Chocolate Chip Cookies

We made these a while ago but I'd troubles uploading the picture. (I know, I know. In the absolute oppositeness of usual food blogging, I usually don't worry about such nonsense as having a picture to go with my posts. But in this case, I knew it was there;  it felt wrong to continue on without it.)

          Chocolate Chip Cookies from Joy of Cooking

Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Grease cookie sheets. Mix together thoroughly:

1 cup plus 2 Tbls all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda

Beat on medium speed until very fluffy and well blended:
8 Tbls (1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

Add and beat until well combined:
1 large egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until well blended and smooth. Stir in:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Drop the dough by heaping measuring teaspoonfuls onto hte sheets, spacing about 2" aprt. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until the cookies are just slightly colored on tiop and rimmed with brown at the edges, 8 to 10 mins. Rotate the sheet halfway through baking for even browning. Remove the sheet to a rack and let stand until the cookies firm slightly, about 2 mins. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool.

Our review:  As much as it pains me to say it, we ate these cookies because they were cookies--Hello, cookies!--not because they were good. We made two batches (separate days, different head bakers) just to be certain the first wasn't a fluke of disappointingness. But no. They're just okay cookies. I mean, yes, we totally ate all of them. But we didn't relish the experience. We just stuffed our faces with mediocre cookies and then felt guilty for not holding out for better. But, after all, a cookie in the hand...

Gingerbread Destiny

It's a rare afternoon when I find myself flipping casually through a cookbook, randomly stop on a recipe, think it sounds good, and realize I have all its ingredients on hand. (It's that last one that usually trips me up.) So when I ran across Laurel's recipe for gingerbread and realized I could make it without a trip to the store, and my daughters were both napping, well,  I took it as a sign.

Imagination time!
Imagine this mildly disappointing picture of gingerbread is actually delicious-looking.

Gingerbread   from The New Laurel's Kitchen

1/3 cup soft or melted butter
1 cup dark molasses (or 2/3 cup blackstrap & 1/3 cup honey) [I used the combo]
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk or orange juice [I "made" buttermilk by adding vinegar to whole milk]

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup raisins
(1 Tbls orange zest) (optional) [I left this out]
(1/2 tsp dry mustard) (optional) [I used this. I figured, weird, but why not?]

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Mix butter and molasses. Beat in egg and add buttermilk or orange juice.
Sift together the dry ingredients and combine everything together.
Turn into a greased 9"x 9" square pan. Bake 40 mins.

Results of stars aligning:  We LOVED this! Soooo good. It had absolute perfect texture (think: that perfect mid-point between cake and brownie). The flavor was rich and could have been too much but for the brilliant sweet bursts of raisiny fabulousness that caught your tastebuds by surprise with each bite. Honestly, really, really good. 

Only one small point of contention:  I wouldn't actually call this Gingerbread. I'd call it Molasses Cake. And maybe it's just because I've never had "real" gingerbread prior to baking this? But I didn't taste the ginger, I tasted molasses. And raisins. Totally delicious, but not very gingery. Or bread-like. 

So there you have it. Followed my destiny and made an amazing ginger/molasses bread/cake. Awesome. You should make it too. Go check your shelves. 

Going Banana(s) Bread

Whoops! Wrote this post in September but forgot to hit "Publish."
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My imaginary self cooks best alone in a peaceful, sunny kitchen. She measures spices and stirs sauces in a meditative and tranquil state.  One chef in the kitchen, humming a happy tune, baking making magic with flour and whisk.

Reality thus far has been that I start several new-to-me dishes all at once, quickly fall behind my timetable, realize I'll never make the scheduled dinner time without assistance, and I have to ask my husband in to help me finish the meal.

So I'm used to help in the kitchen, but it's usually a last minute, For goodness' sake, HELP ME! kind of help.

This past week I had a whole new-to-me kind of kitchen assistant, one of the small child variety. I had the incredible desire to make banana bread (several rapidly softening--dare we say oozing on a food blog?--bananas on the counter can be quite inspiring). My toddler was in need of an indoor amusement (weather went from 80s to 50s overnight). We picked the recipe from Joy of Cooking and started to stir.

Who will help me bake the bread? She will!!

Success! The banana bread itself was fine. Normal. Fine. But the time spent measuring, stirring, pouring, scraping? Fabulous. One of the most enjoyable times I've spent with my daughter in recent months. She loved it. I loved it. Guess we've found a recipe for mother/daughter success.

Banana Bread
from Joy of Cooking

Have all ingredients at room temperature, 68-70 F
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Grease an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 (6 cup) loaf pan.

Whisk together

• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

In a large bowl, beat on high speed until lightened in color and texture, 2 to 3 minutes:

• 5 1/3 Tbls unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup sugar

Beat in the four mixture until blended and the consistency of brown sugar. Gradually beat in:

• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Fold in just until combined:

• 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (about 2)
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans [I omitted these. Why ruin baked goods with nuts?]

Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 60 mins. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes before unmolding to cool completely on the rack.

Food Blogger Writing about Food Columnist

I've just finished reading Wild in the Kitchen, a cookbook by Will Jones, a former columnist at the Minneapolis Tribune. Picked up the cookbook (published in 1961) for a smooth $2 at St. Vinny's (LOVE that place!). Oddly enough, I can't find hide nor hair of the cookbook online. Imagine! In all the world of Amazon, no one is selling a copy? Hmmmm...

I'd never heard of Will Jones, but I gather his column was as a food critic (I get the information that he was a columnist from the book jacket). And I'm guessing specifically critic because while his writing is that of a foodie, his recipes are all scavenged from others. Other cooks, restaurants, other people's mother and aunts, other cooking club members. Very very seldom does he claim a recipe as as his own creation (and when he does, it often includes sliced white Pepperage Farm bread as it's main ingredient. Yes, sugared/fried white bread is one of his concoctions.)

So personal chef extraordinare he's not. Nevertheless he seems to have the tastebuds for this sort of life (food writing) and the descriptions he includes for each and every recipe remind me exactly of how today's funny food bloggers write a post (I'm including myself in that group. I realize my claim hangs by only the most tenuous of threads. Let me live my dream, please.)

These two recipe, for brownies and accompanying peach topping, will be the first on my list to try. Once I reenter the kitchen and will myself to pick up a mixing spoon, that is. (Maybe by Christmas?)


Mr. Jones describes these as brownies of authority, "not to be confused with the chocolate dog biscuits commonly made to assuage packs of hungry children."

Grownup Brownies
[credited to Mrs. Bowen]

Step One:

2 squares bitter chocolate
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/8 tsp salt
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup nuts, chopped
1 tsp vanilla

Melt chocolate. Add sugar, butter & salt. Add beaten egg yolks, flour, vanilla and nuts. Mix well. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Bake in an eight-inch square plan at 350 for about twenty minutes. Cool.

Step Two: Frosting

2 squares bitter chocolate
1/4 cup cream
1 1/2 Tbls butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten slightly
1/2 tsp vanilla

Melt chocolate. Mix chocolate, cream, butter, sugar, and egg in a heavy pan. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Boil one minute, sturring. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and cool. Beat two or three minutes. Spread onto brownies. Refrigerate overnight. Cut into sixteen squares.


Serve brownies accompanied by

Peaches with Wine
[credited to M. Barrows and Co., previously published in The New Serve It Buffet]

4 large ripe well-flavored peaches
3/4 cup any good red wine
2 Tbls powdered sugar
1 piece cinnamon
1/2 lemon peel, grated

Slice the peeled peaches into a bowl, and cover them until the wine mixture is ready. Heat the wine with the other ingredients in an enamel, glass or agate double boiler until boiling; then pour, while still boiling, over the peaches. Let this stand covered for at least two hours. Then turn it into a serving dish.

Pump[kin] up the Muffins!

So you want a healthy[ish] breakfast bread that's sweet enough to satisfy a sweet tooth but not covered in chocolate chips or granulated sugar like my normal breakfast a coffee shop muffin?

Enter another winner from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe:

Pumpkin Muffins

nonstick spray
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt (rounded)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
3 to 4 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 Tbsp chopped orange zest
1/2 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 cup mashed pumpkin
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) butter, melted

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Lightly spray 8 standard muffin cups with nonstick spray.
   
   
2. Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, spices, granulated sugar, and orange zest in a med-size bowl. Crumble in the brown sugar and mix with a fork or your fingers until blended.
   
   
3. Measure the pumpkin into a second med-sized bowl. Add the egg, milk, and vanilla, and beat with a fork or a whisk until smooth.
   
   
4. Slowly pour this mixture, along with the melted butter, into the dry ingredients. Using a spoon or rubber spatula, stir from the bottom of the bowl until the dry ingredients are all moistened. Don't overmix; a few lumps are okay.
   
   
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. For smaller muffins, fill them up about four-fifths full. For larger muffins, fill them up to the top. If you have extra batter, spray one or two additional muffin cups with non-stick spray and fill with the remaining batter.
   
   
6. Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven, then remove the muffins from the pan and place them on a rack to cool. Wait at least 30 minutes before serving.
   
   

It's not perfectly wholesome goodness with that 1/3 of a cup (plus 4 Tbls) of refined sugars, but it's not all that bad.

Best of all, the baby girl loved them! So, score!

And, of course, not necessarily just for breakfast. They'd be too sweet (imo) to serve with soup or salad, but they'd be great for dessert. It wouldn't be, like, a wildly sumptuous decadent dessert, but a sweet ending to a meal nevertheless.

Biscuits for the Bin

And for my 10th post: a flop.

To accompany this week's Blonde Lentil Soup I whipped up a batch of biscuits. Or, rather, they whipped me. Any way you view it, I ended up with a bruised ego.

I remember the biscuits of my childhood: puffed to perfection, flaky, soaked in margarine (yes, we northwesterners then proudly cooked with Marigold), and yummy to the tummy.

My pre-teen self believed it was my own cunning hand that consistendly turned out beautiful biscuits. Nothing to do with the recipe or ingredients, just my own my brilliant ability to measure and stir. To cut-in the shortening. To turn the dial on the oven.

Apparently not.

Perhaps my magical biscuit abilities have dissipated over the past twenty years, but those I made this week were bad. Not bad enough to immediately throw out, mind you. We did choke them down, bathed in butter and soaked in the lentil soup. But they were not good enough to keep around, even though there were many left after dinner. They were flat, burned on the bottom, and dry. Unappetizing.

I took their recipe from Anna Thomas' The Vegetarian Epicure: book two (1978):

Biscuits

2 cups white flour
4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 to 2/3 cup cold milk

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Slice the butter while it is very cold, add it to the dry ingredients, and cut it in with a pastry blender or two knives until ti si in bits the size of split peas. The texture of this mixture should be a little more coarse than that of a short-crust mixture before the liquid is added.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup cold milk over the flour and butter, and stir it in quickly with a fork. Add only as much more of hte milk as is necessary to make the dough hold together.

Gather the dough up into a ball, working it together with your hands very briefly, and then roll it out 1/2 inch think on a floured board. Cut out small rounds and place them on ungreased baking sheets. If you aren't going to put them in the oven immediately, chill them in the refridgerator until ready to bake.

Bake the bicuits in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes, or until puffed and lightly browned on top. Serve with butter.

Make about 20 biscuits.

This is one recipe I followed to the letter, with no substitutions. I don't know if it's just a rotton recipe (it's certainly not an overly complicated one) or if it was my sadly lacking baking skills again (see my not-so-great Gingerbread Apple Pie attempt), but I probably won't attempt this exact recipe again.

If any of you have used Anna's recipe and found it to be a great success, let me know. Or don't. Because if you do then I'll know that it was me that was the flop.