Oh Baby! Homemade Chocolate Espresso Whip Cream

We took MJ to the doctor this morning because he was acting a little bit funny and I thought he might have an ear infection.

I'm actually trying to get a smile out of him here. No dice. 

Welp. 

No ear infection, just super cranky teething baby, but it did get us out of the house! Which is awesome. I'm pretty happy about that. 

The weather is spectacular here today warm and sunny, just the way I like it! So in order for me to NOT spend my entire afternoon in the kitchen I'm making a simple ham with a sweet glaze for dinner with baked potatoes and... broccoli I think. Or maybe green beans. We'll see - I have both. ETA: we actually had carrots instead. Shhhh. 

ANYWAY

The point is I'm putting my effort into dessert today! We will be having sugar cookie sandwiches with homemade chocolate espresso whip cream in the middle. I'm super excited as this is something I've never made before and I kinda just made it up because it sounded yummy in my head. Here goes.

This is extremely simple and easy and OMG delicious.

Ingredients:
12 Sugar cookies (home made or store bought)
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon hot chocolate mix
1 teaspoon instant coffee

Method:
First things first, make sugar cookies! I used an extremely basic recipe which can be found here.

So good warm out of the oven. JP and I almost polished them all off before I even made the cream!

Once you have all the cookies made you can pair them up by size so you're all ready to make sandwiches and that way you know how many are left over you can eat now... 

Next gather the ingredients for your whip cream filling. While you're doing that and munching on some warm sugar cookies you want to put your mixing bowl in the fridge so it's cool when you begin mixing.

Sugar, instant coffee, hot cocoa mix, and fresh cream

Dump everything into your pre-cooled mixing bowl.

Yes, I really whip my cream by hand.

AND WHIP! And then whip some more. And once your arm feels like falling off switch arms and whip some more only not quite as coordinatedly as your dominant arm. Once you switch back because that arm feels like it's about to fall off you should have something like this:

YUM

I like to give it a few more stirs because I prefer my cream to be slightly more substantial when I'm using it as filling. So, I end up with this:

I could totally eat this whole bowl with a spoon.

All you have to do now is assemble cookie sandwiches!

OMNOM NOM NOM!

Easily one of my most delicious, simplest, and quick desserts. I love the way they turned out! Give it a try and let me know how they turn out for you!

TIP: Use a hand mixer. No seriously, if I had one I would have used it for this... my arm still hurts. 

Also, the cream from this recipe is EXTREMELY sweet. If you want something a little less sweet I would recommend using unsweetened cocoa powder instead of hot cocoa mix OR reducing the amount of sugar by 1 teaspoon.

Memorial Day Rejuvenation.

First things first.

Thank you.

Thank you for sticking around and still being here to read this. It means a great deal to me.

Now, why? Why haven't I been here!?

I haven't written in over a month. Although I have read. A lot. I think I started this Blog feeling like I would be brilliant at it and then once I started reading more and more I realized I've nothing to say worth reading. I've never had this feeling before. I've always just kind of done things. But now I have this creeping sensation... 'what if they don't like me?'

I rant a lot.

And I enjoy ellipses...  :)

I like to cook, in fact I've prepared three separate recipies for this blog.

I've also been creating! Making multiple tutorials along the way.

Only to get to the site and find that I have very little ambition to actually post.

Then I did what any good chicken would do, I turned tail and fled. Retreated back into the safety of ranting and ellipse-ing to people who I know will at least pretend to like me. Well, NO MORE!

I think it would be best if I started a schedule. I kind of half heartedly tried with Haiku Mondays, which I liked btw and plan to continue. I was thinking of maybe adding Wordless Wednesday becuase I have always loved those, especially when they are personal pics. I've also been collecting and saving a number of sites that I stumble on and completely love that I want to post in a Favorite Things entry. On top of that I want to start adding an "Odds and Ends" feature at the conclusion of each full post just to jot down a few things floating threw my brain. Kind of like the website MMT (Makes Me Think).

So, for my Memorial Day Rejuvenation I'm going to start out with something fairly simple. I want to dedicate a few words to all of our nations fallen veterans.

I want to start out by saying, I don't agree with war. Personally I feel that war is just a widely accepted excuse to murder people who have something we want, or who we don't like for various reasons. I feel that almost any conflict can be resolved without resorting to violence.

But there is so much good our military does as well. Including providing aid and relief on behalf of the United States government and protecting the freedom and liberties of the citizens of this country in nonviolent ways. They are also responsible for a number of medical and technical advancements due to government funding.

Obviously, just like anything else, there are good things and bad things that can be argued about almost any point I've made here today. I really don't feel like hashing it out with any of you today over a military post, so if you've got an argument save it for the opinion pages of your local newspaper.

What I'm trying to get at here is that, whether I agree with a lot of what the military does on a regular basis or not, millions of soldiers put their butts on the line to give me the opportunity to enjoy the freedoms I have been  awarded as my birth right and they receive very little gratitude when the day is done.

Today I honor the 4,454 American soldiers that have been killed in Iraq and the 1,595 American soldiers who have lost their lives in Afghanistan since the War on Terror began in March of 2003.

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

-Elmer Davis

I'm coming back full force, and I promise to post at regular intervals. Hopefully they will be at least half as interesting to read as they are to write.

Thanks again,
Rache

Odds & Ends

• Two weeks ago a 22 year old hung himself a couple of houses down from where my parents live. We had been neighbors for almost ten years, he was a grade behind me in school. I didn't even know his name.
• Yesterday my dog Harvey was mauled by a Great Dane at the area dog park. The Dane's owner just stood there and watched without even attempting to control his animal. Aside from now being terrified of other dogs, Harvey is expected to make a full recovery.
• My pregnant sister-in-law is due today. I will be a first time aunt. The doctor is expecting an 8lb baby. They will name him Nathan, if by mistake it should be a girl she will be Annabell.
• Planning a wedding is a huge headache. Especially when your fiancés mother hates you.