Very Merry Cookies

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Dear cookie chops,
     Come back to me! I’ve been out of practice, and it showed in my annual Christmas cookie production. I usually do chocolate chip cookies and always gingerbread cookies. Of the four cookie recipes I executed this week, only one turned out to my satisfaction. First, there were these petits fours from my huge cookie bible; I really should be more skeptical of the thing; it gave me a recipe for sugar cookies without sugar. These petits fours had no flour, though the photo looked suspiciously like coconut macaroons. Needless to say, I did not get very far. Poor powdered sugar…
     Next came the chocolate hazelnut oatmeal cookies. Sounds like a mouthful, feels like a mouthful. Seeing as the only ingredients were butter, oatmeal, hazelnuts and nutella, the ratios are very important. Less than a cup of nutella, hazelnuts and butter each, with two whole cups of oatmeal? The texture didn’t particularly tickle my fancy, but the nutella melted with the butter made for a nice, dare I say, umami factor. Will definitely be reproduced at some point, with varying proportions.
     Then came the snickerdoodles. I’ve definitely made snickerdoodles before, so I’m trying to figure out just what choice it was that made the cookies sad and flat. It may have been the substitution of two egg yolks for a second egg, or the brief hour in the fridge, but these snickerdoodles weren’t quite ready for the oven. I put them in the first time, and after five or so minutes, the dough started melting off the cookie sheet and onto the bottom of the oven. No one was concerned, until five more minutes when the smell of smoke started to fill the living room. The cookie side effects included a new smoky flavor that was…not completely unwelcome, though probably dispensable.
     It’s a good thing for tradition, because I don’t think I could possibly mess up the gingerbread things. Every year I make gingerbread cookies with my cello, camel, palm tree and moon cutters. And every year I make icing with whatever additions I feel like at the time – orange zest, cinnamon, vanilla. Fills your mouth with all the spices!
     Next year I’ll go back to the cookie press and the chocolate chips. And by next year, I mean next week. Hoping your new year is full of good times and better food!

Step 2: Combine
Step 1: Melt
Step 3: Roll

After smoking
Before smoking
Taking over the kitchen
What pretty colors

Pretzels Weeee

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Know what’s cool? Peppermint bark. Know what’s awesome? Homemade peppermint bark and chocolate covered pretzels. Know what’s really annoying? Trying to melt white chocolate. But my mom’s a pro. Don’t get frustrated! Practice makes perfect (don’t expect it to melt as much as other chocolate anyway, it’s kinda special)

Peanut paste crumbs

That silly white chocolate…

Festive

That One Time I Had Finals: highspeedrecap

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Oops, I got lost in the sea of work and woe. Now that I’m home, here is a super fast summary of the month of December in food.

Lunch with Jari and Shaunte at Taste of Thai: chicken wing and spring roll appetizers and yellow curry
Lunch with Robyn: Soup…it had chickpeas…and a curried tuna salad sandwich-interesting! Robyn had a “late autumn tart”
Rebecca’s birthday cake: only blog worthy because it looks beautiful, right? We won’t talk about how it started out… also, Nutella/PB middle
Look ma, no flour! Getting rid of food while testing out recipes with only two ingredients: Nutella cake using eggs (beaten? What?) and nutella…and peanut butter. It was manageable.
Anticipate more legitimate posts in the coming weeks as I bake my way through the holiday season
“Nutella cake” recipe here

Cookies on Cookies & Cream

Carmen1 Comment

To help battle my Hershey’s Cookies & Cream bar addiction, I thought I would buy three XL sized bars and put them in cookies. I’ll let you know if I end up curbing the poor eating habit, but in the meantime, check out the masterpieces. Well, almost.
I trolled Google with something along the lines of “Hershey’s cookies cream recipe” and found several overly decadent (college code for involved) brownies, truffles, and other things…ugh effort. Then I came across “double cookies and cream kiss cookie bars”. Sounds more complicated than it is; I think the double referred to the inclusion of Oreos in the original recipe. And who has time for unwrapping kisses? The rest of the recipe was more or less two layers of chocolate chip cookie dough sandwiching “a” layer of the best American chocolate to have ever existed. Or whatever you call it. They turned out to be great cookie bars…and as you can see from the above image, if you’re really trying, you can kinda perceive-ish some white chocolate and/or oreo crumb. This is particularly annoying because I only used one and a half bars. And if I make them again, I’ll have to buy more. That’s okay; they’re just that much less artery-clogging. 
Beyond proud of my nibbling restraint
Surprisingly (at the time) not enough to for substantial gook

Sweet deal. Does that count as a pun? Intended.

Double Cookies and Cream Kiss Cookie Bars
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup mini chocolate chips
12 Oreo Cookies, broken up
25 Cookies and Cream Hershey’s Kisses
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and line an 8×8 inch baking pan with foil sprayed with cooking spray.
2. Place butter and sugars into a large bowl, stir to combine, at least 2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla, mixing to combine. Add dry ingredients, chocolate chips and oreo cookie pieces, stirring to combine. Press 1/3 of the dough into the bottom of prepared baking pan. Top with 5 rows of Hershey’s Kisses 5 per row. Top with remaining dough and gently press. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool for 30 minutes, cut into squares and serve.
Makes 12-16 bars
Recipe courtesy of Picky Palate

Ithaca Dining Installment #2: Sushi O Sake

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To celebrate Danielle’s birthday, I took her to Sushi O Sake, the Japanese restaurant across from the commons that I have yet to see crowded. It could only have to do with their above average prices, because their dishes are quite nice. We started with the crispy shrimp dumplings, which could have stood to be 50 cents less, but they eliminated my hunger until the rest of dinner came. I bit into it wondering if we received the right order because the shrimp was chopped into bits resembling an unfortunate encounter with a steamed pork dumpling. But it was definitely shrimp and definitely acceptable. Then came picking the sushi rolls, which probably took over 10 minutes. We finally decided on the Key West,  Salmon Lovers, and Atlantic. We’re fairly confident that the Key West had crab in it (kinda chewwy…), for I could not recall quite why I ordered it and the mayo covered most everything, the Salmon Lovers was more or less salmon on salmon, literally, and the Atlantic had more salmon. Past experiences with legitimate sushi/raw fish did not bode so well for my palate, but I could stomach this raw salmon – heck I had a bunch of it! Next time I’ll probably shoot for something in Collegetown with student-friendlier prices, but we had a successful night nonetheless.
Fried dumplings with a side of pickle ALL the veg

Work=cut out…and what’s under that spicy mayo/scallions/caviar

No dessert, thanks.

Panera Breadfast

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I guess I always overlooked that Panera Bread did breakfast…I mean there’s not much to choose from, but the choices exist. I went the Saturday before returning to school with my mom, who got a steak and egg sandwich with cheddar cheese on a fancy bagel…I think it was poppyseed and onion. I got a “Mediterranean Egg White On Ciabatta”. As my mom pointed out that morning, it is important to note that we were able to find two sandwiches on the menu that didn’t have any form of oink-ery. The steak & egg was okay; fairly simple. My cheddar/roasted tomato/spinach/pesto combo was mild at first, but then I found the roasted tomatoes awkwardly hiding at the end of the sandwich, and then the spinach clumps adjacent. Next time I’ll try to remember to reassemble before consumption.

What could have been
But it’s okay because their croissants are really good.

Thanksgiving: DSLR Edition

Carmen1 Comment
Happy Thanksgiving! I ran around today taking pictures of everything edible in the house; which was just the right amount for the family. The turkey was replaced with a duck – from Wegmans, no less! And yes, I did bring it along for the 5 hour ride home from school on ice. There were roasted potatoes, turnips, orange beets, squash and Brussels sprouts, so no shortage of roots and vegetables. For dessert was mince pie, pumpkin pie and blueberry buckle…kinda like coffee cake, but better. I’m not particularly looking forward to going back to dining hall food, so good thing for leftovers!
Blueberry buckle, breakfast
Before oven
After oven

Butternut
Acorn

Mince pie & pumpkin pie

How colorful (don’t worry I went back for seconds)
Dessert #1
Dessert #2

Pre-Thanksgiving Shenanigans

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The basics: food hanging around the house the day before Thanksgiving, either being prepped or eaten, mostly shot with my real-life camera
Tea marinade for the duck…yeah man.
Getting artsy with the acorn
Mystery pie; to be revealed tomorrow! Stop by to find out
Pumpkin pie; may or may not have been mildly reprimanded in the making of this image
Duck chillin out, literally
Stove-cooked popcorn to end the day; better than yours
Also, creative s’mores.

Comfort

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Easily the best cookies I’ve made…and I’ve made my fair share of cookies. Many will agree with the assertion that peanut butter and chocolate are a premier dessert pairing, and the dark chocolate chip comfort cookies do a fine job of confirming this. I’m not much of a peanut butter fan, but it doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to these; it’s just the right amount of everything. I even tried substituting the peanut butter for Nutella once. They came out a little too rich in chocolate for my palate, next time I’ll halve the cocoa if I opt for hazelnut. If you want to make them look super presentable once they’re done, place chocolate chips on top of the dough balls by hand once they’re on the baking sheet.
A dough of half a cup of peanut butter, half a cup of cocoa powder, a cup and a half of sugar and some chocolate chips will do you in if you consume enough, and you definitely won’t want to forget your milk of choice.

 

ALL the lipids
You should probably mix those dry ingredients
Also, make sure to sift the cocoa so you don’t get unwanted chunks o’ chocolate in your mouth
No matter what you do, this cookie is going to look like the recipe’s photo

Dark Chocolate Chip Comfort Cookies
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, slightly softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
10 oz. dark chocolate chips
chopped pecans, optional

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • In a small bowl, mix flour, cocoa, soda and salt using a wire whisk and set aside.
  • In another bowl, cream butter, sugar and peanut butter until light and fluffy.
  • Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.
  • Add flour mixture to creamed mixture and mix until combined.
  • Stir in dark chocolate chips.
  • Roll cookie dough into 1-1/4 inch balls. (If desired, roll balls in chopped pecans.)
  • Place on parchment paper covered baking sheet.
  • Bake 10 minutes.
  • Place cookies on cookie rack to cool.
  • Makes about 30 2-inch cookies.
    *recipe from Bakerella via Tumblr…again

Paris Meets Providence

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Due to my abnormally long Thanksgiving break, I thought to use it finding friends who still have classes this week. I went to visit Shyam in Brown, located in my favorite US city: Providence! Thankfully it wasn’t a brutal November day, so I got a tour of campus and a stroll down Thayer street. We were thinking of places to dine for lunch and I suddenly remembered the sketchy crêpe place my RISD pre-college buddies would go on the weekend called La Crêperie (don’t let the website fool you). Looks like they cleaned it up a bit on the outside, but it’s still to be found in a random alley off Thayer, and is still awkwardly tiny. But what they lack in presentation they make up for in all things edible. Sweet crêpes? Check. With Nutella? hahahaduh! Savory crêpes? Check. With brie? Mais bien sûr! Belgian waffles with berries? Yes please. Smoothies? Smooth. If you’ve been dragged along by your unyielding offbeat friends, you could probably find a salad or wrap to sate your appetite.

Definitely opted for the classic apples & brie combo, which I finished, barely. It was great, though! Shyam’s Josephine with chicken, cheddar, mushroom & béchamel sauce (AKA white sauce?) was also good! Next time I’ll probably have to go for the Nutella waffle C:

You know it’s legit when the overhead menu is aesthetically pleasing (must have been those RISDans)
apple + brie + anything else = good eats