Chocolate Chip Cookies

Agenda for today: chocolate chip cookies to bring to my friend's birthday party.



1 1/8 cups of butter = 2 1/4 sticks
2 1/4 cups of flour + 1/2 tsp baking soda + 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 unicorn hairs



I love chocolate chip cookies.  When I was in high school, I loved fat chewy cookies.  Then, I had a change of mind and craved thin crispy cookies.  I have two chocolate chip cookie recipes in my archive: a soft chewy version and a crispy version (involves adding water to thin out the dough).  This crispy cookie recipe worked like a charm the last 2 times I made these.  But lately, I've been at odds with Mr. Oven...for some reason the cookies JUST WON'T CRISPEN.  Arg.

Yummy butter.  I usually try to adapt all recipes toward non-dairy containing so that Mike can enjoy too.  But sometimes, it's nice to follow a recipe the whole way through without having to substitute.  And that's why 2.25 sticks of butter ended up in this cookie dough.

Welcome to your new life as cookies!

 

Then, I put on a snazzy pair of pants and went to the party with my little cookies in tow.



T-shirt: Charlotte Russe
Tank top: Aeropostale
Pants: Target ("lamé")
Shoes: precious shoes from Vietnam. See reference here.
Necklace: thrifted



Peach and Mango Pie (3.141592653589)

I am eating pie as we speak.  What pie, you ask? The pie that I made last night!!!  Wait, I made a pie last night? From SCRATCH? There are many questions, I know.  It started out with 3 peaches from 2 weeks ago that just wouldn't go away (translation: get eaten by Mike).  I think peaches are ~ok~ but I secretly wished that I had bought nectarines instead.  I'm sorry, little peaches, I love your non-fuzzy cousins more.





Strange digressions aside, I had a really nice experience mushing together flour and shortening with my hands.  Initially, a fork kept me from experiencing the nirvana until, frustrated at the lack of mixing, I shoved my hand into the bowl.  All of a sudden, I was transported into a space-mobile-drifting-through-a-cloud-of-pink-rainbow-plasma as the soft, cold shortening infused an unbelievable silkiness to the smooth flour.    Oh, I seem to have digressed strangely again.

I followed the recipe on Crisco's website for a single "flaky" pie crust, though next time I will make the double crust.
1/2 cup cold shortening
1 1/2 cup flour + 1/2 tsp salt
Add 4-8 Tbsp ice cold water to the mixture, one Tbsp at a time until it is moist and a marble of dough will not crack when squished.
Flatten these and wrap them in plastic or wax paper then refrigerate.  I chilled them for 30 minutes.
Then roll out! Roll out!

I was slightly alarmed when I discovered that 1 Tbsp of shortening = 12 g fat.  (I used 1/2 cup which is 8 Tbsp).  Then I looked at stick of butter and it told me that 1 Tbsp of itself = 11 g. And I call myself a doctor.  I'm disgusted! And yet my appetite is whet!

For more sources of gooey disgust, please refer to my fruit filling:
1. Aforementioned peaches
2. an unripened mango (beggars can't be choosers)
3. 1/2 cup each of brown and white sugar
4. Haphazard dribbling of honey
5. 1/2 cup flour to absorb the moisture



My Crisco-derived pie crust calls itself flaky as opposed to Crisco's "classic" pie crust which I suppose is not flaky.  Anyway, did I mention how much I love squishing flour into Crisco?

I apologize, no pictures were taken during the squishing of the dough and the moulding of the crust and lattice pie top.  I was too focused and ecstatic that things seemed to not be a disaster.  Imagine my surprise when 45 min later in a 400 degree oven...



Before and After



A Pie is born!!

Are you surprised that Mike and I ate pie last night, this morning, AND this afternoon?  I can't believe I ever led a pie-less life.  

The Island of Lost Outfits

I wanted to share some recent unposted summer outfits before the weather becomes inappropriate for them and I end up dressed like this:

Coat: Anne Klein (returned)
Scarf: H&M
Hat: Mike's

Top: Free People
Skirt: Express
Purse: Forever 21
Flipflops: Old Navy

Top: Free People
Jeans: Gap
Shoes: errr can't remember but you can't see them anyway
Coat: Express (old)
Necklace: gift from Mike!
Purse: Mango

This weekend, we got new beds.  I had been quite obsessed with redecorating our bedroom.  I can't seem to find a single color scheme so suffice it to say, it looks like a rainbow in our bedroom.

Lemon Olive Oil Weekend

Wow, blogger is so different! I have forgotten how to post....

Once upon a weekend now almost at its ebb, an avocado chocolate cake died at my hand. I was following a recipe for a vegan cake but then some foolishness came over me and I added eggs to it, destroying the balance between dry and liquid ingredients, thereby birthing a monstrosity.  But in the aftermath, there was some avocado lemon glaze that survived.  It was supposed to go on the cake, but now it lay alone in its bowl waiting to meet its cake-mate.

Now when I show this to you, you can't yell or run away (Primer quote!).

I know. This looks like emesis. 

But it is composed of 2 ripe avocadoes, 1 POUND (I said POUND) of powdered sugar, and lemon juice. 

That is how it has retained its yummy greenness.

Now, I wanted to do something other than eat that with a spoon. Three spoonfuls of avocado glaze later, I found a recipe for lemon cookies that had everything I was looking for (use of olive oil instead of butter).  I thought it sounded interesting so off I set to make these delectables.

1. Lemon zest meets sugar.  Then I zested a clementine that was lying around too.  Zest makes the kitchen sing!
2. Flour and baking powder and salt.
3. Eggs, almond milk (instead of regular milk) and vanilla extract.

Hmm let's take a closer look at that zesty sugar.

Mix Mix Mix

Welcome to your new life as cookies.

Avocado glaze finds her new soulmate.