Chocolate Archives | Tasty Oasis

My Very Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

January 20, 2017 By Karen

So here’s what’s up: I have the day off of work, and I sat down at the computer to write. As you know, I haven’t posted in a while, which means that since September a lot has changed in the world, when the outlook for our country was very different than it is today. During early fall, there was hope and an excitement about what January 20th would mean, and I fully expected that today would be a celebration. Instead, I find myself watching a reboot of The Twilight Zone. As the months have passed, I’ve often thought about using this space to write how I feel about the election, and the conversations I have had to have with my kids about the way people voted and what this means for their lives, and for all of our lives. But instead, I’ve talked with my friends, I’ve talked with my colleagues, I’ve talked with my family, and I chose to spend my time in other ways.

I believe in honesty, and when I worked on this blog more frequently, one of the most valuable things I got from it was the chance to tell my story. It isn’t always pretty. In fact, our holiday card this year tried to reflect that. The first lines were “Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone’s year was all sunshine and roses like most holiday cards try and make it look? Well, our 2016 had its ups and downs. There were some professional disappointments, cranky bodies (thanks to our age), cranky kids (thanks to their age), and a cranky house (thanks to its age). But thank goodness it was balanced by some pretty awesome moments!” Which is true. All of it. And so as I began to write this morning I tried to dig down to that honest place. And you know what I found? I wanted to escape. I didn’t want to deal. I had a few paragraphs written, and the ideas mapped out for telling you what I think of the latest recipe for our country, and miraculously was going to tie it in to my new favorite dinner recipe (impressive, right?), but instead….I said screw it, and went upstairs to grab some coffee and breakfast.

But then I did something on auto-pilot. Instead of taking out the hard boiled eggs, I reached for two sticks of butter. I popped them in the microwave at half power for a minute. Then I put my mixer bowl on the scale, and reached into my cupboard for the sugars. Three of them. White, turbinado, and dark brown. No recipe in front of me, just a formula in my head. Not my formula, mind you. But a brilliant woman named Ashley Rodriguez’s. …

Chocolate Pumpkin Nut Butter (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Refined Sugar-Free)

January 6, 2016 By Karen

Do you dream? Not big, what do I want the world to look like dreaming, but actual sleep dreaming? I do. I have technicolor vivid dreams that play out like complicated shows. They’re either long and involved and jump from scene to scene, or they’re straightforward, but in syndication, repeating themselves year after year, theme after theme. Anxiety dreams that are so cliched they’re embarrassing: I’ve missed every rehearsal, don’t know my lines, am missing my costume, and the curtain is about to go up, or I’ve missed every lecture, and now I have to take the final having never read the books. I’ve got a whole lineup that plays nightly, and I wake in the morning aware of how obvious my issues all are. Sometimes it’s revealing, other times it’s exhausting, but mostly it’s just constant. I dream almost every single night, and I tend to remember details for long stretches of time. I can still recall scenes of dreams I had when I was a kid, and the feelings attached to them. The familiarity I felt towards a celebrity after he had a part in the pictures in my sleep, the freedom of flying through the sky, with clouds all around, doing the breast stroke through the air because of course that’s the most realistic human flying move, or the stomach dropping horror of swinging and falling from the chandelier in the foyer of my childhood home. I depend on my dreams, and I appreciate them. But there are nights that I just wish I could sleep soundly and wake peacefully, rested and refreshed because my brain had simply shut down for the night.

A couple weeks ago was no different. …

Nutella Crunch Cookies-Two Ways

March 11, 2015 By Karen

***Before I get started with these Nutella Crunch Cookies, I have a shameless plea: Would you please take two minutes to nominate Tasty Oasis for the Saveur Food Blog Awards in the Best New Voice category? On Tuesday, I wrote a whole post about it, and I would love for you to check it out. The deadline is this Friday, March 13th, and I would be ever so grateful! Thank you!!!***

There was a time in our house when we consumed so many jars of Nutella that we were able to trade in the labels for a Nutella t-shirt and two (count them: TWO) Nutella travel coffee mugs. I’m not sure what that says about us, especially knowing that during that period I never even tried baking with this chocolate hazelnut spread of deliciousness. Almost all jars were just devoured straight up, on a spoon. Granted, sometimes it was added to a bowl of vanilla ice cream, but that’s as creative as we ever really became. Of course, that amount gluttony meant that we had to take a good two year Nutella hiatus. Brian went off of sugar for a bit, and I just found mine in other places.And then the Winter of 2014-2015 struck. (Do you see where this is going?) And Nutella has made a full force re-entry into our lives. Brian has been making Nutella “drinking chocolate,” the spoons have returned, and I…well, I bake. I got an idea into my head around a month ago: I was bound and determined to make the perfect Nutella cookie. And because I care so much about you all, I wasn’t just going to present you with my first attempt. That first attempt might have been declared, “The best thing you’ve ever made!” by my taste-testing sister-in-law, (the one who previously said the same thing about the OMFG Extra Dark Chocolate Ice Cream,) but I thought I could push it further. So four batches later and I actually have TWO winning recipes for Nutella Crunch Cookies that I am sharing with you today. Honestly, I just can’t decide which one I like better. And all my generous friends and family who have willingly submitted to be tasters (poor things) are split down the middle on which is the winner. So I leave it to you to bake both and decide!…

Three Bean Turkey Chili

March 7, 2015 By Karen

I was pretty happy when the phone rang Wednesday night declaring a snow day. We’d already decided that if the call came, it was my turn to stay home with the kids, and I was pretty psyched about it. Granted, as a freelance interpreter that means I would lose 8 hours of income, but staying in my pajamas all day cuddling, cooking and baking seemed like the perfect bright spot for my week. Sure enough, the kids climbed in the bed Thursday morning, and under the fluffy white comforter we finished the graphic novel we had been reading together, El Deafo, by Cece Bell. It’s a memoir about a little girl losing her hearing at 4 years old, what it was like going to school with a giant hearing aid, feeling like an outsider, imagining herself as a superhero, and finally finding her way. It just won the Newberry Honor Award (that should tell you how good it is!), and we absolutely loved it. It appealed to the 8 year old and the 39 year old equally, and even the 4 year old got something out of it. If you don’t have experience with graphic novels, please pick this up. The words written are touching, but the drawings bring the story to life. I am in awe of such talent.

Once our little book club ended, we headed down to the couch and watched the ever colorful Jungles episode of Planet Earth, escaping the snow that was turning everything white outside our windows. Of course, that lead to the a request for Frozen….because, you know, it’s Thursday. So with TV as a babysitter (way to go, Mom!), I got my chance to finally make and photograph this Three Bean Turkey Chili for you all….

Extra Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

February 9, 2015 By Karen

When I was around 8, my brother Andrew won a bicycle from a drawing at Baskin Robbins. It wasn’t just any bike though; it was a brown, pink and white polka dot bike. Super cool for a 12 year old boy, right? Famous for their 31 flavors of ice cream, my family helped keep that place in business with our frequent trips. Mint chocolate chip ice cream cakes were birthday favorites, but I especially loved those little clown cups they had, with the scoop of ice cream decorated with that totally amazing super sugary icing topped with a cone hat. Do you remember those? Do they still make them? If they do, I have to take my kids.

Well, that bike sat in the garage for years, and sadly I have no idea whatever happened to it. (I can only imagine what it would go for on ebay these 3 plus decades later!) But I do know what’s happened to my love of ice cream: it’s grown. And there’s no chance of it disappearing the way that polka dot beauty did.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I have a thing for chocolate. If my first ever post about chocolate cake didn’t give it away, maybe the chocolate almond frosting clued you in. And if you still missed it, the chocolate milk hopefully made it pretty obvious. Then there were the brown butter chocolate chip cookies, the brown butter brownies with dark chocolate chunks, and of course the chewy sesame granola bars with dark chocolate. (Are you noticing a theme?) So it might surprise you to know that I’ve never been a huge chocolate ice cream fan. As someone who strongly believes the darker the chocolate the better, I feel like most chocolate ice creams just aren’t chocolaty enough….

Chewy Sesame Granola Bars with Dark Chocolate Chunks

October 20, 2014 By Karen

Have you ever watched your favorite movie or television show and felt envious of the soundtrack that magically enhances the lives on the screen? From the opening credits to a certain character’s theme song, the music changes the mood of a scene and influences your reactions as you watch. Well, my house seems to have a built in soundtrack. Okay, it wasn’t actually installed in 1928 when the house was first constructed, but with the brilliance of modern technology (otherwise known as our Sonos system that Brian controls remotely,) music miraculously pours through speakers all over my house when I least expect it.

Sunday morning, butterflies flew about my stomach as I mentally prepared to run my first ever 5K. Like I mentioned before, back in July I couldn’t even run for sixty seconds without huffing and puffing and feeling like I needed to collapse. After years of avoiding it, I embarked on the Couch to 5K program, and consistently trained for the first 9 weeks, working up to running nonstop for 30 minutes, which covered two out of the three miles I needed. But summer ended, the mornings have been dark, life got in the way, and I let my new found exercise routine slide. I’d been in denial that October 19th was just around the corner, the date of our town’s annual 5K. But sure enough it had arrived.

I’d been deep in suds as I attacked the dishes, worrying that I was going to be walking more of this race than I wanted to, when the music started playing and Melissa Etheridge’s “I Run for Life” pumped into my kitchen. Luckily, I’m married to a man who has the uncanny ability to pick just the right tune for every occasion. And although I’ve loved this song for years, I never would have thought to put it on myself. (Honestly, I’m the one always listening to audiobooks, NPR, and podcasts, and sadly music often falls off my radar.) Have you heard it lately? Well, if you lived on my block you might have heard me belting it out my kitchen windows at the top of my lungs early Sunday, because it changed my whole attitude about the day. Minutes earlier I had been anxious that I was going to disappoint myself, “failing” to run this race the way I originally intended to, but then Melissa reminded me why I decided to do this in the first place….

Brown Butter Brownies with Dark Chocolate Chunks

October 8, 2014 By Karen

It’s 8:27pm, and my big guy begs, “Just one more chapter??” He holds on to my arm and gets clingy, when all day long he’s been too cool to answer my questions or make eye contact. Three minutes to bedtime, and all of a sudden he wants to tell me all about his day and ask about mine, and then, out of nowhere, “Did Hitler shoot himself in the head? Why would anyone do that? I mean, for Hitler… well, I’m glad he did, but why would anyone else do that?”

He’s seven. My son is seven, and I am not ready to have this conversation. On so many levels.

A month or so ago, while reading a comic book with his dad, there was a reference to the Nazis, and Brian did his best to give a basic explanation. But last week he came home from his school library session with a book of historical fiction titled, “I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944,” by Lauren Tarshis. (Have you heard of this series? Apparently this one was just published this year, but there were eight before it, including “I Survived the Attacks of September 11th, 2001,“ and “I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011.“ You know, light reading.) Did I mention he’s seven? A seven year old who’s curious, and has a lot of questions.

…

Healthy Homemade Chocolate Milk

September 4, 2014 By Karen

As a working mom, there are days when I feel like everything I do is either for my family or for my career. Two things I love, right? So that’s not totally a bad thing. But I realized recently that I need to work on my life balance a bit more and do some things that are just for me so I don’t go crazy. Any of you feel the same way?Which is why I started Tasty Oasis. You already know about my food obsession, but what you might not know is that before starting this project my understanding of all things technical was stuck around 1997. I just hadn’t made the effort to catch up to the 21st century, but that was getting old. It was embarrassing that when I got my new camera I didn’t even know how to transfer the pictures to the computer! I decided I had to get it together and make some changes. So I’ve thrown myself into creating this website. I could easily have asked Brian to set it up (after all, he’s this guy who can just decide to make a podcast and within weeks get a website up and have hundreds of downloads on iTunes.) But instead I’ve done the entire thing on my own. Sure, I probably spend too many hours reinventing the wheel, but I’m learning so much through the process. Widgets and plug-ins, and search engine optimization, oh my! And it’s mine, and that’s something I’m proud of.

The other thing I started recently is running. Whoa… Stop the presses. Those of you who know me are probably thinking you misread that last sentence. Karen and running are not two words that typically go together, unless you count “Karen’s running around like a chicken with her head cut off.” The last time I ran for any significant distance was through Central Park when Christo’s “The Gates” were up, and that was 2005! I ran five miles on a February morning with white glistening snow all around and bright orange flags blowing in the wind, and I felt like I’d conquered the world….