Flat and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I don't make Compost Cookies, (my general, go-to cookie of awesomeness)  my default chocolate chip cookie is Alton Brown's The Chewy.  I should just say, these are my ideal chocolate chip cookies- they're just right. Chewy, with a little bit of heft (you make them on the larger side) and just a little bit underbaked in the center. They are cookies that I compare all chocolate chip cookies to. 

 I am generally not a fan of flat, or crispy, or cake-y chocolate chip cookies, I mean, I'll eat them, but they aren't my absolute favorite.

These cookies are excellent.  Just the right amount of chewy, with a nice hit of saltiness, I can definitely see adding them to my cookie repertoire.  This is one of the two chocolate chip cookie recipes in the book, and I can definitely see why this one made it- it's a classic.  Not quite as good as the ideal, but definitely close.

For someone that is relatively practiced at cookie making, this recipe's a snap. Mix together ingredients, chill, and then bake.  My friends were appreciative!

Martinis!

For anyone who loves gin as much as I do, It is surprising to me even, that I had not ever had a martini before I made these ones for the project.

 

When my friend Paul asked what he could bring to dinner, I asked him to bring some fun olives, because I knew we would be having martinis with dinner. And fun olives he did bring! Ones stuffed with almonds, and ones stuffed with sundried tomato, and some kind of orange zest.

  

I mixed them in a large mason jar with a lid, (because I am Classy, and don't have a bar set) and poured them into wine glasses (see again re: classy)  and we each chose an olive to plop into our drink. I used my basic budget gin (New Amsterdam, in case you're wondering- I read an article somewhere... Real Simple? Somewhere online? That named it as one of the best gin bargains, and I have to say, it's pretty good)

 

I don't know where this drink has been my whole drinking life!  the gin really shines through, and the salty-briny of the olives offsets it nicely.

 

A definite win!

Lemon Drops

Before this, the lemon drops that I was acquainted with came in a shot glass that was rimmed in sugar, and could MESS YOU UP. if you had too many of them.  ( I am now of the age where taking shots- of anything- is far less appealing than it once was) but these are a wholly different kind of lemon drop.

I was putting together Christmas baskets for some of my family members, and they are a combination of sweet:  shortbread cookies, crunchies, vanilla sugar,  and salty: Homemade chipolte salt. and both: compost cookies. I wanted to add something else, something different, that I hadn't made before, and I landed on Lemon drops.  I was initially wary of this recipe, because it involves things setting up and gelling (and we all remember how excellent I am with things like that)  but I love lemon flavored things, and so soldiered on.

you begin by bringing sugar and water to a boil,  and then adding gelatin that has bloomed in water, and bringing that to a boil, and then adding in lemon juice and (the recipe calls for orange zest, but I subbed out that for lemon zest, because that is what I had on hand) after the hour, they weren't quite set up, so i stuck the container into the fridge, sent some good thoughts out into the universe, and hoped that they would set up completely. 

I woke up in the morning, and lo! They were gummy! and awesome!  I turned the square of candy out onto a cutting board, grabbed my pizza cutter and ruler, and cut out squares of candy. I rolled them in sugar- and Ta-da! I had gummy candy!

When I went to buy the gelatin, I bought four boxes, because the recipe calls for "four packets of gelatin", and having never used gelatin, I thought that would be good. Four packets are in EACH box of gelatin, so I think will take this unexpected windfall and play around with different jellied candies. (My mom got me rosewater for Christmas- that would be interesting, in a Turkish delight kind of way) Ribena for blackcurrant flavored things, peppermint extract for mint candies!  My imagination is running wild.

Lora Brody's Bête Noire (Intense Chocolate Cake) - 1983

So I was having a little bit of a problem. The book was so big, that I was feeling overwhelmed. With over a thousand recipes, and just one me, I was just kind of blindly landing on recipes in the book, and cooking them. Which works, but doesn't have very much direction. There were also recipes that I would come upon that I would think: "I should make that for my sister! Or that one for my cousin! or that one my mom!" 


So I got a pack of small post its, and went to town on the book.  The pink, orange and yellow recipes were ones that I thought "hey, that looks good!" when flipping through the chapter.  The green are ones that I want to make for others (with their name written on it, so I remember). 


All of this leads to Lora Brody's Bête Noire. When I read the recipe, my hand immediately reached for the green post-its, so I could write my friend Lisa's name on it.  She loves all, deep, intense chocolate desserts- Molten chocolate cakes, dark chocolate mousse, If it is dark, and chocolatey, and awesome, she's there.  I knew I had to make it for her. 

Chocolate cake with My friend Bryan's Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

So we were all getting together to watch Steel Magnolias, and Katie and Lisa were making pizzas. (Oh, MAN Lisa's pizzas are great)  I thought it would be a good opportunity to make this cake (and also flat and chewy chocolate chip cookies, which I'll be writing about later). 

When you look at this recipe, it can seem intimidating. It involves a candy thermometer,  and cooking sugar, and whipping lots of eggs. Do not be afraid! It is not as hard as it seems.  You cook sugar and water until it reaches 220 degrees. Then you mix in chopped chocolate (a combo of unsweetened and semisweet) and stir until the chocolate is melted. (The recipe says that it might seize here, but that's okay, mine did not seize though, so woo!)  after that, you mix in butter, slowly, until all the butter is melted.  It is at this point, when I began to hum in the kitchen (I always seem to be humming to myself when a recipe is going well)  I went over to my trusty stand mixer, and began to whisk the eggs, (and some more sugar) until they had tripled in size. I slowly added the chocolate mixture to the eggs, and then took it out  of the mixer and stirred it by hand until it was all incorporated. 

I put it into a parchment lined, buttered cake pan, that was set in my cast iron skillet, poured boiling water around it, and baked it for a half hour. 

I got my stuff together, and got into my car to drive to my friends' house. The cake smelled so delicious, that I was seriously tempted to rummage around and find a fork and dig in right there on the highway.  I should have put it in the trunk. 

Just before it was time to serve the cake, I stuck it into a 200 degree oven for ten minutes to warm it up, and served it along with my friend Bryan's awesome strawberry cheesecake ice cream (he also had blueberry).  The cake was amazing. Not too dense, but truly chocolatey, and dark.  The recipe said serves 6 to 8, and I cut it into eight pieces,  and even then, the slices were a little too big. The cake is so rich, that it would have easily been enough with half of the size slice I had. (not that that stopped me from eating most of it) 

So good. 

If you want to impress the chocolate lover in your life- make this, right now. 

James Beard's Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic- 1997

I love things that are braised, and Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic certainly fits the bill for warm, comforting, braised dishes.  

You start by separating out 40 cloves of garlic, slicing celery thin, and layering it in the bottom of a dutch oven, then you add celery, parsley,garlic, and then chicken, until the pot is full and you're out of chicken.  Then, you pour over some vermouth, and set in the oven, while it cooks and becomes tender, and melds together, and creates a garlicky, but mellow sauce.  This was part of my Thanksgiving weekend dinner party, and was served with plenty of crusty bread to mop up the sauce.

It was quite wonderful, and something that I would definitely make again.

Hot Cheese Olives- 2003

C

Hot Olives is one of those dishes that sound... a little wrong. It brings to mind... I don't quite know.  I like olives that are warm in things, like puttanesca sauce, but I think the phrase hot olives just sounds strange. Disregarding the oddness of the name, this is one excellent appetizer. (plus, it's easy!)

You make a dough of butter, cheese flour, an egg, and a little cayenne,  let it sit, and then wrap the small, spanish olives in the cheesy dough.  At this point you can let them sit in the fridge, for up to a day. When you're ready to make them, you pop them in a hot oven, and 15 minutes later, you have an excellent hot appetizer. 

I served these at the beginning of a dinner party that I had over Thanksgiving weekend with my cousins, along with Deviled Almonds and Rum Punch.  Everybody enjoyed them!   Even my cousin who doesn't like olives thought they were okay. My dad really liked them too, and the next day kept asking me what else you could put the dough on, because it's so good.  It's cheesy, and has a nice hit of cayenne, and I agree, it would go well with a lot of different things. I'm going to figure out what would go best. (besides olives, of course)

Lots of holiday parties are coming up! You should add this to your repertoire. 

Butternut Squash Cider Soup- 1993

This recipe is fantastic. light, and just creamy enough, with excellent butternut squash flavor and a real flavor of apples which was surprising to me, I think I assumed that the squash would bowl over the cider spices, but it's not true at all. You can really taste the apple in the soup.

 

You start by sweating shallot and garlic in a saucepan, and then steaming the butternut squash with some chicken stock, blending (I used my immersion blender)  then blending in sour cream, and apple cider.  you serve finely diced granny smith apple on top, and it provides a really nice texture contrast with a bit of tartness.

 

This recipe has been making the rounds as a starter for Thanksgiving, and if my family was the kind that deviated from our traditional meal at all,

 

I made the soup and it was a little thick- I should have thinned it out some- but this recipe, like a bunch of the ones I've made before, is one I want to make again and again (this is not helpful, seeing as I still have over a thousand recipes still left. in the cookbook.

 

(I still have some butternut squash leftover, so I'm making it tonight as a starter for dinner)

Carmelized Brown Butter Rice Krispies- 2007

I love Rice Krispie treats, as do many members of my family. In fact, I've even made a whole triple layer "cake" out of Rice Krispie Treats for my sister for her birthday.   I've made a similar recipe from Smitten Kitchen earlier this year, which was also really good.  It also involved less butter than this recipe. This recipe? It is buttery heaven. 

This recipe is amazing. It takes the standard, bake sale Rice Krispie treat, and it knocks it out of the ballpark. It knocks it from Camden Yards ten minutes away, to my apartment.  I gave half of the batch to my sister to take home, and took the other half to work, where my co-workers demolished them in a matter of minutes.  This recipe is easy too- it only takes a couple extra minutes than regular Rice Krispie treats.  I think i could have even taken the butter a little bit browner, but I was impatient and wanted to get them done to get the rest of dinner on the table (I made these on the same night as the Beet Tzaziki and Chicken Fricassee)

David Eyre's Oven Pancake- 1966

One of my friend Katie's favorite breakfast foods is a Dutch Baby, sometimes called an Oven Pancake, or a German Pancake.  She's talked about it a lot- her cousin makes them for her, and I kind of knew what she was talking about, but I didn't quite get the appeal. It's a pancake? That you cook in the oven?  Okay.... but I am still waiting for my book to come, (insert rant about the USPS and how they LIE about how they attempted to deliver my book because: NO BOOK AT MY HOUSE)  and I was looking for book recipes online that I could do.  I figured for Glee Tuesday (two friends come over to watch Glee every Tuesday Night. ) I'd make breakfast for dinner.  A little pancake, a little bacon, and If my friends were in the mood, some Gin Rickeys. 

My friends however, since it is a repeat night, made other plans. So I scrapped the cooking of the bacon, and made the pancake for myself.   It was delicious, and I am not sad at all that they weren't here, because I didn't have to share any of it.  Light, and crisp, and buttery, and eggy.  The sugar and lemon on it were great, and my second piece I had with some raspberry jam, and it was heavenly. 

My camera doesn't do it justice, but it looked so SO awesome in the cast iron skillet. 

I am hoping the leftovers will be tasty toasted a little in the morning.  I bet they will!