new faves

I have to apologize that if you've checked our blog in the last two weeks, all you've seen is Tony Horton's face. Now you get a glimpse of our life right now - we feel like we're constantly looking at him too! Five weeks to go and we'll finally be finished. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Though we really don't have a whole lot going on right now, I wanted to share a couple of recipes we've recently tried and loved.

The first is a healthy salad dressing, adapted from the Whole Foods web site. It uses no oil and is great in the summer when you're trying to use up extra fruit.

1/3 cup chopped nuts, such as walnuts, cashews, almonds or pecans

1/2 cup fresh fruit, chopped, such as plums, peaches, blueberries or strawberries

1/4 cup unsweetened soy milk or fruit juice

1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice

Puree all ingredients in a food processor or high-powered blender until smooth.

Some delicious combos are:

- cashews, peaches, orange juice and white wine vinegar

- almonds, blueberries, soy milk and lime juice

- walnuts, plums, apple juice and lemon juice

- pecans, peaches, water and sherry vinegar

So, after you've saved yourself some calories by eating such a healthy salad dressing, you deserve to indulge in dessert, right? I recently caught an episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate on Food Network. One of the chefs described a Sea Salt Caramel Brownie that literally made me salivate. Is there anything better than a treat both sweet AND salty which also involves chocolate? I think not.

I wish I could show you a picture of these, but they were gone by the time I thought of it. You'll just have to employ your imagination. I used my mom's famous brownie recipe as the base and a basic sea salt caramel drizzle as the gooey in-between layer. Mmmmhhmmmm.....

BROWNIE:

1 cup butter, melted

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

3/4 cup cocoa

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

SEA SALT CARAMEL:

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup sour cream

Make the caramel first: In a small saucepan, combine the cream and the salt. Simmer over very low heat until the salt is dissolved. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and corn syrup carefully (they won't combine well until the sugar begins to melt). Cook over high heat until an instant-read thermometer reads 350 degrees, 6 to 8 minutes. Without a thermometer, just pull the sugar off the heat when it is medium goldish brown. Remove from heat and let cool for one minute.

Add the cream mixture and the vanilla to the sugar mixture. Whisk in the sour cream. Let the caramel cool to room temperature. While cooling, begin to make the brownie batter. Heat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 pan.

Mix together butter, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs, one a time, beating well after each addition. Add cocoa; beat until well blended. Add flour, baking powder and salt; beat well.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Bake 15 minutes. Remove from oven and drizzle the caramel over the half-baked layer. Sprinkle chocolate chips over the caramel (optional, though highly recommended). Pour remaining brownie batter over the top of the caramel. Bake an additional 15 to 20 minutes.

These will be super gooey while hot, so although it will test all of your willpower, try to let them cool a little before you cut into them. Enjoy!