Double Chocolate Chip Muffins

In one bowl, mix dry ingredients and create a well in the middle of the bowl:

2 Cups All Purpose or Cake Flour

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

Pinch of Salt

1/2 Cup Sugar 

1/2 Cup Date Sugar
1/2 bag of chocolate chips

In another bowl, mix these ingredients thoroughly:

1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup Olive Oil
2 tablespoons buttermilk powder
2/3 cup hot water
2 eggs
Extract of choice

Once the wet ingredients are thoroughly mixed, transfer into bowl of dry ingredients, right into the well.  Mix gently, don't overmix, by hand.  If you cannot mix this by hand, use a mixer at very low speed until combined.  Overmixing will cause them to be tough.

Transfer to lined cupcake tin.  I generally like to fill mine almost to the top so that they crown nicely.  Tap the pan on the counter to remove air bubbles. 

Bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes and then turn the oven down to 350 degrees, depending on your oven, this will bake for another 15 minutes.  Check them with a cake tester or a toothpick.  If still gooey, set for another 7 minutes and retest.

Please check the Cook Along Calendar for the Sugar-Free Option and other Sugar Free Goodies, coming soon!

This was a lengthy live-stream, with chit chat, but it's fun nonetheless.

Let's Make Pasta! March 15 at 6pm Pacific (Updated, Error)

 

Livestream on YouTube Munchie Mafia Official

Thank you for visiting.  I will keep this short and sweet as per usual.  All the Fluff and Stuff is at the bottom of the recipe so you can just get to the recipe.  On the Loaded Baked Potato livestream just days earlier, the question was asked to the Live Chat, "What kind of pasta do you want to see?"  I had a feeling that it would be Tortellini because Eddie and Gary had talked about Tortellini over the weekend.  They didn't disappoint me.  Nina commented that she would like to see a Sicilian sauce recipe.  So, the pasta will be Tortellini filled with cheese, and a Sicilian sauce.  See Below the Recipe for the products that I use.

So, let's get to the recipe that will be used during the livestream.

Pasta Recipe:

250 grams All Purpose Flour

150 grams Semolina Flour

2 Egg Yolks, plus 3 Whole Eggs

2 tablespoons olive oil 

Gradually add dashes of water as needed

Mix flours together and create a little volcano.  Add the beaten egg yolks with the whole eggs and add to the center of the volcano.  Slowly begin to whisk with a fork, the flour into the egg mixture until all the flour is combined.  You'll want to knead it with your hands until it is a firm ball and there is no visible flour.  Wrap your dough ball tightly in plastic wrap and allow to rest refrigerated for an hour.

Filling Recipe:

1 container Ricotta, strained in cheesecloth for 1 hour.
Gourmet Gardens Italian Herbs, however much or little that you want to use, about a scant tablespoon if you need measurements.

Fresh grated Parmesan

A pinch of nutmeg
A couple cloves of fresh garlic, crushed
Salt to taste
1 egg yolk

Mix together ingredients until thoroughly combined and set aside.

• Get a salted pot of water to a slow boil.  Too rapid and the tortellini can suffer blow outs.
• Using a rolling pin or a pasta machine, roll out your pasta without pulling on the pasta.  (I will not be demonstrating rolling pasta with a rolling pin due to shoulder injury).  You will want it thin, and it's ok to work with the pasta in quarters, just remember to cover completely so it doesn't dry out. If using a pasta maker, you will start at zero and work your way up, rolling each size twice until you have reached 6.

• Using a biscuit cutter, cut to desired size, and cover with a towel until you have all your circles cut.  There is no rule to the size of your tortellini. I like big ones, they look pretty on a plate if you have 3 of them.

1. Wet lightly with a finger that's been dipped in water, all around the edge of the circle.
2. You will want to then take an everyday teaspoon and place a dollop of the filling dead center, you want to leave a space around the circle to press together to seal.  
3. Make sure that there are no air bubbles when you make the two edges meet.  You want a half circle.
4. Press around the half circle edges that met together, making sure that there is a good seal and there's no air bubbles.  
5. Fold the edges upright and bring together the two end pieces, pressing together.  
6. Repeat.

When you have them all formed into tortellini, and your water is ready, you can drop them into the water a few at a time, agitating the water a little bit like a vortex with a wooden spoon, to prevent from sticking.  Allow them to get happy in the lightly boiling water for a few minutes or so.  When they float, they're ready.  Do not overcrowd your pot of water.

Sauce:

Sicilian sauce is intended to be rustic in aesthetic, while being light and bright.

3-4 pints Cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 bell pepper (optional), seeded and diced.

1 sweet white onion, diced or julienned.

1 bulb garlic, peeled and chopped.

Lemon Zest, and lemon juice

Olive Oil

Butter, 2 sticks, cut into cubes.

Wine for deglaze

Anchovies or Sardines

Castelvetrano olives or capers

Kale or Spinach

Romano or Pecorino 

Fresh Basil, torn by hand
Italian Parsley, chopped fine

1 cup stock (chicken or vegetable)

Heat pan and blister tomatoes, onions, and bell pepper until the onions still have body, but they are cooked, chicken stock or vegetable stock, raise temperature and allow to evaporate until there is not much liquid left.  Deglaze pan with wine.  Add Zest and lemon juice, anchovies or sardines, olives, greens of choice, and sauté together.  Turn off heat and begin to throw knobs of butter into the sauce, stirring rapidly with a spoon until emulsification occurs.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Add your cooked tortellini to it, and toss with fresh herbs and hard cheese(s).  Serve with or without toasted breadcrumbs, or toasted pistachios.

Now for the equipment:

Marcato Multipast Machine

Ateco Cutters

French Rolling Pin

Caputo Semolina

Gourmet Garden can often be found at your local grocery store in the produce aisle.

None of these sponsors me, so it's up to you to choose what fits in your budget.  Gourmet Garden is a life saver for busy professionals, to get herbs that are somewhat stable in the refrigerator for when needed.  I keep mine in the freezer to improve life.  

Thank you for visiting, be sure to check out my livestream coming soon to see how it's all assembled.  I will be available to answer questions as we go.

If you don't like the idea of the sauce, just use a jar sauce, I'm not going to judge you.  Well.... maybe a little.  Joking.

~Sivi

An Official Unofficial FAQ: Who is This Sticker Troll?

 Who is the Sticker Troll?

I am the Sticker Troll.  I do graphic design for the fun of it.  I design stickers for people, but there's a catch.  *wink wink*  Some are Official Sticker Troll Stickers, while others are just ones that I have designed for the hell of it, because something inspired me.  

How much do you charge for sticker design?

I don't charge anything.  REALLY.  It is all based on what you feel the sticker is worth; it is completely "Tip-based" because not everybody can afford a sticker design.  I do this for the fun of it.  I am selective in who gets my stickers, because I have to be inspired by something to design one, and I don't like being pressured into getting it done quickly.  

• You'll get it when you get it.
• You have no say in the design. 
• No, I will not do changes, unless it's something stupid like a spelling error.  
• You won't know what your sticker will look like until you get it.
• You can suggest whatever you want, I'm not going to listen to you because this is art, and you just gotta trust the process.
• You will have no say in what it looks like.  
• It's a "blind sticker" concept, intended to be funny.

But if you do like it, I use Venmo, Paypal, and CashApp for Tips.  I have a full-time job, this is not a full-time job.  Not everybody chooses to "Tip" the artist, but if you do, thank you in advance; it's not necessary, it gives me a reason to practice digital art, and it turns out to be a win/win situation for everyone involved, well.. almost everybody.

I am still confused, why are you The Sticker Troll?

My stickers are solely based on funny moments made into funny sticker memories that happens in a channel's livestream or in a video that I have watched.  It could be someone that has said something funny or had done something incredibly stupid -- a situation that happened on the livestream, or in a video that was hilarious and has inspired me to "Stickerize you" - they are intended to be funny "Roast Stickers".  The sticker above is the latest "You Been Trolled Sticker". 

To tell the story in under 100 words:

YoutubePolice29/Beltloop29 was on an early morning livestream when he received a call through Facebook Messenger, it was a voice call, someone claiming to be from Publisher's Clearinghouse, notifying Gary that he won 2.7 million dollars.  The person asked how quickly could he get to his bank.  That's when all hell broke loose on the livestream.  It was entertaining, funny, and in the end, Gary told the man to send it to the police department to Lieutenant Beltloop, but then recanted and said that he would like to send the money to his buddy, Eddie.  The guy on the other end hung up on him.  But, we laughed for hours over that, and still joking about it today.

Do you print these stickers?

Oh God no, that's up to you to print them out when you receive a digital copy via email.   But if you would like to have them printed, Devildogs-Keeper (Jami) is a small business located in Texas, who would love to print them for you.  Otherwise, you can send it to a different printer.  It would be your sticker to do with it as you please, you can even turn it into your logo, put it on your own merch, print it and flush it down the toilet, wipe your butt after a steaming hot dump, whatever.

Well, that's stupid that I have no say in the sticker, why can't you just design me a sticker of my choosing?

Because it's not fun that way.  It becomes a job.  And I've had to design a sticker for someone who basically volunteered me (didn't ask, just said, by the way while you're at it, create me one too), to create their sticker because I was in the middle of designing a sticker for someone else.  I spent days on that sticker only to be told after each edit, "I hate this color, I hate that color, I want the flowers to look this way, I don't like the placement of that, I don't like the placement of that either, nope don't like that placement, can you put it back the way it was 5,000 edits ago?"  -- and after a literal week of working on that one sticker, I wanted to punch a hole in my tablet, never do this again for anyone, and basically will NEVER design another sticker for THAT person ever again.  I HATE that sticker and refuse to put it up anywhere.  I would just as soon never see that sticker ever again.  

I cringe every time that individual tells people in livestreams that I do FREE stickers.  I don't do free stickers, so if you think I do free stickers after reading this, let me get the crayons and hand puppets out for you, maybe Eddie will loan me his half-eaten purple crayon for illustrative purposes.  I do this on my own time, on my own terms.

What if I hate it?

Sometimes the art may seem a bit risque.  All it takes is a creative cropping and suddenly, riding a turkey like a cowboy can look like the person depicted in the drawing is doing something inappropriate to a turkey (Sorry, Buddy, not sorry).  

I let that one go for a couple of months before actually explaining it and let the person that received it think that it was him doing inappropriate things with a turkey.  It was funny, I was laughing, two months later, he was laughing.  We were all laughing.  He's finally come to terms with the fact that this sticker exists.

So, you never know when the Sticker Troll could be lurking, waiting for that delicious moment to forever memorialize a moment in time where it was funny.  These are parody roast stickers.  Even the Queen of Roasts has a sticker dedicated to her for her comment about, "I never know that butter can make noodles taste better, why didn't anyone ever tell me this sooner."  I made a comment in the livestream, "Butter is Lube for Spaghetti."  and I thought she was going to die laughing, breaking character for a moment.  And, a funny memory was born.

Trust the Artist?  Are you crazy?

I may be a little bit crazy.  I can guarantee you though, my mental faculties are intact.  Just to give you an idea.  I have over $12,000.00 worth of tattoos on my body.  I gave my artist a general idea what I wanted and gave her total creative freedom.  Am I satisfied?  Yes, because she's the artist, and I had to have trust in her abilities to not put something that I would hate on my body for the rest of my life.  Art is subjective.  Comedy is also subjective.  Live in the moment and trust the process.  The one for Taco-Simon was one of the cute ones not intended to be a troll sticker.  I just felt like Taco the Chihuahua needed a sticker of his own.  It's so cool though that Simon has been designing his own little floppy-eared Chi on his merch coffee mugs, which I proudly own two:  Christmas and Valentine's Day.

Do you have a favorite?

Yes, I do.  And there is a bit of a back-story behind this one.  This one is a dear friend from Florida, Mason Hiffner.  The story behind his sticker is that I was taking a sabbatical between jobs and was feeling really crappy with a sinus infection and couldn't sleep.  I was up late at night playing with my iPad, and something said that I needed to draw something.  I drew a Viking Seahorse for no reason at all and just left it in my folder.  It sat there for exactly 30 days when I got a notification that Mason just uploaded a video.  He fishes late at night, and I happened to be awake and unable to sleep.  I opened the video and sure enough, he caught a seahorse.  LITERALLY CAUGHT A SEAHORSE.  I laughed because I had forgotten about the seahorse that I drew.  The next day, I told him about it and to prove to him it was exactly 30 days, I took a screen cap that showed the file creation date.  He freaked out.  And we decided that this seahorse was intended for him, and it was witchcraft, that I drew this seahorse out into the universe for him to catch.  I later created a song to go with the graphic and some of his fishing videos.  I ended up finishing this one and created an entire underwater scene to go with it.  What is not pictured in this is the mermaid as this one is the original.  The mermaid was actually my trademark, as it is my right arm tattoo, which I forgot to tell him about until just now so I guess I'll be on the phone with him in the morning.  The trailer video that I created for him is here.

There is a running joke, "Be careful what you say if the Sticker Troll is lurking, she might make a sticker out of it."  This is true.  LOL  It is all in good fun.  Really.  Anyone that fails to see the humor in it has no sense of humor, and they may be dying a little inside.  These are only some of the stickers I have created.  There's a bunch more.