chocolate chip cookies

by Bridget on October 22, 2012

Don’t you just love the classics?

There’s so many kinds of fancy cookies out there – whole-wheat-pumpkin-peanut-butter-chocolate-brown-butter cookies, anyone? just kidding! But seriously, sometimes all a person wants is a good old, soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie and not a super complicated cookie with a lot of stuff.

Jon often jokes that inside me lives a 90 year-old grandma – my love of classic flavours and cutesy dishes (like the glass in these pictures), that might remind you of your grandma, are apparently proof of this. But, I’m a big believer that while trendy flavours and foods come and go, the classics – like chocolate chip cookies – never go out of style, and it’s one of those recipes that will remind you of your childhood (even if your childhood didn’t have any chocolate chip cookies in it – like mine).

These chocolate chip cookies are my go-to recipe any time I want to make this classic cookie. It is soft and chewy, with a buttery taste, but it isn’t greasy, as some chocolate chip cookies tend to be. With the addition of a teaspoon of coarse salt in the batter, the final baked cookies have a little “something-something” that attracts adults and kids, alike. Though I’ve made quite a few other chocolate chip cookies, I’m a huge procrastinator and usually, when I need to make cookies, I need the cookies…like now. So, while those other recipes are awesome, I just needed one that could be a ready-in-20-minute cookie. And not only does this cookie compare, but dare I say, it’s my favourite to date – and a favourite of most of the people at our church, too, who have been the lucky (last minute) recipients of these cookies numerous times.

And as an added bonus – this recipe makes about 3 dozen cookies – perfect for a bake sale or potluck, or a monster cookie craving!

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chocolate chip cookies
Recipe type: Dessert
 

Ingredients
  • 2-1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • ½ granulated sugar
  • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups semisweet or milk chocolate chips, or a combination

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degress Fahrenheit. Whisk together flour and baking soda in a bowl. Put the butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium until the mixture is pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
  2. Reduce the speed to low. Add in the salt, vanilla and eggs; mix until well blended, about 1 minute.
  3. Mix in flour mixture, until just combined. Do not over-mix. Stir in the chocolate chips.
  4. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies until edges turn golden but centers are still soft, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks, 2 minutes.Transfer cookies to wire racks; let cool completely.
  5. Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment in airtight containers at room temperature up to 1 week.

Source: barely adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookies

 

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crockpot chicken taco meat

by Bridget on October 17, 2012

Riley has bunches and bunches of patience. He’s a bunny hunter, you see. If he was allowed, he’d be on a stake out all day long waiting for some any bunnies to come along.

It’s a shame that no one’s told him that bunnies don’t come around during the day.

He just sits patiently on his grassy hill, ears perked  and at the ready – waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting little bunnies.

I don’t think I’ll ever have even a tablespoon worth of the patience that Riley does -  I’m more like Russell, myself. While Riley is on a stake out, you’ll most likely find Russ in the following position:

Quite bored, given up on hope of catching any bunnies…and possibly in need of a nap.

Russell is the perfect example of how I want my dinners during the week – I’m not patient – most nights, I am starving before I’ve even left for home. And after an hour on the road, I’m hardly in the mood to cook – especially now that it’s so dark early in the evening.

These days, I’m putting my slow-cooker to work for me. The idea of coming home to an already prepared, hot meal from the slow-cooker is deliciously exciting! I love walking in the front door to the lovely smells of the food that’s been simmering away for the previous 6-8 hours.

I’ve been eyeing up Slowcooker Revolution by America’s Test Kitchen for such a long time now and finally bought it a couple of weeks’ ago. This book is definitely not one of your basic “dump” and go cookbooks. Each recipe has at least a little bit of prep and recipes that are quicker are tagged as “easy prep”, which is handy.

This shredded chicken taco meat is one of the first recipe’s we made from the book. The recipe makes about 4 cups of perfectly spiced, shredded taco meat, which is a good thing…a very good thing! We had a few different meals from this one recipe – tacos, enchiladas (recipe to come soon) and taco-rice bowls – and I can probably think of 5 more ways it could be used! The base recipe is really versatile and will give you at least two, if not three meals from one night’s effort to put this together – which is not a bad trade-off at all! And since the recipe only cooks for 4-6 hours, the meat is not overcooked and still has a lot of flavour from the added spices. We loved this meal so much that we were really excited to discover MORE leftovers in the fridge from it – it was easily one of our favourite meals this year.

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crockpot chicken taco meat
Recipe type: Main
 

Ingredients
  • 1 onion, minced
  • 3 tablespoons chili powder
  • 1 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 jalapeno chile, stemmed, seeded and minced*
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 teaspoons ground coriander
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
  • 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Instructions
  1. Microwave onion, chili powder, oil, jalapeno, garlic, coriander, and cumin in bowl, stirring occasionally until vegetables are softened, about 5-8 minutes. Transfer to slow cooker.
  2. Stir tomato sauce and sugar into slow cooker. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to slow cooker and coat evenly with sauce mixture. Cover and cook until the chicken is tender, 4 to 6 hours on low.
  3. Transfer chicken to a cookie sheet and let cool slightly. Shred the chicken into bite sized pieces. Don’t try to get the pieces too small as the chicken will break up slightly when being mixed with the braising liquid.
  4. Let the braising liquid settle for 5 minutes and skim off any fat from the surface using a large spoon.
  5. Toss the shredded chicken with 1 cup of the braising liquid, adding more as needed to keep the meat moist and flavourful. I saved the leftover braising liquid to add for the leftover meat since I figured the leftovers would dry out a bit in the fridge. Stir in lime juice and season with salt and pepper, to taste.
  6. Filling can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 1 month. If frozen, thaw completely prior to using.

Notes
If you are sensitive to heat, I suggest leaving the jalapeno out completely. Also, it seems like the amount of spices would be too overpowering, but the slowcooker does mellow out the dish quite a bit, so just trust the recipe :)

 

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perfect pumpkin pie

by Bridget on October 12, 2012

What would Thanksgiving be without a slice of pumpkin pie.

Confession – I didn’t like pumpkin pie until this year, which is so weird because I just love pumpkin flavoured eats.

A couple of weeks ago, we were invited for a Sunday lunch by some friends from church and she had made pumpkin pie and chocolate brownies for dessert.  I chose the brownies, obviously. But Jon had pumpkin pie and I snuck a bite – which became 1/2 his entire piece! Pumpkin pie hater to pumpkin pie lover – in one bite! The texture of that pie was amazingly smooth and creamy, without being over-the-top heavy. It was delightful (said the 90 year-old grandma in me).

So, for Thanksgiving, along with the rolls, I volunteered to bring along some dessert. I originally intended to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookie pie from how sweet it is, but I was browsing through the last issue of Gourmet (remember Gourmet? I had snatched up that last issue…a memento) and came upon their Bourbon Pumpkin pie and was reminded of the pumpkin pie that I’d had just weeks before and had to make it.

The pie is just perfect – smooth and light tasting (but not actually light). The sour cream and heavy cream make the filling taste almost velvety smooth. I substituted  vanilla extract for the bourbon and thought it just perfect. All our Thanksgiving guests thought the pie was absolutely delightful too. The pastry itself, is super flaky, but I thought the directions in the magazine resulted in a slightly over-baked pie shell which was a bit hard to cut through. Since the crust wasn’t a total hit, I haven’t included the directions below for it. Gourmet calls for the crust to be pre-baked for 35 minutes and then cooked for 45 minutes with the filling – which was way too long. I’ve updated the recipe below to reflect my changes.

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perfect pumpkin pie
Recipe type: Dessert
 

A delightfully smooth and light (tasting) pumpkin pie – you won’t ever need another recipe!
Ingredients
  • Pastry dough (for one 9½ inch deep dish pie)
  • 1 (15-oz) can pure pumpkin
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • ⅓ cup sour cream
  • 2 large eggs
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ¾ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon all spice
  • ¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees with rack in the middle. Line the pie plate with crust and crimp the edges decoratively. Lightly prick the bottom all over with a fork. Chill until firm, at least 30 minutes or freeze for 15 minutes.
  2. Line shell with foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until side is set and edges are golden, about 15 minutes. Carefully remove pie weights and cool shell completely.
  3. Whisk together all other ingredients and pour into cooled pie shell.
  4. Bake until edge of filling is set but center trembles slightly, about 45-55 minutes. The filling will continue to set as it cools and so will be overcooked if it’s cooked fully in the oven.
  5. Cool completely before serving.

Adapted from Gourmet, November 2009

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Tex-Mex Chicken with Chiles and Cheese

by Bridget on October 10, 2012

Some days—

— your happy song,  one that you cannot get out of your mind, plays on all the radio stations during your morning commute – and it’s not a bad thing (I seriously love this song even though I have NO idea what the lyrics mean!)

— you are wearing a totally rocking outfit which gets several compliments

— you do an awesome job on an important presentation (even though you were so nervous that you’ve sweat through the waistband of your pants…not that we’re speaking from personal experience here…)

—you come home to this face, one that happily greats you at the door and patiently allows you to pet him for as long as you please a few minutes (a leftover apple core from your lunch will buy a few more minutes, however):

But.

Some days—

— none of those things happen—

— and you’ve had to sit in terrible traffic both to and from work. And you’re in a terrible mood.

Those are the days that call for this one pot, quick dinner that hugs you from the inside out and is ready in about 30 minutes. It is super flavourful – spicy, cheesy and filling – and just the thing to get you out of a ‘bad day’ funk.

The original recipe calls for almost 4 tablespoons of butter, but I took it down to 2 teaspoons of butter to make it a bit healthier. We love our food on the spicy side so I keep the seeds in the jalapeño. I usually serve it with just plain rice but kicked it up a bit this time with a south-western rice pilaf, which complemented the meal perfectly (recipe for the pilaf coming soon!)

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Tex-Mex Chicken with Chiles and Cheese
Recipe type: Main dish
 

Ingredients
  • 1-1/4 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, trimmed and sliced ¼ inch thick
  • 1-1/2 teaspoon chili powder
  • ½ teaspoon ground cumin
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons unsalted butter
  • 1-1/2 cups fresh or thawed frozen corn kernels
  • 1 medium jalapeño, seeded if desired and thinly sliced
  • 1 large clove garlic, minced
  • 2–3 medium limes, 1 or 2 juiced to yield 3 Tablespoons and 1 cut into wedges
  • 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
  • 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar

Instructions
  1. Position a rack about 4 inches from the broiler and heat the broiler to high.
  2. Toss the chicken with the chili powder, cumin, ¾ tsp. salt, and ½ tsp. black pepper. Lightly dredge the chicken in the flour and shake off any excess.
  3. Melt 1 teaspoon of the butter in a 12-inch ovenproof skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 5 minutes. (The chicken should not be fully cooked through at this point) Transfer to a plate.
  4. Add the remaining 1 teaspoon butter, the corn, jalapeño, garlic, and ½ tsp. salt. Cook, stirring, until the corn begins to brown lightly, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the chicken, lime juice, oregano, and ½ cup water. Cook, stirring, until the chicken is just cooked through, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle with the cheese and transfer the skillet to the oven, under the broiler. Broil until the cheese melts and browns on top, about 3 minutes. Serve with lime wedges.

Adapted from: Fine Cooking

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