Homemade Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread)

Make your own homemade Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread)!

After all the falderall this week about World Nutella Day, I almost didn't include the word "Nutella" in my post title.

But since I doubt that a multinational corporation will be coming after The Ninj for brand infringement, I'm throwing caution to the wind, as a good ninja would.

I made my own Nutella!

I know, based on my Pinterest traffic and site statistics, that y'all are Nutella junkies. I think I could make anything with Nutella and it would get 47,000 pins. Clump of Dirt with Nutella Frosting? Old Leather Shoe with Nutella Sauce? Each would still get at least 40,000 pins onto pinboards titled "OMG, YUM!" or "Sweet Awesomeness".

I love Nutella as much as you do, but I'm not a big fan of processed foods: I feel like I let myself down a little bit with each jar I buy (but notice I didn't say I stopped buying it). Yet I've never considered making it myself because I just assumed it would be too much of a pain in the ass.

I was wrong.

(You should re-read that sentence because I don't say it very often. Just ask Mr. Ninj.)

Pinspiration: Double chocolate cake

This is the second installment of my new feature -- Pinspiration -- in which I make some of the recipes I have pinned in Pinterest and share some love for the original creators.

If you follow me on Pinterest, you'll see that I pin a lot of baked goods recipes. Not a lot of over-the-top baked goods, mostly breads and breakfasty items.

But sometimes you just need chocolate cake, right?

This recipe was actually described as "healthy zucchini brownies." Um, let's just be clear: these are neither brownies nor healthy. But they are less bad for you than many desserts, given the use of whole wheat flour, applesauce and shredded zucchini (just ignore the large amount of sugar and chocolate chips!).

I guess "less-bad-for-you cake" wasn't as good a title.

Pinspiration: slow cooker pumpkin bread

 

Are you on Pinterest? If so, I'm sure you, like thousands of others, have a pin board named "Yummy Food to Make" or "Recipes I Want to Try" or "Hellz Yeah" or some other such cleverness.

Now, show of hands: how many of you have actually made any of those recipes?

(Crickets, crickets, crickets)

Exactly.

That's what inspired this new feature: Pinspiration.

As a food blogger, it's hard to come up with interesting new ideas for things to cook every single day, since I rarely make the same thing twice anymore. Therefore, I really appreciate all the inspiration I get from things I see on Pinterest.

So I decided to create a feature to show some love for all of your pins.

First up, a yummy pumpkin bread with chocolate chips and crystallized ginger made in the slow cooker, courtesy of Katie at Mom's Kitchen Handbook, inspired by a slow cooker banana bread recipe from Jane of The Zen of Slow Cooking.

Shut. The. Front. Door.

Not lying, not a typo: the slow cooker. Now you know why the original pin caught my eye.

Cheddar snack crackers

Cheddar snack crackers: grown-up goldfish

I saw a meme recently that said, "There should be a 'DID THIS' button on Pinterest, complete with loud applause when you click it."

Cue the applause.

If you're on Pinterest at all, I'm sure you've seen this one floating around. The pin promised a copycat goldfish cracker recipe.

Fail.

But fail in a good way (unless you're 5 years old), because these crackers are so much better: I'd go so far as to cal them grown-up goldfish, much more appropriate with a glass of wine than a glass of milk.

How are they different? They are much, much cheesier and, while terribly addictive, rich enough that you won't be able to eat handful after handful. Which is probably a good thing because, frankly, these aren't lowfat.

However, made with just five ingredients -- cheese, butter, flour, salt and water -- this is one of the easiest recipes you'll ever pull together. Just pulse everything in the food processor, chill the dough, roll it out, cut out shapes and bake.

Done.

Overnight crockpot oatmeal

Overnight crockpot oatmeal

We're into the third week of Detox January and I'm finding it easier this year than last. Not sure why, as it's more challenging this year, given that this blog gave me the Freshman Fifteen last year.

But, as always, breakfasts are challenging. If you've been following along on my special Detox January Pinterest board, you'll know what I mean. Skinny cookies? Lots of ideas. Healthy dinners? Can't cook through them fast enough.  Light breakfasts?

(Crickets, crickets, crickets.)

Then I stumbled across overnight oatmeal.

Warning: this is not that overnight oatmeal made in cute Mason jars in your refrigerator that is all over Pinterest right now like a bad rash. Maybe I'm inept, but I've tried to do that twice, using two different recipes, and it turned out like ... well, let's just say I wouldn't feed it to my dogs, even though they eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast.

(Seriously. They do. They are spoiled as all get-out.)

Broccoli mac and cheese

Broccoli mac and cheese

I love my husband.

Marrying him was probably the single greatest decision I have or will ever make.

But his aversion to vegetables can sometimes really try the Ninj's patience.

Wait, I take that back. (Not the patience part, that still stands). He does not have an aversion to vegetables, per se: he has "texture issues."

(I know some of you are nodding in understanding here, while others are thinking he's pscyho. He's not, I swear.)

Case in point: he loathes asparagus, doesn't even like to be in the same room with it let alone see it on a plate. But when I got him to try pureed asparagus soup, he loved it. So it's the texture of asparagus that he hates.

Ditto with Brussels sprouts. And collards. And broccoli.

So when I saw a recipe for a delicious-looking (and weeknight easy) stovetop mac and cheese with broccoli (I love dishes that kill two birds with one stone: no need to make a separate vegetable!), I knew he wouldn't eat it. Dag: it would become relegated to the list of Dishes To Make When Mr. Ninj Is Out of Town.

But then I had an idea.

Savory olive bread

Savory olive bread

It's funny that this bread ended up as the star of its own post.

You see, it began its life -- well, its life in The Ninj's kitchen, anyway -- as an afterthought, just a little somethin'-somethin' to go with a corn chowder recipe I was testing (stay tuned).

And yet, as wonderful as the chowder was (still stay tuned), the bread really deserved some solo props.

I needed a side for the chowder that would suffice as both bread (because I wanted it) and a vegetable or salad (because I needed it). That's a tall order, I know. But I was willing to stretch the truth a little if I found something even close.

Browsing through my Pinterest food boards, I came across a recipe I had pinned a while ago for a quick bread loaded with greens: perfect.

Then I read the recipe.

It involved a whole lot of onion carmelization before you could even start thinking about the bread batter. That wouldn't work, as I needed a quick bread, not a stand-around-and-carmelize-till-the-cows-come-home bread.

Snickerdoodle muffins: a recipe

Snickerdoodle muffins

I try quite hard to keep this blog balanced.

Even though my most popular posts are for calorie- and/or bacon-laden baked goods, I try to sneak in some healthier suggestions, too.

(OK, maybe not the candied bacon, but come on. It's candied bacon!)

For example, right after the candied bacon, I gave you pickles (and no, there's nothing I want to tell you, trust me) and spring greens soup.

Lovely veggies, no butter.

Call it a yin-yang, angel-devil, white hat-black hat, Hall-Oates kind of thing ... I'm trying to keep it balanced.

Every once in a while I get really, really lucky and end up with something, like these snickerdoodle muffins, that is perfectly balanced all on its own: sweet, delicious and seemingly decadent, yet really not so bad for you.

Homemade Butter and Buttermilk Rum Pound Cake

Buttermilk rum pound cake, made with homemade butter and buttermilk

Regular readers know that I'm participating in Grow It Cook It Can It's Cook It! 2012 monthly technique challenge. The March challenge was making your own butter. After reading Caroline's post I figured it would be like ... well ... like buttah.

Put some cream into a mixer and let it run for 10 minutes. Voila -- butter and buttermilk. (See? Like buttah.)

Seriously. I brought my Kindle into the kitchen because I thought I'd just dump in the cream, turn on the mixer and read some chapters, just relaxing by the fire, while the butter made itself.

It started off as expected, see?

But ... how relaxing does this look to you? (Good thing my Kindle was still relaxing in my chair, not on the counter.)

Gingerbread scones: a recipe

Gingerbread scones

Recently, I've been hearing a lot of the following:

"I don't get Pinterest."

Frankly, I don't get what's not to get. So here it is, in a nutshell, from the Ninj:

Pinterest = visual del.icio.us

That is, it's simply a visual bookmarking tool. If you've used delicious (I guess they got rid of the periods when they went all corporate), you've pretty much already been Pinteresting -- you bookmark interesting items to your account (pins) and organize them by give them tags (boards).

Now, if you don't know what the hell delicious is, all is not lost. You've probably been Pinteresting for years, too. Do you have a folder somewhere called "dream house ideas" or "recipes" with all sorts of ripped out magazine pages in it? Congratulations, that's old-school Pinterest.