Category Archives: food

lentil stew

Posted on by Chris
4

The Geek has long sworn that lentils “taste like dirt”.  Apparently his mother cooked them a little too long – apologies to her if she ever reads this – and I have a feeling that is an understatement.

My mother never cooked lentils. In fact, I’m sure I’d never heard of them til well past college. I’d had a lentil soup or two and didn’t mind it though, and I recently made a sausage and lentil soup that was pretty tasty.

Tonight’s dinner was a lentil stew. And what follows is not a recipe, per se. More like a set of guidelines, so those of you who need precision will be aggravated. In any case, The Geek ate it willingly.

LENTIL STEW

1 bag of lentils (any sort will do)

1 pound of Italian sausage – spicy if you like

2 carrots, diced

half an onion, diced

spoonful of minced garlic

pinches of oregano and thyme

box of chicken broth

2 cans diced tomatoes

fresh baby spinach

Saute the sausage in a big pot or dutch oven til browned.  Add vegies, garlic, and spices.  Cook til softened, a few minutes.  Add lentils, stock and tomatoes. Bring to a boil and cover – turn to low heat.  Cook til lentils are softened – I’m guessing this was about 45 minutes?  If it gets too thick, you can add some water – I added a tomato can-ful since the lentils weren’t quite soft. When the lentils are soft, throw in as much spinach as you like, and stir a few minutes – it will soften in the heat. Season with salt and pepper as you wish.

Eat and enjoy with some crusty bread.

You can change this up with celery, maybe some red peppers, smoked sausage instead of Italian, zucchini. More broth if you want a soup.

yum

pinteresting

Posted on by Chris
2

It’s sweeping the nation, nay, the world, you know. This Pinterest thing. I know some of you already are on board. “On board” – ha, that’s funny.

It’s basically a visual way to collect your favorite things online – a virtual bulletin board. Any time you see a photo of something, you “pin” it to the board of your choice.  I currently have 1,441 pins on 18 boards.  You can find things in your own internet travels, or on the boards of someone else – that’s called “repinning”. You can even “follow” the boards of friends or people who seem to have similar taste.

The problem is I’ve been spending too much time “pinning” and not enough time going back to try the stuff I’ve pinned!  What good is collecting it if you never use it!  So tonight I’ll be making this off my Yummy board -

Chicken and dumplings

In crafty land, there are MANY, MANY things I would like to do off my Craft board. One hardly knows where to begin.  Maybe this -

DIY Atomic Starburst Mirror

Or this -

Pleated Bag

The beauty of Pinterest is when you pin something, the original URL to the item is preserved, so you can go back to the recipe or pattern or whatever the source is. And it’s so FUN to see everything collaged in one place.

I’ve got a Garden board to help with outdoor inspiration. Scenes like this move me to get going on the backyard -

Now that's a garden

Or this paver patio I love -

Paver Patio

If there is a photo, you can pin it. Some of my favorites are my Little Bits of Awesome board.

B -I-N-G-O

Zombie Survival

To start pinning, you need to request an “invite”, which can several days or even a couple weeks. Once you’re accepted, prepare to lose hours of your life. Even the Geek pins! Mostly guns and robots, but still.

Happy weekend! I’ve got things to make and cook, zombies to survive…

fall shortbread cake

Posted on by Chris
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Today, I did a bit of harvesting, a few tomatoes and berries and these beauts.

They grow on the tree in the front yard. In years past, they’ve never turned this delicious red color and they’ve been really sour.  No idea what kind they are, either.  This year it looks like we got lucky.  They are really tasty!

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the good stuff to make and eat (this week’s wacky warm weather notwithstanding). So I got out Baking – From my Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan, to see what I could do with these guys. I am a sucker for anything involving apples, since it usually also involves ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg.  There was quite a few options but this one had me at “shortbread”.  The recipe as written uses a cramberry jam filling, but in the notes she suggests apples as an alternative. I made a a few other tweaks as noted below and this is what came out.

It did not suck. Happy fall baking!

Fall Shortbread Cake 

Adapted from Baking – From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Cake batter:

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1 stick plus 5 tablespoons room temp butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla (*I was out, so I used an *ahem* liberal splash of amaretto. Feel free to try some for quality control first.)

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.  In a mixer, beat the butter until soft and smooth. Add sugar and beat until smooth. Reduce mixer to low and add egg and yolk, mix until absorbed. Beat in vanilla or whatever you are using. Add the flour and mix only until incorporated; you may wish to finish by hand to avoid overmixing.  It will be more like a soft cookie dough than a cake batter. Divide into two disks and wrap in plastic; refrigerate 15-30 minutes (or overnight but let sit out about 30 minutes before using).

Make filling.

Apple filling (as I made it)

2 apples, peeled and sliced

3 T butter

About 1/2 cup brown sugar, less if your apples are sweet – mine were on the tart side

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 grated nutmeg

Melt the butter til foamy and add the apples, let them soften for a few minutes. Add the brown sugar and let it thicken a bit. Add the spices and cook a bit longer, but you don’t want applesauce. I happened to have some dried cranberries on hand so I threw a handful of that in too. Preheat oven to 350.

Roll out one half dough and lay on bottom of springform pan. I gilded the lily a little here and spread some of last year’s apple butter on the bottom before I spread the cooked apple filling on top, your choice here. Roll out the second disk of dough big enough to fit the top of the cake and set it on top – mine was slightly too big so I just rolled the edges  and smooshed things together a bit to seal it.  Sprinkle with some sanding or raw sugar if you like.  Bake about 30-35 minutes. Cool. (Or not, if you are impatient like me. A little ice cream would not go amiss.)

Enjoy.

the great piecobblercake experiment

Posted on by Chris
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I have some friends who are fond of desserts.  When one was celebrating a recent birthday with a BBQ, I offered to bring dessert.  Pie, cobbler, cake, said I.  The cobbler won out, based on a previous showing.

But that seemed a little safe.  And it occurred to me that putting those three TOGETHER in one fine baked item would be a winning combination.  I pondered the logistics for a bit and came up with a plan of attack.

Really, it would all come down to the timing, I thought.  I’d use my favorite recipes for each component, and try to get them all to finish baking at the same time.  How hard could it be?!

At first, I planned to layer each thing – pie, filling, cake, filling, cobbler. But Mike pointed out that the cake might have issues rising.  More pondering. I decided to do pie, filling and then alternate cake/cobbler for the top.  Off to the races!

rhubarb - secret ingredient #1

The filling was blueberries and blackberries, with some rhubarb I happened to have on hand as the first secret ingredient.  The second was…cayenne pepper!  I threw some in with the sugar, cinnamon and tapioca, which thickens the filling.

I figured I’d need to blind bake the crust for a bit to make sure it cooked all the way. I hate doing that because no matter what I line the dish with, the sides slide down.

I baked it for about 20 minutes and added the filling.

tasty

I let THAT bake for maybe 20 mintues? Probably should have taken better notes….

And then I plopped down the cobbler bits (used the San Juan scone recipe here) and filled in around it with coffee cake batter.  Here is where the problem began.

I really thought the two toppings would bake pretty evenly, since the cake was in smaller sections. Not so!  That damn stuff took FOREVER to cook. I was worried about the cobbler pieces – I’m sure they were overcooked. I covered the edges with foil and hoped for the best.

I resisted the urge to sneak a bite before the party.  Packed the ice cream and off we went.

Well, I’ll be damned if it wasn’t dang good!  Next time – more cayenne. And a looser cobbler dough that will cook more evenly with the cake portion.  Here is the birthday boy enjoying his slice…

Piecobblercake. The best of three worlds.

a hell of a party

Posted on by Chris
3

The Geek and I spent last weekend in Wenatchee, about 2 1/2 hours east of Seattle . My friend Jeff and his fiance Wai  are getting married in September.  His brother Mike is the best man, and Mike’s wife Jen is the matron of honor.  We were conned asked nicely to co-host a couples’ shower in their honor. Given that I can’t resist bossing organizing a party, of course I said yes.  Hence the madness began.

Originally, it was going to be a happy hour sort of thing.  Appetizers and drinks.  Pretty simple.  And boring.  So we upped the ante.  Dinner! Al fresco!  Family style for 25 people!  We went back and forth on the logistics of tables and food.  Could it be done?

Jen was in charge of decor and Mike and I discussed menu options for nearly a month. Eventually we came around to the vision of an Italian dinner.  Jen wrangled long tables and rented chairs and linens, and borrowed plates, etc. to make up the difference in what she already had.  Mike and I settled on the menu.  I even printed it up all fancy to put on the tables, but of course forgot that along with the placecards.

We went over Friday night to start getting ready,  which consisted of mainly of Mike doing prep work for his courses and us deciding that grappa is disgusting and had no place on the berries for the cake.  Bright and early Saturday, the real craziness began.  The Geek washed the greens and I made the Herbfarm dressing, then Jen and I ran out for pedicures and supplies at Costco and Safeway.  Once back, I made the cornmeal olive oil cake which would be served with balsamic strawberries and whipped cream.  Said cream was supposed to be whipped with mascarpone cheese, also forgotten in Seattle.  Dammit. No one seemed to mind. I was a bit nervous about the cake – I’d made it before but not as a half-sheet version.  I multiplied the recipe by 2.5 which resulted in some funky measurements, and I have to say I wasn’t very precise.  Tasted great though!

Next was outside setup.  We had 3 long tables, but needed to augment with their patio table so people wouldn’t be smushed.  That worked fine once we added linens and chairs, and the lanterns and flowers.  Looked great! We enlisted the aid of the two oldest kids for table setting, who looked up some fancy napkin folding instructions and got to work.

slave labor

Jen setting the table

We hit the wall about this point due to lack of food – Mike to the rescue with some tasty sandwiches.  All the while manning the oven and grill with his porchetta (Italian pork roast), cranberry beans, and watermelon gazpacho. He even made fresh ricotta for the crostini!  He’s a machine in the kitchen! Time for me and The Geek to cut a boat load of strawberries and stuff some endive with gorgonzola to be drizzled with chestnut honey and toasted pine nuts.

We finished setting up the bar outside, which include me having to empty the cooler (big enough for me to fit in) so that I could drag it from the upper yard into the lower section and then replace everything that had been in it. Did I mention that The Geek threw his back out loading a keg into someone’s car on Friday?  He could barely walk by this point, let alone heave a giant cooler around.

bar goodies

Time to get our party duds on and christen the event with a shot of tequila with Jen! (This part is highly recommended.)

We greeted people with a choice of a Watermelon Blush, a festive bubbly drink of watermelon juice, St. Germain (an elderflower liquer), dashes of Peychauds bitters and topped with Prosecco, or a Negroni, a vintage Italian cocktail of Campari, sweet vermouth and gin.  Not for the faint of heart – that Campari is bitter stuff.  Guests noshed on appetizers of the stuffed endive, crostini with fresh ricotta, frozen grape kabobs and watermelon gazpacho.  Sadly, the olives were forgotten in the frig.  Yes, I forgot many things.  Thankfully, nothing major.

hey there!

let's get this party started!

After an hour or so of mingling/getting their cocktail on, guests sat down to a first course of mixed greens with Herbfarm dressing, a very simple starter.  It should be said that the food had to be brought downstairs to be served, and given that we could only carry 4 or so plates at a time, it was painful the next day.  Mike was busily roasting green beans and slicing porchetta – all prettily arranged on 3 platters, along with three bowls of cranberry beans and three baskets of homemeade focaccia.  Everyone oohed and ahhed, and dug in to some very tasty food and wine.

porchetta and roasted green beans with fennel

Time to clear (and thanks to a couple of guests who helped out in this area) and get on with the game!  Jeff and Wai weren’t too sure about this, but since we weren’t doing gifts, there had to be something showery!  So we came up with our version of the Almost-Newlywed Game.  10 questions for both of them, and the winner got to take the bag of *ahem* bedroom accessories that Jen so carefully picked out.  They were great sports and everyone laughed a lot.

bride and groom

Back upstairs for the dessert plating, which I had intended to serve at the table, but several people had to cut out early and others were up and about so most ate theirs standing.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and it was a great dessert for a group that large.  Sadly though, since we weren’t at the table it was a little tricky to get the sparkling muscat out to go with it, so I walked around with that for those who were interested.

Darkness fell and most left, leaving us hardcore folks (read, JunkBelly members and wives) around the fire pit, and the hosts pretty well exhausted. But proud and happy it a) went so well and b) was over.  The clean up could wait til morning.

ahhh

Lessons learned:

Don’t even attempt this without at least 3 people, and those people better like each other. You could get away with less if you had it catered.  (Before this party came up, I’d been considering an outdoor dinner party for an event in September. I’d still do it, but I might get some of the food from another source like Whole Foods, or make everything ahead so it could just bake the day of.  I know guests would volunteer to help, but I just want them to be guests. And normally I would never consider outsourcing food, but in some cases you have to compromise.  I’d do it if it meant I could have everyone there I wanted.)

Keep it simple, and do ahead.  Food and setup.  See above re at least three people.

Have at least one person in charge of greeting and the bar.  It’s weird if guests walk in and you are madly scrambling in the kitchen.  Someone needs to handle the drinks. A few spare older kids are handy for errands like replacing the La-Cucuracha-singing bottle opener.

Mike would serve the gazpacho as a first course next time, to slow the dinner pacing down. And I think maybe doing the dessert before the game would have kept people seated for dessert, making more of a finish to the meal.

Finally: an endeavor this ambitious could have gone horribly wrong at any time. I know Jen was a bit stressed about table set up and Mike was a little cranky in the kitchen.  To be expected – it’s a lot of pressure.  All the pre-planning paid off, despite minor glitches like menu and mascarpone being forgotten. But really what made it work was the teamwork – we all knew what had to be done and kept the end vision in mind.  A Tuscan evening in the garden with good friends and food.

Something to celebrate, for sure.

sunday soup

Posted on by Chris
2

Given the fact that it is apparently the season of never-ending winter up in these parts, some soup seemed like just the thing.  This one really could not be easier – not that any soup is hard.  Split pea!  With beer!  And sausage!

the goods

What you will need:

1 bag of split green peas, rinsed and picked over

3ish carrots, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

2 potatoes, chopped, bite size

package of ham hocks

1 bottle of beer – medium ale works best, I think

smoked sausage – I used smoked turkey keilbasa – chopped bite size

water

ground cloves

thyme

a spoonful of coarse dijon

couple of bay leaves

Chop the carrots and celery – if you want to add some onion, feel free.  Soften them in some butter, 3-4 tablespoons in your soup pot, maybe 5 minutes.  Add the peas, beer, 6 cups of water, ham hocks, mustard, pinch of ground cloves, and bay leaves. Bring to simmer, cover and simmer for about an hour.   Meat on the hocks will be nearly tender – you can remove them and shred the meat back in the soup if you like.  Add the potatoes and sausage.  Simmer another 30 min to hour, depending on if you like your soup chunky or smoother.  Salt and pepper. If you are especially ambitious, you can add a splash of apple cider vinegar.  We usually eat this with biscuits and jam, but cheesy biscuits would be good too.

maybe winter's not so bad after all

A few things of note:  I don’t chop this stuff too small, since it gets smaller on cooking and I like a chunkier finished product.  Totally up to you.  And if you like it thicker, leave the lid off.  Or thinner, add more water.  It’s pretty hard to screw up!  Enjoy!

snickerdoodle dandy

Posted on by Chris
1

Hello, my poppets.  I promised baking in the mental upkeep department, so here you go. Today’s output: snickerdoodles.  Which I have to say I am fond of even more especially for their name.  It’s fun to say and I am easily amused.

I’ve tried a few recipes and not been won over.  Then I discovered in my very own cookbook library TWO recipes, both from Rosie’s Delicious and Decadent Dessert Book.  I have two of her books, and not had a bad thing baked from either of them.  Thoroughly recommend.  I must admit that when I went to start mixing today, I could not for the LIFE of me remember which of the two recipes I’d made before!  They are next to each in the book so I opted for the one with more stuff splattered on the page.  It does differ slightly from the other, more traditional recipe because that one calls for cream of tartar and this one uses baking powder.  I guess now I’ll have to try that next to make sure which is better.

It’s a pretty straight-forward recipe, handy for when the cookie urge strikes since odds are you probably already have what you need on hand.  Now, my brilliant flash of inspiration for these did not turn out as expected.  As you may recall, snickerdoodles are coated in cinnamon-sugary goodness. My grand plan was to use my good Penzey’s Vietnamese Cinnamon in place of the Costco kind.  Penzey’s sells all manner of spectacular spices and herbs, and just recently opened a STORE in downtown Seattle!  Used to be I had to mail order this stuff.

good stuff

Anyhoo.  I mixed the good cinnamon in the sugar, rolled the cookies, baked and…well, I think it was just too intense.  It ended up being kinda burned.  Sad face.  Grand plan fail.  So  for the next batch, back to the garden variety cinnamon and sugar.  Probably coulda used a higher cinnamon to sugar ratio,  but not burned at least.  Guessing you can tell which is which.

dinner

As for tinkering, I’d like to try a version where the cinnamon is mixed in and the balls are coated in sanding sugar.  I’d also like to make some bigger, flatter versions for filling with lemon or blackberry ice cream.  But these will do just fine for now.

Baker’s Best Snickerdoodles

From Rosie’s Delicious and Decadent Dessert Book, where she credits Michael Baker from Baker’s Best with the recipe

(I’ve condensed the instructions, assuming you people have made a cookie or two, because I’m lazy and it’s not rocket science)

3 cups all purpose flour

1 T plus 1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 1/2 cup sugar plus 2 t sugar

1 cup butter at room temp

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 375.  Line baking sheets with parchment or grease baking sheets.  Sift the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

Combine cinnamon and 2 teaspsoons sugar in small bowl.

Cream butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar and vanilla til light and fluffy, stopping to scrape bowl.  Add eggs and beat til blended.

Add half flour mixture and beat on low for 10 seconds.  Scrape bowl and add remaining flour, beat 25 seconds.

Measure rounded scoops of dough (I used a small scoop), roll in cinnamon sugar.  (I flattened mine slightly).  Bake til risen and slightly cracked.  Recipe says 16 -18 minutes, which was WAY too long for mine.  9-10 was just fine.

Eat.  Enjoy.  Maybe with an oatmeal cookie shot.  Or milk.

curry in a hurry

Posted on by Chris
4

First of all, it is a damn crying shame that the interweb isn’t scratch and sniff.  Seriously. It smells like freaking curry heaven in here.  Tonight in the continuing-pressure-cooker experiment, we had Cauliflower-Potato Curry from Lorna Sass’ “Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure”.  NO, I have not gone meat-free, but sometimes meatless is nice.  Plus this was the first book to come in to the library from my hold list.

I did a little research after the maiden voyage of the Fagor, since I had a little problem with water dripping from the handle.  The most common solution was to oil the gasket, so I did that, and made extra sure the lid was locked.  No dripping this time.  The other issue I had the first time was the pressure dropping when I moved to the cooler burner once it reached pressure, which is what they recommend people with electric stoves do.  This time, I left it on the same burner but just lowered the heat.  It retained pressure but was slightly scorched on the bottom, and near the end of time started emitting an alarming amount of steam.  Since there was only 22 seconds left, I erred on the side of caution and did a quick release.  And then we got…

Brace yourselves for the best part, people.  After the pot reached pressure, this curry goodness took TWO MINUTES AND 38 SECONDS TO COOK! My hand to God.  The prepping of the vegetables took longer.  Once that was done,  it took MAYBE another 3 minutes to put it all in the pot, bring to a boil and reach pressure.  The Girl Child and I liked it, but we think next time we might add some chicken, or currants, or apples. Or all of the above.

Oh, and another little tasty tidbit to share – I made perfect rice!  In a pot!  Double the amount of water to rice, boil the water, dump in the rice, cover, reduce heat to lowest setting.  And don’t touch it!  My rice was brown basmati – it probably sat there about 50 minutes, maybe 10 minutes longer than it needed to.  White rice would be done in about 20, but won’t suffer if it has to wait.

Tomorrow: black bean chili!

under pressure

Posted on by Chris
7

Hum David Bowie in your head.  Tonight was the maiden voyage of my Fagor Duo pressure cooker, acquired with my long-lost-but-newly-found Sur la Table gift  card.  This is the smaller pot.

A couple friends were intrigued by the idea of risotto in 7 minutes WITHOUT the tedious stirring and broth adding, so that’s what I made tonight.  Most of the recipes I found included things like meat or veggies, but for this trial run, I opted for basics.  It was just arborio rice, butter, oil, garlic, onions and broth.  I was too lazy to open a big bottle of white wine just for this; otherwise I would have added a bit of that.  For those in Seattle, you can get this here GIANT (and by that I mean two foot) bag of arborio rice at Cash and Carry for $14.  Seriously!

The first steps are the same as regular risotto – sweating the onions and garlic in butter/olive oil, then add the rice (I used 1 1/2 cups) and coat each grain, stirring til well-coated in fat.

Now comes the fun part!  Normally, you would start adding ladlefuls of hot broth a little at a time, stirring til each addition was absorbed by the rice. But with this handy little gadget, I just dumped in 3 1/2 cups of broth!  Put the lid on, locked it down, and waited til it came up to pressure (you know it’s at pressure because it starts to steam and the little orange button pops up).  Here is the only tricky part.  Once it reaches pressure, you need to reduce the heat WHILE still maintaining pressure.  On electric stoves, they suggest you have another burner set on low so you can move to the pot off the high heat and avoid overcooking.  I turned my second burner down TOO low – it lost pressure.  I read that if that happens, you should increase the heat til it returns to pressure and add a few minutes to your cooking time.  The cooking time, by the way, starts once it reaches pressure.  So I turned up the heat and added a few minutes, but the button never popped back up.  It did start steaming again, so I waited with one eye on the exit in case all hell broke loose.  When the timer went off, I used the quick-release method to reduce the pressure (even though it technically never regained pressure, I wasn’t taking any chances), which is basically just running some cold water over the lid.  Mine also has a knob for releasing steam so I did that too, just in case.  I took off the lid and voila!  It was a miracle!  That rice was cooked!  And it had been maybe 10 minutes!  It was a smidge loose, so I left on the heat a couple minutes, grated in some Parmesan, and….

would you look at that!?  It was fabulous! Can’t wait to try some with sausage and peppers, mushrooms, shrimp…god know I have enough arborio.

So go forth, you fraidy cats!  Get thee a pressure cooker!

the chewy

Posted on by Chris
3

For years my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe has come from Fine Cooking.  It kicks ass, and I have had no reason to look for another.  Until.  Until I discovered an intriguing recipe from Alton Brown called The Chewy.  My standard recipe varies from the one on the Toll House package because it uses cold butter, not room temp.  This makes for a nice, thick and chewy cookie.  It also makes an unholy mess when you try to cream the sugar into the cold butter.  (You’ll want to cover your mixing bowl if you try it. Just saying.)  But Alton’s uses melted butter!  And BREAD FLOUR!  And a little milk!  And it has a cult-like following.  Clearly, I needed to see what all the fuss was about.  (And if successful, try to make the ultimate oatmeal cookie, long searched for.)

Full disclosure:  Some people are anal bakers.  They cannot veer from the recipe AT ALL. Everything is precisely measured. I am precise about NOTHING, except maybe butter and eggs, but that’s because they are conveniently pre-measured.  I know that I did not put an exact two cups of flour in, or a teaspoon of baking soda or salt.  The sugar was also probably off. So there you go.

I’ll tell you one thing – using melted butter was MUCH easier than 2 1/2 sticks of cold butter.  I was a little confused about the creaming instruction – it mostly just kind of melted into the butter.  I creamed til it seemed thickened and well mixed.  The result was more like caramel, rather than the fluffy stuff I usually get.

You then add the eggs, vanilla and milk, and finally the flour and chocolate.  It tells you to chill the dough, which is necessary because this is a VERY loose batter.  It doesn’t specify how LONG to chill it though. I gave it a couple hours.  He specifies a #20 scoop – mine was #40 which i THINK is half the size he used.  The first batch I left in balls, and they were done in 10 minutes.  Edges were a little too crispy so next time I flattened them slightly.  Same result, too brown.  Then I turned the oven down to 350, since my scoops were smaller, and upped the baking time to 12 minutes.  That helped a little, preserving the chewiness.  Can you tell the difference?  The one on the right was baked at 350, versus 375 on the left.

And the verdict?  I’ll keep on cleaning up the unholy mess of my tried and true recipe.  Texturally, these seemed much lighter than my usual ones, less dense and chewy.  Sure, they might be easier to make (but more time-consuming since you need to chill them), but what’s the point if they aren’t the best you can make?  I may still tinker with the base of this to see what I can do about that perfect oatmeal cookie.

The Chewy by Alton Brown (my notes are in red)

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter
  • 2 1/4 cups bread flour
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
  • Ice cream scooper (#20 disher, to be exact)
  • Parchment paper (I didn’t use any – I was out)
  • Baking sheets
  • Mixer

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. (Why?  I did it in the microwave). Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside. ( I rarely sift. Unless it’s powdered sugar. Just stirred with a fork a bit.)

Pour the melted butter in the mixer’s work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough (I did for two hours), then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. My scoops were smaller – I baked for  10-12 minutes, after I turned the oven down to 350.  You want the edges to be golden, but the middle should still be soft and pale – they will set as they cool. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.