Crisp Cheddar Cheese Crackers

Also known as fancy homemade Cheez-its!  

I saw this recipe on Joy the Baker a few weeks ago and had a hankering that would not subside until I made them.  Cheez-its: another one of those things that I rarely bought in the U.S., but since I can't get them in Jakarta, I inexplicably crave them regularly.  I could probably get some sort of cheezy cracker here, but a lot of the crunchy cheese snacks made around here are just... not quite right.  And they have MSG in them, which gives them a weird after taste.

Flakey, cheesy, a little bit buttery... these rule.  They would be awesome with beers for happy hour.

And easy!  They literally have 5 ingredients: cheese, butter, flour, salt and pepper.  Mix, chill, roll, cut, bake, snack.

Pretzel Toffee

Omg.  This pretzel toffee stuff is addictive.  Pretzels.  Butter.  Sugar.  Chocolate.  Salt.

It's pretty hard to go wrong with those ingredients...  salty and sweet, crunchy and chocolatey.

Although, go wrong I did, but it turned out ok in the end.  I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe, except I substituted the matzoh crackers with pretzels (a la this interpretation).  For some reason, though, my caramel went wonky, causing the butter and sugar to separate, which I didn't realize until after I had poured it over the pretzels.  Once hardened, it didn't seem to make much of a difference as far as taste or consistency, which is why there are only 2 pieces remaining for this photo shoot.  Addictive, indeed.

Bagels

Tim and I had a mean bagel craving this past weekend, so we decided to make some.  Funnily, when looking up bagel recipes that called for all-purpose flour, I stumbled upon this blog post on Inquiring Chef, a woman living in Bangkok also on the hunt for legitimate bagels.  Like her, I am able to find decent bagels here in Jakarta (we went to Bagel Bagel in Kemang... not bad, although the humidity messes with the chewy crust something fierce), but making them is pretty fun, so here we are.

I followed Inquiring Chef's recipe, for the most part, although I put 1 tsp honey and 1 tsp molasses into the dough and also did the overnight method, more like the recipe on Smitten Kitchen, making the dough the night before, but boiling and baking the morning we wanted to eat them.  Tim and I topped ours with sea salt and sesame seeds (why does everything I cook these days have sesame seeds in it?), which is a delicious combo.   The bagels were better if I baked them longer, though- more like 14-15 minutes for a darker and chewier crust.  Mmm.

Boiling.

Baking.

Cooling.

Eating.

Crispy Beet Chips

I love the beet chips that come in the mixed veggie chip packs, so when I saw this recipe for baked beet chips in the latest issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, I thought I would give it a try.

The chips are really tasty- sweet, salty and crispy. I did have some problems getting them to crisp evenly, but I think that's my inexperience with my mandoline. These are a great snack, though, and pretty healthy- just a little bit of olive oil and some sea salt.

Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream

The first time I heard of David Lebovitz's salted butter caramel ice cream, I had to wipe the drool off my chin. I've been waiting a while to make this ice cream, though, since I was a little bit intimidated by the caramel aspect of the recipe. I had visions of burnt sugar permanently stuck to all of my pots and pans...

Turns out making caramel is not that hard! You have to keep an eye on it, for sure, and you have to be careful not to give in to temptation and stick a spoonful of the liquid caramel in your mouth since it's searing hot, but otherwise, not as difficult as I'd imagined!

This ice cream is to die for. Super rich, buttery, and awesome. I had a little trouble getting it to freeze correctly in the ice cream maker for some reason, but even a little runny, it still tasted amazing. Nothing much too look at, but, as I said, a taste to die for.