Nice balls

Dear City Gay:

I had grandiose plans of posting a whole series of holiday baking recipes, but with a week until Christmas, I only have one recipe to share (even though my counters are covered with cookies).

Many people who know my family look forward to Christmas because it's the only time of year peanut butter bon bons are made. This recipe is the perfect, rich holiday treat, and it also leads to plenty of jokes about balls, much like the cherished SNL skit below:



The recipe is incredibly easy and can be a nice thing to add to any holiday goodie trays.

Peanut Butter Bon Bons
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 12 squares, but boxed crumbs can be found in the baking aisle)
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 6 oz. package milk chocolate chips

Directions:
Mix powdered sugar and cracker crumbs. Heat butter and peanut butter until melted. (I use the microwave for this.) Stir into crumb mixture. Shape mixture into 1 inch balls.

Heat chocolate chips with 1 tbsp. shortening. (You can do this in the microwave. Heat and stir in intervals of 15-20 seconds to make sure the chocolate doesn't burn.) Dip balls into melted chocolate with tongs (or special dipping tools found in cooking stores) and place on wax paper. Refrigerate until firm.

Yields: 3 dozen


As you can see, I also dip some balls into white chocolate. I also tend to swish a bit of white chocolate onto some of the milk chocolate balls, which makes things look a bit fancier.

So, City Gay, some of these balls are en route from the country to the city, and I hope they arrive safely, so you can enjoy my balls. (See? The jokes can already begin!)

Happy Holidays,
Country Gay

Zucchini bread -- or -- WTF is wrong with me?

Yes, it's zucchini time already and a friend who grows it in her backyard was kind enough to lend me some for my SECOND attempt at this Paula Deen (God bless her) recipe.

The first time I tried to make this bread was last fall. The recipe makes two loaves and BOTH of them collapsed in the middle. It was a scarring experience and I didn't try again until this last week.

After a lot of reading and a lot of soul-searching, I discovered my original problem was that I had used a zucchini that was way too big. The problem with giant zucchini is it contains a lot of moisture, making the foundation of the bread somewhat fragile and, as a result, causes collapsing.

So this time, after grating the zucchini, I squeezed it with my hands before putting it in the mixing bowl to eliminate the excess moisture. Problem is, I wasn't using a very big zucchini and eliminated TOO MUCH moisture, resulting in dry bread. I also ran out of sugar, which left me a quarter cup shy of what I needed, so the cinnamon/nutmeg combo was a little stronger than it should have been.

Despite all of my problems, I will say, this recipe is DELICIOUS when all the right measurements of ingredients are present, so I refuse to give up.

I will make this bread again (before next year even) and I WILL PREVAIL, GOD DAMNIT!