Recipe : Almond Biscotti

Have you ever had a biscotti before? 

Well, usually when people bring these in and lay them out to share, I will avoid them. They are dry, and  crusty. 

I tried a scone once, that was gross.  And they look similar to a biscotti - dry, crusty.  My niece ate a scone once, she said it was good.  She is a kid, what does she know anyways?

At any rate, a lady at work brought in some Almond Biscotti back in December, and she came to my desk and said, "Please have one, I made these to share for Christmas."  I mean, what was I going to say? No?  Yeah right, so I took one.

Eventually I had some down time for some mindless eating.  Which would probably be why I am a chubster.  And I ate it.  It was mighty tasty!!

So tasty, that I asked her for the recipe.  And she sent it over.  I have been holding on to it ever since.

Until today! 

I made them.  They are just as delicious as I remembered.  Never you mind that I *might* have dropped a loaf on the floor.  Good thing I swept and cleaned the kitchen prior to starting any baking today.  I think I might make this a habit, for instances such as this.

The thing about biscotti, is you have to bake (and cool) them twice.  Once to firm them up, and once after cutting, to dry them out.

The recipe is pretty simple, the only really special things you need are the extracts.  Almond and orange extracts.  Oh, and the almonds, in the event you didn't have sliced almonds on hand.

Almond Biscotti

So basically what you do is you whip the eggs and sugar together, while this is happening, combine all the dry ingredients (including finely chopped almonds) in a separate bowl.  Once the eggs are a light/pale yellow color - trust me it does get there after about 5 minutes - then you start adding the flour mixture, slowly so it does not create a HUGE flour cloud.

After you get it all together, you plop it down on a flat floured surface and knead a little extra flour into it, and throw it in a couple of loaf pans, bake it, let it cool on a rack, and then cut it into slices, put it on a baking tray, cook for another 12 minutes, let them cool completely, and then BAM! You have biscotti that is perfect to enjoy while you are drinking coffee on a lazy morning.  You can find the recipe here, or check out my recipe page and see the other tasty morsels I have on there.

If you wanted to be real fancy, you could melt some chocolate and dip an end into it and let it cool, and enjoy with that little bit of fun too!

If you have tried the Biscotti Mocha at your local Caribou Coffee house, this tastes just like the crumbled biscotti they have on top.  I swear.  Super delish!

I am planning on bringing them to the nursing home. I am visiting the Hubster's Grandma B back in his hometown.  Taking a little mini-road trip, his buddy owns an Auto Shop, and is going to do an alignment on my car, and some other miscellaneous work, so I figured I could visit her while I wait.  When I was growing up, that's what you did.  When you happened to be in town, you stopped by and visit.

Generally you didn't call before you stopped in, and well, Grandma B doesn't really go out, so the chances of her being there are high, but I wanted her to invite me to eat lunch. So I called, and asked what time lunch was, she said 'dinner' was at 12, I said I would stop by around 1, she said, well you could come by at 12:30, I said sure not a problem (sad face).  Then she said, well would you like to have lunch here? I said, "If there is space at tehe table, I would be more than happy to join you." (SCORE!!)   She said she would let the staff know, that she would have a guest!

Hopefully it isn't gruel serving day.

***

Side note, I was at the gym for 2 hours today.  Yeah, for realz.  I did week 2 day 2 (W2D2) of the Couch to 5K program (C25K), a Body Works + Abs class, and some more treadmill and some shooting some B-Ball.  With the estimated calories burned on my LiveStrong.com Daily Plate, I burned approximately 864 calories.

And based on what I shoved in my face for the rest of the day, I still have 837 calories I *could* consume, and still stay under 1,134 for the day.

So basically a super win! :)

***

Manicure Monday : Easter Pastels

We are coming down to the last few days before Easter, and I decided I would jump on the trend wagon and sport a pastel mani this week.  Apparently I have an affinity for Revlon's Pastels.  Perhaps because they are affordable?  At any rate, these are all Revlon colors.  My toes are colored to match, but they are not the most beautiful feet to be eye ballin'. 

Do you have an Easter inspired Mani? I was going to put a bunny rabbit, or try to stripe a nail up like an egg, but just ran out of time.

Raspberry Jam on Toast- My Favorite!

Oh how I enjoy a laid back Sunday Morning.

Today I am enjoying it with a cup of coffee with buttered wheat toast topped with Raspberry Jam. Reason it's so small, is it's soo late today. I enjoyed sleeping in until 9 with the Hubster. It made me feel behind on my day. But, well, whatever.

I did contemplate making it Cinnamon Sugar toast, but decided on the Jam route instead.

Do you have a favorite lazy Sunday breakfast?

Lunch : Bagel Dogs!

So, something that I used to eat as a kid, and when I say kid, I mean 14 year old.  Were Bagel Dogs.  My mom got them from the Schwan's Man, when he dropped off our milk. Yeah, we had a milk man.  My mom was busy doing whatever work she was doing, and it was easier to make sure that we had milk in the house if we had someone drop it off.  I guess.

Either way.  Bagel Dogs. I came across a pin on the Pintrest, which brought me to Circle B Kitchen's blog post.

I made them and can cross them off the list of wish to re-create at home.  But I will never do it again.  I am sure the original recipe is fine, and it was probably more of user error or something.  But they were way too much work, and took way too long to make.  And I burned my little fingers.

So, for a true bagel, you need to boil it before you bake it.  All of my hot dogs fell out of their wrappers.  So once I thought they were boiled sufficiently, I took them out, and burned my fingers trying to put them back in their jackets, and getting them to seal up as they dried a little.

They don't look terrible, other than the not being too brown, they were chewy, the salt and seeds were delicious.  I didn't know what else to serve it with, all I could think about was Kraft Cheese and Macaroni.  And then I decided to bust open a can of fruit cocktail for good measure.  We also dipped the Bagel Dogs in traditional hot dog condiments.

I am putting this in the Fail column.

Have you made them and had better results?