Friday 19 January 2024

La Kitchenette Souris : Salted Caramel Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Shocker, I have finally tried a new recipe, and it's delicious! 

Now, fair warning, it does have a lot of steps, and I found it time consuming, but they are really delicious, so well worth the effort. 

I didn't have half & half at the time, so I just used milk, and it turned out fine. 

I also found that there was a lot of caramel and chocolate left over, so either I measured wrong, or this recipe really wanted me to overload them. Haha! 

As always, please tag me if you try these! 

                              ♥

Salted Caramel Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies


1 roll Pillsbury refrigerated chocolate chip cookies

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

24 caramels, unwrapped

2 Tablespoons half & half (or milk)

1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Heat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, break up cookie dough. Stir or knead in flour until well blended. Shape tablespoonfuls of dough into balls; roll in pecans, pressing into dough. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. 

Bake 12-16 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Using handle of wooden spoon, make indentation in center of each cookie. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheet to cooling racks. Cool completely, about 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, in microwavable bowl, microwave caramels and half & half uncovered on high 1-2 minutes, stirring once or twice, until caramels are melted. Spoon about 1 teaspoon caramel into indentation of each cookie. Cool 15 minutes. 

Drizzle with melted chocolate; sprinkle with salt. Let stand about 15 minutes or until chocolate is set. 

I stored them in a plastic container, using sheets of parchment paper in between layers to keep them from sticking to each other. 




Thursday 18 January 2024

Little House On Mole Hill

    Hello, my friends! I am not sure if I ever shared about my land with you, but one of the things that happened during my absence from this blog was that we purchased 7 acres of undeveloped land! 

It hasn't been inhabited in a really long time, and is out in a tiny hamlet on the prairies. I really love it and we do hope to build a sustainable, self-running farm out there one day, although we don't have a date set now, of course. Taking it day by day, and just enjoying having this beautiful, little investment piece. 

We have owned it for several years, and I enjoy going out to wander, set out mineral salt blocks for the deer, and imagine a future there. 

Here is how gorgeous it was looking New Years Eve weekend this year. Wow, what a view!



There is a railroad track that runs right next to us, and a train goes by about every 30 minutes or so, as it's a main line, but it's one of my favorite thing. I am a prairie girl, so the sound is really comforting to me.


And yes, there is also an old grain elevator right next to us! To my understanding, someone privately owns it and has it under historical protection. Either way, they don't seem in a hurry to tear it down like so many others have been. 





The property is surrounded by a caragana hedge, and there is one section of bush that is growing steadily. We definitely intend to add a lot more trees, including fruit trees and such, as soon as we possibly can. 
 


In some areas, that caragana hedge has a double row, so there is a tunnel down the center, which makes me so happy!!!


I am sure you will be seeing lots more photos of this beautiful place in the future, and hopefully, one day, I can start sharing us building our homestead with you! 

Reading this blog, leaving comments, sharing it with your friends, etc. will all bring us a bit closer to our future goal, so thank you for the support! 



Wednesday 17 January 2024

Visiting The Zoo

    One of my favorite things to do during the winter, is to go walking at the zoo. It's free during the winter, and so many of the animals are still out and about, so it is a lot of fun. 

This visit, I was super excited to see the Lemurs right down at eye level, and the one came up so close! Some of my favorite photos of this year, will be these ones:





I still can't believe I got to capture these! 

However, my all time favorite critter at the zoo right now, is the Meerkats. They are an endless source of sassiness, energy, and memes. I mean this visit alone, I got several memes. Hehe Enjoy these facial expressions! 








It was a lovely day outside, but my hands were a bit cold, so I only snapped a few photos. Still, you can see how beautiful of a winter day it was! 




Thank you for coming along on our walk! 




Tuesday 16 January 2024

Glimpses From The Holiday Season

     I have amassed a large collection of random photos, but I feel like, by now, everyone knows my blog (and social media) is indeed just that - random. Hehe But I really like it when other people share their random moments, from everyday life. There is something bonding about that. 

I saw this cute idea on Tiktok to make wreaths out of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and I thought it would make the perfect gift for a few coworkers. I will warn you, it's actually harder than it looks! 

I got these gold twist ties off The Site That Shall Not Be Named, and the other bits from a dollar store. Fairly inexpensive all around. 


The time consuming part was definitely getting the twist ties tied neatly between each chocolate, without ripping the cellophane! 


Making cute little tags to attach names to the wreaths. 


And here is the finished product! The ribbon is red velvet, to add a touch of luxury. I would definitely make these again, and experiment with different chocolates. 


The second set of holiday themed gel nails were snowflakes and dark green. I was very sad to let them go this week, as I love the design. However, I did get to enjoy them for 5 weeks, before my nails grew out too far. The downsize to nails that grow quickly.



I love this shot my coworker took of our hands at work. All the girlies wore green without planning, and thus we had to take a few quick photos. 


A visit to the romance bookstore, right before Christmas. The pink glow is fun to play around with in editing, thanks to the neon sign.


Here are the stack of books I got on this visit, and I have already read them all, 5 Stars all around, for me. I am about to start the additional novel that is part of this world. 


A quick stop at a pretty cafe to grab a Vanilla Latte, before heading out on a walk. 





We started off our Christmas holidays with Dim Sum at one of our favorite restaurants. We ordered so much food, but sadly I got busy eating and forgot to take photos of the yummy spread. The table was overflowing with colours! 





Well, that brings us to the end of my December memories! I will be bringing you along with me into January adventures next, as I have already taken a good deal of photos. Also, I made a new recipe, so you can be looking forward to that! 



Monday 15 January 2024

Beautiful December Moments

     Good Morning, Blog! I feel like a lot of the core memories made are actually very small pieces of time. Now that is mostly due to having a full-time 9-6 job that takes 80% of my life up, and the other 20% is consumed by boring life errands. However, I often think about how it only takes a short period of time to make a core memory, and that means it's easy to make more of them. 

The CP Holiday Train came thru my city this year, and of course, we had to go see it. It was really pretty to see it rolling into town, and it was cool to see how they could just turn the one car into a stage. 




As you can see, a huge crowd showed up, which hopefully means they will make my city a stop the next time the Holiday Train comes thru. 


The Big Polar Bear made out of lights returned as well. I was thinking perhaps they would construct a new winter creature out of lights, but it was the same bear as last year. Not that I care, since he is super cute! 




It's set up right in the middle of the parking lot, surrounded by strip malls. But they have put out some chairs! 


An early morning breakfast downtown, and the red n' green lights are so gorgeous! I love how due to lighting, I captured some fun light streaks! 



They had several giant snowflakes, made out of lights, set up in the fancy lobby. I am guessing a lot of people stopped to take photos here! 



Just a short post for you today, but hopefully you are enjoying hearing more about my life, especially if you see just my short captions on Instagram!