Brown Sugar Toffee Bars

I'm finally getting an opportunity to bake again now that the power's back on! Woooohooo! Sadly I missed 3 co-workers birthdays and one co-worker farewell.  I will definitely have to make it up to them somehow..... But until then I give you brown sugar toffee bars!

The recipe can be found at cookies and cups.  In a rare moment I followed the recipe exactly. Crazy times.

Action shot of the toffee bits add-in.

Booooo for winter and daylight savings time making things all dark so early in the kitchen.

I brought these to a party and they were a huge hit.  They disappeared in about 5 minutes.  To be quite honest with you, I myself was not particularly dazzled by them.  This is most likely because I needed this to be about five times more disgusting, i.e. chocolate, peanut butter, and and Oreo on top.

Pulled Pork Wontons With Cheese Sauce

I'm back babies!!!

Let me just start out by saying I did not have power for 11 days.  11 f-ing days with no power and no heat.  Can you just imagine that for a second.  Imagine sleeping in a house that is 40 degrees.  And then its snowing out. And I can't bake anything! And it's dark and I can't cook! Yea it's been one heck of an 11 days.  I really missed this blog and I missed cooking even more. 

For the first time I made pulled pork with the cut of meat you are supposed to use, pork shoulder butt.  This meant there was waaaaay more pulled pork leftover than usual.  What to do with an excess of pulled pork? Why, make pulled pork wontons of course!  They will require a dipping sauce though and yes a home-made cheddar cheese sauce is the one to do the trick.

The idea for the wontons came from Life's Ambrosia.  She uses all sorts of fun ingredients to jazz her's up, but I just took the pork and plopped it in a wonton wrapper.

The cheese sauce recipe came from Serious Eats.  I followed this recipe exactly as is and I wouldn't have it any other way.  It's crazy good make it even if you don't make the wontons.  

Ooooooohhhh I am drooling.  My stomach is grumbling for these babies.  They were so damn good.

Hurricane Hiatus

I apologize due to the hurricane I have no power and no oven and no Internet access. Therefore there will be a brief hiatus in all things terrible for you at This is Why KTC is Hot. I hope to be back in business soon!

Sweet Potato Cream Spaghetti With Crispy Kale

I know this recipe sounds faaaaaar too nutritious for this blog, but we'll let it slide just for this brief moment because it's delicious.

I found the recipe over at How Sweet Eats.  The only changes I made were: regular pasta (whole wheat... gimme a break), used a regular ol' onion, and whole milk.  So there it's already more fattening than she intended it to be.

In the background is the crispy kale.  I must say I never particularly enjoyed kale until this evening when I had it all crisped up with sesame oil. So tasty, I now understand the desire for a kale chip.  In the foreground is the sweet potato cream sauce.

Holy crap, I take some damn tasty looking food pictures sometimes.  I want to dive head first into my screen right now and gobble this bowl up.  

P.S.  Between you and me, I had about 5 bowls.

Don't forget to vote for my Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie on Food Stories! Only 4 days left and I'm still in second place.  Click here to vote.

Birthday Cake Batter Oreo Cookie Bars

I was lucky enough to stumble upon some birthday cake Oreos recently even though I was under the impression that I had missed my chance to gobble these up.  I will also state that sadly these are not super delicious.  They are in fact, a disappointment in the grand scheme of Oreos.  That being said I decided to bake something with them.

I chose to take a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, Tollhouse to be exact, halve the recipe, subtract the chocolate chips, and throw in Oreos and sprinkles.  I also baked them in an 8x8 inch pan because I'm too lazy to make cookies sometimes.

Below are the wonderously golden brown fresh out of the oven cookie bars.

This next photo my friends, goes down in the KTC record books as one of the most incredible food photos ever!

Gasp! It just takes my breath away.

P.S. Don't forget to vote for another fantastic Oreo photo of mine over at Food Stories.

Pumpkin Brownies with Apple Butter

I made my own apple butter. Yea, I thought I'd wow you kids right off the bat. I made my own freaking apple butter.

I used this recipe from Sweet and Savory as a skeleton for my crock pot apple butter.  The changes I made were: no cloves, nutmeg instead, halfed the recipe.

Time elapsed: 0 hours.

Time elapsed: 5 hours.

After hour 5 the sugars and spices join the party.

Time elapsed: 12 hours. Done!  Sorry by the time it was done, the good kitchen lighting had disappeared.

On to the brownie portion!  Seriously above are the only ingredients.  No eggs, no oil, no water, just a can of pumpkin and a box of brownie mix.

I swirled the apple butter on top of the brownie batter once it was in the pan.

The result? Super moist brownies, and nutritious too!

Mexican Mac and Cheese

I was sort of wandering around the supermarket aimlessly when I decided I was going to make this for dinner one night.

Below are the "Mexican" inspired ingredients I chose to include in my mac and cheese.  Milk and butter were also used to make the cheesy sauce of course.

I was totally going to purchase Doritos to top this mac and cheese with, but these "artisan" chips caught my eye.  Fire roasted chipotle? I had to do it.

The chip topping was a success.  I recommend you go and top some mac and cheese with crumpled chips straight away.  I mean come on, was there any doubt that topping mac and cheese with chips was going to turn out bad?

In a word: holler.

That is all.