Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Our best chocolate chip cookie recipe to date, I believe? I think that when we make Wookie Cookies next, it may behoove us to take some lessons from this recipe. Based on Alton Brown's recipe.

Ingredients

• 4oz unsalted butter
• 6oz unbleached AP flour
• .5 tsp salt (to taste - we used .75ish)
• .5 tsp baking soda
• 4oz dark brown sugar
• 1 egg
• .75 tsp vanilla extract
• 6oz (1c) chocolate chips (we used bittersweet).

Melt the butter. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda in a bowl. In an electric mixer (with paddle attachment), add the butter and sugar and beat for about 2 minutes. Then add the egg and vanilla and continue to beat until you're satisfied, I guess. Add the flour mixture and mix until thoroughly combined. Then toss in the chips and beat until they're well-mixed-in.

Toss the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 375. When they come out, scoop on to parchment-lined cookie sheets (probably just one sheet if you make a single batch). Scoop into 1.5" balls or so and space them out as evenly as you can. Bake for 15 minutes, depending on your elevation. Take them out when they're JUST turning a pale golden. You don't want them to get crisp, after all.

Thoughts: We've made several versions of chocolate chip cookies before, but these came out very well. They were chewy and cakey and soft. AB uses bread flour, and we didn't have any when we made these, so maybe that's why they came out more cake-y. Next time we will try with bread flour, I think.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Frisée and Wild Mushroom Salad with Poached Eggs

Pretty self explanatory.

Ingredients

• 10-12oz creminis, sliced (or whatever mushrooms you can get your hands one)
• 2 small heads of frisée, torn into bite-sized bits
• Enough eggs for however many servings
• olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• salt

Straightforward recipe: Saute the creminis in some olive oil. When they're cooked down, toss them with the frisee. Squeeze lemon juice over the whole thing. Poach eggs and top the salad with the poached eggs. Done.

Thoughts: Simple and delicious. I don't know how often we find ourselves in possession of frisée, but that's a farm share for you. In the future, I might consider adding thinly shaved parmesan or similar. Actually, we did this a few times when we had it. So there you go. Could possibly have used a bit more "dressing" - if I were to do it again, I'd make a light vinaigrette but with lemon juice instead of vinegar, and possibly mayo instead of mustard as an emulsifier.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Leek Confit

Another bit of an experiment. This one went pretty well. I would try this again, possibly. We had it with crackers and cheese, then later we tossed it in with some pasta. It's versatile. Bears further exploration?

Ingredients

• all the green parts from 3 leeks
• 1/2 stick of butter
• 2 tbsp water or so
• salt to taste

Melt the butter in a large saute pan. Toss in the leeks, water, and about 1/2 tsp salt. Cover and reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring often, for, like, ever. I think we did it for 30 minutes, but maybe would have benefited from longer. When you're done, uncover and evaporate the excess water. Serve.

Thoughts: It's an interesting idea. I had previously read about broccoli confit, which also sounds like something worth trying. You could also possibly do this in a slow-cooker. Anyway, it gives us something to do with the green parts of the leeks when we want to make vichyssoise the proper way.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Lamb Meatball Curry

It was an experiment, anyway.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground lamb
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 egg
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• water
• about 1/4c (?) cream
• salt to taste

Mix the meat, garlic, pepper, garam masala, and egg into a meatball mixture, then form into 1.5" diameter meatballs. Pop them in a 375 degree oven on a cookie sheet covered in foil for about 20-30 minutes, or until they're about done. I think at the end we broiled 'em to get a little char.

Meanwhile, cook the onion in a pan with a little neutral oil. When that's done, toss in the remaining spices (cumin, ginger, turmeric) and cook for a little bit. Then add the tomatoes and the tomato paste. Cook until thickened.

When the meatballs are done, add them to the onion / tomato / spices mixture. Add just enough water so that nothing burns and cook for another 10-20 minutes. When you're getting to the end, let most of the water evaporate off and replace it with some heavy cream. Serve over rice.

Thoughts: The meatballs were really the highlight of this dish. I'm not sure the sauce did too much for it. So I think we're going to have to tweak this idea a little bit. I think in the future I would use crushed tomatoes, or else possibly blend the whole sauce before adding the meatballs. Also might use some madras curry powder? Not sure about that. There was something missing here.

Disaster Index: 4/10

Crumpets

We have a huge back-log of recipes to blog. We made these a couple months ago.

Ingredients

• 1c milk
• 1c warm water
• 2.25 tsp yeast
• 1tsp sugar
• 1.75c unbleached AP flour
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1/4tsp baking soda
• a little hot water

In a bowl, mix the water, milk, yeast, and sugar. Then add the flour and salt. Stir into a batter and let sit for about an hour and a half to rise. Then mix the baking soda in just a little hot water and add to the batter and stir. Cover and let rise again for another 30 minutes.

When that's done, spoon the mixture onto a hot griddle (350 degrees or so) in well-greased English muffin rings (well, cookie cutters, tins that you've cut both sides off of, etc). Cook until the top starts to look quite dry, about 7 minutes, then flip and cook the other side for just a minute or two before removing.

Thoughts: Although these weren't bad to eat, the texture was a lot more cake-y than I had hoped, and there were totally not enough bubbles. I'm not sure how I would fix that. The flavor was good but not too exciting. Maybe next time needs more leavening and a more liquidy batter? I really have no idea.

Disaster Index: 4/10

Decadent (?) Chocolate Puffy Things

Thanks to Emily and Mom for pointing this recipe out. They both made basically the same thing at the same time without having communicated about it. We were inspired, and we wound up with something about half-way in between their versions. I'm not thrilled with the name, but it's better than the recipe we got it from. Maybe appropriate because we've been eating 2-5 cookies per day since we made them. Anyway, I'm just recording it here to note the minor changes we made so we can do it again the same way next time.

Ingredients

• 1/2 stick (4tbsp) butter
• 4.5 oz bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1.5 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 1/4 c unbleached AP flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 5/8 c sugar (1/2c + 2tbsp)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 c (12 oz) bittersweet chocolate chips

Basically you make this like any other cookies:

Preheat oven to 350. Whip the eggs in a stand-mixer, add the sugar and beat. In a separate pan (or to be honest, probably in the microwave) mix the butter, 4.5oz chips, and 1.5oz unsweetened chocolate and melt, stirring often. We used a double-boiler - probably better than straight on the heat source. When that's melted and cooled, add to the egg/sugar mixture. Add the salt and vanilla. Then add the flour and baking powder. When that's smooth, add the 2 c chocolate chips. Pop the whole thing in the freezer for 20 minutes to stiffen. Then, using a 2" ice cream scoop, spoon the batter onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Bake for 17-20 minutes, rotating half-way through. Take them out as soon as they're JUST getting done so they don't over-cook. Makes about 2 dozen.

Thoughts: I'm glad we halved this recipe. At the same time, this is awesome. These cookies are pretty amazing. Far and away the best chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies I've ever made. They have the advantage of being not too dry and incredibly powerfully chocolate-y. These are a winner. I think the ONE tough part about the recipe is taking the cookies out early enough. We could possibly have gone 16:00 or 16:30 instead of 17:00 (what we did) and it would have been perfect. But we're at a high altitude, so thinks dry out more quickly.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Artichoke Lamb Stew

This takes a little prep, but I think it's worth it. This was a bit unusual as dishes go, but I think the result was awesome.

Ingredients

• 3 large artichokes (prep instructions below)
• 1 lb ground lamb
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped (rounds)
• about 1/2 lb cannellini beans (or similar), soaked
• 1.5 tbsp flour
• 2tbsp lemon juice
• oil / fat of your choice (we used leftover bacon fat, but olive oil would work fine)
• rosemary, thyme, basil (we kind of eye-balled it - maybe 1 tsp / .5 tsp / 1 tsp, respectively)

Okay, the artichokes. Pull off the outer layer of roughed-up leaves. Wash the artichokes. Cut off the top inch or so of the artichoke to expose the leaves. As you do all of this, every time you remove a leaf or anything, rub the cut / damaged area with lemon juice. With a paring knife, peel the outer portion of the stem (but leave it attached. Or, if it came detached at some point, just peel it) and, again, coat in lemon juice.

Pop the artichokes in a steamer for 25-45 minutes, until the outer leaves come off pretty easily. Remove and let cool. Then begin removing the leaves. You can eat the ends of the leaves as you go or just save them for later. We saved all the leaves for an up-coming stock we're going to make. Anyway, when you get all the bigger leaves off (the top 5 layers or so) you can usually pull out all the center layers in one go. Then you're left with the heart (and the choke). Scrape out the choke using a spoon. Now chop the heart and the stems into 8 pieces (or so, I don't know - bite sized). ARTICHOKES DONE. If you didn't understand a step, go google it or something.

In a heavy-bottomed soup pot, add the lamb and some oil/fat. Break up the lamb a LITTLE, but not into tiny bits - it's nice to have larger pieces of lamb kicking around. Brown the lamb pretty well. Then add the onion and carrot. Cook until the onion is getting soft. Then add the flour and continue to cook for another minute. Finally, add everything else. Fill with water JUST to cover. Bring to a boil (scraping up the bottom of the pot as you go), then reduce to a simmer. Cover and let simmer for about an hour. Season to taste with salt and additional lemon juice.

Thoughts: The game-y-ness of the lamb was wonderfully balanced by the acidity of the lemon. It was a really nice, hearty winter soup. The artichokes had great flavor the FIRST day, but after sitting in the fridge the flavor diffused a bit so it wasn't as distinct the second day. Since the hearts were already cooked, next time I might not boil them for an hour with everything else, but instead pop them in with about 5 minutes left in the cooking process. If I had stew meat available (rather than ground) I think that would be better, but this was still really good.

Disaster Index: 1/10