Crock Pot Corned Beef Dinner

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  And of course, in honor of the holiday, we had a corned beef dinner tonight minus the cabbage.  Neither Tom nor I like cabbage.  I've tried, I'm sorry.  Because it was a weeknight I really didn't feel like peeling potatoes and boiling a dinner after work, so I put everything in the crock pot this morning and it came out awesome.  I'm making corned beef this way from now on.

Crock Pot Corned Beef


6-8 whole carrots, peeled and cut in half (quarters if they're more than an inch thick)
5 yukon gold potatoes, peeled, cut into quarters
1 3-4 lb corned beef plus spice packet (if included)
2 bay leaves
1 tsp whole peppercorns

1. Add cut/peeled carrots and potatoes to bottom of the crock pot.  Put corned beef on top, make sure the top of the corned beef isn't higher than the top of the crock pot.  You may have to take out some of the carrots and potatoes and wedge them in around the edges of the corned beef.

2. Pour water in the crock pot to cover the vegetables and corned beef.  Toss in the bay leaves and peppercorns.

3. Put the crock pot on low and cook for 8-9 hours.

4. Once it's cooked, remove the corned beef (careful, it will probably fall apart) and vegetables.  If you want to have cabbage, add it now to the remaining juices/water and put the crock pot on high for about 15 minutes.

Biscoff Spread/Spekuloos - Buy it now!

Before Christmas I read about this peanut butter-like spread called Spekuloos that's been popular in Europe.  The description I read said it was like a gingerbread flavored spread.  It's made from Biscoff cookies, those little cookies you get on airplanes.  I tried getting some for my husband for a Christmas present but it seemed pricey to pay $7 or $8 a jar plus shipping for something to put on toast.

I was in the grocery store today and they had a table of the Biscoff cookies and jars of the Biscoff spread!!  I think I made an audible gasp when I saw it.  I grabbed a jar and when I got back to the car I opened it and stuck my finger in.  It's amazing!  It tastes like cinnamon graham crackers, but it's super smooth.  We tried it out tonight on a couple of frozen waffles.  It would also be good just on toast or with sliced apples.

I highly suggest you try it.

Pasta Carbonara with Brussels Sprouts

I think bacon and brussels sprouts are a perfect combination.  I thought about bacon with the brussels sprouts, then I thought about pasta carbonara with bacon and decided to just combine them.  It was a total win.  I wanted to eat this whole pan of pasta.

Pasta carbonara should not have cream in it.  You see it listed at restaurants a lot and the description says it's pasta with bacon or pancetta and a cream sauce.  Call me a snob, but real carbonara should not have any cream in it.  The creaminess comes from eggs and parmesan mixed with the hot pasta.  It's like magic.  You pour the beaten eggs and parmesan in and it turns to this creamy delicious but not super heavy pasta dish.

Pasta Carbonara with Brussels Sprouts
Adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything


1 lb. pasta (I would have used linguine, but all we had was penne and twisties, so I mixed them together.  Whatever you have will work)
2/3 - 1 lb brussels sprouts, ends cut off and sliced into quarters
3 slices bacon, diced into small 1/2 inch pieces
3 eggs
1/2 cup parmesan
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1. At the same time the water for the pasta is coming to a boil, add 1 tbsp olive oil to a large skillet, turn to medium heat, and add quartered brussels sprouts.  Brown the brussels sprouts slightly and then cover and cook for about 5 minutes.

2. While the brussels sprouts are covered and cooking, beat 3 eggs in a small bowl and add the parmesan and black pepper.

2. Uncover brussel sprouts and add diced bacon.  Saute for a few minutes on medium-high heat until bacon is slightly crispy.

3. Reserve about 1/2 cup of the hot pasta water. Drain cooked pasta and dump back into pan.  While it's still very hot, add egg mixture and start stirring immediately.  Don't let the egg mixture sit without stirring or the egg will start cooking and you'll have scrambled eggs in your pasta.  If the pasta mixture looks thick and a little gloopy, add some of the pasta water and stir until it's creamy and smooth.

4. Add in bacon and brussel sprouts and stir to combine.  Enjoy!

Whopper Blondies

I loooove malted things.  Chocolate malt milkshakes, Whoppers malted milk balls, even malt powder in hot chocolate.  So, when I saw this recipe for Whopper Blondies I had to try it.  It helps that, aside from the Whoppers, I had all the ingredients at home already.

Make sure to not overcook these.  The dark brown sugar makes them super chewy, so you don't want to cook them too long and have them turn out hard or dry.


Whopper Blondies
From Baking Junkie

2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups dark brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp malted milk powder
1 1/2 - 2 cups malted milk ball candies

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and malt powder and set aside.

2. Put candies in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin.  Or you could do it in a food processor, just be careful not to turn them totally into dust.  You don't want huge pieces here, no more than about 1/4 inch wide pieces.

3. With a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together brown sugar and butter until smooth.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth again.

4. Slowly add flour mixture and mix until combine, then add crushed candies.

5. Spread batter in a greased 9x13 pan.  Bake at 350 for 25 - 30 minutes.

Homemade Pop Tarts

Saying that I made homemade pop tarts sounds impressive.  People say "oooh!  Send me the recipe!"  I thought to make them because I saw them mentioned on a few blogs and in the Flour Bakery cookbook, but really it's just pie crust with whatever you want to put in the middle.  Cinnamon and sugar, Nutella, strawberry jam, whatever floats your boat.

I made some brown sugar and cinnamon ones and Nutella ones.  Nutella was definitely the favorite.  If I made cinnamon and sugar again, I'd probably add some apple slices because even if you put a good pile of cinnamon/sugar on the dough, it melts down in the oven and you end up with a pretty high ratio of crust to filling.  Next time I'd also make them rectangular rather than circles, then there's more surface area for the filling.  These round ones were pretty crust heavy.

I keep thinking about different combinations to try for these: make a graham cracker crust and fill it with nutella and fluff, a gingersnap crust with a cinnamon filling, chocolate crust with fluff in the middle.  You could use a lemon or key lime curd for filling, different jams/marmalades.

Pate Brisee
From Flour

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
2 sticks cold butter, cut into 12 pieces
2 egg yolks
3 tbsp cold milk

1 egg plus 1 tbsp water for egg wash on dough

1. With a paddle attachment on your standmixer, mix together flour, sugar and salt for a few seconds.  Add pats of butter to flour mixture and mix until roughly combined, with pea sized (or slightly larger) lumps of butter.

2.  In a separate bowl,  mix together egg yolks and milk,  Add to flour mixture and mix until just combined.  The dough will be shaggy.

3. Dump dough out onto a floured counter.  Knead the dough until smooth.  Press the dough into a circle about 1 inch thick, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

5. Take half of the refrigerated dough and place on a floured counter.  Sprinkle flour on top of the dough too and take a rolling pin to roll it out to about 1/8"-1/4" thick.

6. Cut the dough into large circles or rectangles about 4"x5".  Take scraps of dough, knead them together and re-roll them out until you've used as much of the dough as possible.

7. Brush egg wash mixture onto one dough piece, spoon filling on, take another dough piece and press the edges together.  Seal the edges together with a fork and place on a cookie sheet.  Continue with the other pieces of dough.

8. Bake at 350 for 25-40 minutes depending on the size/shape of the pop tarts.  Mine were about 3 inch circles and took just about 25 minutes to bake.

Tomato Black Bean Soup

Poor Tom.  I swear almost every time I cook a big meal there's something that I forget or that I run out of in the middle of cooking.  Then, I look at him, bat my eyes, and say "Tom?  Would you mind running out for ..."  And he's the best husband ever, so he usually will do it.  I don't know why I thought one small can of beans would be enough to make black bean soup.  Well, it wasn't.  So, this dinner is courtesy of Tom running to the store to get 2 more cans for me.

I didn't really consult a recipe for this soup.  I just figured I'd throw together some tomatoes, black beans, onion, garlic, etc and it would work out.  And it did.  I also had just made a big pot of homemade chicken stock, so that had me thinking about soup.  This is a good weekday meal because you can used canned beans and tomatoes and throw it together in about a half hour.

Tomato Black Bean Soup


1 large can diced or crushed tomatoes
3 small cans of black beans, NOT drained or rinsed
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped (you can also leave the seeds in if you want a little more kick)
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
4-6 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Shredded cheddar cheese and/or sour cream for garnish

1. In a large saucepan, heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil on medium heat.  Add chopped onion and garlic.  Cook until softened, about 3 minutes.

2. Add jalapeno and saute for another couple minutes.

3. Add tomatoes and black beans.  Do not rinse or drain any of the cans of tomatoes or beans, just add everything in.

4. Add 3-4 cups of chicken stock, until it is soup like consistency.  Stir everything together.  Add spices and stir again.  Bring to a slight boil, then turn down the heat to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes to let the flavors mix together.

5. Once everything has simmered for a bit, you can blend some of the soup to thicken it.  If you have an immersion blender, you can blend it until it's a consistency you like.  If you want it all totally blended smooth, that's fine, or if you want some beans and tomato chunks left, that's fine too.  If you don't have an immersion blender, transfer the soup to a blender in batches and blend until smooth.

6. Taste the soup once you've blended to the consistency you want.   If you want it a bit spicier, add some cayenne pepper (a LITTLE at a time!), if you want a smokier flavor, add a little more cumin and chili powder, or if it's not salty enough, add a little salt.  Salt will depend on the stock you're using.  If you're using canned stock, chances are you won't need much salt.  If you're using homemade stock, you may need to add a little salt.

7. To serve, add a little shredded cheddar cheese and/or a dollop of sour cream on top of the soup.  And spinkle some fresh copped cilantro too if you're feeling fancy.

Pizza!

(this is not the prettiest pizza I've ever made)

We looove homemade pizza.  Seriously, we eat it at least once a week.  If I don't make pizza for a while, Tom starts to go into withdrawal.  A lot of times it's an uncreative pizza like pepperoni or something, but it's almost always with homemade pizza dough.

I've tried a few different pizza dough recipes and this one from the Pioneer Woman's cookbook is my favorite thus far.  What I like about it is that it's very stretchy.  It's easy to stretch the dough out to a 12-16" circle without ripping holes in it like some other dough recipes I've tried.  This is probably because of the good amount of olive oil in the recipe.

I've tried this recipe with white flour, wheat flour, half white half wheat, and with white whole wheat flour (King Arthur Flour makes this, it's not as heavy and grainy as regular wheat flour but still has some of the whole grain value).  I've found that to keep it pliable and stretchy, it's best to use all white flour, or half white and half whole wheat white flour.

I also like using King Arthur Flour's pizza seasoning.  It's a blend of spices that adds a lot of flavor either to the dough or sauce you're using.  I always add about a teaspoon of this to dough when I make it.

Now...toppings.  Again, a lot of times we end up doing pretty normal toppings on our pizzas.  But here's some pizzas we've made in the past or ones that are on my list to try:

• Chicken sausage and ricotta: Precooked chicken sausages are great on pizza.  That with dollops of ricotta is one of our favorite pizzas.
• BBQ chicken pizza: spread BBQ sauce instead of pizza sauce, add some caramelized onions, pieces of cooked chicken or chicken sausage, and mix cheddar and mozzarella cheese to top it.  
• Buffalo chicken pizza (what's pictured here): mix buffalo sauce with blue cheese dressing (I used ranch because we were out of blue cheese), top with chicken and a mix of cheddar and mozzarella cheese.  You could also add some crumbles of blue cheese and some scallions.  
• Or you could go sauceless and try a baked potato pizza.  Cook some potatoes, chop into small pieces, scatter on pizza dough with bacon bits, scallions, cheddar cheese and whatever else you like on baked potatoes.

Ok, enough blabber, you probably just want the dough recipe.

Pizza Dough

From The Pioneer Woman

Makes 2 crusts (wrap the extra in saran wrap then in a plastic bag and freeze it for later)

1 tsp yeast (active dry or instant...either is fine)

1 1/4 cups warm water 

4 cups all purpose flour (or half white/half wheat)

1 tsp Kosher salt

1/3 cup olive oil

1. Sprinkle yeast over warm water and let sit for a minute.  Attach dough hook to your mixer.  You can also mix this by hand with a wood spoon, it'll just take a little more manpower.

2. Mix flour and salt in bowl of mixer.  Slowly drizzle in the olive oil until combined.  Then stir the bowl/cup with the water and yeast and slowly add to the flour with the mixer on low.  Mix until combined and the dough forms a ball.  If the dough looks very sticky, add a bit more flour.

3. Coat a bowl with a thin layer of oil, add the dough back in, and cover lightly either with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel.  Put in a warm spot in your kitchen and let the dough rise for about an hour.  

4. Once the dough has risen, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Split the ball in half and wrap up half to save for later or to make a second pizza.  Stretch the dough out to a 12-16" circle (or rectangle or whatever shape floats your boat).  We have a pizza pan that's metal with lots of small holes in the bottom.  It's worked pretty well for us, but you can also use a regular sheet pan, or a pizza stone.

5.  Add your toppings and put in the hot oven.  Baking time depends on how you like your pizza.  If you like it doughy, you'll cook it for 10-12 minutes.  If you like it crisper, you'll go for about 15.  Once the pizza's done, let it cool for a few minutes before cutting it.

Cranberry Scones

I made these mini scones for a breakfast at work the other day.  Scones have a bad reputation of being hard, dry, and really unappetizing.  Good scones are flaky and buttery.  They have heavy ingredients like butter and cream in them, but they shouldn't feel heavy.

The trick with these is to use really cold ingredients.  The butter, cream, buttermilk, and eggs should all be straight out of the fridge so they're as cold as possible.  And don't overknead the dough for these or you'll get hard bricks!

I had made the ginger lemon scones that were in the Flour cookbook, but I wanted to make something different this time so I just left out the ginger, added some dried cranberries  and did a lime glaze instead of a lemon one.  You can make these in any size that you want.  I have a set of different sized biscuit cutters, so I made these ones small since I was feeding a bunch of people at work.

Cranberry Scones with Lime Glaze
Adapted from Flour

For the scones:
2 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped into small pieces
14 tbsp cold butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup cold buttermilk
1/2 cup cold heavy cream
1 cold egg

For the glaze:
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2-3 tbsp lime juice


Instructions:


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and cranberries until combined with paddle attachment of stand mixer.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together buttermilk, cream, and egg.  On low speed, pour into flour mixture and mix until just combined, 20-30 seconds.  It's ok if there's some flour in the bottom of the bowl.

4. Turn bowl over onto lightly floured counter surface.  Turn dough over lightly a few times until loose flour is combined.  Don't knead the dough hard, just press the flour in lightly.

5. Press the dough out until it's about 1 inch thick all around.  Use biscuit cutter (3 inch for regular size scones, 1 inch for mini bite size ones) to cut out scones.  Gather dough scrapes together and press out more until all the dough has been used.

6. Bake for 40-45 minutes for large scones, 15-20 minutes for small ones.  Bake until golden brown on top/edges.  Put on wire rack to cool.  Cool completely before putting the glaze on or it will just melt off the top.

7. Mix the confectioner's sugar and lime juice in a small bowl.  Drizzle glaze over tops of the scones.  Let the glaze solidify for a few minutes before eating.

Baked Potato Soup

We are currently getting slammed by not one, but two back-to-back snowstorms that are piling on another 12-18 inches on top of the feet of snow we already had.  It's crazy out there, our snowbanks are taller than we are.  I was playing queen of the mountain climbing up our snowbank by our house tonight just to shovel off the top so we can add more to it tomorrow.  Our dog doesn't know where to do her business when we go outside.  Our backyard is totally blocked off until spring at this point.  Weather like this always makes me want soup.  This soup is heavy, in a good stick-to-your-ribs kind of way.  A medium sized bowl of it with a piece of bread to mop it up is definitely filling enough for dinner.  Or a small cup of this with a salad would be perfect if you want to lighten things up a bit.

I listed crushed red pepper flakes in the recipe.  I like this soup with a little zip to it.  This time, I skipped this because I had habanero flavored cheddar cheese that was spicy enough on its own.  If you don't like spice, just leave the pepper flakes out.

I started making this soup from a recipe I found online but even from the first time I made it I adapted it heavily.  Now it doesn't really even resemble the original recipe enough to credit it.  This time I added some chopped up bacon bits and scallion to it as well which I haven't done in the past but I think they're both good additions.

Baked Potato Soup


6 large baking potatoes
6-8 cups of low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup of milk or cream
1/4 sour cream (you can skip this if you're using cream instead of milk)
1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 - 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
4 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped into small pieces
3 scallions (green and white/green parts) finely chopped

1. Pour chicken broth into large stockpot.  While it's coming to a boil, peel the potatoes and chop into small 1 inch pieces.  Add to boiling broth.  Boil until soft, about 15-20 minutes.  The pieces should kind of fall apart when you stick them with a fork.

2. While the potatoes are boiling, cook the bacon until fairly crispy.  Once done, pat with a paper towel and chop up into small bits.

2. I don't have an immersion blender, so once the potatoes are done, I scoop cups of the potatoes with the broth into a blender and mix until smooth.  This part is cool, the starchiness of the potatoes makes the mixture really thick and kind of gluey.  Do this in batches until all of the potatoes have been blended smooth.  If you had an immersion blender, you could just stick it right in the pot and blend until smooth.

3. Put the blended mixture back on the stove on low.  Mix in grated cheese, milk or cream, sour cream, and red pepper flakes.  Let the flavors mix together for at least 5 minutes, then taste it.  The red pepper flakes are pretty spicy, and they get spicier the longer they're simmered, so don't taste it right after you add them and then add more thinking it's not spicy enough.  And if the soup is too thick, add a little more milk or chicken broth.  If it's too thin, add some more grated cheese.

4. Towards the end, add the bacon bits and scallions.  Let it simmer about 5 minutes more and then serve, preferably with crusty bread.

Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake

Today is Tom's birthday.  Happy birthday Tom!  I always let him pick out whatever kind of cake he wants for his birthday.  I think the last 2 years it was Guinness chocolate cake.  But this year, I was at the Cheesecake Factory for a lunch with coworkers before Christmas and they had this cake that was layers of cheesecake and red velvet cake.  We were all ooh'ing and ahh'ing over it but were too stuffed after lunch to get a piece.  Then, literally the next day, this post from Beantown Baker with almost the exact same cake showed up in my Google reader.  I sent the link to Tom and said "I think I found your birthday cake!"  This cake is time consuming but totally worth it.  I added a little more cocoa powder to the red velvet cake than the original recipe and altered the frosting recipe a bit.




Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake
Adapted from Beantown Baker


Cheesecake
1 1/4 pounds cream cheese (20 oz), room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp lemon zest, plus 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 tsp coarse salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream

Cake
2 1/2 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp (1 oz.) red food coloring
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp white distilled vinegar

Frosting
12 oz. cream cheese, room temp
2 sticks of butter, room temp
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 cups confectioners' sugar

Cheesecake Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line bottom of a springform cheesecake pan with a piece of parchment paper.  Set a pot of water to boil.


2. Beat cream cheese on medium until fluffy, scraping down side of bowl. 


3. Add sugar 1/4 cup at a time and mix until fluffy.  Add in lemon juice, zest, and salt.  Then mix in eggs, then sour cream.  Scrape down sides of the bowl as needed.


4. Pour batter into springform pan.  Place pan in a roasting pan and then pour boiling water in roasting pan so it comes about halfway up the springform pan. 


5. Bake for 50-60 minutes until set in the center.  Remove pan from water and let cool.  Once cool, run a knife around the edge of the pan, remove edge of springform pan, cover cake in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.  Once chilled overnight, freeze the cheesecake before assembling the rest of the cake.

Red Velvet Cake Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour 2 9" cake pans and cover bottom of each pan with a parchment paper round.  I do this for ALL cakes now, just in case.  It makes taking them out of the pans so much easier.


2. Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa, and salt in a medium bowl.

3. Beat eggs, oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until well combined. Add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.

4. Divide batter evenly between two pans.  Bake for 25-30 minutes. 


5. Let cakes cool for 10-15 minutes and then invert cakes out of the pans and cool on a wire rack.  Wrap cakes in plastic wrap and freeze.  Cakes are much easier to frost nicely if they're frozen first, you won't have as many crumbs flaking off into the frosting.

Frosting Instructions
1. Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together in a large bowl with an electric mixer until combined. 


2. Add sugar in 1/2 cup increments and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, 5–7 minutes.  Add  more sugar as needed if frosting is not stiff enough.

Assembly Instructions
1. Place bottom cake layer on plate or cake stand. Make sure you level the bottom layer either with a large knife (a long carving knife or a serrated bread knife works well).  After you remove the rounded part of the top of the cake, spread frosting on it, fold it in half, and enjoy a cake taco!


2. Spread a thin layer of frosting on outside edge of the cake then add frozen cheesecake layer on top of the red velvet layer.  My springform pan was slightly wider than my cake pans, so the cheesecake layer stuck out a little.  You can just easily work your way around the cake with a serrated knife and saw off the extra edge.  


3. Spread another thin layer of frosting on the edges of the cheesecake layer, then add the second red velvet layer.  I never bother leveling the top layers of cakes, I like having the top rounded.  If you prefer a flat topped cake, then feel free to level it before adding the layer.


4. Spread a thin layer of frosting around the whole cake.  This is called a crumb coat.  It's best to set aside a small bit of the frosting for this layer so that if you're dipping the knife in to the bowl of frosting you don't get the crumbs from the knife in the frosting.  This layer can be really thing, you just want something for all of the crumbs on the edges to stick to so they stay put when you put the final layer of frosting on. Once you have the crumb coat on, stick the cake in the freezer for a few minutes.


5. Add second layer of frosting evenly around the cake.  Decorate however you want - sprinkles, chocolate shavings, etc.

"The Chewy" Chocolate Chip Cookies

One episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats show featured different recipes for chocolate chip cookies depending on how you like your cookies: thin, chewy, or puffy.  I've never actually seen the episode, but I saw the recipe for The Chewy on a few food blogs and was intrigued.

This is hands down my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I'll never go back to using the recipe on the back of the chip bag again.  If you like your cookies thin and crispy or puffy you should check out Alton Brown's other recipes here but if you like thick gooey chewy cookies then make these.  Now.  They stay chewy, and the generous amount of kosher salt gives them a perfect salty/sweet contrast.


"The Chewy" Chocolate Chip Cookies
From Alton Brown's Good Eats

2 sticks butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips


1. Melt butter either in microwave or over the stove.  Cool for a few minutes.

2. Sift flour, salt, and baking soda in a mixing bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, sugar, and brown sugar, mix with paddle attachment on low until combined.  Add egg and yolk, milk and vanilla.

4. Slowly add flour mixture then chocolate chips.  The batter will be fairly liquidy because of the melted butter.

5.  Chill the dough for about an hour.  This step is key, the dough needs to be cold so that when the cookies are in the oven they don't melt and spread out too fast.  If they do, they won't be thick and chewy, they'll be flat and crispy.

6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

7.  Scoop dough with ice cream scoop out onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets.  And yes, you do want to use a cookie scoop size ball of batter here.  These are big cookies, part of what makes them super chewy and thick.

8. Bake for 14-16 minutes until golden brown on the edges and enjoy with a big glass of milk.

Double Chocolate Cookies

I got a stack of cookbooks for Christmas that I'm slowly working my way through.  One of them was Flour by Joanne Chang.  She owns Flour bakery in Boston, which I've actually never been to, but I'm loving the book so far.  Brioche and sticky buns and cookies and donuts.  Everything is drool-worthy.

My husband had a work lunch from Flour bakery recently and had a chocolate cookie that was amaaazing (he snuck one home for me because he knew I wanted to try something from there after getting the book).  They're super chewy in the middle.  I suggested making them for one of his friends for her birthday.  I didn't really read the instructions before I started making them and they are pretty time consuming and I was cursing them a little while I was making them but I think they were worth it.  They're almost like a flourless chocolate cookie, there's only 1/2 cup flour in the whole batch of cookie batter.  Because there's so much chocolate in here, the quality of the chocolate is really important.  Don't just substitute store brand semisweet chips here.


Double-Chocolate Cookies
From Flour

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely shaved
9 ounces (5 ounces and 4 ounces, separated) bittersweet chocolate, chopped or chips
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unbleached flour
4 eggs
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp instant espresso powder or instant coffee
3/4 cup walnuts (optional, I left these out)


1. Combine 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, and butter in bowl of double boiler (or a metal bowl on top of a pan of boiling water).  Stir until melted and smooth, remove from heat and whisk in vanilla.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

2. Beat together sugar and eggs in a stand mixer with a whisk attachment for about 5 minutes until a light pale yellow.  Slowly add cooled chocolate mix on low speed until just barely combined.

3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, espresso powder, shaved chocolate, the remaining 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, and walnuts.

Side note here, you can shave the chocolate with the fine part of a grater or with a microplaner.  It's kind of a pain in the ass step, it makes quite the mess (you try to wipe up bits of shaved chocolate and it just melts and smears everywhere).  I might try the recipe next time without this step or by just adding additional unsweetened chocolate to the melted mixture.

4. Fold the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture with a rubber spatula until evenly mixed.

5. Refrigerate the dough overnight or at least a few hours.  When ready to bake, set oven to 350 degrees.

6. Drop dough in 1/4 cup balls onto baking sheet.  The dough will be REALLY sticky.  It gummed up my cookie scoop and got alllll over my hands when I tried just using my fingers.  The best strategy I found was to use 2 spoons, one to scoop out the dough and one to push the dough off the other spoon onto the cookie sheet.  Don't worry about the dough being in perfect ball shapes.

7. Bake for about 15 minutes, until you see some crinkles on the tops of the cookies and the middle looks soft but not liquidy.  Cool on the cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes, these will fall apart if you try to take them off too soon, you have to let the chocolate set.

Eat them warm with a BIG glass of milk!

Buttermilk Biscuits

I'll admit that I am a fan of the Pillsbury-type pop n' roll biscuits.  If you're southern, don't hate me for saying that.  I don't have a family recipe for buttermilk biscuits and up until a year or so ago I'd never tried making them from scratch.  My first attempt was a total fail.  Big lead biscuits that no one wanted to eat.  But I had some buttermilk in the fridge leftover from something else, so I decided to give it another shot.

I have one of the big America's Test Kitchen family cookbooks. This is my go to book for almost everything.  It's never let me down and this recipe was no exception.  But for biscuits, the key to success is not so much the recipe but the technique.  The butter and the buttermilk have to be cold and you can't can't can't overmix or overknead the dough. That's been my mistake before is overkneading.  I see crumbly bits of flour in the bowl and to me, it doesn't look ready to bake yet.  But it is!  Leave it crumbly!


Buttermilk Biscuits
Adapted from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour (or 7/8 cup of all purpose flour plus 2 tbsp cornstarch)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter, cold, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
3/4 cup cold buttermilk


1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Add both flours, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of a mixer with a paddle attachment.

3. Add cubes of butter on top of the flour mixture and mix until combined.  The butter should be in pea-sized pieces.

4. Add buttermilk and mix only until the dough forms a sticky ball.  There will still be some bits of flour in the bottom of the bowl, but that's ok!

5. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter.  Form the dough into a rough ball, then press either with your hands or a rolling pin, lightly, to make a 1 inch thick circle.

6. Use a biscuit cutter or round cookie cutter and press out as many biscuits as you can and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Gather remaining dough and press together, do not knead it, just smoosh it all together with your hands.  Repeat until you've used up as much of the dough as you can, you don't want to waste any!

7. Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown.  And brush the tops with melted butter...you know you want to.

Cream Braised Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts are one of those vegetables that everyone loves to hate.  My parents never really made them when I was a kid, so I just never really even tried them until recently.  I always thought they were like little cabbages, and I don't really care for cabbage.  But I've been on a bit of a Brussels sprout kick lately.  I love them now.  I probably wouldn't love them if they were just a boiled mushy pile with a pat of butter on top, but braised Brussels sprouts are delicious.  Try them...you'll want to eat a whole bowl.

This recipe is from Orangette.  I'm always amazed at how simple and delicious her recipes are.  Who knew Brussels sprouts with a little cream, butter, and salt would end up being something that I would gladly push steak aside for to eat more of.  The butter and cream obviously make these not the healthiest dish ever, but I made these tonight with light cream and while not quite the same, they were still delicious.  I'll go for the light cream again to cut the guilt a bit since I'm sure these will be added into our regular side dish rotation from now on.

Also, totally dumb side note...I just realized that these are called Brussels sprouts, not Brussel sprouts as I had been typing.  I wondered why my spellcheck kept telling me it was wrong.  Durr.

Cream Braised Brussels Sprouts
From Orangette

1 1/4 lbs. of Brussels sprouts, ends trimmed, and cut into quarters
2 tbsp. butter
1/4 tsp kosher or sea salt
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp lemon juice (I omitted this since the husband isn't a huge citrus fan)

1.  Melt butter in non-stick pan over medium heat.  Add quartered Brussels sprouts and cook, stirring/flipping occasionally until edges of sprouts are a bit charred.  This part is kind of fun, the Brussels sprouts pop like popcorn in the pan while cooking!

2. Turn the heat down to low, add cream to pan, stir, and cover.  Simmer about 10-15 minutes or until the Brussels sprouts cooked through but still a bit firm.  I prefer mine not to be too soft, if you like them that way, cook them longer.

3. Uncover and add lemon juice.  Stir and simmer a minute longer until the sauce has thickened.


Also, I totally forgot to take a picture of the final product because we were very excited for dinner, so instead I leave a photo of the super cute container the sprouts came in.

Hello, Mr. Sprout!

General Tso's Chicken

I know that the General Tso's chicken you get from American takeout places probably isn't a very authentic Chinese dish, but it's one of my favorites.  I thought I'd give making it at home a shot.  This recipe was good, but not quite on the nose with the flavor of the takeout version.  The sauce had a very strong ginger flavor and there was something else missing that I can't quite place yet.  The recipe below includes changes that I made to the recipe as well as some additional changes I would make the next time I try this.


General Tso's Chicken
Adapted from Slashfood

1 lb. boneless chicken thighs or breasts, trimmed and cut into bite sized pieces
1/3 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten


1. Heat peanut or vegetable oil in pan or fryer to 375 degrees.
2. Whisk together eggs and cornstarch. 
3. Coat pieces of chicken in egg/cornstarch mixture and drop into hot oil.
4. Fry until golden brown, about 7-10 minutes.  Make sure the pieces are pretty brown, you want the coating to be a little crunchy.  
5. Remove chicken pieces from pan/fryer and put on paper towel lined plate, set aside.


For the sauce:
4 tsp cornstarch
4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
5 tbsp sugar 
3 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp crushed red chili pepper, or more to taste

1. Combine ingredients in small sauce pan. 
2. Whisk the sauce over medium heat until it starts to simmer on the edges and thickens.  Remove from heat.
3. Add chicken, coat with sauce.  Put chicken on a tray in the oven at 450 degrees for about 5 minutes to carmelize the sauce a bit and make the chicken crispy again.

4. Serve over rice and add any steamed vegetables you want.  Typically it's served with broccoli but I went with green beans.

Hot Fudge Sauce

For Christmas the last few years I've been making food gift baskets for some extended family rather than buying gifts. I haven't actually done the math to see if this is cost effective or not but I like doing it. This year's baskets included a jar of hot fudge or butterscotch sauce.

Unfortunately I don't remember where I got this recipe from. But I've seen some other hot fudge recipes that say you need to cook the sauce for up to an hour to get it the right consistency. Not true! This sauce comes together in about 5-10 minutes once on the stove. Super easy and sooo good.

Another good thing about this recipe is that it can be adjusted depending on how "healthy" you want it to be. You can use skim milk and eliminate the unsweetened chocolate or you can use a dark higher fat cocoa and whole milk for a really dark rich sauce.

Hot Fudge Sauce

Ingredients:

3/4 cup cocoa

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup butter

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Combine cocoa, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a double boiler over low heat and whisk to combine

2. Add milk, butter, and chocolate.

3. Stir constantly until butter and chocolate have melted and the sugar has dissolved. Do not let the mixture boil.

4. Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla.

5. Serve immediately or refrigerate and reheat as needed. The sauce will thicken when cool.

French Breakfast Puffs

These muffins might not sound like anything that great on paper...or rather on screen. Cinnamon and sugar coated muffins...seen it, right? Kind of like a coffee cake muffin? Wrong. These are uh-mazing! An unassuming cake-like muffin with a hint of nutmeg transforms into a sweet, sugary crusted but delicate treat after being dipped in melted butter and rolled in cinnamon and sugar.

These also hold up well for a few days. The sugary crust stays crusty and the inside of the muffin stays moist and soft if you keep these in a sealed container. They're best warm though. I dare you to eat just one.

The original recipe from the Pioneer Woman says this recipe makes 12 muffins, but I got 18 or 19 out of it.

French Breakfast Puffs

From The Pioneer Woman

Makes 12-18 muffins

Ingredients:

3 cups Flour

3 teaspoons Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Salt

½ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg

1 cup Sugar

⅔ cups Shortening

2 whole Eggs

1 cup Milk

1 ½ cup Sugar

3 teaspoons Cinnamon

2 sticks Butter

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Lightly grease 2, 12 cup muffin tins.

3. Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl and set aside.

4. In a different bowl, cream together 1 cup sugar and shortening. Then add eggs and mix again.

5. Add flour mixture and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.

6. Fill prepared muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

7. While muffins are baking, melt 2 sticks of butter in a bowl. In a separate bowl combine remaining sugar and cinnamon.

8. Dip baked muffins in butter, coating thoroughly, then coat with cinnamon-sugar mixture.