Like Whoa...

Two posts in ONE night? Madness.  I haven't been feeling too inspired lately so I took a look through my photo collections and picked out some of my favorite pictures that remind me of spring.  Enjoy!!

I like flowers. Alot.

Crickets

Oops.  I've been quiet lately.  I wish I could say the same for life. Thankfully the weather is finally beginning to look promising and I think I spot the first signs of summer.  How do I know this?  The strawberries are on sale at Safeway and the lemons are sun kissed.   So here's to hoping for 'sunkist' summers very very soon.

An Oldie But A Goodie

OK... so while I work on fixing the chocolate chip cookie recipe, I figured I would leave you all with an old reliable favorite.  It's pretty simple, I mean all the ingredients that you need to make this sandwich are listed in it's name for goodness sake.  Say it with me now... Ham, Egg, and Cheese.   What you may not know though is how to bring this old standby to the next level.   And for that, I have four letters for you... B-A-Y-S.   Best.  English.  Muffins.  EVER.  Bays Original English Muffins are like little clouds of happiness in the morning.   You know these english muffins are special because they don't hang out with the rest of the bread products in the regular bread aisle, they live in the refrigerated section near the eggs, butter, and cheese.  That in itself should clue you in to the fact that these things were made to be eaten for breakfast, even the grocery store pairs these english muffins with eggs.  Unfortunately, it took me a few years to come to this realization... I always stared at these lone refrigerated english muffins but usually assumed that similar to refrigerated bagels, the refrigerated english muffins must be sub-par to 'normal' english muffins located in the bread aisle.  Boy, was I wrong.  So let me tell you the story of how one day, I decided to place the classic red and white package in my grocery cart.

One sunny afternoon in July 2009, my lovely sister Jacqui was nice enough to fly all the way up to Virginia to help her little sister move into her new townhouse.  The girls worked tirelessly all weekend, painting two bedrooms in four hours (pretty good, eh?), and moving an exorbitant amount of crap from the smallest apartment ever to this lovely place I now call home.  We were so tired from that weekend's activities, we couldn't even bear the thought of walking all the way across the grocery store to get our normal english muffins when these Bays English Muffins were so conveniently located next to the eggs we were already planning to purchase.  So we took a chance and grabbed the closest package we could get our hands on.  To our delight, upon toasting we found that the Bays english muffins were far softer, far chewier, and far superior in every way possible to what we normally associated with the english muffin product.  Since that day, the two of us have exclusively purchased the Bays english muffins as they are truly the best we've ever tasted.  True story.

Life Lesson #84  - Sometimes laziness is awesome.

Hmmm... I just dedicated two whole paragraphs to english muffins and have said the words 'english muffin' fourteen times...  Anyways, getting back the the point of this post.  Ham, egg, cheese, and a Bays english muffin.  Breakfast of champions.  That's all I have to say about that.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies... AHOY!!!

Update 6/8/2010: The recipe didn't lie! I just over-baked the cookies!! I re-tried the recipe but only baked the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or just until the tops were beginning to crack and the results were delicious!  

Update 5/4/2010:  Unfortunately I lied ... or maybe I was misled... Alls I know is that some of the cookies were crunchy by 2:00 p.m. EST today .  For those that are counting, that is merely 16 hours after they came out of the oven (not that I'm bitter or anything).  I'll re-work the recipe and re-post when I figure out what went wrong...

Have you ever woken up at night and wondered why some cookies are soft and others are as hard has hockey pucks?  I have.  I used to think that under-baking cookies was the only way to get a soft chewy cookie but those results were temporary.  Unless you eat the cookie immediately, or shortly there after the cookie will get hard and crunchy with time.   I am a chewy chocolate chip cookie girl but I am also a self professed cookie snob, the chewy cookies that come from a package repulse me... even though everyone else I know seem to love them dearly.  I decided early in my baking career, that I would perfect one craft at a time.  My first baked choice of craft was the cookie... and cookies did I make.  Chocolate chip, sugar cookies, crackled sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, inverse chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter, cut out sugar cookies... you name it, I've made it.  And I have a pretty darn good cookie recipe collection if I do say so myself; however, while my cookies were delicious the day of or maybe even the day after,  I craved a chewier cookie that had real lasting power.  A cookie that had enough chew to be sent in a care package and still taste as yummy as they day they were baked if UPS accidentally looses the package for a day or so.  So I did some research, and after years of making cookies I can't believe the answer was SO simple.   You'll never guess what the secret is.  Really... you'll never ever guess.  Brown sugar!  I know, you're thinking to yourself, most cookie recipes have brown sugar in them already... but what would happen in you replaced ALL of the sugar with the gorgeous golden granules?  Chewiness would happen.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit I only baked these cookies tonight so I can't attest to the staying power of the chew but trust me... I'll be tracking it in the days to come.  It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it.  Also, please excuse the terrible photo... like I said, it's 10:15 p.m. and natural light isn't really available right now... all the more reason to make more cookies this weekend!! Win. WIN.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe adapted from Cooks Illustrated Magazine


2 1/8 C all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
12 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 C brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 C chocolate chips (I use at least 60% cacao)


Heat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Mix flour, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until thoroughly combined.  Add dry ingredients to the wet, mixing until just combined.  Stir in the chips.  Roll dough into balls, approximately the size of golf balls for large cookies, adjust size to your liking.  Bake for 15-17 minutes, but begin checking for done-ness at 13 minutes.  Cookies will be cracked on top with a golden glow when done.   Let sit for 2 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool.


P.S. Can't eat all the cookies in one sitting or you don't have a party to go to anytime soon?  No prob, Bob! After rolling the cookie balls, place the raw dough in an airtight bag/container in the freezer and take them out to bake as you like! Just add one or two minutes to the cooking time.  Your friends will be impressed when you always seem to have fresh chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven when they come over... plus your house will smell great and they won't judge the dishes piled up in your sink.  Two birds, one stone. Done.

Hidden Talent

Those are pretty cool measuring cups, eh? (please excuse my Canadian) You haven't even seen the best part, take a quick peek inside...

Holy crap! Are those polka dots and spatter paint that I see?  Ohh yeaaaahhh... I know.  You're jealous because these are one of a kind.  A J-Dubs original creation.  But excuse me, feel free to stay and stare, but I must go... I have some baking to do. 

Baked Comfort

Sometimes in life things get cloudy.  Things at work just don't seem to be going so well, things at home are 'meh', and you just don't know why you feel so confused.  As I shared in my last post, I am 25 years old... an age synonymous with the Quarter Life Crisis ("QLC" for short... we're tight so I'm allowed to abbreviate).   Thing thing about your QLC is that it is worse (or better, depending on which way the pendulum swings that day) than the mid-life crisis that so many people fear.  Why do I say this, you ask?  Because during your QLC, you are still young enough to actually do something about the things in your life that are bothering you.  There are no kids, no significant others, no strings, nothing is holding you back from making a dramatic change in your life.  So if you've got nothing holding you back, what's the problem?  The problem is that you know that you're still not old/wise enough to know what exactly you want to change.  You're old enough and have enough experience on your own to know what you don't want but you haven't quite racked in enough miles on the odometer to know what you do want.  *sigh*  So what is a girl to do??  I make banana bread.  Good old home baked banana bread.  The kind that fills the house with smells of Home and fills your belly with love.   Because there is nothing worse than contemplating your uncertain future than contemplating your uncertain future on an empty stomach.

Lucky for you, I woke up early this morning to perform a little experiment.  Banana bread is in no way bad for you, especially considering all of it's marvelous healing qualities that I listed above... but I wondered, being that Joe wants me to get in a bathing suit today and go tubing down the river, is there any way that I can make my favorite breakfast treat a little healthier?  Applesauce.  Applesauce? Yes, applesauce.  I have heard over and over again that replacing the oil in a recipe with applesauce yields great results.  Now I wasn't willing to put the quality of my banana bread to chance so I did the only thing that I could... make two loaves, one following the traditional family recipe with oil, and another which replaces the oil with unsweetened applesauce.  Here are the results:

BB#1:

BB#2:

Can you tell the difference?  BB#1 is a little darker in color, and BB#2 rose a little higher.  So which is which?  I should have changed the order to mix things up a bit but they are in the same order in which I introduced them, BB#1 is with oil, BB#2 is with applesauce.  We held a taste test and the results were somewhat expected.  BB#1 is definitely your traditional soft, cake-like, super banana-y traditional banana bread.  BB#2 was super moist, delicious, and had great banana flavor as well; however, the texture of the bread was more of a bread rather than a soft cake.  The verdict?  Both were delicious.  So on those days where you need a little more comfort, go with the traditional BB#1, but for any other day BB#2 is a great, and healthy alternative.

Mom's Banana Bread


1 3/4 C all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 C sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/2 C oil (or unsweetened applesauce)
1 C mashed ripe bananas (approximately 2-3 bananas)
1/2 C milk

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine all dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl.  Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl.  Stir wet ingredients into dry mixture until blended (do not over mix!).  Place in a greased loaf pan and bake for approximately 50 minutes.