My First Sugar Cookies

So, my friend Jen recently made these killer sugar cookies, and I was inspired to try some of my own. Even though I'm really good at baking cakes, I've been hesitant to bake cookies because my mom can't bake a cookie to save her life. I mean, she's a great cook, but baking cookies is definitely not her thing, and I've been afraid that the "bad cookie gene" has been passed along to me. So, I shook off the fear and looked up what I thought was a good sugar cookie recipe. I found this one and thought it seemed perfect - quick, easy, and only 6 ingredients (the almond extract doesn't count).
This is the batter. It looks like whipped butter because, well, it's whipped butter with a little sugar, flour, and vanilla mixed in. :) No, seriously, this recipe has TWO STICKS OF BUTTER!

The directions say to use two spoons to spoon the dough onto the cookie sheets. Yeah, right. I've never been good at that. I just used my hands. It worked a lot better and saved me about 20 minutes and a lot of irritation and mess. Oh yeah, and I only use AirBake cookie sheets. I've never ever burned the bottom of a cookie when I use an AirBake cookie sheet.Here they are! They turned out really really well, and they were mixed, baked, cooled, I'd eaten a few, and the kitchen was clean in just a little over an hour. I observed that it seems there is a critical mass at which cookies spread rather than rise. The smaller balls of dough ended up bumping up, and the larger ones spread out. I'll keep that in mind next time and "spoon" accordingly. Also, someone posted a comment that a Tbs. of sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk could be added to make the cookies softer, so of course I did that (I used buttermilk but would love to try sour cream next time), and I think it helped keep the cookies from getting overly dry. They only needed to bake for 9 minutes, too, which is fabulous!I've got my Wonder Woman glass of milk - I'm ready to go! :) This is definitely a recipe I'm going to save and use over and over again. The recipe said it could make up to 4 dozen, but I made 2.5 dozen. I made some kind of big, but not that big. I'd say it's more like 3 dozen, if you're lucky. Regardless, they're delicious!

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

I've been craving vegetable soup. I ended up making chili a couple of weeks ago, and it was good, but that didn't satisfy the craving. This afternoon, I decided I want to try beef stew, so I looked up "easy beef stew recipes" and found this one. I'm super excited b/c it's a crock pot recipe, and you know how much I love those! I'm building up quite a repertoire of slow cooker recipes! Pics and review of the beef stew coming in the next couple of days...

UPDATE: Ok, so I made a grocery list and found my way to the store. I managed to get all the ingredients for the beef stew including the onion soup mix, which is something I've never purchased before. This recipe was super easy, and like all good crock pot recipes, you simply layer the ingredients in the order they're listed. I documented the process because I think it's so cool. :)

Oh, and I'm a firm believer in using good ingredients. This potato was happy to be a part of my stew, as evidenced by the little smile he gave me while I was peeling him. :)

CARROTS:

BEEF:

POTATOES:

VEGGIES:

ONION:

COOKING:

It is important to note that this recipe must be for a GIANT crock pot, because I was only able to fit in 7 potatoes (the recipe calls for 12) and half the veggies (one can of green beans, peas, and corn versus two of each). Also, I used vegetable stock instead of water as the liquid. The recipe says to cook it on high for one hour and then cook it on medium for 4 to 5 hours. My crock pot doesn't have a "medium" or a timer, so I'm going to cook it on low for 4 hours and set my alarm to wake up and unplug it at 2:00 am. :)

ALL DONE! YUM!

Oh, and I accidentally put too much liquid in, and it overflowed once it got hot...so now I need to clean up... :(

Snowed In!

Well, sort of snowed in. Every school in Rhode Island and many schools in MA and CT closed in anticipation of a pretty significant snow storm that was supposed to come through and dump between 8 - 15 inches of snow and make the evening commute a disaster. Speaking of disasters, there is still a lot of fear surrounding the massive snow storm of December 2007 when people ran out of gas on the highways and school kids got stuck on buses until 10:00 pm. So, we've swung the other way - but I digress...

This is what I've been eating for lunch every day at work, but somehow it tasted WAY better eating it at home. :) It's a roast beef sandwich on organic 12-grain bread with organic brown mustard, spinach, fresh tomato, and Trader Joe's mozzarella cheese. YUM! Oh, and those chips are cool - they're "gourmet blend" potato chips - yellow, sweet (orange), and blue. And, of course, the beverage of champions - water - in a Wonder Woman glass (I *love* her!). I love being sort of snowed in!

Killer Appetizers

Although we didn't coordinate our planning of the food for Super Bowl Extravaganza 2010, Kim and Jen managed to psychically intuit what I was doing and brought things that created a perfect balance in the day's menu. This began with appetizers. However, these weren't just your average teeny weenies in bbq sauce and Cheese Whiz on Ritz crackers - OH NO! These were class act hors d'oeuvres fit for royalty! I think the picture speaks for itself, but just in case... There were gourmet olives (black AND green), gourmet cheeses (including a goat gouda), and gourmet bread accompanied by sweet and juicy clementines and apple slices. There were pepperoni and sea salted bagel chips, too. It was fabulous, and it definitely set the stage perfectly for the main event! These girls and their fancy "snacks" will *definitely* be invited back next year! To quote Kim, "best super bowl food EVER!"

Homemade Mashed Potatoes

When I was little, my grandmother and my mother always made mashed potatoes from scratch. It always looked really complicated to me, and as much as I love them, I've always been intimidated by the idea of making my own mashed potatoes. I realize now how absolutely ridiculous that is, because I've done it successfully twice in the last 6 weeks. :)

Heidi came over for Christmas dinner. She brought a salad and a rack of lamb from Trader Joe's, and I made homemade mashed potatoes and a carrot cake (well, I provided the ingredients, but Heidi did most of the work for the cake). Anyway - I followed a recipe the first time, and the mashed potatoes were, well, blah.

The second time, I looked at the recipe and then did what I wanted, and they turned out soooo much better! It helps to add about 3x the amount of butter and 10x the amount of cream/milk/half + half the recipe calls for. Oh, and I added dill - that was the key ingredient. :)

"Best Moist Chocolate Cake Recipe You've Ever Tasted"

For this Super Bowl party, I wanted to make a complete meal, from salad to dessert, so I planned to make a cake (my specialty, from what I'm told). I just made a carrot cake last weekend and still have a few pieces in the freezer, so this time I wanted to make a chocolate cake. My best chocolate cake so far has been this "Absurdly Easy Vegan Chocolate Cake," but for this occasion, I decided I wanted to make a "real" chocolate cake. Now, to understand how dedicated I was to this, you need to be aware of one thing - I am quite disturbed by the word "moist." I actually just had a mini panic attack when I typed it. So, you may now better understand how difficult it was for me to go to blackle (the energy-saving version of google that utilizes the exact same search engine) and type in "best moist chocolate cake recipe." Even though I had to take a Xanax to be able to read all the recipes, it was totally worth it! Here is the recipe I found, and It. Was. Amazing! Jen whipped up some vanilla frosting for that baby, and the three of us gorged ourselves on the "Best Moist Chocolate Cake Recipe You've Ever Tasted." Sweet!

Sausage Stuffed Zucchini Eggplant

I found this recipe after my dear friend Azalia gave me a 4 foot long zucchini this summer, and I had no idea what to do with it beyond making zucchini bread and muffins. :) I found this recipe for sausage stuffed zucchini, and I made some serious mods! I will have to post a picture (and reviews) on Monday. :)

UPDATE: Ok, so I knew the zucchini part of the sausage stuffed zucchini might be a challenge, and boy, was I right! To be fair, I only tried one store, but the "zucchini" they had were not only imported from Mexico, but they were literally 6 inches long and about 2 - 3 inches in diameter - in other words - not suitable for STUFFING. :) So...I stood in the produce section for a minute to mourn the loss of my zucchini fantasy and think of a way to salvage the situation (kind of like the engineers at NASA did when they had to manage all those problems with the Apollo 13 spacecraft...). My first instinct was to scrap this plan and just make a pizza, then I decided to make like Julia Childs and get creative! So...I took a moment to contemplate vegetables that are similar to zucchini...and then I had a vague recollection of hearing about "stuffed eggplant" once. So, I picked out what I thought were the three best-looking eggplants (is that right???) and continued my shopping trip.

Long story short - the eggplant worked beautifully. AND according to my Italian friend, stuffing it with Italian sausage stuffing is apparently one of the most loving things one can do to an eggplant. So, I was happy - I mean, this meal was INSANELY good! Add a salad and homemade mashed potatoes (I wasn't really sure what side went best with this, but it just seemed like a starch was a good plan) to the plate, and you're good to go! Oh, and three really important things about the recipe: 1) the ingredient list doesn't mention grated parmesan cheese, yet the recipe instructions call for it twice, and 2) IMHO, this recipe only serves 2. I routinely double, triple, or quadruple the recipe for 4-6 people...usually about 1/2 meat for each person, and 3) the recipe instructs you to remove part of the zucchini/eggplant to make room for stuffing, then never tells you what to do with it! You can add it back to the meat, but I sincerely believe that ruins the flavor. I leave it out (after trying at least 3 different times to add it back in). I say cook it up separately or just discard it. Bon apetit!