Happy Heart Day!

I liked that Valentine's Day was on Saturday this year. It made for a nice, long drawn out holiday. If you know me at all, you know how I like a nice, long drawn out holiday. Here are some of the happs. For the first time since my kids have been in school, I did not have to help in their classroom's. I hardly knew what to do with myself, so I decided to make a festive Valentine's dinner. Chinese was the theme. I found an amazing Orange chicken recipe here. I had to try it, hence the theme. Cooper and I went about town finding take out boxes (mini ones for the kids), chopsticks, little packets of soy sauce and red, white and pink decorations. Mood and food(as aunt Nancy calls it). I spent the afternoon making homemade fortune cookies (complete with fortunes specific to the receivers, orange chicken and fried noodles. I also made a cheesecake for the ward dance the next night. My kids were tickled when they came home from school to find the place all festive. One of their friends came in and said "Hey Jack, are you even supposed to be in here?" We sat down to a yummy dinner and enjoyed each others company. It was just one of those rare evenings where everyone was happy and we had such a great time together. The kids opened all the fortune cookies hunting for fun fortunes, and they ate every stitch of food on the table--every bit! I knew it was a successful evening when Bowen said "Mom this is way better than last year when we got toys on the doorstep. We should make this a tradition!" Well worth all the work. Below is a really hard recipe for the fried noodles and for the cheesecake I took to the ward Valentines party. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend full of extra love! PS Try the orange chicken recipe and skip the frying for a healthy alternative.

Fried Noodles
1 package of chicken ramen noodles
Boil until just barely soft and drain all water
Put packet of power on noodles with a little bit of sesame oil.
Put in frying pan and fry

Fortune Cookies
This recipe is from Martha Stewart

These delicious cookies don't have to be confined to Chinese meals; they also make wonderful party favors, place cards, or everyday desserts. The batter used to make these fortune cookies is traditional tuile batter. Tuiles are thin, crisp cookies that are easy to mold into curved shapes while still warm from the oven. Remember, the key to success with these oversize cookies is to shape them quickly.
Ingredients
Makes 15
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 large egg whites
1 cup superfine sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
Pinch of salt
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon almond extract
Nonstick cooking spray
Directions
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet liberally with cooking spray. Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine egg whites and sugar, and beat on medium speed, about 30 seconds. Add flour and salt, and beat until combined. Add butter, heavy cream, and almond extract, and beat until combined, about 30 seconds.
Pour 1 tablespoon of batter onto half of the baking sheet, and spread with the back of a spoon into a thin 5-inch circle; repeat on the other half of the sheet. Bake until the edges of the cookies turn golden brown, about 8 minutes.
Transfer baking sheet to a heat-resistant surface. Working as quickly as possible, slide a spatula (an offset spatula, available at specialty kitchen shops, works best) under one of the cookies. Lift it up, and place it on a clean kitchen towel. Using your fingers, fold the cookie in half, pinching the top together to form a loose semicircle. Hold the cookie with your index fingers inserted at each open end, and slide your thumbs together along the bottom line. Press into the center of the cookie while bending the two open ends together and down to form the shape of a fortune cookie. This whole process should take about 10 seconds. Once the cookie hardens, which begins to happen almost immediately, you cannot fold it. Place the fortune cookie on the kitchen towel to cool, and shape the second cookie. Repeat until all the batter is used up. To speed up the process, bake four cookies at a time, staggering two cookie sheets by 4 minutes to give you time to shape. To avoid wasting batter, practice folding with a circle of paper first.
Write your message on a long strip of sturdy art paper, such as Japanese moriki. Thread the fortune through the cookie when it has cooled.

Chocolate Carmel Toffee Chunk Cheesecake



INGREDIENTS
1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1/3 cup butter, melted
50 individually wrapped caramels, unwrapped
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 (5 ounce) can evaporated milk
3 (1.4 ounce) bars chocolate covered English toffee
4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 1/2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 (1.4 ounce) bars chocolate covered toffee, chopped

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine wafer crumbs, powdered sugar and cocoa with the melted margarine. Mix well. Press onto the bottom and half-way up the side of 10 inch springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes in preheated oven. Allow to cool.
Increase oven temperature to 425 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a saucepan over low heat, melt the caramels together with the chocolate chips and evaporated milk stir until smooth and pour into crust.

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar and flour; beat until smooth. Add eggs, then yolks, one at a time. Blend in heavy cream and vanilla. Add 3 cut up candy bars to mixture. Pour over caramel and toffee layers. Wrap outside of pan with foil.
Set in a large pan that has been filled with 1 inch of hot water. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes; reduce oven to 250 degrees and bake 1 hour and 15 minutes. Turn off oven and let sit for 1 hour. Remove from water. Chill overnight in the refrigerator. Top with 2 more Heath Bar candy bars that have been chopped. Drizzle with remaining chocolate and caramel