Chocolate Mint Bars with #DelightFulls

When a blogger friend posted a photo of Nestle Toll House DelightFulls, I couldn't wait to try them. So I bought them. When I got an offer to write a sponsored post about them, it motivated me to come up with a recipe for them.

These are similar to the chocolate chips you already love, with one major difference - they've got another flavor inside. I bought mint, peanut butter, and caramel. To be honest, I wasn't that exited about the cherry, so I didn't pick that one up.

While cookies are the obvious use for chocolate chips, I wanted to use them in something different - cake or cupcakes or brownies. I figured that not only would they taste great, but they'd also leave little splashes of color within the dark chocolate chips embedded in the cake.

And I was right. I love when a plan works.

These bars are moist but not gooey. They're a little dense, but not too dense. They could be a cake-like brownie, or they could be a rich, somewhat dense cake. You decide.

Whatever they are, they're pretty darned good.

While I used mint, you could use any flavor of the DelightFulls for the same result.

You want one, don't you?

Chocolate Mint Chip Bars

4 ounces Nestle dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
2 cups (9 ounces) all purpose flour
1 cup mint Nestle Toll House DelightFulls

Spray a 9-inch square pan with baking spray and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium heatproof mixing bowl or glass measuring cup, combine the dark chocolate chips and water. Stir until the chocolate is melted and it's smooth.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl, where you'll mix with an electric mixer), beat the white sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and oil until it's well mixed.

Add the eggs and beat until well combined, scraping down the bowl as needed.

Add the melted chocolate and mix well, then add the flour and mix until blended. Add the DelightFulls.

If you prefer, you can add the entire bag, but if you add just the cup, you don't have to feel guilty about all the Delightfulls that disappeared during sampling. Quality control, you know.

Pour the batter into the prepare pan and bake at 350 degrees until the cake no longer looks wet on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Let the cake cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar for serving, if you like.

This post is sponsored by Nestle Toll House, but it's completely true that I bought the product before there was even a hint of sponsorship, and the recipe is entirely my own idea, as well.

Links in this post are sponsored, which means that if you click, I get compensation. So go take a look at the Nestle baking recipes and go bake something!

Purple Sweet Potato Wedges #PantryInsiders

Maybe it doesn't happen at your table, but it seems like a lot of holiday meals tend to stay within a pretty limited color scheme. Mostly brown and beige. Maybe veering into the orange of carrots or sweet potatoes or squash.

Green beans might show up, but it's not unusual for them to be covered with crunchy bread crumbs. Crunchy brown bread crumbs.

One way to add a little more color is to trade your orange sweet potatoes for purple ones.

To make them even more ... different, I decided to serve them in wedges rather than the more usual mash. Of course, you could do this with the usual orange sweet potatoes, or mix orange and purple.

The great thing about this recipe is that it can be scaled to feed as many people as you need to.

When you're buying sweet potatoes, get smaller ones so the wedges are reasonable serving sizes without needing to cut them into thin wedges or chunky pieces. If you have no choice except larger potatoes, that's fine, too.

The great thing about these potatoes is that you can start them the day before and finish them in the oven just before serving, so that leaves you plenty of time to fuss with everything else you're serving.

This post is my last post in a series sponsored by Pompeian, and they supplied me with olive oil as well as compensation for these posts. The recipes and methods are all mine and not influenced by the brand. Needless to say, I use a lot of olive oil here, even when posts are not sponsored. I'd like to thank Pompeian for this fun opportunity.

Purple Sweet Potato Wedges

Purple sweet potatoes, as needed
Pompeian extra virgin olive oil
Cinnamon sugar
Kosher salt

Scrub the potatoes and place them in a large pot. Yup, we're boiling them first. This method results in potatoes that are soft and creamy in the center with a little bit of a crust.

Add water to cover, and a teaspoon of salt. Bring the water to a boil, then lower to an active simmer. Cook until the potatoes are tender when poked with a fork. You don't want them mushy, just cooked.

Drain the water.

If you want to finish them tomorrow, refrigerate them. If not, then keep going.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cut the potatoes in quarters lengthwise to form wedges. If these are too large for individual servings, cut them in half crosswise.

For casual meals, make sweet potato fries using the same method!

Arrange the wedges on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, coating them evenly. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. I suggest a light sprinkle to add a little bit of cinnamon flavor, but you can add as much as you like.

To spread the seasoning more evenly over the potatoes, hold the shaker well above the potatoes rather that sprinkling from a short distance.

Bake to heat and crisp the potatoes, and to warm them if they've cooled off - about 15 minutes - depending on the size of the potatoes and whether you've refrigerated them or not.

Remove the potatoes from the oven and sprinkle with kosher salt before serving. You could sprinkle with salt earlier, but if you do it last, you'll have pretty white sparkly bits of salt on the dark purple potatoes.

Serve hot.

Thanks to Pompeian for sponsoring these posts. You can find them online on the web or Facebook.

Want to do something fun? Pompeian has an app (right here) where you can print a custom label with a family recipe and a family photo that you can put on an olive oil bottle. Wouldn't that make a neat stocking stuffer for the holidays?

Oven-Braised Chicken with Artichokes, Sundried Tomatoes, Capers, and White Wine

Yikes, that title pretty much tells you the whole recipe, huh? But to be honest, I just couldn't decide which ingredients I should highlight, because they all contribute merrily to the dish. I guess I could have included the rosemary, as well. Or the chicken stock.

But that would be overkill. Hah.

This would be great served over rice or alongside potatoes to soak up the really tasty juices. Or polenta, which doesn't really soak up juices, but it plays well with sauces and gravies.

Some crusty bread and a green salad would round it out nicely.

This post is sponsored by Holland House, and I used their white cooking wine for this particular recipe. Actually, I managed to use the whole bottle in a number of different recipes.

I hadn't used cooking wine much before these sponsored posts, but I have to say that it's handy to have on hand.

Previously, I created a mushroom recipe using red cooking wine. Check it out! It was really good!

Besides the red and white cooking wines, the other cooking wines are sherry, marsala, sake, and white wine with lemon. I think I'm going to pick up a few others to try.

While white wine is the natural choice for chicken, it also pairs well with pork, veal, or seafood. For this recipe, since I used chicken thighs, I could have used red wine, or some of the other flavors as well.

Oven-Braised Chicken with Artichokes and White Wine

1 12-ounce package (or equivalent) frozen artichoke hearts
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes in oil
2 tablespoons capers
1/2 cup Holland House white cooking wine
1 cup chicken stock or broth
1 spring rosemary
6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
Salt, to taste

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Arrange the artichoke hearts on the bottom of a 9x13 pan. If you have a pretty pan, you can serve directly from the pan. You know, in case you want to do that.

Add the sundried tomatoes (reserve the oil), along with the capers, wine, chicken stock, and rosemary. If your stock wasn't salted, sprinkle a generous pinch of salt on top.

Arrange the chicken on top, skin-side up, and drizzle the remaining oil from the tomatoes on top.
Bake at 350 degrees until the chicken is cooked through and the skin is golden brown, about an hour.

Serve from the pan, or pile the thighs on a serving platter and scatter the artichokes all over.

If you like, you can remove the chicken and vegetables from the pan, skim off the excess fat, and thicken the sauce with a bit of cornstarch or flour.

This post was sponsored by Holland House, who provided product and compensation for recipe development. All words and ideas are mine.