Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie

Now, true… the shortening sticks no longer contain trans fats. But that’s probably the only redeeming quality. That and the fact that they make these tasty, tasty, evil little cookies.

I hadn’t made them in years, but my husband requested them recently. Instead of trying to alter the recipe and adapt it to my healthier tendencies, I took the shocking route and made them straight. And I think my husband devoured half the batch that same day!

The cookies really are good, they have a nice chewiness and there is a nice little saltiness in them to balance the sweet. Now if only I didn’t feel guilty about consuming them!

The Ingredients:
3/4 stick Crisco® Butter Shortening Sticks
1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup white “chocolate” baking chips

The Instructions:
1. HEAT oven to 375ºF.
2. COMBINE shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Beat in egg. Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Mix into shortening mixture until just blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
3. DROP by rounded measuring tablespoonfuls 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet.
4. BAKE 8 to 9 minutes for chewy cookies (or 11 to 13 minutes for crisp cookies, but I never do that with this recipe). Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet on a cooling rack. Remove cookies to rack to cool completely.

This is a recipe I found in Women’s Health magazine. The original recipe calls for putting the warm quinoa/garbanzo/veggie mixture on top of fresh spinach, but I decided that I preferred to wilt the spinach into the mixture. It makes it easier to eat and the spinach gets the flavoring of the dressing more this way.

The Ingredients:
1 1/2 tsp chopped garlic
1 small zucchini, quartered and sliced
2 carrots, quartered and sliced
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
2 cups canned garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup (packed) chopped scallions
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooked quinoa (cooked in vegetable broth)
4 cups fresh baby spinach leaves

The Instructions:
1. Coat a saute’ pan with cooking spray and heat to medium-high. Add garlic, zucchini, carrots and bell pepper. Saute’ until softened, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add beans and saute’ until heated through.

2. In a food processor, puree scallions, gradually adding oil, vinegar, salt and black pepper to taste. Process to a thick consistency.

3. Add scallion mixture and quinoa to saute’ pan. Add spinach and toss until spinach has wilted slightly.

Serves 4.

A while ago I made oreo truffles. This made me realize that I’m really bad at dipping chocolates. But it didn’t matter, because they tasted great.

And then for Easter I made a mini carrot cake. This made me realize that I’ve watched too many episodes of Ace of Cakes as I tried to cut the mini cakes to be more level as I stacked them. The cake was a little wonky, but again… it tasted great. And it created leftover pieces of cake.

So using Bakerella’s site as inspiration again, I mixed the cake pieces with leftover cream cheese frosting to make my truffle filling. I rolled them into little balls, put them in the freezer to solidify some and then dipped them in white chocolate.

My dipping skills haven’t improved, but these were really good. It’s fun when you get a hit of walnut, or pineapple from the cake in the middle of the truffle.

Now I just need to keep experimenting with flavors and perfecting my dipping skills. I’m thinking I should just try to put them on lollipop sticks for ease in dipping.

This is something that I posted on my main blog a while ago, but since we just had it for dinner again tonight, the point of my kitchen blog is to store recipes, and it tastes really good; it earned a re-posting!

This recipe came from Men’s Health magazine. My husband flagged it as one that he thought looked tasty, and I’m really glad he did! It tastes great, it’s really healthy and it serves two (but could easily be multiplied to serve more people). The amount of pasta the recipe calls for is typically the amount that serves one person. Don’t let that deter you, with the chicken and beans there are plenty of other things in this dish to fill you up, plus they help boost the nutritional balance more than just pasta.

The Ingredients:
2 ounces whole wheat penne pasta
8 ounces chicken breast, pounded to 1/4-inch thickness
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 cup canned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons roasted red peppers, diced
4 cups baby spinach leaves
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated

The Instructions:
1. Cook the pasta according to the package directions.

2. While the pasta is boiling, season the chicken on each side with a pinch of salt and pepper, and sear it in a skillet over medium-high heat for 3 to 4 minutes a side. Remove from the skillet and set aside.

3. Add the oil, garlic, rosemary, beans, red pepper, and spinach to the skillet. Cook, turning frequently, until the spinach wilts (1 to 2 minutes).

4. Slice the chicken and drain the pasta; toss them with the bean mixture. Spoon the pasta into two bowls and top each with 1 tablespoon of Parmesan.

Serves 2

We have been looking for a new waffle iron for some time now. Our previous one just wasn’t performing satisfactorily. Unfortunately it was a replacement for another model that also didn’t work all that well. Since we had two sub-par waffle irons, we wanted to research carefully and try to find one that would be REALLY good.

While browsing through Cooking.com at waffle irons, reading reviews and trying to determine what features were necessary, we found the VillaWare V2002 UNO Belgian Waffler and one of the comments mentioned that it was the model Alton Brown used in his episode of Good Eats about waffles. I read that aloud to my husband and the first thing out of his mouth was, “SOLD!”

We ordered it and decided that our first test of the new waffle iron should be with Alton’s basic waffle recipe. And the result: beautiful, puffy waffles with nice texture and even browning. I just wish that we had set them in the toaster oven while baking additional ones to make sure they crisped up nicely, since throwing a hot-from-the-iron waffle right on the plate tends to make them a little softer than I would prefer. I’m definitely excited to try more recipes, the appliance came with several recipes in the operating manual and the 100% whole wheat one is calling to me.

Basic Waffle

4 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1 cup
4 3/4 ounces whole-wheat flour, approximately 1 cup
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3 whole eggs, beaten
2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
16 ounces buttermilk, room temperature
Vegetable spray, for waffle iron

Preheat waffle iron according to manufacturer’s directions.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flours, soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar. In another bowl beat together eggs and melted butter, and then add the buttermilk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until combined. Allow to rest for 5 minutes.

Ladle the recommended amount of waffle batter onto the iron according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. Close iron top and cook until the waffle is golden on both sides and is easily removed from iron. Serve immediately or keep warm in a 200 degree F oven until ready to serve.

From Alton Brown at the Food Network

A while ago I made a recipe for oatmeal that contained apples, cranberries and raisins. It was tasty, but my husband wasn’t overly impressed and I thought that we could improve upon the base recipe.

Since my husband prefers steel-cut oats (or irish oats) to rolled oats, my first step was to change the types of oats in the cereal. We used Coach’s Oats, a type of steel-cut oats that is chopped a little for faster cooking, but hasn’t been chopped, flattened and demolished the same way rolled oats have. I would imagine you could use one of the quick varieties of irish oats in this recipe too. If you used the traditional steel-cut oats, I wouldn’t add the fruit until closer to the end of the cooking time because it would probably end up mush. (Or you could do a pre-soak method or food processor chop method of preparation.)

Another change was to add some spice to the dish, the original didn’t include any. Just a simple addition of a little cinnamon really goes a long way to enhance the overall flavor profile.

The Ingredients:
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups fat-free milk, divided (I actually used light soy milk)
1 1/4 c quick-cooking steel cut oats
Pinch of salt (optional)
1 medium Granny Smith apple, cored and cut into 1/4″ pieces
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 teaspoons brown sugar

The Instructions:
1. Bring water and milk to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan over high heat. Stir in oats and salt (if using). Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 2 minutes, stirring often, until oats start to soften.

2. Stir in apple, cranberries, raisins and cinnamon. Cover and simmer about 2-3 minutes more or until the apple is tender but still a bit crisp.

3. Divide evenly among 4 warm bowls. Sprinkle each with 1/2 teaspoon of brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of the walnuts. Top each bowl with extra milk if desired.

Oh wow… is it wrong to be so impressed with yourself after cooking a meal? Because I was very happy with how this turned out. Very, very, very happy.

I sauteed some sliced button mushrooms with a little olive oil, garlic and rosemary. I added a splash of white wine toward the end and let the moisture cook out. Then I grabbed a hunk of herbed dough from my trusty bucket in the fridge. I rolled out and set it on my pizza peel (on top of some cornmeal for flavor and texture more than as a means of friction, I used parchment paper to help slide the pizza from the peel to the baking stone).

I sprinkled some grated fontina on top of the dough, then I spread the sauteed mushrooms over the cheese and then added some more fontina on top of that. The pizza was slid into a 550° oven to bake for about 9 minutes. I pulled it out, sprinkled some chopped parsley on top, let it sit for just a couple minutes (so the cheese could set a little and so I could take some pictures). Then it was time to eat!

The slight nuttiness of the fontina went with the herbs in the mushrooms and the crust really well. The crust was awesome, perfect combo of crisp and chewy. I have never had as much luck with making homemade pizza as I have had since I started using the techniques in the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes book. Seriously, this book is a gold mine! I was a little sad when I received notification from the library today that my copy is due back soon. No worries, I already know that I’m going to buy the book.

Well, I’ve made my second batch of dough from the ‘Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes‘ book. I followed the base recipe again, added in some rosemary and thyme like the authors suggest as an alternative but I also decided to add some whole wheat flour.

I did a 50-50 blend, 50% was unbleached bread flour and 50% was freshly milled white whole wheat flour. I did increase the water content just a little bit as the whole wheat absorbs more liquid.

This bread was a totally RAWKIN’ success. It tasted so good, it has a great crispy crust and nice chewy interior. My husband and I devoured the whole loaf (although, in full interest of disclosure it was a smaller loaf, I didn’t take out quite as much dough).

After this, I have no need for that rosemary bread at Macaroni Grill, I can create something just as fantastic in my own home with the nutrition of some whole grains added.

This book might be my new love affair. I can’t wait to try making pizza on the herbed crust.

Tonight’s dinner was yet another recipe found in Prevention magazine. I realized that I was out of garlic when I started making this… Whoops. I tried to cheat by using garlic-infused grapeseed oil instead of the olive oil & garlic. I don’t think it was as flavorful this way as it should have been. But it has promise, I could try it again the “correct” way.

The Ingredients:
4 oz whole wheat penne
1/4 c olive oil
1 c grape tomatoes, halved
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c white wine or low-sodium chicken broth
3/4 lb boneless, skinless wild salmon fillet, cut into bite-size pieces
2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano

The Instructions:
1. PREPARE pasta per package directions without adding salt.

2. HEAT oil in large skillet over medium-high heat while pasta cooks. Add tomatoes and garlic and cook 1 to 2 minutes. Raise heat to high and add wine (broth), salmon, basil, oregano, and cook until salmon is just opaque, about 4 minutes.

3. DRAIN pasta and add to skillet. Toss with tomatoes and salmon to combine. Divide equally among 4 bowls. Sprinkle with additional basil and oregano, if desired.

Serves 4

The Numbers:
385 cal, 21 g pro, 25 g carb, 3 g fiber, 20 g fat, 2.5 g sat fat, 47 mg chol, 111 mg sodium

From Prevention

If you haven’t heard about this book, well… it’s gotten a lot of buzz both in and out of the breadmaking world. (I never imagined there would be a day that I said “breadmaking world”. You gotta love the way the internet can connect people with a specific hobby all around the world.)

I checked out a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from my local library. After reading through it and trying the base recipe a couple times, I can’t wait to try other recipes in the book, try adapting the base recipe to meet my own needs and generally incorporate this into my bread baking repertoire. It’s that awesome.

Boule made from the basic dough recipe:

Pizza made using the basic dough recipe:

Even though the book tells you to sprinkle the dough in your bucket with flour, I found that made hard chunks of dough in my bucket. So instead I threw some flour on the countertop, reached in the dough bucket with a wet hand and dropped the hunk of dough into my flour and tossed it around to coat it for shaping. That seemed to work better for me.

The authors are maintaining a website complete with a blog where they post updates on uses for the dough/method and answer questions. So far, I’m completely enamored of this book. Now I need to go buy the book so I don’t incur massive late fees from my library.