new produce bag tomorrow. I'll check it out and report back.
The recipe for the banana/chocolate/toffee bites:
1 bag of toffee bits (I used the pre-crushed Heath bars, you can do that or crush your own)
12 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate
3 or 4 bananas, sliced into 1/3" slices
Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Sprinkle the toffee over the foil so that there is a thin layer of candy. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Drop the sliced bananas one at a time in the chocolate. I just scoop them out with a fork. Gently place them on the candy bits. Do this until all the banana slices are gone. When they cool, the candy adheres to the chocolate, and you get a wonderful bite of delicious. Don't do this much more than 24 hours in advance. The chocolate won't be tempered, and it might start to bloom. Usually, I have some combination of chocolate/toffee left over. Just mix them together, drop them on some waxed paper, and you have your own little snack for later.
3 comments:
Nice job Julie. It's kind of like I'm sitting in the parent lounge at Family Network talking with you again.
Hi Julie,
I love your blog and your words. Now the only thing I need to convince you of is to stop working so hard in the kitchen, making us working moms look bad when we simply throw a box of Maurice Lenell cookies onto the PTO bakesale table instead of laboring for hours over a hot stove, and earning the Mom of the year award like you. (Sorry, run-on-sentence, no time for grammatical correctness.) Actually I'd love to try some of those yummy treats you made for the teachers, they sound delish. You go, girl.
And, you got any more of that Kool-Aid? This is fun.
You could always give the teachers your ramps and parsnips. ;)
Looking forward to some good food ideas, Jules!
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