P is for Peanut Butter Cookies

Although summer seems the perfect time for desserts like ice cream, sorbet, peach pie, popsicles, and berry cobblers, I tend to make a lot of cookies.  Maybe it's because they're so portable.  I can toss a few in a bag and bring them along for a picnic or a boat ride.  No refrigeration required.  In fact, if the chocolate chips have melted a little in the summer heat, the cookies will be better!  Maybe I make a lot of cookies because they're a small dessert.  You can pop one as a snack, crumble them over ice cream, or dunk them in milk for the full experience.  

Maybe it's because everyone loves cookies.  My father-in-law adores cookies.  I would go so far as to say that cookies are his achilles heel.  He gave this recipe his stamp of approval, so I know they're good enough to recommend to you.  Enjoy!  

For this recipe, I used unsweetened peanut butter from Whole Foods- the freshly ground variety that tastes dramatically different to those expecting Jif or Peter Pan.  It made the cookies taste a little less sweet but still positively delicious.

Peanut Butter Cookies

from Williams-Sonoma Baking

1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted

1/2 c. firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 c. creamy peanut butter

1 large egg

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 1/3 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

In a mixer on medium speed, beat together the melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, peanut butter, egg, and vanilla.  Sift together in a medium bowl the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Once the peanut butter mixture is creamy and light, slowly add the dry ingredients, blending on low speed.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Spray cookie sheets with non-stick spray.  Use a cookie dough scoop or a tablespoon to measure out the dough in equal quantities and then roll the dough with dampened hands into 1-inch balls.  Place the balls on prepared baking sheets.  Use a fork dipped in flour to lightly press each dough ball and flatten slightly.  Bake the cookies 12-15 minutes and let them cool briefly on the pans.  Use a spatula to move them to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely. 

H is for Haystacks

The class hamster is lost.  It is completely my fault.  I arranged for his summer vacation at a student's house, but 24 hours into his time share, I got a phone call that it wasn't going to work.  So Meatloaf, the third grade hamster, is at my house for the summer.  At least he was!  I took him out of his cage for a little ball-rolling time the other night while Peter and I watched a movie.  Then I put him back in his cage but evidently I forgot to securely latch the door.  I must admit, I didn't realize he was gone for about 24 hours.  Now we're dealing with a missing hamster who's had plenty of time to find alternative lodging somewhere in this house.  Peter's been a great sport, even waking up early to don a headlamp and lift up all the furniture and inspect for hamster holes.  No evidence of him anywhere yet.

In honor of Meatloaf, our needle in a haystack, I made chocolate haystacks today.  They're very simple to make, but they'll satisfy any chocolate craving with the greatest of ease.  

Chocolate Haystacks
from Ellie Krieger's cookbook: So Easy

3 large shredded wheat biscuits
6 oz. dark chocolate (60% to 70& cocoa), chopped  

Line a baking sheet with wax paper.  Using your hands, crush the shredded wheat biscuits into thread-like pieces in a bowl.  Place the chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water.  Melt the chocolate in the double boiler, stirring constantly, until it is smooth.  Remove the pan from the heat.  Add the crushed shredded wheat to the chocolate and stir until it is well coated.  Using a cookie scoop, place tablespoon-size stacks of the mixture onto the wax paper.  Place in the refrigerator to cool for about 20 minutes.  Store and serve at room temperature.        

C is for Compost Cookies

This recipe is so creative and fun that I have to recommend it.  Ever heard of Momofuku Milk Bar in New York?  Momofuku is a well-recognized restaurant group, but the Milk Bar is a restaurant specializing in milk and cookies.  Genius.  They serve a variety of over-sized cookies, candy bar pies, bagels, coffee, and flavored milks like "cereal milk."  I don't even have to explain what that means because I think you'll know what it is.  You just never knew you could order it at a bar!

One of Momofuku's specialties is their compost cookies, which are packed with pretzels, oats, butterscotch bits, potato chips, coffee grounds, rice krispies, and anything else that's in the pantry.  I love this!  I didn't include coffee grounds in my batch of cookies, but I've heard a tablespoon makes all the difference in the cookies sold in the milk bar.  Maybe I'll try that next time.  I have made these before with Pringles, graham crackers, Hershey's kisses, green M&M's, white chocolate chips, and Kix cereal.  Use whatever you have in your pantry for a delightful sweet and salty contrast.      

The most difficult aspect of this recipe is the wait time.  I whipped the eggs for about 10 minutes in the hard-working Kitchenaid mixer.  That's a long time.  I scooped out the cookies on parchment and let them chill in the fridge for a few hours.  That's a long time [to not eat the cookie dough].  Finally, after you bake them you have to let these guys cool on the cookie sheet so they won't crumble into a mess.  That's a long time too!  Basically, you shouldn't attempt this recipe if you're impatient, keep a very crowded refrigerator, or if you don't have a stand mixer.  Go with Nestle instead.

Compost Cookies

recipe by Christina Tosi

1 c. butter

1 c. sugar

3/4 c. light brown sugar

1 Tbsp. corn syrup

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. kosher salt

1 1/2 c. your favorite baking ingredients (like chocolate chips, oats, Raisinettes, Rollos, butterscotch bits, rice krispies, M&Ms, etc.)

1 1/2 c. your favorite crunchy snack foods (chips, graham crackers, pretzels, etc.)

In a stand mixer, cream the butter, sugars, and corn syrup for a few minutes until fluffy and pale yellow in color.  On a low speed, add the eggs and vanilla.  Increase mixing speed to medium-high and start a timer for 10 minutes.  The creamed mixture should nearly double in size during this time.  

When the timer goes off, lower the speed and add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Once this is incorporated, add in the hodgepodge of your favorite baking ingredients and then your favorite snack foods only allowing it to mix until incorporated.  You do not want to over mix the batter.  

Using an ice cream scoop, portion cookie dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or up to a week.  If you bake the cookie dough at room temperature, it will not hold its shape.  

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 400 F.  Take the plastic off the cookies and bake for 9-11 minutes.  The cookies should be brown around the edges and just beginning to brown in the center.  If they seem too doughy, give them a little more time in the oven.  Cool the cookies completely on the cookie sheet before transferring them to a container for storage.  

F is for Foxfield

The last Saturday in April is a holiday in Charlottesville.  We call it Foxfield.  It is the sunniest, preppiest, most entertaining splash of spring you've ever seen.  Oh, and it's a steeplechase horse race, but some people go to Foxfield and never see a horse.  Even though the undergraduate students make up the greatest percentage of the massive crowd, there are plenty of plots for us "grownups."  We actually watch the horse races (and take $1 bets too)!

I enjoy the challenge of creating a picnic for Foxfield because it has to be sun-proof.  It has to be easily packed and organized so that we can set up quickly, chow down and hang out for hours, and then pack it all up again.  This year's spread was pretty delicious, so today I'll share my menu.  I had plenty of helpers to create the meal and even more helpers to consume it, so I can't take all the credit for putting this together.  Nonetheless, I was the planner and that's a role I love.  

Foxfield Menu

Assorted sandwiches (roast beef, ham, turkey, grilled chicken)

Blue cheese, cranberry, spinach, & apple wraps

Italian pasta salad (with feta and pepperoni)

Sesame noodles with red peppers and carrots

Prosciutto and spinach Stromboli

Texas Caviar (a chunky salsa with black beans, hominy, & black eyed peas)

S'mores Cookies

Rice Krispie Treats

Crudités with red pepper hummus

Watermelon

Mimosas, Bloody Marys, the "Monarch," & other cocktails

Gourmet Jello Shots

Wraps made with a blue cheese spread, dried cranberries,
granny smith apples, pecans, and spinach

Italian pasta salad with tomatoes, cucumber, feta, and pepperoni

Sesame noodles with carrot ribbons and thinly sliced red peppers

Stromboli with prosciutto and mozzarella, plus spinach and
mushrooms from the farm box

Texas caviar: a chunky salsa made with black-eyed peas, black beans,
yellow and green peppers, hominy, tomatoes, and jalapenos

S'mores cookies with chocolate chips, graham crackers, and marshmallows

Rice Krispie treats

Vegetable crudités with red pepper hummus

My "gourmet" jello shots were one of the biggest hits of the day.  I purchased 2 oz. condiment cups with lids from a restaurant supply shop here in Charlottesville and mixed up several batches of jello shots.  My varieties?  Cranberry jello with vodka and lime juice made a classy cocktail.  Orange jello with vodka made marvelous mini screwdrivers.  Lime jello with tequila was the perfect mini margarita.  Lemon jello with sweet tea vodka made a fantastic Arnold Palmer.  We got lots and lots of compliments on our fun jello drinks!       

I failed to take pictures of our sandwiches, but we tried something new this year and it was a success.  The night before the picnic, we had a sandwich assembly line and created at least 20 different combinations of bread, meat, and cheese.  We used turkey, spiral sliced ham, roast beef, and grilled chicken breasts marinated in caesar dressing.  We had a variety of cheeses also, including cheddar, pepper jack, brie, swiss, and blue cheese.  We used sub rolls, sandwich buns, bagel thins, and whole wheat bread.  After each sandwich was built, we labeled the plastic sandwich bags with incredibly cute labels made by Lotta Jansdotter.  I gave the pen and labels to my sister-in-law, Lindsay, because she's got the perfect handwriting of a designer, and she stickered each sandwich with a little love.  They looked so cute I could barely stand it.  Let me add that we got lots of compliments on our adorable sandwiches and how professional they looked.  "Are these from a deli?" was my favorite comment.  To keep the sandwiches from getting soggy, we left off any condiments and just put a small cooler under the table that held mayonnaise, mustards, pickles, and banana peppers on ice.  It worked out perfectly.  In general, our Foxfield weekend was a great, preppy, picnic success!  

Lindsay & Peter busy on the sandwich assembly line

 

      

C is for Chunky Cranberry Cookies

Have you seen those gifts that come layered in mason jars?  I've spotted cookie doughs, brownie mixes, bean soups, instant cappuccinos, and even corn bread given as a present with a note and directions to use whenever you're ready.  It's a great idea and a nice way to gift food without forcing a meal or baked goods on someone.  I really like this idea for giving a jar of M&M cookie mix to friends that might mix up a batch of cookies for Santa around the holidays.  What a quick & easy way to include kids in the cookies-for-Santa process!    

A fellow teaching friend gave me a mason jar filled with cookie dough ingredients layered beautifully.  It came with a sweet little card and the steps to make her "cranberries in the snow" cookies.  It was the quickest cookie recipe I've ever tossed together because I only had to add butter, an egg, and vanilla extract.  She had already included flour, baking soda, salt, oats, sugar, cranberries, white and dark chocolate chips, and walnuts in the jar.  So simple and so sweet!  

The cookies were absolutely delicious and even Peter, who hates nuts in his desserts, grabbed a few warm cookies to enjoy.  I took the chunky cookies with me to a potluck dinner with some friends and folks were eating them along with the appetizers!  They couldn't even wait until the meal was over to try them!

Because the cookies were filled with so many chunky delicious ingredients, I realized that baking them on a cookie sheet made them somewhat brittle and breakable.  Even with a gentle hand, some of the cookies were breaking apart when I tried to take them off the cookie sheet.   I wanted to preserve all that chunky goodness!  I decided to scoop the batter into my mini muffin tin and the final product was a real success.  I had thick, chewy hunks of cookie that were perfectly tender and soft in the middle but cooked enough around the outside to give them a solid shape.  I will be cooking more chunky cookies this way.  Give it a shot!  

Chunky Cranberry Cookies
from Sara Gibson

1 1/8 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. rolled oats, uncooked
1/3 c. white sugar
1/3 c. brown sugar
1 c. dried cranberries
1/2 c. white or dark chocolate baking chips
1/2 c. walnuts, chopped

1/2 c. butter, softened
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Layer the dry ingredients into a mason jar and attach baking directions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper.  Using a mixer, beat the butter until creamy and add egg and vanilla.  Add contents of the jar and mix until well blended.  Drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto the cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.

M is for Meringues

One of my favorite cookies is a light, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth meringue.  I like vanilla the most and I like the teeny tiny bite-sized ones because you can eat a whole bunch and you haven't done much damage to your health.  Because of a meringue's low-calorie reputation, dieters often get hooked on their crispy, light goodness.  One take on meringues is a dessert called a pavlova;  it's actually named after a Russian ballerina named Anna Pavlova. Evidently she liked big fluffy piles of meringue served with fruit and whipped cream on top.  It's a really common dessert during holidays in New Zealand and Russia and it often gets topped with berries, kiwi, or plums.  mmm...

I have had successful and unsuccessful meringue adventures.  I know that egg whites can be sensitive and I've done all I can to avoid their tragic "fall," but sometimes the reasons just escape me.  After some research (AKA Googling), I learned that egg whites need to be room temperature and that your mixing bowl must be immaculate.  Okay, done.  I also learned that egg whites are very sensitive to humidity and changes in weather because they have so much air whipped into them.  The type of air you're putting in there truly matters.  I can deal with that.  Note to self:  do not make meringues in August in Virginia.  Egg whites will not fluff up if they have any yolk mixed in with them and if you use your fingers to dig out shell or yolk when separating the whites, then you might as well pitch the whole thing.  Grease and oils, even from hands, mess up the whole situation.  Other things you should know about meringues is that they have to be mixed with a fine sugar and they must be cooked at a low temperature for a long time because you're drying them out more than cooking them.  Whew!  Can we say high maintenance?!  

This afternoon I tried to make some brown sugar meringues and I failed.  The whites fell and I could not get them back up.  I added the sugar slowly!  They were room temperature!  Everything was spic n' span!  I think my problem was that I had a couple windows open in the house.  It's because it was a glorious 70 degrees outside today and I was awfully excited about spring.  Oh, well.  I tried baking the drooly mess of whites in muffin cups as a last stitch effort, but it just made a nastier mess and I ended up tossing the whole situation in the trashcan.  I chose not to photo document this embarrassing episode.

Tonight, after Peter escaped to the office to work on taxes, I got the mixer out again, tied my apron on tighter than usual, and got to work again.  Same meringue recipe.  More determination this time!  I used eggs that weren't quite room temperature and I added the sugar after the whites were a little more stiff and perhaps that was the ticket.  I also whipped them for nearly 10 minutes while I did various kitchen chores and packed lunches for me and my man.  Boy, were those whites fluffy!  I used my Pampered Chef piping tool (thank you, Grandma!) and made beautiful star shaped cookies on parchment paper.  They're in the oven now, and I'll have you know they look great.  I'm going to let them cool in the oven overnight so they're nice and crisp.  I've read about how meringues sweat and droop in the fridge and are best kept in a breathable container like a tin at room temperature.  Goodness, they're high maintenance from beginning to end!

I've come to grips with the fact that my open windows doomed my first batch of brown sugar meringues, but I'm still unsure of what happened to my chocolate meringues a few weeks ago.  When I followed the recipe exactly, why did they flatten out into tooth-breaking discs in the oven?  They were absolutely fluffy when I piped them out and put them in the oven, so what happened in there?!  Let me know if you have any insight because I will not let this cookie defeat me.  I like it too much!

Brown Sugar Vanilla Meringues
adapted from The Williams-Sonoma baking book and Cook Yourself Thin Faster

3-4 egg whites
pinch of salt
few drops of lemon juice
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 250.  Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.  In a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, combine egg whites, salt, and lemon juice.  Beat on high speed for about 2 minutes.  Reduce the speed and slowly add the sugar.  Return the mixer to high speed and beat until the egg whites are firm and glossy.  It might take 7-10 minutes.  Slow the speed again and add the tsp. of vanilla extract.

You can pipe your meringues using a plastic bag, an accent decorator, an ice cream scoop, or even just a spoon.  Bake the meringues for 1 hour and then turn off the oven and let them stay in the oven for another hour.  You can even crack the door and let them stay in there to dry overnight.  Enjoy!  

    

O is for Oatmeal Scotchies

One of my go-to cookbooks for desserts is called Nestle Classic Recipes.  It's got all your favorites like original chocolate chip cookies (that all our mothers made), gooey peanut bars, lemon bars, blondies, fudge, and cheesecake.  They're basic recipes, and you can bet that whatever you make from the book will disappear quickly.

I chose to make Oatmeal Scotchies because I had a 1/2 bag of butterscotch chips that I kept sneaking bites from and I needed them to go away.  The batter was thick and delicious, but the cookies flattened out a lot more than I expected them to in the oven.  I think I need new baking soda.  Regardless of their flat shape, the cookies were delicately crispy and chewy at the same time and the flavor was...awesome.  I packaged some up for a friend and she came back asking for more.  Maybe you'll make some Scotchies this week!

Oatmeal Scotchies

1 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. butter, softened
3/4 c. granulated sugar
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 c. old fashioned oats
1 2/3 c. butterscotch morsels

Preheat your oven to 375.  Combine the dry goods: flour, baking soda, cinnamon & salt in a bowl.  In the mixer, beat butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.  Gradually add the dry goods and then stir in your oats and morsels.  Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets and cook for 7-9 minutes.