From my Holiday Oven

'Twas the night before Christmas and there was one mouse a-stirring...cookie dough, that is. (That mouse was me.)  It all started out as a basic cookie dough for chocolate chip cookies, as per this recipe.  Then, I divided it in two and invented two new cookies!

New Cookie #1: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Walnut

I really should try to come up with a more creative name, like "Ostrich Cookie" or "Clumsy Cookie."  But alas, I know not of a fitting moniker to accurately capture how wholesome n' earthy yet sophisticated this cookie tastes.

The sophistication comes from the coarse salt sprinkled on before baking! Other ingredients, surprising and not, include:
- a generous dollop of creamy natural PB (the kind that separates into oil)
- chopped walnuts
- 1/2 cup ground up oatmeal (wholesome/earthy)

Next time, I will squash them flat before baking so that they come out thinner.

New Cookie #2: Peppermint Chocolate Marble Cookie or "Zingy Swirl Cookie"

Some cookies are more swirly than others.

For this cookie, crushed candy canes are added festively to melted chocolate whilst singing a happy holiday tune. This mixture is cooled prior to swirling back into the plain cookie dough.
I used:
- 8 candy canes (the regular size, not the mini size)
- 1 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
This cookie had a much better spread and crispiness than the Clumsy Cookie above. My suspicion is that the melted chocolate thinned it out, or perhaps it was the lack of oatmeal...

Have no fear, peek in here!

Nom-licious

Bonus Baked Good: Lastly but not leastly. I went on a sufganiyot adventure! I followed the instructions from the videos on www.sufganiyot.com.  I think it is special and amazing that such a website exists.

Sufganiyot = a fried and jelly-filled Chanukah miracle

Quest for the Perfect Quookie

Before I launch into my diatribe about Thanksgiving, allow me to demonstrate some cookies that I made when was starting to get sick.  After making about 6 dozens of these, I fed them Typhoid-Mary style to Mike and some of my co-residents at the hospital. Somehow, no one fell ill. But Mike got a pretty severe case of Cookie Hunger.

As you can see, I was eating them as they came out of the oven. GI = GO, as if!

I will now describe the method I followed in creating these non-dairy delights. Good thing I decided to do this, because I just now fished out the recipe card from my recipe box and was disturbed by how little my notes captured the spirit of inventiveness, resourcefulness, and spontaneity from whence burst forth my dainty delectable darlings.

Crispy Crisco Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 c all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 c unsalted butter-->1 C butter-flavored Crisco + 2T oil + 2T water

1 1/4 c granulated sugar

3/4 c packed light brown sugar

1 t salt

2 t vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 c chocolate chips

1. I put the flour into the Kitchenaid Mixer then tossed in the baking soda and salt.

2. I filled the 1 c measuring cup with Crisco and dumped that into the mixer.

3. Feeling like a greaseball, I haphazardly underfilled a 1/4 c with Crisco and put that into the mixer.

4. Fearing that my cookies wouldn't be delicious, I decided to add 2T of canola oil (I recalled that this particular recipe historically required thinning out the batter with a small amount of water).

5. Remembering the conversion of Crisco to butter (1 c butter = 1 c Crisco + 2T water), I added 2T water.

6. I added 1 1/2 c white sugar to the mix, then 3/4 c brown sugar.

7. I mixed that biznaz and it became fluffy (a good thing), crystalline from sugar (probably normal), and strangely pale in color for chocolate chip cookies (ERR?!).  

8. To correct the paleness, I added molasses until the dough was a little more golden. This required 3 teaspoons--not enough to thin out the dough.

9. In went the vanilla and it smelled like heaven.

10. I tasted the dough and it was delicious so I proceeded to add chocolate chips.

11. I used the 1T spoon to scoop dough onto parchment paper and baked them at 350 for about 10 min, checking on them like a constant gardener and took them out only as they had just turned golden.

Thanksgiving Cooking and Recent Outfits

During the week preceding Thanksgiving, everyone had turkey on their brain.  All around the hospital people shared their plans of cooking, travelling, and taking time off.  As her roommate approvingly listened in, one of my patients told me her recipe for stuffing.  She said that even her daughter's boyfriend, a chef for a prominent restaurant, praised it.  I asked if she would write it down for me. No need, she said, it's super simple.  She listed the ingredients, no measuring cups, just instinct.  Never the same each time but always a Thanksgiving highlight for her family.  Luckily, I discharged her from the hospital in time to work her kitchen magic.



Vegetables dusted with spices.



My patient's stuffing recipe developed into my first Thanksgiving dinner, cooked by me! Hosted by me! I had to emphasize the fact that I cooked since it rarely happens except for on this blog, where it seems frequent due to publishing bias.  But note that I haven't posted for a month and during that time I definitely was NOT cooking.



Hey look, what's that?! You guessed it---MATZO BALL SOUP.  Yummie.
 Please refer to this post for the recipe and similar pictures (minus the Cutco knife and new polypropylene cutting board).
On this particular early Thanksgiving morning, I used chicken wings and drumsticks, you can see them peeking out
from underneath the lovely veggies.


Believe it if you will, I woke up at 6:30 AM as if it was any other work day and set out to chop celery, carrots and onions with my new Cutco Chef Knife.

Ok, then I baked an unplanned cake.  But you know, I had to bake something since I am the proud new owner of a Kitchenaid Mixer.  I had to bake something impressive.  No credits to me please; that Mixer is the Boss.



Extra points if you spot the cookies.
They are special Arrested Development cookies.
I had made the batter for them in a massive quantity earlier that week


I only own 1 cake pan so I had to wait before baking the 2nd cake.  But this provided time for the cakes to cool and prepare themselves for

BUTTERCREAM ICING.



nb: cake made with shortening, icing used margarine in lieu of butter



One day, I'm going to tell the gory tale of my buttercream icing failures.  In my misadventures, I learned about emulsifying oil-based and water-based products.  I learned of the importance of using metal/glass bowls over plastic bowls.  I learned about the bain-marie.  I learned about the sugar ball in water test.  I learned that there were Italian, French, and American schools of buttercream frosting.  In spite of all this knowledge, my buttercreams had a paltry success rate....that is until the Kitchenaid Mixer intervened.  That and I patiently let the stiffened egg whites sit in the fridge for a good 1 hour until their temperature equilibrated with the butter.  Let's just say that there were now 10 egg yolks leftover between the cake and the delicious perfectly-executed decadent phenomenal exquisite buttercream icing. 

And then it was time for the Famous Stuffing:



Is it weird that writing about the stuffing caused me to go prepare myself some leftover stuffing?



And onto the dinner party.....!



Mike made the matzo balls! They are buoyant and delicious.  The soup was light and flavorful with lots of veggies.



My friends endured my cooking and agreed to spend Thanksgiving evening at our humble little home, complete with 2 card tables pushed together to become a dining room table + a sheet masquerading as tablecloth.  Alas why am I so honest?



Clockwise on my plate: turkey breast, cranberry sauce then mashed potatoes made by Shana, mashed yams by Mike, stuffing.
I am thankful! And full!



Not too full for a little cake.
See the baked pears? Mike made them!



And as promised, a smattering of recent outfits! **Thanksgiving hostess outfit



1. Top: JCrew, JCrew pixie pants, Bandolino shoes
2. Sweatshirt: JCrew, Tshirt: from Gabe's, JCrew pixie pants, shoes: from Vietnam
3. Top: unknown gifted, Skirt: Anthropologie, Necklace: gift, Devil Horns for Halloween
4. Top: Free People, pants: from Vietnam, shoes: Banana Republic
**5. Tank top: F21, Sweater: KensieGirl, Skirt: from Vietnam.  



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



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.