The Simple-ness of Chocolate Chip Cookies

Someone asked for my chocolate chip cookie recipe after my expose on golden brown.  Perhaps other homemade cookie makers find this, but people seem amazingly surprised by how good they are, which I can assume is only because we're living in the generation of store-bought baked goods.  The recipe my family uses is basically the same one on the bag of Nestle chocolate chips, but it's apparently the 1970's version from when my mother first started baking.  The only difference is that the recipe now calls for two sticks of butter to replace the 1/2 cup shortening and they removed the teaspoon of water.

For those who rarely make cookies, the most important thing to note is the technique.  Chocolate chip cookies come out better if you don't over beat them, so NO MIXERS.  There are some cookies that come out just fine from a mixer (like sugar cookies), but chocolate chip cookies aren't one of them.  Oh, and when you're combining ingredients, use the back of your wooden spoon.  Trust me.  =)

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Difficulty: Easy
Time: Maybe 15 minutes of prep with 8-12 minutes of baking per batch of cookies.
Serves: Hmmm... is my husband home while I'm baking them or not?
Requires: Wooden spoon.  Requirement!  Seriously.  You with the metal spoon, I don't think so.

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature.  Not below and DEFINITELY not above.
• 1/2 cup shortening (Crisco's bars are more expensive but SOOOO convenient)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed (if you have kids, let them help with this.  They'll love that the brown sugar holds it shape when you dump it out)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar.  I'm going to take a moment to soapbox a little.  You get what you pay for with sugar.  Spend the extra pennies and get a name brand like Imperial or C&H over the store brand.  The crystals will be finer and will bake better.
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp water
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/4 cup flour - no need to sift for chocolate chip cookies
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Okay... so here's the thing.  I've found I get more compliments when I use MINI chocolate chips.  They distribute more evenly for a more consistent flavor to the cookies.  I'll also sometimes buy a bag of mini M&Ms and use half a bag of mini chocolate chips and half a bag of mini M&Ms.

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Put your butter and shortening in a large bowl and blend.  Again, make sure your butter is room temperature.  If you overheat your butter by popping it in the microwave, you cookies might not take shape right.  Word to the wise!
   
3. Add in the brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla and mix with the back of your wooden spoon until creamy.  Add the water and combine.
   
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after additions.
   
5. For the remaining ingredients, I tend to add them on top of my combined wet ingredients and sort of stir them together a bit BEFORE stirring them into the wet ingredients.  The original recipe suggests doing it in a separate bowl, but then I have to wash two bowls.  Again, use the back of your spoon to combine all the ingredients, and don't over beat.
   
6. Add your chocolate chips and M&Ms if you wanted any.  Combine everything together.  I tend to make cookie dough with pasteurized eggs (see my post on making mousse for more info) so that we can also eat the raw dough without worrying about salmonella.
   
7. I like uniform cookies, so I use a cookie scoop.  If you don't have one, form rounded balls of cookie dough, about the size of a tablespoon or an inch, and place them on an UNGREASED cookie sheet.
   
8. Bake in batches for 8-12 minutes until golden brown along the bottoms.  This is a "know thy oven" sort of experiment.  I can tell you that in my current oven, it is exactly 10 minutes.  In my first apartment, they were done in 8.  Depends on how hot your oven runs and how well your cookie sheet conducts the heat.
   
9. When you take them out of the oven, let them rest for a minute or two before removing from the tray.  I like to take my leftovers and heat them in the microwave so that the cookies are warm whenever I eat them.  Enjoy!

Fried Sage and Brown Butter - Yeah, That's Right, Fried Sage

Sage is my favorite fresh herb, and I found that those little green leaves were blowing through a different type of green - the kind that goes in the wallet. So, I purchased a Sage plant for about the same price as the prepackaged fresh herbs, which will no doubt meet a slow and painful demise like most of our house plants. Shortly after purchasing, I was going through some old paperwork and picked up a soup recipe I had grabbed from Williams-Sonoma that called for Fried Sage. I couldn't believe it! What an amazing idea! Searching online, I came across this zen-like recipe and had to try it. And so should you. It's not a hit-you-in-the-face flavor, but more of a grounding, earthy taste that deserves to be paired with other simple, but elegant, dishes.

Roasted Potatoes with Fried Sage and Brown Butter
Difficulty: Hmmm... I'm torn between easy and medium.  To someone familiar with their kitchen, this recipe is easy-peesy, but for the person who rarely cooks, you may find it harder to not overcook the butter.  Don't give up!  If you overcook it, don't despair!  Dump it out and start over, no big deal.
Time: Roasted potatoes cook for 30-45 minutes, but the Fried Sage shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to cook and has no prep time.
Serves: Depends on how much you cook!  Plan on 2 medium potatoes per person, possibly three it's so tasty.  I used four tablespoons of butter and had more than enough for the batch you see below.
Requires: A stainless skillet is helpful, but not required.

• Potatoes for roasting (russet, golden Yukon, and classic reds are all wise choices)
• Fresh sage, washed and patted dry - and may I just say, the more you cook, the better.  I always wish I'd made more when I make Fried Sage.
• Unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

1. Preheat your oven to 425 and wash and cut your potatoes into bite sized pieces.  Lightly coat with olive oil (go easy, hm?  If you use too much, you'll detract from your brown butter flavor) and a little bit of salt.  Spread on a pan and pop in the over until tender, 30 to 45 minutes.  Turn them once at about 15 minutes to ensure they're roasted evenly.
      
2. Toward the end of the potatoes, take your skillet and drop in your tablespoons of butter.  A stainless steel works best if you have it.  Heat it over medium and gently stir as the butter starts to melt.
    
3. When the butter starts to bubble, add in your sage leaves and continue to stir gently and occasionally.  It helps to let the sage fry up a little bit before stirring, though.  It'll get really frothy, so don't be surprised.  BTW, the scent of the frying sage might make you cry tears of joy.  I'm just saying.  Don't you feel like crying just looking at it?
   
4. The butter will then start browning.  Little specs of the fat from the butter will start turning brown in the bottom of the pan.  It's actually really cool to watch happen!  At this point, be diligent with your stirring to get a good brown butter.
     
5. Cook till browned and smells nice and earthy - almost nutty.  After you pull this from the burner, it'll keep cooking, so bare that in mind.  I got carried away and almost made black butter instead.
   
6. Combine with the roasted potatoes and enjoy this zen-like food!  Keep any leftover brown butter for other dishes in the fridge for up to a week.  It pairs really well with any vegetable, and even meats.

And then there was Creamy Pesto Chicken

The first time I made this was in college, and it was sort of one of those "what do I do with these chicken breast" moments.  I diced it, added it to my pan, and then went rummaging through my cupboard for 'something else.'  My hand stopped on a bottle of premade pesto, and so I dumped a bunch into my pan.  For whatever reason, I kept thinking "what else, what else" and turned to the fridge.  There was some leftover half & half, and lo and behold, Creamy Pesto Chicken was born.  Now I realize I'm not the first to think of this combination or ingredients, but at least I satisfy myself knowing I thought of it all on my own!

Creamy Pesto Chicken
Difficulty: Easy
Time: About 20-30 minutes cook time

Serves: Depends on how much you make.  I only got three servings out of the pictures, but that's partially because my husband tends to not eat anything all day and then indulges on dinner.

Requires: Nothing fancy!

• 1 lb Boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 3-4 healthy spoonfuls of Pesto sauce - pre-made or homemade.  A warning on the pre-made - several brands actually use a bunch of spinach and try to pass it off as basil.  Check the ingredient list for one made only with basil.
• 1 c Fat-free Half & Half (again, Land-o-lakes is the only people I know who make it)
• 1 container Fage Fat Free Yogurt (you can also use sour cream)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Optional: Pasta

1. Heat a pan over medium heat and spray it lightly with cooking spray.  Add your chicken and three or four spoonfuls of pesto sauce per pound of chicken. 
   
2. Cook until the chicken is cooked all the way through, somewhere between ten to fifteen minutes of cooking.
   
3. If you pan is really hot, let it cool before this next step.  Reduce heat to medium-low and carefully add in the half & half.  You want to keep anything made with dairy not hotter than a light simmer, or it'll separate.  Next, add in the Greek yogurt.  This gives the sauce an amazing flavor!  Take a sample and decide if you'd like more pesto, and salt and pepper to your preference.
   
4. Simmer the sauce for a few minutes.  If you use real Half & Half, it'll thicken as it cooks.  Set the pan aside and you'll find that the sauce will thicken as it stands.  Serve alone or over pasta.  It's deliciousness either way!

Meals for a Hurry - Slow-cooker Chicken with Tomatoes and Black Beans

Everyone needs a go-to meal for those days when you know you're going to be at work for fourteen hours.  Around here, they happen all to often!  That's why I love this recipe.  You throw it all together, let it stew, and then warm deliciousness is ready to eat whenever you do finally make it back home.  Play around with the red peppers, or add some canned green chilies if you're feeling adventurous.  The proportions are under your control.  I do a 1:1 tomato:black bean ratio, but you can mix it up however you want!  I also always make extras for lunches.

Slow-cooker Chicken with Tomatoes and Black Beans
Difficulty: Easy!
Time: 5 minutes of prep, 6 hours in the crock pot
Serves: Entirely in your control!
Requires: Crock pot

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Can(s) of Diced Tomatoes - fire roasted are the best
• Can(s) of Black Beans, rinsed
• Salt, pepper, red pepper to taste
• Optional: Rice, pasta

1. Combine everything and cook on high for six hours.  I tend to mix everything in a bowl the night before so I don't even have to open cans as I run off to work.
2. Serve alone, over rice, or with pasta.  If you make rice, make extra because rice freezes really well!  If you make extras for later, that's less work on future meals.

Yatta Would Sing About Balsamic-Berry Steaks....

For those not in the know, Yatta was one of those viral videos from the early days of the Internet.  They were a Japanese group from the height of the economic depression over there who sang about positive things - like puppies (no really, I'm not making that up).  You can check them out on You Tube, but I warn you... you'll either be greatly disturbed or be strangely entertained.  Regardless, those diaper-leaf-wearing-happy-go-lucky-Japanese would have dedicated at least an entire verse to this Balsamic Berry Sauce if they had ever tried it.  It's just so happy!  Even my berry-hating husband soaked up all of the sauce on his plate.  P.S.  Should you decide to record you own Yatta tape serenading this beautiful recipe, do the world a favor and keep it to yourself.

This recipe works good for those days of the month where you're craving red meat in a hurry, or for fancy get togethers.  For those who don't like Balsamic Vinegar, this recipe comes out VERY mild.  There's no vinegary taste to it.

Balsamic-Berry Steaks
Difficulty: Another easy one!
Time: Hmm... about 12 minutes for the steaks, and between 5-10 for the sauce.
Serves: Enough sauce for four steaks, five if you stretch it (but why would you want to?).
Requires: Nothing fancy

Steaks

• 4 eye-of-round steaks, about 1 1/2 - 2 inches thick
• Olive Oil

Sauce

• 1/2 c water
• 1/4 c seedless blackberry preserves (I forget who, but someone has a version with no added sugar [Splenda] and extra fiber that works nicely)
• 2 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
• 2 tbsp Soy Sauce
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

1. Mix together all the ingredients for the sauce and set aside for the time being.
2. Heat you pan over medium-high heat and use the wipe-on method with the olive oil.  Make sure you wait for your pan to heat; don't get impatient!
3. Sear the steaks on each side, about two minutes, until you get a nice brown. 
   
4. Reduce heat to medium.  As you reduce your heat to medium, flip your steaks over (so that the newly seared side is now face up to avoid burning it) and cook on each side for about another 4 minutes each.  This should put your steaks at about medium to medium well, depending upon the heat of your pan and thickness of your steaks.  Adjust the time according to your tastes.  When the steaks are done, put them aside and keep warm.
   
5. Carefully pour the sauce's ingredients into the pan, scrapping up any brown bits leftover from the steaks.  Cook until the sauce is reduced by half.  You can raise the heat a little to speed this step up if you like.  The sauce will need to be periodically stirred, or it forms a film on top (which will go away if you just stir it, but it can be kind of disturbing).
   
6. Pour over your steaks and enjoy!

The Apple of my Brie... Sandwich... with Onions

For someone who likes cooking, and likes food, I have a guilty confession.  I dislike most cooked fruit desserts.  Don't ask me why.  Applesauce.  Apple pie.  Blueberry Cobbler.  I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I recognize that this isn't normal.  The whole time I'm eating them, I keep thinking to myself that I'd rather eat the fruit raw.  So, the first time I heard about Apple Brie Sandwiches, I was a skeptic.  Thankfully, this recipe leaves my apple still feeling like an apple, and is otherwise a heavenly combination of ingredients.  They're a quick cook, and perfectly suited for the vegetarian in us all.

Apple & Brie Sandwiches

Difficulty: Easy

Time: The onions may take you ten minutes to brown, but the sandwiches are fast to assemble and cook in three to four minutes.

Serves: With the ingredients below, I made the two sandwiches pictured with four slices of apple leftover (which I ate).  Scale the ingredient list up or down to your requirements.

• 1 green apple, cored and cut into slices (make sure the slices aren't too big)
• 2 oz of brie (or less; I was craving brie) cut into small cube-like slices
• 4 slices of bread of your choice (but try to get those wider-sliced breads than a standard loaf)
• Optional: 1/4 -1/2 a small yellow onion, sliced thin (I cooked a half for making more for lunch the next day, but I only used a quarter between the two sandwiches)
• Optional: Raspberry jam (it's nice, but I prefer mine without)

1. If you want onions, heat your pan to medium-high and spray it with cooking spray.  Brown your onions to your preference and set aside.
2. Reduce heat to medium and assemble your sandwiches.  Here's what I picked for my proportion of ingredients for each sandwich, with and without onions:
    
3. Cook on each side for a minute or two, until desired brownness.  If the bread is done but you want the brie softer, you can always microwave them.  I wasn't paying attention and over browned mine... but they aren't burnt.  They were still fabulously delicious.  Flipping, BTW, is NOT my strong skill.  I had to reassemble both sandwiches upon failed flip attempts....  I find a spatula + a small plate are my optimum flipping tools.
     
4. Enjoy!!

Take Your Peanut Butter and Stew It!

Is there nothing peanut butter can't make better? I am seriously addicted to peanut butter - perhaps to the point of insanity.  When I saw this recipe, my husband thought I was crazy to try it, but I knew it was something more like destiny.  We both ended up loving it!  I've served it up to a variety of people, and only one lonely, sad, pathetic individual hated it.  You know who you are.  Shame on you. 

I pulled this recipe from a South Beach cookbook, but I modified it to reduce the oil and so that I could throw it in my slow cooker.  Using the slow cooker makes the meat melt like butter in your mouth, but if you're craving it in a hurry or don't have a crock pot, just cook the meat all the way through and simmer the ingredients together for twenty minutes.

Peanut Butter Stew
Difficulty: Easy to Medium if you're unfamiliar with browning meats
Time: Expect 15 to 20 for prep, then let it cook in the slow cooker for at least four hours on low.  I tend to do it one hour on high, then let it sit on low for at least another three.  The longest it's ever sat was ten hours, and it was still deliciousness in a pot!
Serves: Four if you have a salad or something similar to accompany it.  I have to say... if I don't put the leftovers up right away, I seem to keep going back until it's gone....

Requires: Crock pot, or follow instructions above for just a big pot

• 1 lb lean steak, about 1 inch thick, cut into cubes (Sirloin or Eye of Round are my picks)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tube double concentrated tomato paste (usually found with the sun dried tomatoes, pizza sauce, etc, and it's usually a tube inside of a box)
• 1/2 c peanut butter (freshly ground is the most divine)
• 3 1/2 c water
• 1 tsp red pepper (or to taste for the spice-weaklings out there)
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive Oil or Cooking Spray

1. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and use the wipe-on method with olive oil, or spray it with cooking spray.  Add the onions.  Brown according to taste and then dump them in the crock pot.
   
2. Next, you're going to brown your meat on both sides.  You may need to spray the pan again after the onions.  Two things to this - it only takes about a minute a side (possibly less) to sear the meat at this temp, and you may need to work in batches so you don't overcrowd your pan.  As you sear the meat, move it to the crock pot.
   
3. Next, combine the tomato paste, peanut butter and 1 cup of water in a bowl.  It's easier to do it like this so that when you pour it all together you won't have clumps of tomato and peanut butter swimming about!  Add it to the crock pot.
   
4. Add the remaining ingredients to the crock pot and then stir.  While I do add the red pepper at this point, I hold off on the salt and pepper until it's done, as my experience shows crock pots do weird things to the salinity levels. Throw the lid on for at least four hours, then salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!