Chocolate Chip Toffee Oatmeal Cookies

I made these cookies last week and wasn't planning on posting them for a bit. When I saw that Love & Olive Oil posted similar cookies yesterday, I decided to just put it up now. I got the original recipe from my oldest cookbook The Best of Country Cooking 2003 (it was a wedding present). It's a fantastic recipe (Toffee Malted Cookies) and I've only tweaked it a bit. Years ago, a friend gave me a tip to grind the oats in a food processor or blender. It's brilliant! You still get the nutty taste but don't have as lumpy a texture. I do it for all oatmeal cookies.

What you'll need (plus eggs *sigh*):

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 (3.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or extract)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 - 2 cups regular oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup toffee bits

1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips (the original adds 1 cup chopped Whoppers instead of chocolate chips. Both taste divine.)

Pour oats into a food processor. Pulse until powdery. 

Combine with flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

In a separate large bowl, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add pudding mix and vanilla, beat well. Add flour and oat mixture to creamed mixture, mixing until completely combined. Fold in toffee and chocolate chips (dough will be stiff). Spoon onto parchment covered baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes. Let sit for 2 minutes before cooling on wire racks. Yields 5 or 6 dozen. 

(These are actually a different kind of cookie that I'm working on...but I wanted a "ready to freeze" picture)

Whenever I make cookies, I bake a dozen or so and freeze the rest. I scoop the dough into cookie sized balls and freeze them on a tray before transferring them to a ziplock freezer bag. This way I can have fresh cookies for the husband and kids in ten minutes, and cookie dough instantly for me.

Zucchini Bread: FAIL

Note to self: use more cooking spray and cook a lot longer than recipe says. The husband said it still tasted good and ate most of a loaf. Maybe not a complete failure?

Dusting off the ol' blog

Yesterday, I was running at the gym. I run. I'm a runner. Anyway, it was a very difficult run. I was trying for 5 or 6 miles and barely made it over 4. And that was with the distraction of What Not to Wear (Possibly my favorite TV show. They make me laugh.). I'm beginning to see why treadmills and any run over a mile don't go together. Running is boring (news flash, right?). Running on a treadmill is pretty much torture. You're stuck with annoying, repetitive commercials as your eye wanders between the stop button and watching your distance sloooowly creep towards your goal. When I run outside, there's the knowledge that the quicker I get through my miles the quicker I can eat something and take a nap. As I was spiraling downwards yesterday, unable to give myself a decent pep-talk, my show ended and I switched to the Food Network. Lucky for me, the Barefoot Contessa had something delicious up her sleeve:

Chicken Chili

adapted from here

I knew I had most of the ingredients on hand but I still had to change it up quite a lot. It turned out fantastic! Seriously yummy. A little on the spicy side. You can tone it down easily enough by using smaller amounts of the spices. We ate it with chips, sour cream and cheese. Here's the recipe:

1 onion, chopped (the original says yellow, I used white. I don't think it makes a difference either way.)

1 tbsp olive oil, plus more for chicken
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp kosher salt, plus more for chicken
2 cans (10 oz each) RoTel (diced tomatoes with chillies), puréed
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, puréed
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Rub chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes or until done. Chop into bite-sized chunks.

Heat olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-low. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, 10-15 minutes. Add garlic, stir and cook for 1 minute. Mix in bell peppers and spices. Cook for another minute. Add puréed tomatoes, RoTel and cilantro. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chicken and continue to simmer another 20 minutes. Serve with or without toppings.

PS. I'm actually about to sit down and eat the leftovers. And I never eat leftovers. Ever. Well, except for this. But really I normally hate leftovers.

Tahini-Free Hummus

I got this recipe from a friend at church. She adds sesame seeds instead of tahini (sesame seed paste), which can be expensive. I changed the spice amounts a little and you can do the same to get the flavor you want.

Hummus:

2 (15 oz) cans garbanzo beans (or chick peas), drained (save the liquid)

4-5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1 tsp ground cumin (missing from picture. Oops.)

1/2 tsp paprika

Dash of chili powder

Juice of one lemon

1 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

Put all of the ingredients, except for the reserved liquid, into a food processor or blender (be warned: I killed my blender after making this a few times). Process/blend until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings, if needed.

Serve with pita chips (my three year old likes it with apple slices) or make a delicious wrap:

Hummus Wraps:

Prepared hummus

Flour tortillas

Bell pepper slices (we like yellow or red)

Feta cheese (this is very salty cheese so go easy on the salt in the hummus if you don't want it super salty)

Lettuce

Warm a tortilla, spread with hummus, add bell pepper, feta and lettuce; roll up like a burrito.

Enjoy!

An {L} Birthday

My baby is two as of yesterday. Crazy. We had a big party for her inside our church building (originally to beat the Houston heat and humidity, but we also avoided having a rain-soaked party.). For food we had chocolate cupcakes, using the same Martha Stewart recipe I always use. It made 36 cupcakes and around 13 mini-cupcakes. For the frosting, I beat 2 cups (4 sticks!) of softened butter with about 2 teaspoons of vanilla paste (you could use extract too). Then I added enough powdered sugar to make a really stiff icing. Finally, a few tablespoons of milk to get it to piping consistancy. I split it into thirds and colored each with Wilton icing colors (leaf green, pink, and violet). I made the frosting the night before the party, so in the morning I pulled it out of the fridge and let it sit at room temp for a bit, before beating in a little more milk. Then I piped it on:

I also made sugar cookies, using cousin Brenda's recipe:

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup shortening

2 eggs

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350*F. Beat sugar and shortening together. Add eggs; beat. Add corn syrup, vanilla, baking powder, soda and salt; mix. Add flour and mix until combined. Chill dough for an hour. Roll between lightly floured wax paper to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies with cutters. Bake for 7-10 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

I found a tutorial for flooding cookies with royal icing. I used Wilton Meringue Powder and the royal icing recipe included (I added some almond extract; around a teaspoon or two).

It was surprisingly easy to do, though it will take some practice to make them look as good as the ones in the tutorial. I need a steadier hand but they turned out just fine (and really tasty):

And finally, as if that weren't enough for a two year old, I made suckers. Same reciped from this post, just some different flavors (grape, watermelon and cinnamon):

I had some issues with the colors. Above are the cinnamon flavored ones. They're supposed to be pink......yeah. Orange happened because I added the flavor before the color. As I started dropping the coloring in, the steam caused by the flavoring hit me square in the face. Think about it: hot, cinnamon-infused steam....my eyes immediately teared up, my throat started burning, it hurt to breathe......it was awful. So I cranked the kitchen fan on and opened the nearest window. I stirred as fast as I could and slopped it into the molds, before retreating to my bedroom (the furthest away). Luckily the girls, who were already down for their naps, remained unscathed. And that's why we have green, purple and.....orange:

We invited a lot of kids (24 + older/younger siblings), so I knew we'd need some good, entertaining games. Going with the theme of "L", we had the kids "Pin [tape] the Spot on the Leopard":

My husband drew this. Pretty awesome, right? After that, it was time to "Leap Across the Lily-pads":

I traced the lid to our cylindrical ottoman on a roll of green art paper and then cut out a pizza slice.

And lastly, we made Lion masks:

My poor husband spent nearly two hours cutting out these masks. He deserves a medal (and a hand massage). We tied some elastic through punched holes and:

ROARRRRR!!!

S'mores Bite

I found a S'mores Cupcake recipe on Tasty Kitchen and immediately printed it out, they looked so yummy. After a little thought I decided to change it up (I thought it might be too sugary with the frosting.). So I came up with these:

S'mores Bite (I picked this name because it cracks me up. Be assured that these are delish.)

The cupcake batter has very few changes; just size and ingredient order. Next time I make them, I'm going to use all honey rather than half sugar.

Ingredients:

2 whole eggs, separated

1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup honey (*or 1/2 cup, but don't add sugar)

1/4 cup sugar*

1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup milk

Marshmallow fluff

Milk chocolate chips

Extra graham cracker crumbs

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325*F.

Combine graham cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder in a small bowl; set aside. In large bowl, beat butter, honey, sugar*, vanilla and salt until well combined. Mix in egg yolks.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites on high until stiff peaks form; set aside:

Alternately add crumb mixture and milk to butter mixture, beating well after each addition:

Gently fold egg whites into batter until completely combined. It takes a minute, so be patient:

Spoon batter into a greased mini-muffin tin, 2/3 full.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on them. They seem to brown quickly. Remove from tins to wire rack and cool completely.

Fill a pastry or ziplock bag with marshmallow fluff. Cut off tip and pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

Place "frosted" cupcakes into the freezer for 5 minutes. While they chill, melt chocolate chips in a deep bowl. Take the cupcakes out of the freezer and dip each one into the chocolate, completely covering the marshmallow.

Sprinkle with extra graham cracker crumbs.

Return to the freezer or refrigerator to set the chocolate. Serve at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Homemade Tortillas

One of my new favorite food websites is Our Best Bites. They have fabulous and simple recipes. A few days ago I tried the homemade tortillas:

As you can see, I had a hard time rolling out a circle:

I figured they'd taste the same (and they did). Maybe I'll invest in one of those pie crust measuring mats... Cooking them was trickier than I thought.

I over-cooked several and they were pretty much inedible, but the ones I thought would be undercooked were perfect (they're the ones on the bottom of the pile in the first picture). I also made the taco chicken, black beans(I didn't add the coriander because I didn't have any and I used water rather than broth, but it still tasted fine), lime cilantro rice (I used left over brown rice warmed up in the microwave and skipped the pineapple) and creamy lime cilantro dressing. We put that all together with romaine lettuce and mozzarella, for a fantastic dinner that I'll make again.......soon.

Chocolate Pomegranate Meringue

I bought a pomegranate on a whim a while ago and it sat on top of my fridge for a long time.  I finally decided that something had to be done with it and I came up with this:

chocolate pomegranate meringue

meringue:

6 egg whites, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 oz bittersweet chocolate shavings

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup pomegranate juice (I'd suggest buying a bottle of it rather than trying to juice the fruit yourself. I stuck about half the seeds in the blender before I'd thought that far ahead and after several unhappy tries, I ended up using a new pair of my daughter's tights to strain the juice out.)

Refer to the Chocolate & Berry Meringue recipe for step-by-step pictures.  Preheat oven to 350*F.  Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, draw a 10 inch circle and set aside.  Beat the egg whites on med-high until soft peaks form.  Continue beating on high and gradually add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved.  Gently fold in chocolate shavings, cocoa and juice.  Spread meringue onto prepared sheet and place in oven.  Immediately reduce heat to 300*F and bake for 1 hr.  Remove from oven and cool completely.  Carefully peel off parchment paper and place meringue on a large platter.  Top with freshly whipped cream, extra chocolate shavings and pomegranate seeds. 

Gingerbread Mix & Cookies

My mom would make these cookies each year, starting around Halloween.  I remember her making this mix and rolling out the dough while listening to enya or Manheim Steamroller.  Good times.  These are still some of my favorite cookies.  You can even tweak the recipe a little to make gingerbread houses (I'll post about that later when we make some next week.).

Gingerbread Mix:

2 cups sugar

8 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp salt (if you use kosher, make it slightly heaping)

1 heaping tsp ground cloves

1 heaping tbsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 cups shortening

In a very large bowl, whisk together the first eight ingredients:

Once combined add shortening:

Using your hands (or you could use a pastry blender, I guess.  But where's the fun in that?) work the shortening in.  It should look a bit like cornmeal:

This makes about 13 cups of mix.  Store in an airtight container (or several, if you don't have anything large enough to hold it all). It will stay good for about 3 months, perfect for the holidays.

Gingerbread Cookies: 

3 cups gingerbread mix

1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup molasses

1 egg, slightly beaten (Funny note: when I cracked the egg below, it was one of those crazy ones with 2 yolks.  Crazy!)

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Make a well in mix, add other ingredients:

Using a fork, preferably the one you used to beat the egg, mix everything together as much as you can:

Sorry for the blurry pic.  I need a new camera in a bad way (cough-cough-hint-hint, Grant).  Back to the cookies: time to use your hands again.  Knead the dough together until it forms a nice smooth & soft dough:

Now it's time to roll it out on a lightly floured surface.  (As I sprinkled flour on the table, my 3 year old came up to me and said, "Mommy, you making a big mess! That's not fair!"  She let me get away with it when I told her it was for the cookies.) Roll dough out to a 1/4 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes:

Bake for 8 minutes on parchment covered cookie sheets.  This was the perfect amount of time to achieve a beautiful and soft cookie.  If you want a crunch, cook for a minute or two more.  Really, these cookies are good either way. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

What? Do I suffer from OCD? No, why do you ask?.......Ahem....Anyway, you could serve these as is or glaze them:

Almond Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp hot water

1 tsp almond extract

Whisk all ingredients together until smooth:

Brush onto the cooled cookies with a pastry brush or just drizzle back and forth with a spoon:

Let the glaze dry before stacking.  Enjoy!