white chocolate chip chocolate cookies

Image from VeryBestBaking

These are another cookie that I grew up eating every year for Christmas.  They are essentially a reverse chocolate chip cookie, with the chips being white chocolate and the cookie being chocolate flavored.  I made these when the Chocolate Crinkles had to be put in the fridge over night. Aside from that, these cookies were baked without incident, which means I have nothing amusing to tell you.  Just bake the cookies, they are delicious.




White Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies
Recipe from AllRecipes

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 2/3 cups white chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Fold in the white chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are set. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

chocolate crinkle cookies

I felt that for the next recipe made in my Christmas cookie sweatshop, it would behoove me to try something new.  My boyfriend had expressed an interest in "chocolate crinkle cookies" and having never made nor eaten one before, I thought that it would be interesting to give it a go.  I find the powdered sugar tops to be charmingly festive and perhaps it would have added a bit of visual interest to a bag of misshapen lumps.

I started the recipe after dinner one night, having psyched myself up for making cookies.  I picked this recipe out of my pile of Potential Cookie Print-Outs and started making the dough.  I should let it be known that I do not read recipes in their entirety before I start making them.  I do a little skim to make sure I have all the necessary ingredients and cookware, but I don't go much deeper than that.  Imagine my disappointment after mixing together the dough when I realize that it must be refrigerated overnight.  I angrily put the bowl in the fridge and started on another cookie. (recipe forthcoming)

Fast forward to the next day.  I pull the dough out of the fridge and find that it has formed into a fudge-like consistency.  I dig my spoon into the mix and it bends under the pressure of my attempted scooping.  I give up after a few balls are made, choosing instead to dig my nails into the fudge and claw wildly until I have enough to form a tiny cookie.  Then the rolling.  I have to roll the dough between my hands to form a ball, the fudge melting slightly and leaving my hands a dark brown color.  It's a mess.

The balls go into a bowl of powdered sugar, where you roll them around.  At this point, there is powdered sugar everywhere in my apartment, being stuck to the trail of melted chocolate fudge from when I inevitably have to touch things.  It's a mess.  It's a mess, and I didn't even care for these cookies.

As a side note, please notice that this recipe makes FIVE DOZEN COOKIES.

Chocolate Crinkles
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

• 1 1/3 cups (8 ounces) chopped bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips (I used a mix of bittersweet & semisweet)
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces, 1 stick) unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup (4 3/4 ounces) sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 2/3 cups (7 ounces) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• confectioners' sugar* (for coating)

Dough: Place the chocolate and butter in a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, and heat or microwave till the butter melts. Remove it from the heat, and stir until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.

In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar, eggs, vanilla and espresso powder. Stir in the chocolate mixture, baking powder and salt, then the flour. Chill the dough for 2 to 3 hours, or overnight; it'll firm up considerably.

Shaping: Put about a cup of confectioners' sugar into a shallow bowl. Using a teaspoon-sized cookie scoop, a spoon, or your fingers, scoop out heaping teaspoon-sized portions of the dough; they should be roughly 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Drop the dough balls into the confectioners' sugar as you go. Once about five or six are in the bowl, shake and toss the bowl to coat the balls with the sugar. (If you try to do this with too many balls at a time, they'll just stick together.)

Baking: Place the coated dough balls on a lightly greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between them. Bake the cookies in a preheated 325°F oven for 10 to 12 minutes, switching the position of the pans (top to bottom, and front to back) midway through the baking time. As the cookies bake, they'll flatten out and acquire their distinctive "streaked" appearance. Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool on a wire rack. Yield: about 5 dozen 2 1/2-inch cookies.

corn soufflé

If we were still operating under the guise that there were any rules left to this blog, I would say that this entry was going to be a little bit of a cheat.  I have made this recipe several times already and I didn't make anything new last week.  But it is so delicious that I can't store the recipe away forever.  This recipe will be new to you.  At least I cooked something at all, okay?  Get off my back.

The 21st was my third annual Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving.  This is an event that I host every year the weekend before Thanksgiving, whereupon I invite all of my friends over to share a pot-luck style dinner.  I have normally seen these kind of events referred to as "Friendsgiving," but I do not find this cute and there is no need to make myself feel bad if no friends show up to my Friendsgiving.  In my usual fashion, I went into hostess overdrive, preparing far more dishes than were necessary, fretting over tablescapes (despite them being non-existent year after year), and wondering if anyone would show up.

I catered to a smaller crowd than is the norm this year, which actually worked out for the best as my apartment is a cozy size (read: small) and barely enough room for me and my excessive amount of belongings.  This was also my first year without a full-sized stove and someone to coerce into roasting the turkey.  I opted instead to purchase a rotisserie chicken, which took off some of the pressure and allowed the stove to be used for the last minute preparation of literally everything else I was making.  Independent woman, and all that.

I made candied yams, stuffing, expired garlic and cheese biscuits, and a bowl of corn souffle.  Do not let the name fool you, corn soufflé is not actually a souffle.  Answers.com tells me a soufflé is: A light, fluffy baked dish made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a main dish or sweetened as a dessert.  Corn soufflé has eggs in it, and is not "light and fluffy" by any stretch of the imagination.  One of my guests referred to it at "corn pudding," but I do not find this name to be particularly accurate either.  I guess no one would want to eat it if it was called "corn mush," which is what I'd name it if I were in charge of such things.  Luckily, I am not.  I have a hard enough time getting people to try this dish with even its fancy name.  It is not very appetizing looking.

Corn Soufflé

• 8oz Sour Cream
• 1 can of corn niblets
• 1 can of creamed corn
• 1 package of Jiffy corn muffin mix
• 1 stick of butter

Mix all ingredients together in a baking dish.  Heat oven to375 and cook for 45 minutes or until center is cooked through and something inserted into the center comes out clean.

peanut butter blossoms

My miniature Christmas tree has finally been decorated (as of 2am).  The presents are wrapped and underneath the tree.  I participated in my first non-denominational office holiday party/Yankee gift swap.  I've walked arm-in-arm in the flurries to catch the train.  And so begins the Christmas cookie season.

Because I now have coworkers that I can stand to be around for 7 hours a day, I thought I would make everyone little bags of cookies for the holidays.  This satisfies my desire to give people presents, bake, "taste test" cookies, and make everyone around me fatter so that I look skinnier by comparison.  With the holidays rapidly approaching and only one recipe completed out of a planned five or six, my apartment promises to be a little Christmas cookie sweatshop these next few days.

The first/only cookies I've made so far are peanut butter blossoms.  I have had these every year for Christmas for as long as I can remember, but this is only my second year doing more than just pressing the Kisses into the hot cookies.  This recipe is fairy simple, which I appreciate.  No Kellys were burned, cut, or maimed in the making of these cookies (for once).



Peanut Butter Blossoms
Recipe from AllRecipes

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 18 milk chocolate candy kisses, unwrapped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine sugar, peanut butter, and egg.
3. Shape into 1 inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. NOTE: If dough is too sticky, refrigerate 1/2 hour or until easy to handle.
4. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove cookies from oven. Press a chocolate kiss into the center of each warm cookie.

belated egg nog cake

I am terribly late writing this entry, as I did not particularly care for the cake nor do I feel particularly strongly about egg nog.  I should have seen this apathy coming when I decided to make an egg nog dessert outside of the holiday season.  I love the holidays.  I have created very rigid guidelines about when I can start to enjoy myself about Christmas, otherwise my apartment would be filled with pine boughs all year round and I'd be listening to nothing but Christmas music.  Because that certainly does not happen.

I have been met with a lot of questioning when I have told people about how I made this cake coupled with the fact that I do not like egg nog.  For the record, I made it for someone who does, in fact, like egg nog.  This person has stared longingly at the egg nog in the refrigerated section of the grocery store since it arrived in mid-November (not egg nog season, thank you) and has put up with my scorn for his lack of holiday willpower.  I'm a terrible girlfriend.  To make up for this, I bought egg nog and decided to turn it into a cake.  This also allowed the extra egg nog to be sent home with him at no extra charge.  I am the best girlfriend.

As with all of the recipes that I find, I took a little artistic liberty.  All of the pictures on the website where I got it had it drizzled with custard and nicely shaped.  I drove all over town looking for a bundt pan to no avail, so mine was just a circular blob of cake.  I also didn't know how I felt about custard, so I made my own glaze that I poured over each slice.  I tried sprucing the cake up with some red sprinkles, but they just turned the cake pink over time.  The picture that you see to the left is not my cake, but this is what I want you to imagine my cake looked like.  Pretend it tasted good, too.



Egg Nog Cake
adapted from Allrecipes.com

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix (I used butter cake, this may have been a mistake)
• 2 cups egg nog
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

In a mixing bowl, combine the first five ingredients. Beat on low until moistened, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Pour into a greased and floured 12-cup fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; invert onto a wire rack. Remove from pan; cool completely. 

For glaze, combine egg nog with confectioners sugar and a dash of vanilla extract.  Mix with fork until smooth.  Pour over cake if you like mushy cake, as this is not actually a glaze.

macaroni and cheese

I have been thinking about baked macaroni and cheese now for weeks.  I have put it off or come up with excuses: I don't have a casserole dish, I can't find a good recipe, my grocery store doesn't sell cheese chunks in a bag.  I invited Ian* over for dinner last night and he picked macaroni and cheese over a "meat dish."  This worked out to my advantage as I had everything I needed already in the apartment.  It was like I was getting a free dinner!
* He plays a reoccurring role in these recipe recaps, as my motivation for cooking something other than cereal or pasta with old sauce on it for myself when I am alone is admittedly low.

Just kidding.  It was like I was getting dinner in exchange for an hour of manual labor and confusion.  Who knew macaroni and cheese took so much effort?  Can't I just throw a box of pasta into a pot of boiling water and toss in some cheese and some milk?  Doesn't a box of this stuff cost like 79cents?  I had already made a cake earlier in the day (recipe forthcoming) which means that a significant portion of my Saturday was taken up by preparing food.  How do people do this on a daily basis?  WHY do people do this on a daily basis?

I was already feeling vulnerable after the cake-making adventure, but I bucked up and put on my confident face.  This is macaroni and cheese.  How hard can this recipe be?  I gave it a once-over and immediately threw out some of the ingredients.  Onions in my macaroni and cheese?  Do I look like my grandmother?  No, thank you.  A bay leaf?  Honey, I don't even know what that is.  Clearly unimportant.  "Panko" bread crumbs?  That sounds like "Italian-Seasoned Stop & Shop brand Bread Crumbs" to me.

I'm not going to lie, I had to look up what tempering an egg was and I also sort of doubled the recipe but not really.  I wanted to use an entire box of macaroni instead of half a box so I roughly doubled everything else.  Except for milk.  The original recipe called for 3 cups, but I only really had 2 cups left.  Okay, that's a lie.  I had three but I wanted to save some for my cereal in the morning.  I really just made most of this recipe up.

Baked Macaroni & Cheese
Adapted from The Girl Who Ate Everything who adapted it from Alton Brown

• 1lb of dry macaroni
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon powdered mustard
•  2 cups milk
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 2 large eggs
• 1 package shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to taste. I used about 1 cup
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt 
• bread crumbs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large pot of boiling, extremely salted water cook the pasta to al dente.  Do not overcook it.  Drain pasta.
3. While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes.  Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes.  The original recipe says that "it will thicken, trust me."  Mine didn't.  In fact, it turned a weird brown color and smelled kind of like burning.  I feel that perhaps the bay leaf would have played some importance here.
4. Temper in the egg - I warmed it in a separate frying pan.  I put a handful of cheese into the warm egg and mixed it up until it became gooey.  I then threw this into the pot of drained pasta and mixed.
5. Stir in 3/4 of the cheese into the pasta and mix well.
6. Pour brownish butter/milk/mustard mixture into the pasta and mix.
7. Put pasta into a casserole dish.  I used a 9inch glass pyrex dish.
8. Top the pasta with remaining cheese and sprinkle on desired amount of bread crumbs.
9. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five to ten minutes before serving.  
10. Send half of it home with your boyfriend so it doesn't look like you are going to eat 5 pounds of pasta and cheese by yourself.

caramel bars

I have spent the last week and a half* rationing out these caramel bars, and we are down to the final four.  Last night, I sadly wrapped the remainders in tin foil for delivery and spent the rest of the evening going back and forth to the plate with crumbs on it, popping them into my mouth and shamefully ambling back to my bed.  Thank goodness I don't have roommates anymore.

My mother makes these every year for Christmas, and for some reason during the holidays it seems perfectly reasonable to shove handfuls into my mouth.  And one of every other cookie offered.  I think this year I might just cut to the chase and start eating sticks of butter rolled in brown sugar.

*  I know that I'm supposed to do one new recipe every week and I know this is only my second week and I have already failed.  In my defense, I haven't been feeling well and I made three new recipes last week.  If you're interested, I can certainly post the recipe for "half-eaten bowl of cereal" and "cold pitas with hummus."

Caramel Shortbread Squares

• 2/3 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C).2. In a medium bowl, mix together 2/3 cup butter, white sugar, and flour until evenly crumbly. Press into a 9 inch square baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes.
2. After baking, I placed the shortbread into the freezer for about 10-20 minutes to cool.  If you do not do this, the caramel will separate from the shortbread later on.
3. In a 2 quart saucepan, combine 1/2 cup butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and sweetened condensed milk. Bring to a boil. Continue to boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon for about 3 minutes. Pour over baked crust. Cool until it begins to firm.
4. Place chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat for 1 minute, then stir and continue to heat and stir at 20 second intervals until chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour chocolate over the caramel layer and spread evenly to cover completely. Chill. Cut into 1 inch squares. These need to be small because they are so rich.

devilish

As promised, I began my new recipe making on Monday night.  You may be noticing that it is Thursday right now.  Let's move on.

I perused my recipe folder* on Sunday night and decided on something called "Deviled Chicken Breasts."  Chicken is really the only meat that I eat regularly and I have a soft spot for Dijon mustard, so it sounded right up my alley.  During my lunch break on Monday, I picked up the ingredients that were missing, which included a bottle of Chardonnay that will play a significant role later on.

I left work at 6, already dreading having to make dinner when I got home.  I am starving.  My sink is filled with dirty dishes left over from the weekend (Saturday and Sunday are generally my no-doing-dishes days).  My freezer is full of frozen chicken products that I could easily throw in the microwave and eat, tempting me.  I envision a particular disappointed looking face and persevere.  Let's do this.

For some reason, I seem to be lacking very specific adult skills.  I don't know if it is because I didn't go to high school, or if I'm just an idiot.  For instance, I have no idea how to style my hair or apply makeup successfully.  I also cannot open wine bottles.  A week ago I was at Trader Joe's (purchasing the aforementioned frozen chicken products) and impulse bought a $2.99 corkscrew (and a 29cent chocolate bar).  I felt so adult, imagining all the bottles of wine I would open and pour for all my friends at dinner parties (false).  I confidently screwed it into the cork and attempted to press down to pull the cork out.  The edge of the bottle seemed so far away from the metal part of the corkscrew and it would not latch on.  The bottle and I struggled for a good 10 minutes, during which I sent a flurry of fevered text messages and cursed Joe for his cheap goods.  I had witnessed the opening of wine bottles hundreds of times by now, why is this so difficult?  It finally popped out (through methods unclear to me), and I could get on with it.

The rest of the preparation went relatively smoothly.  The only tip I have to offer you, is to not submerge hands with cuts on them into the mixture of wine and mustard.

* Before I moved, I wanted to cut down on the amount of stuff I had to bring with me, so I went through most of my recipe books and marked all the ones that sounded appealing.  I then created a document template and just plugged recipe after recipe in. I had grand ideas to print them all out and organize them in a binder, but only got about halfway through before I lost steam/was no longer unemployed.

Deviled Chicken
Adapted from: Healthy Cooking for Two
makes: 4 chicken breasts

• 4 chicken breasts
• 1/4 cup dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• hot sauce to taste
• 1/4 cup minced garlic
• 1 cup bread crumbs

1.  Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the mustard, wine, oil, thyme and hot sauce.  Stir in the shallots/onions.
3. Place the bread crumbs in a shallow dish.  Roll the chicken in the mustard mixture, then in the bread crumbs to coat.
4. Arrange in a single layer in the prepared pan and bake on the top shelf of the oven for 35-45 minutes, or until the crumb coating is browned and the juices run clear.

surprise french toast

Sometimes I get so excited by ideas that I don't really think them through before embarking on them. I woke up late on Sunday morning and decided it would be really great if I packed up all the ingredients for french toast and surprised Ian at his apartment. Sort of like delivery, except I make a mess and leave all the dirty dishes. About three quarters of the way to his apartment, it comes to my attention that I don't know how to make french toast. Why did I think this was a good idea? What if his cell phone is turned off? What if he's already eaten?  What if he's not home??

Cut to the kitchen and I am pretending that I know what I am doing. I have only made french toast once before and that was three years ago. I am trying to remember what happened all the times my mom made me breakfast on the weekends and it dawns on me that I was probably reading a book at the kitchen table, waiting for food to be delivered to my waiting mouth. I was livin' the dream. Being an adult sucks.

Needless to say, I do not have a recipe. I am winging it. This is happening. I try to get Ian to go watch TV while I fumble around his kitchen, burning the butter in the pan and hoping he isn't noticing. Is there even butter in french toast? What am I doing?

Sunday Surprise (as in, Surprise!  I don't know what I'm doing) French Toast
makes 4 slices

• 4 pieces of bread (in my case, stale)
• 1 large/extra large egg
• quick slug of milk
• cinnamon, to taste
• teaspoon of sugar
• some butter for the pan
• maple syrup

Beat egg in in a bowl (ideally) large enough to place a slice of bread.  Pour in an unmeasured slug of milk.  I am not sure what good this does, and I used skim milk.  Beat again.  At this point, I put the sugar and the cinnamon straight into the egg/milk mixture.  I was cooking for someone who enjoys cinnamon, so feel free to be as liberal with the sugar and cinnamon as you'd like.  The cinnamon will just sit on the top of the liquid, so you might need to add extra sprinkles of cinnamon in between bread dunkings. 
Now would be a good time to get out a frying pan and throw some butter over medium-low heat.  Dunk both sides of one slice of bread until saturated and place it on the pan once you've gotten up to temperature.  Flip when one side reaches golden brown.  Repeat with the remaining slices, making sure to butter in between slices.  Serve warm with maple syrup.

chips, ahoy

I had grand illusions about living alone and being able to take care of myself. It was going to be great; I'd make dinner every other night and pack the leftovers up for lunch at work the next day. All of those cookbooks and recipes I had collected over the past four years would finally be put to use. My coworkers would reap the benefits of my newly found love of cooking by feasting on cookies and fruited breads. Yes, it was going to be great.

Reality quickly set in after unpacking and rearranging my tiny studio kitchen. Right, I hated cooking. I have no usable counter tops. Suddenly bachelorette life wasn't looking so sweet when I had to carry 3 or 4 bags of groceries up the stairs to my apartment by myself while simultaneously trying to unlock the doors. By the time I get home from work at 6:30, making dinner is generally the last thing I want to think about. I suddenly found myself as that woman in the grocery store, piling frozen dinners and chocolate chip muffins into her cart, hoping no one would see her. Do I really need to marinate those chicken breasts? It takes only two minutes to microwave a handful of chicken nuggets and chug a can of Coke.

Fast forward to now. I have lived alone for about three months and have started dating someone who I'm pretty sure has a mild form of anosmia. This has allowed me to indulge all too frequently into my love of chicken nuggets and cookies. No one is here to keep track of how many cookies I've eaten in the bed. The need to impress with my culinary prowess is pretty low when you're with someone who can eat a three day old unrefrigerated pulled-pork sandwich. I've regressed so far as to being satisfied by eating handfuls of chips and a mini candy bar for lunch. I'm a mess.

I have started this blog in the hopes that it will kick start me into taking better care of myself. The plan is to attempt at least one new recipe a week. The plan is to spend less money, eat out less, and eat better. Do you know when the last time I had some vegetables was? I'm starting Monday. Until then, excuse me while I eat a bowl of pasta with a ripped up slice of cheese for dinner.