The Cookie Jar

Mom took a month long vacation in Rhode Island and I was left with some interesting ingredients in the fridge. I've yet to touch the fennel bulb. I hate fennel seeds and fennel bulbs are supposed to have a licorice-y flavor, which I also do not like. It may well go bad before I attempt to use it. The quinoa on the other hand piqued my interest. It's like a grain, but it isn't. It's seeds.

I poked at various recipes and finally decided upon this one, Quinoa and Black Beans. It had good ratings and a lot of rave reviews. I didn't follow it completely, so I'll just put up my little version here. A lot of reviewers noted that two cans of black beans was too much and I only had one can anyway.

( Quinoa and Black Beans )

Usually, when a recipe fails, it is because the person cooking/baking didn't actually follow the recipe. Every once in a while, you run into a recipe that just sucks. This is a story about one of those. A week ago, I was flipping through some Southern Dessert compilation magazine and they had a recipe for teacakes. Teacakes are not actual cakes, they're cookies. I guess they're a Southern thing. The only time I can ever recall having a teacake was when I worked at Cou-yon's. Our boss traded a guy a plate of BBQ for the teacakes he was selling. And they were good. They weren't crunchy, a bit soft, but still crumbly. I remember commenting at the time that it'd compliment a sweet potato filling really well. So when I saw this recipe, I had that in mind. However, the recipe called for seven cups of flour and I thought that'd be a bit much to make for this house hold with two people in it.

I looked for another recipe and came across Paula Deen's Southern Teacakes. When I look up recipes online, I always like to read the reviews, see who didn't follow the recipe, see how many reviews there are. I mean, a recipe with one five star review isn't necessarily as good as a recipe with 50 reviews adding up to 4 1/2 stars. I always poke around and look at alternatives and compare. I decided to stick with Paula's because of all the "It tastes like my grandma/aunt/church lady's teacakes" comments. I was hoping I'd get similar results.

Well, I didn't. I should have been suspicious of the brevity of the instructions. They're barely a paragraph long! No mention of creaming the butter and sugar. It reminds me of asking a kid to write instructions for a peanut butter and jelly. Put the peanut butter and jelly on bread and you have a sandwich. Ok, but how?

The recipe calls for two sticks of softened butter, 2 eggs and a half a cup of buttermilk and only four cups of flour. It mentions that the dough will be soft. More like completely unworkable for what comes next. There was just no way in hell that soft sticky dough was going to be turned out on a floured board, rolled, cut with a cookie cutter and put on a pan. But, skeptical as I was, I tried it anyway. The dough stuck to everything. I floured my cookie cutter, it stuck. I criscoed my cookie cutter, it stuck. I wasn't even able to get the excess dough from around my shapes because it was too soft! Clearly, it needed either more flour or to be chilled in the fridge and with that much butter. Though, I still couldn't see it working well after chilling without more flour.

Now, the funny thing is, I went back to the Southern baking magazine and do you know what their recipe calls for? Everything that's in Paula's recipe with the exact measurements, except it calls for 7 cups of flour instead of 4. I should have gone with that one to begin with. I had to work in more flour and stick it in the freezer and I'm still not sure if I will have anything worth eating. I wasn't very thrilled with my test batch of sticky dough. The two cookies I had came out so gooey. The flavor is pretty much standard sugar cookie. Basically, it's disappointing in so many ways. It's not like I changed any part of the recipe. I did add a bit of nutmeg, to attempt to get that spicy taste I remembered, but that's it.

I'm baking up the fortified dough that I had in the freezer now, but I'm already so disappointed with these teacakes, I don't know if I want to eat them. I hate it when a recipe falls through. The last time I had this happen, it was also a cookie recipe and also had issues with the butter. Basically, it was all butter and a ridiculously small amount of flour, and the cookies, if you could call them that, turned into melted puddles of butter in the oven. I had never been so pissed at a cookie recipe before. But now I'm having similar feelings of disgust. Now I'm going to mope around being grumpy all night. Stupid teacakes. Now I'll be stuck on the hunt for the perfect teacake recipe. The "perfect" recipe of anything can be so elusive!

You know, I have lots to write about, but I am lazy. So I'll just share a recipe instead. I stumbled across the recipe a while ago and I thought it was something Brian should make for a contest he had a work. He didn't. Loser.

Well, his birthday is coming up and he was having a not-bachelor party thing, so I decided it was the perfect time to make this manly recipe. What manly recipe? A Car Bomb Cake! An Irish Car Bomb is not an act of terrorism, but it is a terrifying combination of Baileys Irish Cream, Irish Whiskey, and Guinness that you mix together and chug before it curdles. Ew. The cake however, sounds intriguing! A Guinness chocolate cake with a whiskey chocolate ganache and Baileys frosting. Mmm. The recipe is taken the Smitten Kitchen and the only change I made was that I didn't make them into time consuming cupcakes, I just made a round two layer cake. So let's talk manly alcoholic cake!

( Car Bomb Cake! BOOM! )

In my America's Test Kitchen Newsletter, they had a really tasty sounding recipe for a New York Crumb Cake and I wanted to make it, but I don't have buttermilk and I can't be arsed to go out and get it. =P But I ended up on a recipe for something else and the name just boggled me. Blueberry Boy Bait. *blinks* It had a cutesy little story attached:

In 1954, a 15-year-old girl won second prize in the junior division of a Pillsbury baking contest with a moist and tender blueberry cake that was named after the effect it had on teenage boys--one bite and they were hooked. Topped with cinnamon-sugar and loaded with blueberries, it straddled the divide between coffee cake and dessert cake.

Ok, sounds tasty and I have all the ingredients, so I made it.

( Blueberry Boy Bait )

So the answer the the question that I'm sure you're all asking, "Will Blueberry Boy Bait bring all the boys to the yard?" is disappointingly "No." It's lacking too many things that would make it truly enjoyable. Right now it's just palatable as far as I'm concerned. I'm not looking forward to polishing this thing off. =/

I have a giant Christmas post, but I keep stalling. Instead, I'm going to post my brand new Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. Sure, the Tollhouse recipe is the standard, and a very yummy standard at that, but this one makes a few tweaks that make all the difference. My grandmother clipped it from the newspaper and sent it along with its attached article. I'll post that too, because it's an interesting read. So without further ado, let the great cookie post begin.

( Yummy Cookie Article )

And with all that in mind, here's the recipe:

( 'Divine' Chocolate Chip Cookies )

( For-Chan's Notes: )

Our fridge is full of veggies that my mother keeps on buying and never cooking, so when they've been in there for a while, I have to scramble to think of something to do with them. Last night, we had some zucchini on their way out. There was also some ricotta about to go South. We had spinach in the freezer and just enough eggs for a quiche. We didn't have any pre-made pie crusts though and I hate making dough. There was an ancient copy of The Joy of Cooking on the counter that my great-grandmother gave to my mom in 1976 according to the inscription. It was published sometime in the 30s of 40s (the date isn't clear) and it shows its age. I flipped through and found what sounded like an easy recipe for pie crust, and it was!

( Hot Water Pie Crust )

It's a really easy recipe and it worked! I made pie dough! I avoid making pie dough like the plague! But it worked! *dances* So if you're like me and can't make pie dough, well, now you can. Now onto the quiche part. This one is a little different because it's uses ricotta, so you get a much softer texture. It's quite yummy, though I did modify it a bit for some extra flavor. ^_^

( Spinach Ricotta Cheese Quiche )

And here's pictures of my quiche. ( Food Porn? )

So today was yet another great kitchen experiment. I created a Chicken Enchilada Casserole that came out so yummy! Of course, I'm biased, but whatever ^_^ I love the flavors of enchilada, hence my love of last week's Creamy Enchilada Soup. Anyway, on with the recipe!

( Chicken Enchilada Casserole )

I took crappy pictures of my cookies which I shall inflict on you!


Here's the assortment plate. There's Peanut Butter Temptations, Pumpkin Ginger Pillows, Gingerbread, Spritz and Rum balls ^___^ I haven't rolled out and baked the sugar cookies yet >_> Maybe tomorrow.

The other ones, you can just look at over in my Holiday Gallery. And now, a recipe! Yay! Come find the secret of soft and spicy Pumpkin Ginger Pillows!

( C is for Cookie! )

I have completed and eated the Fettuccine Alfredo. I used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen, a PBS cooking show. They say that their goal is "a luxurious sauce that remained supple and velvety from the first bite of pasta to the last." So, was it?

( The Recipe )

Now first of all, I went out and bought fresh grated parmesan. I hate when people tell me "There's Kraft in the fridge." Yeah? So? If I'm cooking with it and it's the basis of the meal, I'm not using Kraft. I know it claims to be 100% Parmesan, but it's been sitting on a shelf for who knows how long. So, I ran out for the fresh stuff.

I followed all the instructions, used the fresh pasta, etc and so forth. As promised, it did thicken up very nicely. So how did it taste? Like parmesan... How did I want it to taste? I wanted it a little creamier. Despite heating the bowls and serving it hot, it's cold here and it congealed pretty quickly, so it wasn't smooth and creamy, it was lumpy and kinda creamy. I love cheese, but I was expecting more creaminess and less overwhelming parmesan. There's really not that much cheese in the recipe. Don't get me wrong, it was good, it just wasn't what I was looking for. I definitely want more cream and less cheese in my alfredo sauce. Ah well, live to try another day. Well, if I don't clog up my arteries trying.

Bottom line: Don't cook this dish on a cold night! Cook it when it's warm and when you're jonesing for parmesan. The fresh pasta is a nice change from the box stuff, it cooks in no time! I imagine it would be very tasty with broccoli or something in it. ^_^ Even by itself it is tasty and full of cheesy goodness. Don't be greedy, have a small serving and some nice veggies!