Cocoa Loco
Alright, I know I said it was going to be a cookie extravaganza, but don’t get mad at me. It’s not the end of the wor… Well… Let me not go there yet. I’ll save a joke for my next post. You know… Just in …Read More….
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Sugar and Spice…
Out of everything I make during the holidays, this has got to be my favorite. I’m a lover of spices and can appreciate the assault on the senses they can do. I think that’s a big reason why I love holiday baking. I get to …Read More….
If Milk Could Dream…
Still the first week of the month and I already feel like I’m slacking. I have quite a few holiday goodies to throw your way so I really should get on the ball here. I mean, here I am, a cookie fanatic missing out on the cookie making season. If this blog has done anything consistently well, it’s making me ashamed of myself.
What? I said cookie and you stopped caring about everything else I was saying? Yeah, I get like that too. I don’t know if that has anything to do with my love for the holidays, but I’m not one to question such things. Cookies are life’s way of saying, “hey… I like you.” But that’s only on good days. On bad days, life gives you lemons. It’s almost always a cookie when it’s a good day.
So I guess this is my semi-official introduction to my Holiday Cookie Posting Extravaganza! (working title). Semi-official because maybe one day I’ll feel like something other than a cookie and I don’t want to be held accountable for lying to you. If you want all the legal information, it’s in the fine print at the bottom of the page under the copyright information that’s there for decoration since no one really looks at this blog.
Anyway, cooki..er, Holiday Cookie Posting Extravaganza! (working title)!
This cookie is a showstopper. It’s made its rounds through the blogging world and Pinterest and has found its way into my belly on more than one occasion. I have to thank CanadianDana for introducing me to this behemoth for the first time a few years ago. I have to say, it’s fairly breathtaking if you’ve never seen one. I’m willing to bet that if this is your first time seeing a cookie of this stature, you’re probably still looking at the picture and you’re not even reading this. It’s forgivable and understandable. Imagine how the milk feels! I’d bet this is as close to a ménage à trois that milk is ever going to get…
Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies: (adapted from here)
2 sticks ~ Butter
1 cup ~ Brown Sugar
1 cup ~ Sugar
2 each ~ Eggs
1 tablespoon ~ Vanilla Extract
4 cups ~ Flour
1 teaspoon ~ Salt
1 teaspoon ~ Baking Soda
3/4 teaspoon ~ Cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ~ Nutmeg, freshly grated (optional)
1 bag ~ Chocolate Chips
At least ~ 12 Oreo Cookies
Notes:
- I used the Candy Cane stuffed Oreo’s. Because, you know, it’s Christmas time. I admit, they’re a little weird at first. But after a few bites you’re used to it.
- You can use this recipe any time of year with regular Oreo cookies.
- Heck, you can use this recipe with anything really. Doesn’t have to be Oreo’s. You can use Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups… Like I also did.
- If the dough does not feel workable, add a little more flour. You want to be able to shape it without it sticking to your hands.
- If it is sticking to your hands, try washing your hands and drying them. Dry them good because the moisture in your hands could cause the dough to stick to them.
- If you’re still having problems, refrigerate the dough for about an hour and give it another go.
- The recipe can make about a dozen cookies. But trust me, you don’t need any more than that.
I hope you have room in your kitchen for the biggest cookies you’ve ever made:
- Preheat the hotbox to 350.
The first step to making these is probably the most important step in all of cookie making. Don’t get scared, come on, get out from under the table. I’ll break it down for you:
It’s called the Creaming Method. It’s a method with a specific order of putting your ingredients together and for good reason. It gets its name from the first step, which is creaming together the fat (butter or lard) and the sugar. It’s named after this step because it is the most important step. Make sure you cream it right because you’re setting the stage for the rest of the show. When creaming the sugar and fat, you’re incorporating air into the fat, which will essentially be the base for your cookie. So when you bake the cookies, the air you created will act as a leavening agent of sorts, expanding with the heat, and creating a lighter, fluffier cookie.
I might create a separate post just for discussing the Creaming Method soon. It’s that important.
But that’s later. Now we continue this..
- Take the butter and sugars and cream in the mixer until it’s light and fluffy. Don’t forget to scrape the edges and the bottom. Once it’s fluffy, add the eggs one at a time as well as the vanilla, while mixing slowly.
- The easiest way to do the next part is to take all of the dry ingredients and put them into one bowl. Then add a third of the dry ingredients and slowly turn on the mixer until it is just combined. Turn it off and repeat 2 more times until the dry ingredients are gone. Finally, add the chocolate chips and mix them in until they’re well incorporated.
Now the fun part!
- Spray a parchment lined cookie sheet. Then take an Oreo cookie and place a spoonful of the cookie dough on the bottom and another spoonful on the top.
- Now with your hands, mold and press the dough around the Oreo till you form a general cookie shape. You want it completely covered so if you feel like you need a little more dough then add some on the spots where needed.
In case you’re wondering.. Yes, it is a lot of dough
- Once they’re made, put them on the cookie sheet at least 1 inch apart, 1 1/2 to be safe. Put them in the oven for about 10 minutes. I say “about” because everyone’s oven is different. My batch actually stayed in for around 15 minutes. They’re done when the edges and bottom are a nice golden brown. So keep an eye on them.
And that’s about it.
I’d like to take this time to state once again that these cookies are freaking huge. I have fairly big hands and i can’t wrap my fingers around one. So please, be very careful if you have small children in your home and these are on the counter. If a cookie falls on a child’s head, it could knock the kid out cold.
Oh! I forgot. I did mention that I also made some with Peanut Butter Cups, didn’t I? Well yeah… Just do everything I said, but instead of Oreo’s, use Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and boom!
Yes, they’re amazing.
And you can stop drooling now…
Thanksgiving… Piece of Cake!
The holidays make me do crazy things. Shopping at midnight to save $30 is one of those things. Yeah, that’s not as hardcore as I used to be… Breaking night on the same night every year, standing in line for 7 or 8 hours in …Read More….
Pumpkin Spiced Mini Doughnut Muffin Hole Thingies
So it would seem as if every food blog you go to has these little balls of goodness. Even saw them on TV the other day being sold in a bakery somewhere. The popularity of them is both attracting and discouraging. I don’t really want …Read More….
Johnny Pumpkin Seed
I know I said I was going to do a few sweet posts in a row. But you can’t blame me for going back on that for this one post. More than likely, there’s only a few days left before you’ll come across the opportunity to make these. Not to mention the fact that they’re downright addicting.
And to be honest, I did try to make a sweet version, but I failed. And I failed bad.
Don’t look at me like that! I’ve never done this before! In my adult life, this is the first time I’ve ever carved a pumpkin (with my wife’s help), let alone roasted pumpkin seeds.
Which, by the way, I think the carving went fairly well…
But I’m not here to talk pumpkin, I’m here to talk seeds. Addicting, little seeds.
When I was getting advice, thinking, and researching on how to roast the seeds, I was getting crazy excited, finding a few recipes that sounded amazing. Like one with Balsamic Vinegar, Olive Oil and salt, or another with garlic and parmesan. Pumpkin seeds seem to be rather flexible. So I split up my batch and made one regular with salt and oil, and the other with butter, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, ginger, and brown sugar. Sadly, the sugar and spice one did not come out the way I was hoping. And by sadly, I mean if my kid wasn’t there, I probably would have cried. But if I get my hands on some more seeds I’ll give it another try.
I’ll have to fight myself to not make the salt and oil ones again though. Because… Boy, oh boy…
Roasted Pumpkin Seeds:2 cups ~ Pumpkin Seeds
2 tablespoons ~ Extra Virgin Olive Oil
a good 1 1/2 teaspoons ~ Kosher or Sea Salt
Notes:
- Like I said, there are a bunch of different, tasty sounding recipes. But this seems like the go-to, can’t beat method. So simple, so easy and so good. A few grinds of freshly cracked pepper would probably be welcomed, but other than that, it’s pretty perfect.
Let’s get to roastin’!:
- First and foremost, you need to get the seeds out of the pumpkin. When you’re scooping it out, put all of the innards in a big bowl.
- Turn on the oven to 300.
Now, I’m pretty sure I went about this the wrong way, because I spent a good 4 hours (the clock said 15 minutes, but I think it was on the fritz) trying to pick out all the seeds from the orange goop. I wanted to keep the stringy mess to puree it and make a pumpkin pie. But honestly, I don’t have time for all that. Especially when I have 3 cans of the stuff in the pantry. But once I had freed all the seeds from their membrane prison, I filled up the bowl with water and watched all the seeds float to the top. So I guess I could have just done that from the beginning and saved me about 3 and a half freaking hours.
- So if you want to, go through and get all the big clumps of pumpkiny entrails out first. Then fill up the bowl with water and use a slotted spoon, spider, or just your hands to skim out the seeds into a strainer. If you’re using the water method from the beginning, once the initial floaters are scooped, just rustle the sunken remains around until you loosen up the rest of the seeds.
- You’ll notice the seeds are fairly slimy. You’re not going to get much of anything to hold on to them like that, so what I did was lightly pat them dry with a paper towel (they’re going to get stuck to the paper towel, so I hope the paper towel you’re using isn’t thin. If it is, then skip the paper towel), then put them on a parchment lined sheet tray and put them in the oven for 10 minutes. That dried them out perfectly for me without roasting them. Once they’re done drying, turn the oven up to 350.
- So once they’re dried out, put them in a bowl and add the olive oil and salt then toss till they’re coated. Once coated, arrange them in a single layer on a parchment lined sheet tray (I used the same one I dried them on). Put them in the 350 oven for about 20 – 30 minutes, making sure to take them out and shuffle them around every 10 minutes.
Heck, if you want to experiment, go for the spiced version:
Take 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon of ginger and 1/4 teaspoon of fresh grated nutmeg, and mix it in the dried pumpkin seeds with 1 tablespoon of melted butter. I’m pretty sure where I went wrong was the brown sugar, so just leave that out and you should be fine. Let me know if it works.
Once they get a little golden, I took them out. If you want them a little darker and crispier, by all means keep them in a few minutes longer. But this works for me.
I know it’s going to be hard, but you have to wait till they cool down before you pop one in your mouth. I mean, you don’t have to, but don’t blame me when your mouth is blistered.
One Cookie To Rule The Fall
I cannot begin to describe the shame I feel I have brought myself. My disappointment Is the size of Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Why? You know why. Don’t sit there and act like you haven’t been shaking your head at me for weeks. Look at me, here, …Read More….
I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Spaghetti
I’ve mentioned before that we have a fairly repetitive rotation of meals we eat throughout the week. Some things get retired or get put on the back burner, so to speak, when we get tired of it. The beloved Taco Tuesday has seen this fate …Read More….
Déjà Garlic Bread
I would like to take this time to apologize.
Why am I apologizing? Well, one, because I feel like I’m neglecting all 9 of you who regularly check out my blog. I’ve been crazy busy with moving and I’m missing out on primo fall-time recipe opportunities. So for that, I’m deeply sorry.
And two, because I’m posting about Garlic Bread again.
I know, I know. All I’ve been posting about lately is garlic and bread, and I really do feel terrible about it. To think that I’m making you sit there and look at all these posts talking about the same thing over and over again, I feel like a monster. Like I’m holding you against your will and just blatantly abusing your eyes with the same crap while trying to make it better by putting it in a different toilet. I know, it’s too much garlic, right? You agree? Is it too much garlic?
No! The answer is NO!
Geeze, are you kidding me?! There is no such thing as too much garlic! And you know what, if I were to post about garlic for a month straight, I really don’t think you’d have any objections, would you? Yeeeeeeeeah, that’s what I thought. And don’t think I didn’t see you there agreeing with what I was just saying, I know who you are and you should be ashamed of yourself.
“…Same crap, different toilet…”
How dare you say that about garlic bread!
Garlic Bread Part II:1 each ~ Baguette Loaf
4 tablespoons ~ Garlic Oil
1 teaspoon ~ Dried Oregano
1 teaspoon ~ Dried Thyme
2 tablespoons ~ Grated Parmesan
generous pinch ~ Salt & Pepper
Notes:
- If for some reason you don’t know how to make garlic oil, allow me to guide you to my last post, The Garlic of the Gods. When you are done with that simple, 45 minute task, you will have enough garlic oil for this and then some.
- If it’s too tedious to put garlic and oil in an oven for 45 minutes, I understand. Replace the garlic oil with regular extra virgin olive oil, and add either 2 tablespoons of chopped garlic, or 1 tablespoon of garlic powder and add it as you would add the dried herbs. Just remember, the garlic oil is what’s going to give it a better, deeper flavor.
- I used to use butter in this recipe instead of oil. But the oil doesn’t take anything away from it and you feel a little better after you’ve had your 5th or 6th piece.
- You can really play this recipe by ear. If you don’t like oregano, replace it with something you do like. If you love it, add more. If you want the bread to have a little kick, add red pepper flakes, etc. Consider this, like many other recipes I give you, as more of a guideline.
Alright, to get the ball rolling:
- Set the oven to 350. Cut your baguette in half lengthwise as if you were making a huge sandwich. You don’t have to use the whole loaf if it’ll be too much, so don’t feel like you have to make the whole thing. I know baguettes are fairly long.
- Now take the garlic oil and give it a nice drizzle on the bread. Don’t put too much though or you’ll have an oily, greasy mess that no one would want to take a second bite into. Next, depending on how salty your oil is, add the salt and pepper, and then the herbs, then the cheese. You want to sprinkle everything evenly around so it’s all covered. You can grate some fresh Parmesan on there instead of the already grated stuff you buy, either way you will win.
- After everything is partying together on the bready dance floor, pop it in the oven for 8-12 minutes. Check it at 8, and if by 10 or 11 it’s not browning yet, go ahead and turn on the broiler for about 2 minutes. But watch it! The broiler is your best friend for the minute or two you need it, but if you forget about it, you’re going to be cursing it out for the rest of the night.
I don’t need to tell you what you’re looking for. Once you see the bread bubbling and the top and edges crisping up to a nice, golden brown, you’ll know that your job is done and that whoever you’re making this for will fall madly in love with you.
Because that, my friends, is the power of Garlic.
