Kitty Litter Surprise

On Friday, everyone at work brought in their spookiest, scariest, goriest treats to share. Wanting to impress, I racked my brain before remember this fun recipe my friend Stacy once brought to my Halloween party. I called it Kitty Litter Surprise.

It is just no-bake chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal cookies served in a kitty litter box (a new one of course). The recipe is super easy. The only trick is making sure you boil the mixture at just the right temperature and for just the right amount of time, stirring constantly. The recipe says to bring it to a rolling boil for a minute-and-a-half. If you don't boil the mixture for just the right amount of time the cookies will turn out dry, or they won't harden at all. I thought I had done that, but my cookies still threatened not to solidify, so I retaliated by putting them in the fridge overnight.

Kitty Litter Surprise was a hit. I guess I should have eaten the left over Grape Nuts, but I just threw them out. And I forgot, when Stacy brought this dish to the party, she included a litter scooper for easier serving.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Time to bake the cookies

For those of you that don't know, my best friend Nicole and I have been baking cookies and selling them for about a year now. It started last Halloween when we baked a bunch of sugar cookies for our friends. Then we realized, not only was it fun to do, but we actually were pretty good at it. We like to think our cookies are a step above the rest. We put a lot of care into baking them, decorating them and packaging them and so far, we've had a pretty good run with it. We try to make our sugar cut-out cookies like the ones you might remember when you were a kid...nice and thick and chewy with colorful frosting and decorations.

Last year we baked for Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter and Mother's Day. This year we figured we would just take orders for Christmas, but lo-and-behold, one of Nicole's good friends asked if we were interested in selling our goodies at the Haunted House of Rochester. They get something like a few thousand people coming through there every weekend in October. Of course, Nicole and I had to jump at that opportunity. That means we'll be spending much of our spare time this month whipping up bats, pumpkins, ghosts and "BOO!" shaped cookies. If you are looking for something spooky to do this month, stop into the Haunted House of Rochester at 1592 Qualtrough Road in Penfield and be sure to pick up some Sugar Mama Confections!!

We appreciate your support. What started as something fun to do is slowly turning into a potential business for us in the future. This year, we have so much demand, we had to order our own rubber stamp. And we also have very professional looking ingredients labels. Keep an eye out for our Christmas cookies which we will begin taking orders for in mid-November. I don't think we'll be selling cookies to the public for Halloween as we'll have our hands full with this Haunted House gig. Please don't let that discourage you from emailing us with any orders. We can make cookies for all occasions. Contact us at sugarmamaconfections@gmail.com.

Don't attempt this at home without a partner!

This summer, my best friend Nicole couldn't stop raving about grilled pizza...that's pizza made on the grill. She made it sound so delicious and easy. I'm finding it to be a bit of a challenge and I don't recommend you try it unless you have a cooperative partner to help.



I'll try to explain how I've done it, but let me tell you, I feel like I'm far from perfecting this. Tonight, I made a pepperoni, onion, mushroom and sausage pizza. First things first, you'll want to get the grill going well in advance since you want to have the coals hot, but not too hot or else you'll burn the crust. This is where I'm still perfecting my technique. We do have a grill with an adjustable charcoal rack, but I still haven't mastered just the right temperature.


I started out by pre-cooking the mushrooms and onions in a little bit of olive oil, keeping it on low heat to give me time to prep the rest of the ingredients. For the sauce, I just used a can of pizza sauce mixed with half a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and a bit of fresh garlic. I also added some thyme and parsley from the garden. In addition, I prepared an aioli using olive oil, some butter, fresh garlic, parsley and thyme. Once the sauce and ingredients were heated thoroughly, I spread out my pizza dough using a good amount of flour.

I've been stretching my dough to a rectangular shape. Handling the dough can prove to be quite difficult. I usually put mine on a cookie sheet to transport it to the grill. Now here's the tricky part...you have to have all your ingredients on-hand at the grill before you even start the dough. That includes your toppings, sauce, cheese, and dough. You'll also want an arsenal of tools on-hand, including something to slide under the pizza to flip it, and an oven mitt.


Once you think your charcoals are the right temperature (like I said, I'm not much help on this), spread them out evenly across the area of the grill that your dough is going to cover. Then you can put the dough on the grill. I actually put a little of the aioli on the side of the dough I put on the grill first, but you have to be careful about doing that because the oil can drip onto the charcoal and cause it to flame up. Watch the dough closely and you'll start to see bubbles forming, kind of like when you make pancakes. You'll want to kind of lift up the dough to peak at what it's doing. You want it to get grill marks, but not get too black. You may have to kind of spin it around to get it to cook evenly.

Once you flip the dough, the action begins and you's better be ready. I put the sauce on the pizza, then the cheese, then the toppings, all of which should already be heated up and cooked. The cheese is really the only thing left to melt. You want to top fast because as you are working, the dough is cooking.

Once you're done topping the pizza, you have to watch it closely while it grills for no more than 2-4 minutes, depending on how hot your fire is. Getting the pizza off the grill can be a challenge depending on what shape you made your dough. I use two metal spatulas, or my round, flat round metal pizza tray, which I slide under the pizza and try to slowly slide it off the grill onto an awaiting rectangluar cookie tray. This time I actually left the pizza on the grill for a bit longer after I got it onto the cookie sheet to give the cheese more time to melt.

I'm not sure if this is the best technique, but I do know the results are scrumptious and the closest I've ever had to a brick-fired pizza.

Good places to eat (yes we have those in Rochester)

Okay, so this week I kinda slacked off on cooking and relied on some other people to cook for me (and to do the dishes). I know how hard it is to think of good places to eat, so I figured I could blog about the places I visited this week and weekend to inspire you.

First off, one of my favorite Mexican places just reopened. Formerly located next to Mr. Shoes in the Southwedge, Paola's Burrito Place is now open at 1011 Culver Road in a bigger, newer and much more promising location. My friend Tracy and I stopped in on their opening day. Despite the rain, the place was pretty filled up, especially considering we went at 2 p.m. The owner was so excited to see us and gave us a grand tour. He's got a HUGE kitchen now, space for a bakery, at least three times more seating that he used to have, and he hopes to start up a breakfast service soon.

The food is the same which is a good thing...huge burritoes, with cheese sauce if you want it, enchiladas, tacos, and other typical Mexican fare. The menu seemed a bit smaller, but the prices were still very affordable. Instead of helping yourself to the salsa and chips, they give you a portioned out size, but the salsa is still as delicious as ever. I got a chalupa, which was a fried tortilla shell topped with lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream, steak and cheese sauce. It was sinfully filling and delicious. If you haven't already had Paola's before, you must go try it out.

On Friday Sean and I went out to our favorite Asian restaurant in the city, Flavor's of Asia. You can't beat this place when it comes to variety, freshness, quality, quantity, price and service. It's a five-star place at a one-star price. The fare includes Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese. I've never actually eaten Vietnamese until Flavors. Now I'm hooked. Sometimes I am daring and try new things, but lately I'm hooked on their Vermicelli noodle bowls. They include lemongrass, pasta, sprouts, pickled carrots, cucumbers and onions (I think), lettuce, crushed peanuts and fish sauce. You have the choice of chicken, beef, seafood, or my favorite, fried tofu. It comes with fish sauce, which now that I looked up how it is made, I'm not sure I'm so crazy about it, but it's good anyways. I always put a bit of Hoisin sauce on my noodle bowl just to add another dimension of flavor. It's so filling and delicious. Sean got his good old stand-by...beef and veggies topped with curry sauce.

For apps we got Crab Ragoon, which is so creamy and undoubtedly the best I've ever had, and steamed shrimp and pork dumplings, which we don't normally get but certainly will in the future because they were amazing.

As if the food wasn't enough to keep us coming back again and again, the service is spot-on. There's usually one asian fellow that serves the entire place. I adore him. Just watching him is enough to make you dizzy the way he can handle so many tables at once, and parties of all sizes. As soon as you sit down he brings you a complimentary pot of hot tea and fresh spring rolls. I'm not sure if they typically give you free spring rolls or if that's just on the weekends. Sean and I always order spring rolls when we go and the waiter knows this, so he may just be anticipating our needs and bringing them for us, knowing that's what we want. He's just that good. I could go on and on about the service here. They are fast, but not so fast you don't get a chance to enjoy your dining experience. And they remember us every time we go in there. If you haven't tried this place yet, it's a must. We paid $26 for two entrees, two orders of Dim Sum, and the spring rolls. Unbelievable.

Lastly, my friend Kelli and I went out to eat at a new restaurant last night, The Owl's House. It's located on Marshall Street in the former Atomic Eggplant location. I read some review about the new chef/owner in the City Newspaper and also heard from a friend that they make some amazing drinks. The Atomic Eggplant was best known for it's creative vegetarian/vegan fare and the fact that you could BYOB or Wine. I remember countless dinners there in the past that turned into three hour affairs, so The Owl's House had a lot to live up to. It not only surpassed my expectations, it had me saying "Atomic what?"

My friend got the roasted vegetable and hummus sandwich on multi-grain bread, which she raved about. I got the barbecue tempeh, which was coated with a delicious buffalo spicy sauce combined with creamy blue cheese, topped with pickled onions and arugula lettuce on a baguette. It was incredible. It isn't easy to cook tempeh, but the chefs' here knew what they were doing. The tempeh was tender and not dry at all, and there was just enough sauce to make the bun a little juicy and not too crusty and hard to chew.

The juice from my sandwich kept dripping on the side of hand-cut french-fries seasoned with rosemary and fresh cracked pepper. There was something really yummy about the katsup I couldn't quite put my finger on.

And as if this wasn't enough, the drinks were, as rumored, so delicious and unique. Kelli got an IPA..the Great Divide or something that reminded her of a Phish song. I settled on a Mint Ginger Jullip. I can't remember what liquor was in that..maybe whiskey. Then there was a bunch of other yummy stuff and mint. OMG! I could have died at the bar. Our neighbor got something I was thinking of getting...a Velvet Bicycle, which was about three parts scotch beer and one part champagne. I guess I'll have to get that next time I'm there, which better be soon.

All-in-all Kelli and I probably spent $45 between the two of us. The best news, The Owl's nest has a bunch of meat-inclusive dishes, so you can bring both vegetarian and non-vegetarian friends with no qualms. I would reccomend making reservations. We got there at 6:30 and were told we'd have to wait about 45 min. for a table. Thankfully there were two seats at the bar, and we made a ton of friends there!

I hate paying to go out to eat, but this week was worth writing about.