Sweet Sunday

Hi everyone!  Today I'm going to share a recipe that is near and dear to my heart: my own favorite Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Here's the deal: I have a good friend here in law school who loves cookies much more than any grown man should.  These cookies are pretty much his favorite thing EVER (he asked for these, in lieu of cake, for his birthday).  Also, because he is a good Catholic, he really wanted to engage in a personal sacrifice for Lent and accordingly gave up sweets.  This is big, because this guy normally eats at least one cookie every day.  His daily cookie was the light in the dark place that is law school.  SO, I thought I'd be a really great friend and make him a batch of these for Easter, when he breaks his six week sweets-fast.  Also, I owe him big time because he agreed to compete with me in our class Moot Court competition even though he won't get anything out of it- so a thank you gift is in order.  (Thanks M!)

There's only one Problem: Hubby and I are going to Niagara Falls over Easter weekend to celebrate my Birthday. (WOOHOO!!)
Luckily, I have a Solution: Give my friend frozen dough to bake himself on Sunday.

Here's my recipe of choice.  At this point, I don't honestly remember where it came from:

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 C flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C softened butter (unsalted)
1/4 C softened margarine
1 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2 C chocolate chip (use 1 part dark chocolate, 1 part semi-sweet chocolate, and 1 part milk chocolate)

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees and prep baking sheets (grease, or line with parchment paper or a Silpat/silicone baking mat).
2) Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
3) In a stand mixer on medium speed, cream together butter, margarine, and sugars until very light and fluffy (3-5 minutes), then beat in vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy.
4) With the mixer on low, mix in the sifted dry ingredients until just combined, then stir in the chocolate chips.
5) Drop onto prepared sheets and bake approximately 14 minutes.  Cool slightly on the pan, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely.

And, as always, here are my "notes":

-I use the butter/margarine mix because I feel like the combination makes a cookie with better texture.  You can use entirely butter or entirely margarine; nothing bad will happen, but I prefer the mix (which I ironically discovered by accident, just using what I had thawed in the refrigerator).

-DON'T SKIP the mix of chocolate chips.  YES, it would be easier to just use one whole bag of semi-sweet chips.  BUT, if you want the best, gourmet-bakery tasting cookies, use the mix.  It gives the cookies a greater depth of chocolate flavor that's really delightful.  Also, buy the best quality chips you can afford.  As always, the best ingredients make the best final products.

-Lastly, if you want to freeze and share cookie dough, here's a neat trick: plop the dough on a Silpat that you've covered with Saran wrap.  Use the Silpat to form the dough into a log, then roll it up into the Saran wrap, like this:

Secure the ends of the roll by twisting tightly then cinching off with a rubber band (or a twist-tie would also work).  Viola!  Just like a tube of store bought dough.  The recipient of this bad boy just has to slice and bake.  I've seen people do this to give as a gift at Christmastime, making cute wrappings using scrapbooking paper.  For my purposes, I think the Saran wrapped roll is just fine.  My friend will probably find the dough itself just as aesthetically pleasing as some cute wrapping I could make.

So there it is, my favorite, go-to cookies.  I know everyone has their own favorite; I go back and forth between these and my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Craisin cookies (but I'll save those for another post).  I never have leftovers, so I guess that's a sign of a cookie well baked, right?  (Right).

Lastly, in other news, my birthday is coming this week!  Wednesday is the big 2-5, and I have decided to cook a big dinner for friends on Thursday.  I'm making homemade spaghetti and meatballs, with a cheesecake for dessert!  So I have to ask, which would you guys rather learn: my always-delicious spaghetti sauce/meatball recipe, or everything that you need to know to make an excellent cheesecake?  Let me know in the comments, and until next time... Happy Eating!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, folks!  Yes, that's right, it's March 17 once again.  There's green everywhere, shamrocks are scattered about, and my Birthday is fast approaching.  I love March.  We're also celebrating the Patron Saint of Ireland.  (Since I've come to Notre Dame, I've learned a lot about many different Catholic Saints.  In case you, like me, didn't actually know anything about Saint Patrick, click here to read all about him).

Unfortunately, due to poor planning on my part, our menu for today wasn't Irish at all: french toast for lunch and spaghetti for dinner.  Whoops.  So, as my husband was lamenting the fact that we can't properly celebrate Saint Patrick's day without Irish food, I did some quick Googling and found what is probably the easiest bread recipe I've ever made: TRADITIONAL Irish Soda Bread, courtesy of the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread.  No, I am not making this up.  If you take some time to explore their website you'll note that the friendly people there take Traditional Irish Soda Bread very seriously.  There's a whole list of items that, if present, mean your bread isn't traditional, which I found rather informative (about halfway down the page- but don't rush.  They have an interesting tale to tell.).  You'll note if you Google "Irish Soda Bread" yourself, you'll find recipes from reputable sources which are apparently NOT the real deal, if you take THE LIST at its word, which I, for one, opted to do.

SO, here it is.  A true Irish Soda Bread, I learned, has but four ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk.  If you're feeling extra adventurous, you may not get whacked for adding a little bit of butter.  The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread lists two varieties: Brown (wheat) and White bread; I opted for brown, but stayed true and omitted the butter.

Ingredients:
3 C Wheat Flour
1 C White Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
14 oz. Buttermilk

Instructions:
It's as easy as can be. If you don't have a dutch oven to use, you'll want to heavily grease and flour a 9" cake pan, and get a matching one ready to use as a "lid" to simulate dutch oven cooking.  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees, and then:

1) Sift together the dry ingredients.

2) Add the buttermilk, and stir together to make a sticky dough.

 3) Turn out onto a heavily floured surface and lightly "knead."  I just turned it over a few times and formed it into a ball.  You don't want to over-work it, or all the gas from the baking soda will come out - which is bad - because that's the only leavening we've got.

4) Flatten the ball a bit into the floured pan, and cut a cross into the top of the bread.

5) Cover the bread with the other pan, and bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes, then remove the cover and bake an additional 15 minutes.  Remove, and wrap in a lightly dampened tea towel to cool.

Right before it went in

Fresh from the oven

6) TA-DA!  TRADITIONAL, Irish Soda Bread.  It's a little plain, but in determining whether we liked it or not Hubby and I managed to eat half the loaf.  So, I think it's a keeper.  Especially with some butter and jam.  Yum.  Happy Saint Patrick's Day, and hooray for being IRISH! (Or at least pretending).

Easy Slow Cooker Potato Soup

Hello again, everyone!  I hope you've all had a pleasant week... and a half.  Mine was quite busy - but I successfully managed to make it through turning in a monster appellate brief and oral argument, all with a hideous head cold.  Success!  Surviving that means I made it to my glorious, lovely, wonderful spring break.  We kicked it off with a visit from my brother and his family this last weekend.  It was lots of fun, but holy cow, 3 year old's are EXHAUSTING.  I'm now in recovery mode, after the headcold has returned for round two: horrendous cough.

Given that it's 3.14, and I am a nerd, I should probably be posting about pie today.  Alas, I'm sick enough that I won't be making much of anything today.  But here's a picture of a lovely apple pie to tide you over:

MMMMMmmm, 3.1415926535897...

Instead, I'm talking about soup today.  Two nights ago, Hubby had to head off to a church activity immediately after work, so dinner needed to be ready to eat right when he walked in the door.  To complicate matters, we share a car, so it had to be ready when we both walked in the door from me picking him up.  No time for last minute flourishes while he was on his way home.  Ergo, I opted for a crock-pot meal.  I know with it being "spring" and everything, some of you may be putting your crock pots away for the season, but here in South Bend, IN, it's 33 degrees and trying to snow.  So, mine is still going strong.

I remember when I was a little kid, my dad would make a smooth potato soup by mashing potatoes then adding onions, milk, broth, etc.  I'm not sure exactly what he put in that stuff, but it was one of my FAVORITE meals in the winter.  I love a good potato soup, so that's what I'm sharing today.  It's a recipe that I adopted from Slow Cooker Creamy Potato Soup on Allrecipes.com.  I actually discovered this last fall, and it quickly became a winner for Saturday dinners, especially on Notre Dame Football Game days.  Hubby and I would freeze all afternoon in the bleachers, then come home to this soup to warm us up.

Ingredients:

6 Slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 onion, finely chopped
1 (32 oz) box of chicken broth or stock
1 (14 oz) can of vegetable broth
4-5 large potatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dill weed
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
2 cups half and half

Instructions:

1) Cook your bacon and remove from the pan, reserving the grease.  Or, if you're like me and buy pre-cooked bacon, you hold off on cooking it until near the end, then heat it in the microwave as usual.  You could also sub in "Real Bacon" bacon bits if you're in a hurry.

2) Use the bacon grease to fry your chopped onion just until it is tender - you don't want these to caramelize, unless you want brown,dirty looking soup (which I don't).  Once they are done, remove from heat and set aside.

Although I typically buy pre-cooked bacon, I do occasionally buy a few pounds of bacon to cook myself so I can save the grease.  I keep a mason jar of bacon grease in my fridge all the time - it keeps for a quite a while, as long as you let it cool to room temperature and solidify BEFORE you put it in the refrigerator, to avoid condensation.  If moisture mixes with the fat, it can go rancid.

These are DONE - just soft and translucent, not browning yet.

3) Next we turn to the potatoes, which are easily the most difficult/time consuming part of the recipe.  You'll need to peel and chop them into 1/4" to 1/2" cubes.  I like to give my potatoes a "rough peel," leaving some skin behind because I like a little bit in my soup.  Getting good cubes can be tricky.  I know many of you don't need a how-to on this front, but I would like to err on the safe side.  Here's how to get uniform cubes without chopping you fingers off:

Roughly peeled potatoes

Set the potato on its flattest side, and slice into discs between 1/4" and 1/2" thick.

Completely sliced

Separate the discs into two potato halves and lay on their flat side.

Slice through lengthwise, to create potato strips.  These are basically cut like french fries at this point.

Gather the strips into a stack you can hold onto.

Slice across one last time to create small cubes.

Ta Da!  Cubed.

4) Add the potatoes, onion, both broths, and the spices to the crock pot, and give it all a stir.  Then lid it, and cook on low approximately 5 hours or until the potatoes are cooked through.

Ready to cook.

5) About 30 minutes before you intend to eat, whisk together the flour and evaporated milk.  Stir the mixture into the crock pot, and add about half of the crumbled bacon, and as much of the half and half as the crock pot will hold.  (Sometimes mine gets a little too full with this recipe and I can't fit the full 2 cups).  Or, if the soup looks like it's getting too thick for your taste, only add about one cup of the half and half.  Cook for an additional 30 minutes on HIGH.  I did this step right before I left to go get Hubby, so it would be done when we returned.

6) When the soup is once again heated through, serve with a handful of bacon crumbles on top.  The soup will also need to be salted and peppered to taste, but I usually just let individuals season it in own bowls, because everyone's preferences are a little different.

That's all there is to it!  Give it a try, and let me know what you think.  It's nothing fancy, but I think it's a really nice, comforting, warms-you-through kind of meal.  Oh, and if you're feeling ambitious, go make a pie too!  Have a wonderful week, everyone.

Anyone want Brownies?

Hello again, everyone.  So, I made Colleen's Slow Cooker Jambalaya this week, intending to blog about it.  However, while it was a good recipe, I wasn't totally blown away, and hubby wasn't a fan.  Probably, I realized, because I'm not sure if we even like Jambalaya.  Go figure.

SO instead, I thought I'd share a brownie recipe that I found in my year off from blogging.  This is embarrassing, but at some point last year, I realized that I had never made GOOD brownies from scratch.  It just seemed easier to make them from a box, so that's usually what I did.  Or I made something else entirely (like cake).

This recipe is especially great, because since starting law school, I've made lots of new friends who like to eat.  The only problem?  Food allergies like you wouldn't believe!  These are great because they are peanut-free, and I can make them dairy-free by subbing margarine for the butter, and gluten-free by using rice flour in place of regular flour.  Like I said, lots of allergies.  Anyway, I was jonesing for some chocolate this evening, so I whipped up a batch of these:

Alton Brown's Cocoa Brownies, courtesy of Foodnetwork.com.  (Because who else would I turn to for recipes?)  Here's the thing though, you shouldn't actually rely on the recipe that Food Network has posted.  They change the instructions a little bit from what AB himself does.  Now, their method might work just fine, but personally... I'm with Alton all the way.  SO, here are the ingredients:

Parchment paper (to line the pan)
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
8 ounces melted butter
2 tsp vanilla

And, to demonstrate how this works, I give you AB himself:

Note: Due to technical difficulties, the video that should be here isn't.  So follow this LINK to watch Alton Brown's demo.  DO IT NOW!

Or, here's the basics:
First, preheat the oven to 300 degrees, and line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper.  Then, beat all the eggs together in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until they are emulsified.  While they are beating, sift together all the dry ingredients (both sugars, cocoa, flour, and salt), and slowly add to the eggs with the mixer running on its lowest speed.  Once it is incorporated and there's not any dry spots remaining, add the vanilla.  Lastly, SLOWLY pour in the melted butter until it is completely mixed, about a minute.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix a few seconds more.  Scoop the batter into the pan, spread into an even layer, and bake 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Here are the only changes I would make to AB's method:

1) I use a 9x13 pan.  The brownies are a bit thinner, but there's more of them.  Personal preference.  Do whichever you like.
2) As I mentioned, these can be made dairy-free by using margarine rather than butter.  Be sure to use stick margarine that is at least 70% vegetable oil, rather than anything that comes in a tub.
3) If you need to go gluten-free, you can substitute white rice flour for regular old all purpose.  I think the reason this substitution works as easily as it does is because there's only 1/2 cup to begin with.

The texture IS a little bit different if you use both margarine and rice flour, but not so different that you would notice unless someone told you, "Hey, these are gluten-free!"  I made these this way for a party with some friends, and it was great because EVERYONE could eat them.  And everyone loved them.  WIN!

So, the next time you're in the mood for brownies, skip the box and try these.  They are my FAVORITE!  And I'm going to need them, to get through the next week.  I have an oral argument on that appellate brief I was talking about on Tuesday.  The two pretty much make up my whole grade for that class.  Hence the chocolate.  Have a good week, everyone, and enjoy!