Contestos Galore! Starbucks, The Orbbies & Examiner Photo Contest

Dear Foodies & Foodettes,

The time has come for me to shamelessly ask for your approval in the form of online votes. We are all trying to get a little ahead in this blogging world, and right now I'm trying the contest thing. Muchas Gracias, Grazie, Merci, and oh yea, Thanks!

First up, Mocha Pumpkin Brownies is an official contender in the Starbucks Via recipe contest. All you have to do is give a 'thumbs-up', that's it! Note, if you are so inclined friends and I have discovered if you have multiple browsers on your computer, you can vote from each one. :-)

To vote: http://www.starbucks.com/via/occasion/recipes/post/1844

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Secondly, Laptops and Stovetops currently hails out of Orlando, FL. The Orlando Sentinel newspaper is now running The Orbbies contest to find the best blogs in the Orlando area. This one is a bit trickier, it does require voters to start an Orlando Sentinel account. Its free, and you can chose to not receive their emails. Scroll to Food Blogs and there is where you will find me.

To vote:

http://www.orlandosentinel2.com/data/orbbies/voting/

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Third, I have entered some photos in the Examiner.com Photo Contest. Of course in the Amateur Round! The following 6 photos are each in the running. Simply click on the URL under each image to vote.

Caribbean Club - http://photocontest.examiner.com/bin/Rate?imag

e_id=1008903903

Puff Pastry - http://photocontest.examiner.com/bin/Rate?image_id=1008903916

Berry Good Biscottis - http://photocontest.examiner.com/bin/Rate?image_id=1008903902

'Stealing a Kiss' - http://photocontest.examiner.com/bin/Rate?image_id=1008903898

My Milano Wave - http://photocontest.examiner.com/bin/Rate?image_id=1008903910

Pre-roasted Chicken - http://photocontest.examiner.com/bin/Rate?image_id=1008903921

Thanks for reading and keeping up with L&S's progress. Hopefully one day I can call myself a winner and know that all my friends helped me get there. Cheers!

Brownies, Cookies, and Cakes Oh My!

It's probably not a shocker to find out my favorite part of Halloween is the treats. Every year, the IST office runs a pumpkin carving competition among the labs. Accompanying the competition is a bevy of sweet selections supplied by employees. Sure, I could have stopped just with the two trays of my previous post, Mocha Pumpkin Brownies with Strawberry Frosting, but of course it didn't. To partner with the brownies I also whipped by Apple & Squash Amish Bread Squares with Ricotta Sweet Cream and Sour Cream Sugar Cookies.

The week before our office party, a co-worker passed on Amish Friendship Bread starter to me. Being raised in Southeastern Pennsylvania, I am more than familiar with this tradition, but now a bit older and wiser I really did not want to use the instant pudding mix my passed-on recipe called for. I echo many other online food writers that I'm 100% positive the Amish never used instant pudding mix as an ingredient in this age-old cake, so why should I? There are a few alternatives to using instant pudding, and I chose to use homemade granny smith apple sauce and steamed acorn squash. Admittedly, my bread is more bread than cake but the fall flavors are undeniable.

The brownies' full flavors and rich texture satisfied those with adventurous palettes and the Amish Friendship Bread supplied the traditional fall flavors, so to ensure everyone at the party palette's are accounted for a super sugary dessert is needed to round out a lovely, varietal spread of Halloween treats. To fill that flavor profile are a simple sour cream sugar cookie covered in purple sugar and then decorated with orange cookie frosting. So, yea. Sugar, sugar, and more sugar.

As if all the baking wasn't enough, I decided to get crafty using holiday decorative straws as tray labels as well as stuck Moo cards for L&S in each and every individual delight. I call it sugar marketing, and I think the trend will absolutely catch on! To cap the entire office Halloween experience is, of course, the office Halloween party costume. Using all props I already own, I was a food judge with a tenderizer-gavel. If I don't like your dish, I not only discredit it, I smash it. Think Gordon Ramsey crossed with Gallagher, or a chef's worst nightmare.

While our lab's pumpkin entry didn't take home the prize, my ghoulish goodies were all the rage! Making and giving treats makes my Halloween the Happiest of all.

Mocha Pumpkin Brownies with Strawberry Frosting

Remember those French Macarons us Daring Bakers posted for the October challenge? Well, maybe not us. I, for one, did not complete this challenge when I had a complete macaroon melt down. Truth be told, I rushed it but I did get feet so I am not a total, utter failure. Its just that I couldn't pipe circular or uniform shells rendering Hunchback of Notre Dame macaroon shells (with feet) instead of smooth and demure shells we have come to know and love. My macaroon filling, a strawberry cream cheese frosting, was chilling for days looking at me with the lonely, longing eyes to be a part of an Autumnal dessert. How could I deny this frosting a place atop an artfully crafted confection; the crown on top of a Princess? I could not muster this kind of negligence and with the office Halloween party just around the corner, to the dessert drawing board I went.

As per usual here at L&S, I found my inspiration for Mocha Pumpkin Brownies with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting through the exceptional pumpkin brownies posts floating around the foodie blogosphere this October like StreamingGourmet's pumpkin brownie, Natalie'sKillerCuisine peanut butter pumpkin brownie, and BakingBites pumpkin brownies with pecans. I wanted in on the pumpkin brownie club, so I went to the cupboard and got to work.

Recipe(s)

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

1 80z. strawberry flavored cream cheese

1/2 butter softened

3 cups confectionery sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

(I add ground cocoa roasted almonds leftover, so I added 2 tblsp of those to add an allusion of seeds in the frosting. This is entirely optional.)

Pumpkin Batter

1 1/2 cup pumpkin pie filling or pumpkin puree* (Amount spices and sugar amounts depending on your choice. The following is for the filling, you will increase the sugars and spices with puree).

1 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

1/4 melted unsalted butter

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Mocha Batter

3.5oz. 85 % dark chocolate

1.5 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup pack dark brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 Starbucks Via Colombia instant coffee packets

1 cup flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

Directions (you will need several bowls and counter space galore, fyi.)

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting: This can be done days or hours before baking the brownies. The chill time is necessary to firm it up.

Beat the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Add confectionery sugar one cup at a time thoroughly mixing after each cup.

Optional: mix-in ground almonds.

Store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator to chill. For best results, chi

ll 3 hours.

Mocha Pumpkin Brownies

Preheat to 350 degrees and grease a 9" x 13" pan with butter. My mom taught me to save butter wrappers because they are perfect to grease pans with, so there is my little nugget baking tip for you!

Melt the two chocolates and butter together in whatever kind of double-boiler you can configure. Whisk constantly to melt the mixture together. Whisk until smooth and remove from the heat and let come back up to room temperature.

Mix the dry ingredients for the mocha batter and the dry ingredients for the pumpkin batter separately.

In a larger bowl, beat the eggs and sugar for the pumpkin batter until fluffy. Add the pumpkin pie filling and vanilla and mix until combined. Next, add the melted butter and spices; mix well again.

To complete the wet ingredient batter for the mocha portion, mix the brown sugar, Starbucks Via Colombia Instant Coffee, and vanilla to the melted chocolate. Beat in the eggs

and combine thoroughly.

To mix the 2 mocha batters, gradually fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Use a spoon so you mix it well enough but you don't over mix.

To mix the 2 pumpkin batters, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients using whatever kind of mixer equipment you got. Again, do not over mix.

Pour the mocha batter into the greased pan and be sure to evenly spread it around. Pour the pumpkin batter evenly on top.

Using a large tablespoon, swirl the batters together gathering mocha batter in the spoon and pulling it up to the top and vice versa. Also don't over-swirl which mixes the two batters together.

Bake for 30 minutes. Test with a toothpick.

Let brownies cool completely and ice the brownies evenly using a butter knife. Chill the frosted brownies for at least 1 hour to let them firm up.

Cut into small squares and serve to hungry Halloween-ers! :-)

Trick-or-Treating Orlando Events

Dear Greater Orlando Area Parents,

We know you are concerned about your childrens' safety this and every Halloween. However let's remember from your kid's point-of-view, Halloween is almost as awesome and amazing as Christmas.The promise of copious amounts of free candy consumes their little minds for weeks on end. I should know; I was once a kid obsessed with Halloween. I also was a kid who was tricked, and therefore ended my tenure as a trick-or-treater. By the eighth grade at age fourteen I might have been too old to be out and about dressed in full Army fatigues going door-to-door asking for candy, but that didn't give local high schoolers the right to drive haphazardly through the neighborhood egging young revelers from the bed of thier pick-up truck. As they whipped around a corner, I was struck directly on the crown of my head with a egg hurled with such force I fell right down like a sack of stones. Dangers can be afoot during this year's Halloween holiday too, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of trick-or-treating options open to the public where the priority of safety is second only to the priorty of the fun of free candy. To see the listing, visit Kid-Tested, Mother-Approved Trick-or-Treating Events.

Blogger Awards from Laura @LittleChef&I

What is the best way to start a Tuesday? I think a new, shiny award is the best way to start a Tuesday. The lovely Laura from Little Chef & I across The Pond named L&S as one of her fav blogs and passed on the following two awards to me:

Per my acceptance speech, here are 7 things about moi:

1.) I have 3 tattoos and I want more. My tattoo-artist boyfriend and I are coming up on our two-year anniversary. Yay!

2.) One day I think I'd like to attempt stand-up comedy. In short, I want to Single-White-Female Tina Fey.

4.) I can't turn down curry at anytime of the day.

5.) I'm kinda pissed I can't put down candy like I used too on account of the hypoglycemia and all. Too much sugar makes we whoozy.

6.) My Great-Grandmother was not only an astounding Italian cook, her name was Elviria which I find alluring.

7.) At first, I hated Twitter so much I mocked it and now I am addicted.

Now onto my 7 Award-Worthy blogger friends:

1.) Mardi my Canadian Comrade @Eat, Live, Travel, Write

2.) Dara, another Crafty Cook hailing from Canada @Cooking Canuck

3.) Linda, a saucy lady saavy in the kitchen @SaltySeattle

4.) Silvia, a super creative chef in San Fran @Citronetvanille

5.) Miranda, a super mom and cook @My Food and Life Encounters

7.) DoggyBloggy a super fun food enthusiast, @Chez What?

Thanks to everybody in the foodie blogosphere for being you. Don't go changin'!