almond coconut delights

Have you ever eaten those almond joy m&ms?  They're quite tasty.  The other day, I thought it might be fun to create a cookie that shouted "almond JOY!"

After two tries and several helpful critiques from the BEST bakers around, here is the published recipe:

1 c. butter

2 c. sugar

1/2 c. sweetened condensed milk (1/2 can)

3/4 c. unsweetened coconut milk (1/2 can)

1 egg

1 T. almond extract (or more)

1 t. vanilla extract

1/2 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

6 c. flour

4 c. coconut

1 c. almonds

whole almonds

semisweet chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar.  Add milks, egg, and extracts beating together well.  FYI:  The coconut milk needs to be stirred in can before added to the mixing bowl.  Add remaining ingredients, beating well.  Drop by spoonfuls on cookie sheet, and smash a salty almond on the top.  Bake 10-12 minutes at 375.  Drizzle melted chocolate chips in a crisscross pattern over cooled cookies.

By the way, I realize that this recipe is annoying because it only uses half of the milk cans.  You could double the recipe and fix this problem, but then you'd have 11 dozen cookies on your hands.  

intensely dense

Dorie Greenspan has a recipe for "Chocolate Chunkers." I was planning to follow the mouth-watering recipe, but a couple things in it made me concerned. Specifically, the recipe yielded only 24 cookies, and that was after using 19 ounces of expensive baking chocolate. I make cookies in massive amounts, and Dorie's recipe wasn't going to work for that. This is what Isaac and I came up with:

Intense Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

2 sticks butter

1 1/3 c. sugar

3 eggs

2 t. vanilla

3 c. flour

1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 t. salt

1/2 t. baking powder

8 oz. semisweet baking chocolate, coarsely chopped

12 oz. semisweet chocolate chunks

1 1/2 c. pecans, coarsely chopped

1 1/2 c. Craisins

Beat butter and sugar well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Beat in cocoa, salt, and baking powder. Beat in flour, mixing well. Stir in remaining ingredients by hand. Drop by tablespoonfuls, flattening and shaping to your liking. (These cookies don't move or rise much.) Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. Yields 4 dozen chunkers.

coffee toffee cookies

I just had a little too much fun in the kitchen this afternoon, combining 3 different recipe ideas into one new creation. My ingredient cravings were coffee and toffee and a dab of chocolate. Here's what became of it.

Coffee Toffee Cookies

1 c. butter

1 c. brown sugar

½ c. white sugar

2 eggs

¼ c. Irish crème liquor (This always makes cookies taste good.) :)

2 T. instant coffee granules

1 t. vanilla

3 ½ c. flour

1 (8-oz) bag toffee chips

¾ c. mini chocolate chips

½ c. semisweet chocolate (chips are fine), optional

Cream butter and sugars well. Add eggs, beating one at a time. Heat the Irish crème in microwave until slightly warm. Dissolve coffee in liquor. Add Irish crème mixture and vanilla to batter. Add flour, mixing well. Stir in toffee chips and ¾ c. mini chocolate chips. Shape into cookies, flattening slightly. Bake at 375 for 11-13 minutes. Baking time will vary depending on how big the cookies are. Let cookies cool on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes and remove immediately. Drizzle with melted ½ c. semisweet chocolate if desired. Makes 4 dozen cookies.

the good of beer

No, I'm not going to write a controversial post on beer drinking. My personal opinion of the taste of beer is: gross. Why put gross-tasting calories into my stomach when I could actually enjoy an ice cold root-beer!? There is one good thing about beer, though. You can cook with it and make some pretty yummy things. Sorry, I can't post pictures, but I guarantee you'll be satisfied.

Grilled Beer-Brined Chicken The best chicken I've ever had.

Ingredients for brine and chicken:

1 c. water

2 T. kosher (coarse) salt

2 T. packed brown sugar

2 (12-oz.) cans beer or nonalcoholic beer

8 pieces chicken (I used boned Smart chicken.)

Barbecue Rub:

1 T. paprika

1 t. table salt

1/2 t. onion powder

1/2 t. garlic powder

1/2 t. pepper

1/4 c. vegetable oil

1. Mix water, salt and brown sugar, stirring until salt and sugar are dissolved. Stir in beer. Add chicken. Cover; refrigerate at least 8 hours but no longer than 24 hours.

2. Line 15x10-inch pan with sides with foil. Remove chicken from brine; rinse thoroughly under cool running water and pat dry with paper towels. Discard brine. Place chicken in pan. Refrigerate uncovered 1 hour to dry chicken skin. Meanwhile, in small bowl, mix all rub ingredients except oil; set aside.

3. Heat gas or charcoal grill for indirect cooking. Brush oil over chicken; sprinkle rub mixture over chicken. For two-burner gas grill, heat one burner to medium; place chicken on unheated side. For one-burner gas grill, place chicken on grill over low heat. For charcoal grill, move medium coals to edge of firebox; place chicken over drip pan. Cover grill; cook 15 minutes.

4. Turn chicken over; cover grill and cook 20 to 30 minutes longer, turning occasionally, until juice of chicken is clear when thickest piece is cut to bone (170°F for breasts; 180°F for thighs and drumsticks).

Oven Directions: Make chicken as directed through step 3. Heat oven to 425°F. Brush oil over chicken; sprinkle rub mixture over chicken. Bake 25 to 35 minutes or until juice of chicken is clear when thickest piece is cut to bone (170°F for breasts; 180°F for thighs and drumsticks).

Beer Bread

3 c. flour

1 1/2 t. salt

1 T. baking powder

1 (12-oz.) can beer, room temperature

5 T. sugar

4 T. butter, melted

Mix dry ingredients; add beer and mix. Coat mixture with 2 T. melted butter. Let set 15 minutes. Put in a greased and floured loaf pan and bake for 1 hour at 350. When done brush with 2 t. melted butter.

big. fat. goodness.

Take a bite of this.

I am not always a recipe-tweaker. But today, I needed a BIG, FAT cookie. This means thick, soft, chewy goodness with chunks. I picked oatmeal for hearty thickness, pecans and Hershey's Mini Kisses for chunks, and peanut butter for extra assurance that this new recipe would taste good. Here is what it came down to:

1 c. butter, slightly softened

2 c. brown sugar

1 c. creamy peanut butter

2 eggs

1 1/2 t. vanilla

1/4 c. chocolate syrup

1/4 c. Irish Creme or whipping cream

1/2 t. salt

1 t. baking soda

2 c. flour

2 1/2 c. oatmeal

1 c. pecans

1 (10 oz.) bag Hershey's Mini Kisses

3/4 c. mini chocolate chips

Beat butters and sugar very well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, syrup, and creme, beating well. Beat in salt and soda. Beat in flour, mixing well. Stir in remaining ingredients by hand. Drop by tablespoonfuls and form and flatten slightly. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Disclaimers:

• Every oven is different. 10 minutes in my oven made soft cookies. If you bake them until the edges are brown, there's a good chance they'll be crunchy.
• Beating cookie dough well is usually a good thing.
• Adding extra baking soda won't make your cookies thicker. I spent years talking to my cookies, telling them to "GROW, already!" or "STAY FAT!" but soda didn't do it. The key is thickness. Dough shouldn't cake to your fingers when you touch it. If it does, add more flour.

Try your own cookie recipe with your favorite ingredients! It's fun fun!

fall fun

We call this post 'fall fun' because I think Halloween is the dumbest holiday, thus making the title 'halloween' the dumbest title. The past few days have been spent thinking about whether or not we should participate in trick-or-treating. Every bit of research I've done on the origin and meaning of Halloween has just verified my stance.

Okay, okay, I remember trick-or-treating as a kid, and we had a blast. Dressing up, driving from house to house, knocking on doors, eating candy,...it was all fun. One old lady in the A.C. Home apartments didn't have any candy, so she sprinkled a few pretzels in our bag. To this day, we call her "pretzel-lady." Halloween was fun and games back then.

And now, I'm an old geezer who has a humbug attitude about it all because I know where Halloween comes from. There were several resources I used in researching this 'holiday,' but here's one from MacArthur. This year, we will not be trick-or-treating. But instead of being snotty neighbors with our lights turned off, pretending like we're not home, we will be handing out candy to other kids. We even have a jack-o-lantern. And here's why:

I found this fun story online about how a Christian is like a pumpkin. Visit the link for the full version. We went through the analogy while we carved the pumpkin this afternoon. We are like pumpkins in that God picks us from the patch and brings us in. He cleans us out, and sticks His light inside of us to shine for all the world to see. Here are a few images.

And here's a little bit of fun we had last night:

Since we saw the $6.00 sign for funnel cakes at Sea World, we've been hungry for them. We decided that we could make our own funnel cakes for $2.00, so we did. (These funnel cakes cost us 25 cents each. Sea World's $6.00 charge?! What a rip off!!) A piece of advice for you funnel cake lovers out there: fry them outside, so when you're sick to your stomach from eating all those funnel cakes, you won't have to smell the greasy fumes that stay in your house for days.

polishing off #3

(Jared ate most of #1 and #2.)

Funnel Cakes

2 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 c. milk

2 c. sifted flour

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

2-4 c. cooking oil (I used part Crisco.)

In a mixing bowl, combine eggs and milk. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to egg mixture; beat until smooth. Heat oil in 8" skillet to 360 degrees. Cover bottom of funnel with finger. Pour ½ c. batter into funnel. Remove finger and release batter into hot oil in a spiral shape. Fry until golden (about 3 minutes). Using a wide spatula and tongs, turn cake carefully. Drain on paper towel; sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve hot. Makes 4-8.

tis (almost) the season...

...for gingersnaps.

3/4 c. butter

1 c. sugar

1 egg

1/4 c. molasses

3 (+ 1/2) c. flour*

3 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. cloves

1 t. ginger

1/2 t. nutmeg

additional sugar

Cream butter, sugar, egg, and molasses. Sift together dry ingredients and gradually add to the creamed mixture. Mix well. Chill at least 1 hour. Roll into 1-inch balls and dip into sugar. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes or until set.

*These cookies turn out different every time I make them. This time, they were flatter than my half-inch-thick standard, so I added another 1/2 cup. The last time, I added too much flour and the dough was crumbly. I fixed this problem by adding 2 T. heavy cream. That seemed to do the trick.

oobleck

Mix 1 part liquid starch with 1 part glue. Voila. You've got oobleck. I think it was my parents who gave me Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss when I was a kid. This oobleck book fascinated me. Even the word OOBLECK is neat! The illustrations are great. Only the oobleck is colored; every other picture is in black and white.

stirring...

Mom taking over

testing...

Ew, yuck! It's stuck! (alarm)

digging in, making tough-kid sounds

"My fingers are dirty!"

letting loose

gingerbread boys

When I was a little girl, Mom made gingerbread boys. It was simply amazing how these gingerbread boys would run away and hide in the kitchen somewhere. Somehow, these unreal cookies would just up and run away! I remember how we'd go to our rooms and wait and then come back to find them hiding AGAIN! It was pure magic!! Even as an older girl, I'd probe Mom, asking her if she was SURE she didn't hide them herself. She assured me that they must've just run away.

We made gingerbread boys here for the first time today. When the kids weren't looking, these gingerbread boys amazingly RAN AWAY! When I exclaimed in a wild voice, "KIDS! SOMETHING HAPPENED TO YOUR GINGERBREAD BOYS!!!" they came running. Carly's first thought was, "How can they move if they're pretend!" What a fun game it became.

The kids decided to camp out on their kitchen chairs to make sure the gingerbread boys didn't run away again. That didn't last long, so they got up, scolded their cookies, shaking their fingers, saying, "Gingerbread Man, you obey me! You stay here!" Alas, these naughty gingerbread men would move AGAIN! Isaac even gave his a spankin'. (In all good fun, of course, because it would break if the spankin' was too hard.)

When the kids finally started eating the body parts, especially the legs, the poor gingerbread boys just couldn't move as quickly. So, they gobbled them all up. Isaac reminisced, "I was watching them the whole time, and they ran away!" Carly asked me, "Mommy, were you hiding them?" I answered, "No, they must've run away!!" And Carly excitedly concluded, "They could run away, even though they're pretend! They can run away!"

My mom fibbed to me. Don't you suppose it's okay that I fib to Carly?!?

RECIPE:

1/2 butter, soft

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. molasses

1 egg

3 c. flour

1/4 t. soda

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar. Add molasses and egg. Add dry ingredients. Chill 2 hours. Roll, cut, and bake at 375 for 6-8 minutes.

what's cookin

the past two weeks...

(No recipes originated from our house,

but they're good finds, no doubt.)

Peanut Butter Cookies

3/4 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. crisco

1 1/4 c. brown sugar

3 T. milk

1 T. vanilla

1 egg

2 c. flour, scooped

3/4 t. salt

3/4 t. baking soda

Cream first 3 ingredients. Add milk, vanilla and egg; mix well. Add dry ingredients, mixing well. Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet before removing.

Lemon Cranberry Bread

2/3 c. butter, softened

1 1/2 c. sugar

3 T. lemon juice

2 T. grated lemon peel, optional

4 eggs

3 c. all-purpose flour

2 t. baking powder

2 t. salt

1 c. milk

2 c. craisins

1 c. chopped pecans

Glaze: 1/4 c. sugar and 1/4 c. lemon juice (Stir together)

In a mixing bowl, cream first 4 ingredients. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Combine dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Stir in craisins and nuts. Pour into 5 greased and floured mini loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing. Poke holes in loaves with toothpick and drizzle glaze over the tops. Cool completely before slicing.

Macadamia Nut Cookies (NEW RECIPE)

(I'm on the lookout for a good Macadamia Nut Cookie recipe.)

1 c. butter

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs

2 t. vanilla

3 1/2 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

12 oz. white chocolate chips

6 oz. macadamia nuts

Cream butter and sugar. Stir in eggs and vanilla, beating well. Add dry ingredients, mixing well. Stir in chips and nuts. Drop with cookie scoop and flatten slightly. Bake 8-10 minutes at 375.

Disclaimer: You probably see these cookie recipes on here and think that all my cookies turn out the same. That's because I have a preconceived notion that cookies coming out of my kitchen need to be a certain thickness. A half-inch thick is good. All recipes above and previously posted have been altered from the original recipe, because I add more flour to make the dough feel thick enough to make a half-inch-thick cookie. I really enjoy eating cookies that are that thick AND are 3" in diameter. Unfortunately, I've not found a way to do that unless I make the cookies 2" in diameter, using my small cookie dough scoop. Make sense?

You all have a nice day. I am now going to go eat a handful of cookies with a glass of cold milk.

healthy homemade

granola

(Carrie's recipe adapted from online site)

6 cups old-fashioned oats

1 cup blanched slivered almonds

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup wheat germ

2 cups shredded coconut

1 cup unsalted sunflower seeds

salt shakes

cinnamon shakes

3/4 cup oil (plain oil, coconut oil, olive oil, or a mixture of oils)

1 cup honey

1 cup raisins

1 cup dried cranberries

(Add or take away any ingredients you want.)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

2. In a large bowl, stir together the oats, almonds, walnuts, pecans, wheat germ, coconut, sunflower seeds, and shakes. In a small pan over medium heat, stir together the oil and honey. Cook and stir until blended. You could also do this in a large measuring cup in the microwave, heating for about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Pour over the oat mixture, and stir to coat evenly. Spread out in an even layer on two cookie sheets.

3. Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the oats and nuts are toasted. Immediately after it comes out of the oven, stir in the raisins and dried cranberries. Let stand until cooled, and stir again to break up any large clusters. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks, but I guarantee it won't be around that long!

Chocolate Hazelnut Latte Cookies

(Go ahead--click on this picture and drool.)

My first-ever made-up recipe that turned out, inspired from someone else's idea to mix chocolate, hazelnut flavor, and coffee. I made these for Zack's graduation reception but tried to perfect the recipe just today. Here is where it stands now.

1/2 c. crisco

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 1/4 c. granulated sugar

1/2 c. cocoa

2 eggs

3 T strong coffee

3 T hazelnut syrup

1 T instant coffee granules

1 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

3 1/2 c. flour

1 1/2 c. chocolate chips

1/2 c. chopped pecans

Cream crisco, butter, sugar, and cocoa. Add eggs, coffee, syrup, and coffee granules; beat well. Beat in dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls; flatten slightly with finger. Bake 8-9 minutes at 350. Cool and frost. Sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts (or other nuts).

Hazelnut Buttercream Frosting:

1/4 c. crisco

1/4 c. butter, softened

1 t. vanilla

2 - 2 1/2 c. powdered sugar

1 T milk or cream

1/4 c. melted semisweet chocolate chips or cocoa

4 t. hazelnut syrup

Beat ingredients together well. And spread semi-thick over cookies.

I invite you to create your own cookie recipe and email it to me. All you have to do is mix a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It's FUN! The worst that could happen is you ending up with flat, bitter cookies, but you can try again. :)

Chunky Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

After 10 years of marriage and many batches of cookies, I've found a legend recipe for chocolate chip cookies. They are best straight out of the oven.

Chunky Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

3 1/2 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

3 sticks butter

1 c. packed brown sugar

1 c. granulated sugar

1 c. creamy peanut butter

2 large eggs

2 t. vanilla

2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

2 c. Hershey's mini kisses (in a silver bag in the chocolate chip section of store)

1 c. chopped pecans

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and peanut butter in large bowl until creamy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate and nuts. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets. Press down slightly to flatten into 2-inch circles. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 or until edges are set but centers are still soft. Cool on baking sheets for 4 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

Tip 1: I carefully scoop my flour, not spoon it.

Tip 2: While many cookie recipes don't list the correct amount of flour, this recipe really does need 3 1/2 cups. Eat hot and cold. Yum.