Filling In and Shopping!

Another Double Day!   Today is Friendly Fill-Ins

AND Shopping Around the World!

We have a double blog again today – first we’ll do our Friday Filling In Fun then we’ll move on to Shopping Around The World.    Filling In is co-hosted by our friends 15andmeowing AND McGuffy’s Reader and you can visit McGuffy’s Reader by clicking the badge above.  Once you arrive THERE you can use the Linky Tool and put your blog address in so we can Blog Hop on over and see your sentences!    Here are this week’s challenges and this week I, Teddy Kimmell, am doing the filling in!!!!!    My fill-ins are RED.

1. My next vet visit will be in two months from now – blood re-check because one of my values was a little wonky this time!.

2. Fireworks are something I have no experience with but I think I’m gonna HATE them!   KABOOM!

3. Freedom is important and precious to all humans but for me – I like being “held captive” by my Mom and Dad – life is SWEET for me now that I’m adopted!

4. This week, I am thankful that Angel Sammy sent me to the shelter just in time for Mom and Dad to meet me!.

That was fun……………..usually my Mom answers these but I thought I’d dive right in and give it a whirl!    Thank you Miss Annie at McGuffy’s Reader and Miss Ellen at 15andMeowing for this totally FUN Blog Hop every Friday!

 

Now ONWARD to Shopping Around the World with our friend Bacon at PigLove!    This month’s food shopping challenge was to post a recipe with ingredients and prices of the ingredients for something that our Mom or Dad makes that is TOTALLY YUMMY!     Well, I have to brag on my Mom because her biscotti is known far and wide and she makes it ALL THE TIME……so I’m going to ask her to re-post it for you and suggest STRONGLY that you make some to have with your morning coffee/tea/milk/hot chocolate OR just as a snack!

Cranberry Biscotti

TAKE IT AWAY MOM!

First of all you can add ANY fruit or nuts or chocolate chips to this instead of cranberry – I often make cherry, or raisin (and I add cinnamon to that one), or chocolate chip, or almond (and I add almond extract instead of vanilla)………..so it’s a versatile recipe.   We love them all!    Also the amount of fruits or whatever is “to taste” – the recipe I used years ago said one cup of “cranberries” but I use more than that because we like “stuff” in our biscotti!

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups flour (Price this week at our grocery 5 lbs. bag of flour was $1.47)

3/4-1 cup sugar (Price this week at our grocery 4 lb. bag of sugar was $2.79)  Note:  if you like your biscotti on the SWEET side, use 1 cup……otherwise 3/4 cup

1 tablespoon baking powder (Price this week at our grocery for 10 oz. container was $1.27)

1 teasp. vanilla extract (Price this week at our grocery for 2 oz. bottle was $3.79)

5 oz. package dried fruit (can be more or less as you like) – (Price this week for 5 oz. package of dried cranberries was $3.39)

3 large eggs (Price this week for one doz. large eggs was $1.59)

1 stick butter – melted (Price this week for butter 16 oz. package $3.45)

DIRECTIONS:

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees……….use large cookie sheet (ungreased).   Mom lines her cookie sheet with parchment but that’s not necessary.

In large mixing bowl, combine sugar and melted butter……..then with hand mixer add one egg at a time and beat well.   Add the vanilla extract to that mix and set aside.    In second mixing bowl, combine three cups flour and one tablespoon baking powder.  Mix well.    Put the butter mixture into the flour/baking powder and mix well.    Batter will be STIFF.    Add fruit or nuts (you can add more or less than I’ve shown in the recipe – it’s totally to your taste…..sometimes I add a LOT more fruit or nuts than one 5 oz. package!).     Mix well.

On floured surface, divide the dough into three equal portions.    Shape each portion into round “loaf” about 9-10 inches long.   Transfer each loaf onto cookie sheet and flatten with your hand until each loaf is about three inches wide and about 3/4 inch thick.    Separate each flattened loaf by at least an inch on the cookie sheet – more if your cookie sheet is large enough!

Bake in oven for 18-20 minutes until light golden color………remove and cool for ten minutes on cookie sheet.    After cooling, transfer loaves to large cutting board and using very sharp knife, cut the loaves on a diagonal into pieces about an inch wide.   Cutting on the diagonal will give you “longer” biscotti.   Note:  Try to make one, swift cut for each piece because the cookies are pretty delicate at this point – don’t use a “sawing” motion or they will break up.    Put cut pieces back on the cookie sheet cut side down.  They can be crowded on the cookie sheet – no need to leave space between.    There will be room for all three loaves of cut biscotti on one cookie sheet!     Put back in hot oven for 10 minutes, remove from oven and carefully turn pieces over to expose other side – then back in the oven they go for another 10 minutes.   Keep an eye on them –  you don’t want them to burn but you want them to be browned up a bit.    Almost every time I make these I either have to add a minute or less (don’t ask me why – maybe my oven?!).

Let finished biscotti cool on the cookie sheet.    They are delicious warm AND if you want to, you can easily make a chocolate sauce (melted chocolate) to dip one end of each piece into and allow them to dry if you like your biscotti like that.

IT IS DELICIOUS!!!!   I promise – and so easy to make.

Thanks Mom!!!!    I don’t suppose you could try making your biscotti with cat treats as the added ingredient instead of dried fruit could you???????????????    PRETTY PLEASE??????

Love, Teddy