Cooking With Deb - Nope Cookies

After the reasonable success of the brownie pie, the next recipe to try was a cookie recipe. It was easy enough with 5 ingredients.

I had everything except the cake mix. I had to go to the grocery anyway, so a cake mix was procured and I decided to see how these tasted.

There was an issue right away. I neglected to read the size of the cake mix I purchased. A "standard" cake mix is 16.9 ounces. This recipe calls for a mix of 9 ounces. I stood in my kitchen and pondered this dilemma. They must mean a cake mix from a company called "Jiffy". I've used their muffin mixes. They are quick and easy to use. I kicked myself for not reading the recipe closely. But, this can be fixed. Seventeen ounces is almost double nine ounces. I'll just double everything else and it should be okay.

The recipe mixed up quickly, as befitting the name. I was slightly disappointed in the fluidity of the batter once everything was added. I added a quarter cup of all-purpose flour to the batter to make it more viscous. Knowing that the baking process would cause the batter to spread, the liquidity of this batter was disconcerting. I decided the "fix" for this was 30 minutes in the fridge. After that amount of time, the batter was much more solid and I felt would not melt all over the cookie sheet.

Well, they didn't melt all over the cookie sheet. I'm not sure, specifically, what the burned stuff is. I think it's butterscotch chips. After the 30 minutes in the fridge, these didn't spread as much as I was anticipating, which was good. I could pack more cookies on a sheet, which means less dishes to wash. Win win. But the burned bits bothered me. There shouldn't be stuff which oozes out and gets burnt.

Here is the finished product, cooling on the rack.

Taste? Blah. They were quite mealy. I don't know if that's because I added that extra quarter cup of flour so all the dry ingredients would be doubled, or if it's a product of using cake mix as your base. They crumbled easily. There was next to no sweetness in the recipe, not in and of itself bad; but you have an expectation there will be sweetness to cookies. The raw dough was okay to taste, but the baked cookies lacked a redeeming quality to move this from "Okay, I've tried this. Now to recycle the recipe" to the recipe box as a keeper.

Next up is a main dish meal recipe. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post that, although I have everything to make it, I'm a bit on the fence about trying it. However, I need to follow through or what would this experiment be?

Beverage:  Raspberry Seltzer

Deb

Cooking With Deb

Some years ago, I don't remember how many, my mother sent me a box of recipes.

She'd gotten around to cleaning out her recipe boxes, first of all. Then, she went through her mother's recipes for ones she wanted to save. Finally, she sorted through stacks of recipes from my dad's sisters, given to her over the years and dumped into a drawer. When she was done sorting, she sent what she didn't want to me.

There are hundreds here. I have no idea how old some of these are, but they reflect American Midwestern cooking tastes. The box has sat, unused, in the home office for many years. I was going to integrate these with the recipes I save but it would be such a daunting task, I put it off in favor of doing most anything else.

I like to cook, but the realities of my life are that cooking is not something I do when I get home from work. My stamina is gone so whatever supper is must be something reasonably quick. That doesn't favor good food; let's be honest. Ice cream, crackers, peanut butter sandwiches, dry cereal, tend to be staples of dinner. And a diet like that is not good for me. My efforts to reform my diet fall apart simply because I'm tired.

Then one day, I had an idea. What if I cooked one new recipe a week? I could dive into mom's box and make one new thing. I grabbed a handful and counted recipes, using the date numerator. When I got to #28, I read it to see whether it was something I'd make. It was a fruit cocktail sauce to serve warm with ham. Nope. Counted again and got a recipe for green beans with bacon. You won't find me ever making green beans. I cannot stand them. The next batch of counting yielded this.

Well, this was something I would eat. Plus, I had most of the ingredients. I needed a pastry shell, the sweetened condensed milk and the biscuit mix. Turns out I also needed nuts because all I have, right now, are almonds, but, at the time I made this, I thought I had walnuts.

It's quick to make, but it makes a lot of batter.

The regular pie shell couldn't hold all of it. If I make this again, I should try a deep dish shell. The excess, I put in a greased glass dish and baked with the pie.

The pie bakes for 45 minutes. I had no idea how long to cook this so I checked every 10 minutes. At 20 minutes, I pulled it from the oven. I should have left it bake for another 10 minutes. While set, it wasn't completely baked and I wound up eating these with a spoon, not that there's anything wrong with brownie consumption via spoon. The pie came out, cooked through, at 45 minutes.

The smell in my house of brownies baking was heavenly.

It cut well. The brownie had a nice crust to it. You bake the shell first, add the batter and bake again. I had concerns the shell would be overdone, but it wasn't.

It's very rich. The chocoholic that I am can only eat one piece a day. The batter was scrumptious and I wonder how long it would keep to be used as an ice cream topping. Perhaps that's something for a party. I am not ashamed to confess I licked that bowl clean. The addition of whipped cream was a nice touch, but I wish I had vanilla ice cream. THAT would have been outstanding with a slice of pie.

So, the first recipe in this idea was a success. That got me thinking about the box I have in the home office with all the recipes I've saved over 35+ years. There was a teen magazine when I was growing up, called Ingenue. They gave tips on health and beauty, but also on homemaking and budgeting and living on your own. They were rather ahead of their time back then, not assuming you were going to find a guy and get married and jump into the Ladies Home Journal set. I started collecting recipes back then. I have a couple I still make.

When I moved, the stash went with me. Eventually, the addition of other cooking magazines necessitated a filing system for what I was saving. Enter "the box and folder" system.

It started out okay. Label the manilla envelopes with categories and then drop the recipe into that folder. Once a month, grab a folder and read through the recipes, picking a few to try. Eventually, I took to just ripping out the pages and tossing them in the box. I don't remember the last time I actually sorted recipes into the folders. Some of the folders were 25  years old and disintegrating at the edges. What if I combined the two boxes?

That's what I did. I happened to have a box the right size for the cut ones. My saved ones are on the bottom, with mom's saved ones on the top.

All the single sheets are in a stack, to be gone through, assessed, and the recipe I actually want to try cut out and added to the box. The former box was thoroughly examined but the sides are too high to lie down and rest one's chin on so that box has been deemed "recyclable". The old file folders were sniffed but Pilchard decided she didn't want to lie on those. Her current box is to the right. All the folders have been recycled.

I think this will be a lot of fun. I reduced a mess to at least some containment. I need to buy a cake mix for next week's recipe. I expect there will be quite a few 'what the...' upcoming but that's part of the excitement of doing this. It's going to be great exploring what I, my mother, my grandmother and my aunts thought was so good 20-odd years ago that we saved a recipe. Doing this has already got me cooking supper, too. That alone is a victory.

Beverage:  Assam tea

Deb

Mom's Cake

I play Dungeons and Dragons with a couple of groups. One group meets online. The other actually plays the way the game started, with pencils and paper and dice and maps. For the latter group, we get together roughly every 2-3 weeks. Part of that involves food. We've had theme food night and last week, it was breakfast.

Originally, I was going to make a chocolate walnut bread, but chose to sink my time into sewing shirt number 2. But I still had to bring something. I wasn't interested in dashing to the store for anything. I wanted to bake. What could I make that was quick but symbolic of breakfast? I know. Mom's coffee cake.

It's ridiculously simple and I've probably blogged about this before. Mix dry ingredients together with vegetable oil.

Set aside a cup of this crumbly mixture and add egg and buttermilk to the rest.

Pour into a 9x13 greased and floured pan and sprinkle the saved crumb over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes and inhale the fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg and brown sugar.

Cut in pieces and serve warm, with ice cream or cooled for breakfast or as a snack. This cake freezes very well. I've made it, cut it into pieces and stuck the pieces in the freezer. Even defrosting them at 3-4 months out, they were still moist.

This was a staple of family meals when I was growing up. I don't know if mom remembers where she found the recipe but she's been making this for at least 55 years, maybe longer. It's pretty much foolproof and would be a great cake to get kids cooking. I took what was left to the office and then finished off what was left after everyone at work had a piece.

Here's the recipe:

Salad Oil Coffee Cake

3 cups flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1)  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2)  Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan.
3)  Mix flour, sugars and spices together.
4)  Add oil to dry ingredients, stirring until blended and mixture is lumpy.
5)  Reserve 1 cup of the flour/sugar mixture. Set aside.
6)  Add egg, buttermilk, soda and salt to the remaining mixture. Beat until well blended and creamy.
7)  Sprinkle reserved mixture over the top of the batter.
8)  Bake in preheated oven 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
9)  Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes before cutting and serving. May be frozen for later servings.

Enjoy.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Mothers Day Brownies

Three weeks ago, NPR had, on their Facebook feed, a recipe for Decadent Chocolate Brownies. The recipe contained ingredients I had on hand, meaning no extra trip to the store. That's always a good thing. I did buy ice cream when I first encountered the recipe, in anticipation of making brownies but didn't make them until today.

It was different. First you had to line a loaf pan with parchment paper.

Usually, if you use parchment paper, you also grease the paper. This recipe didn't have you do that. My paper is old. It's been around awhile, but it was still good to use.

I didn't realize this was a loaf pan size amount. That should have been a clue that these weren't your average brownies. I gathered all the ingredients and started baking. Step 2 was to melt semi-sweet chocolate chips and butter.

This is what the directions told you to do. Put a glass bowl over simmering water in a pot. It was nice that they didn't assume everyone has a double boiler. I used to have one but I think Carole took the bottom part of it years ago when she moved west. You wind up adding the rest of the ingredients to the melted chocolate so these directions keep the amount of dishes to a minimum.

It takes a bit to get it going but once the chocolate starts to melt, you need to continually stir it to keep it from burning. Mmmmmm. Melted chocolate.

Once the chocolate is melted, you add the other ingredients, one at a time. The recipe called for white and brown sugar. My brown sugar could have been used to pound nails. A quick internet search and I had soft brown sugar. I've put it in an air tight container but the best thing would be to use it up within a month of purchase. Yeah, well, that's probably not going to happen, so I'll go with the air tight container.

This gets poured into the prepared pan.

It's a lovely glossy brown, which is what it should look like, but it's not very much. The loaf is put in the oven for 35 minutes. The house begins to smell heavenly.

I thought, although my knowledge of brownies told me otherwise, the batter might rise so what I put in the pan might get bigger. It didn't. I have a loaf of brownies. They are cooled for a half-hour and then here it gets weird. You put them in the fridge and chill them further 2 hours. The time at the top of the recipe is not accurate for preparation. It says 45 minutes when that's not even close when you consider 30 minutes to bake and 30 minutes to cool BEFORE sticking them in the fridge. I was beginning to wonder about these.

After 2 hours, I took the loaf out of the fridge and dumped it on the counter, peeling off the paper.

It's a loaf, of baked brownie batter, a loaf. The ends and sides were dry and hard to the touch. I carved off an end piece.

The hunk is soft and gooey on the inside but dry and hard on the sides. I wound up slicing the ends off because I couldn't gnaw through them.

Perhaps raccoons would appreciate these, but I haven't seen a raccoon since last fall so I don't think I want to tempt them back. I was very disappointed by this because it's a half-inch of brownie no one can eat.

How does it taste? Well, if you can overlook the dry, crusty, exceptionally hard ends, they aren't bad. I warmed up a chunk and it went very well with vanilla ice cream. But, the bottom line is this is an awful recipe.

I saved the rest of the loaf and will see how it fares. I put it in a freezer bag and stuck the bag in the fridge. Will it dry out quickly?

I have other brownie recipes with a couple more ingredients or a few more steps that make better brownies and more of them. I am certain you can type "Brownie recipe" into any search engine and get a recipe that even a beginner can make. The ones made with cocoa can be just as rich as melting chocolate and butter together. This was a huge disappointment.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Treats

I try to get the girls some exercise but they are, like me, rather sedentary. I have seen videos of cats going bonkers over the ring with the ball in it. The animal welfare site I frequent happened to have a ring on sale for 50% off, so I thought, "What's one more thing to clutter up the living room floor?" 

The middle cardboard was catnip impregnated. Mija could smell that through the plastic wrap. I pulled off the identification paper and found some sticky stuff. 

It took a good 10 minutes to get this off the cardboard. I was not impressed with this. As it's encouraging cats to scratch, I don't want this in their claws where it could be ingested. Mija was in my face about the smell of catnip. I couldn't smell anything but she kept wanting to see what I had. 

You can see the sticky stuff on the center cardboard. They sent a bag of organic catnip, too. That fell on the floor and Pilchard found it. I had to take it away before she chewed through the plastic bag. 

I set the thing on the floor. It was sniffed, but once on the floor, they quickly lost interest. I then added catnip to the cardboard and Pilchard took to it. Mija prefers her catnip on the large scratching pads I have for them. I need to get more catnip, too. Horrors. We are almost out. 

I showed the girls what they can do with the ball. They both looked at me like I was crazy. Years ago, we had a tube that had a ball in it. It was covered with cut outs in places. Several of the cats we had loved the thing. I spent a good 10 minutes making the ball go 'round and 'round. Mija walked away. Pilchard jumped up onto the cat tree and watched me. So, I gave up. When I came back into the living room a couple hours later, Pilchard had figured out what the thing is for. 

Yes.../sigh. I have heard someone playing with it when I'm in the office. I come out and it's usually Pilchard who is walking away. Maybe it will just take time for them to figure out what it's for. 

In the same package, I got something for myself. 

I won't post a photo of the mitt it replaced. When you can feel the heat of a cookie sheet through your oven mitt, it's time to replace it. Plus, I couldn't get all the stains out. I'm not sure about giving it away. I think the expectation would be that it provides protection from oven heat and it doesn't do that well anymore. I think it's a toss. 

Since getting the new mitt, I haven't cooked anything requiring the oven. Figures. Oh well, at least I have something when I do. 

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

Comfort Food

It's kind of overused to call this a "brutal" winter. At least we don't have the snow here that we did last year. It's just cold. Cold I can deal with, especially when I can make comfort food.

It was on sale for $1.50 a box. I think that comes very close to the cost of making them from scratch. What could be more comforting than warm brownies on a cold winter night.

Everything gets dumped into one bowl.

As advertised, the mix comes with chocolate pieces. Some were chunks and some were chips. There is a pouch of fudge which is added to the batter. You add an egg, 1/2 cup of oil and 3 tablespoons of water.

I found it humorous that the directions tell you to beat the batter for 50 strokes. Usually, it says "beat until moist". I guess they found that giving people a set number of strokes results in a more consistent product. The bottom of the pan is greased and the batter poured into the prepared pan. You bake the brownies at 350 for 35 to 37 minutes.

While they are baking, lick the bowl. It could be argued that one of the reasons I bake is to eat the batter. You wouldn't be completely wrong, but I think the combination of batter and baked good is best.

They look like brownies should look. There is a thin cracked crust and they rose just a bit. My pan is 8.5 by 6.5 so I got thick brownies. If you use a 9x9 pan, which the box says can be used, they would be thin. I guess it's all in how you like your brownies.

I cut the pan into quarters. I discovered that the 37 minutes allotted was not enough. The bottom was still batter. So, I was making fries at the time and stuck the pan back in the 450 oven for another 10 minutes. That cooked them all the way through. If I do this again, I'll go for 40-45 minutes.

They smelled wonderful. The batter tasted good. I can't call it "great" because it did taste somewhat artificial. There is a difference in taste when you make it on your own than when it comes from a box due to food preservation laws. You'd think it would just be chocolate pieces, cocoa, flour and sugar, but there was something else. Probably anti-clumping additives. It wasn't a bad taste, but it didn't taste like brownies composed of flour, sugar and cocoa.

They didn't hold up as well as homemade, however. They aren't the kind you wrap in plastic and send with lunch. By the time you get to lunch, they will be in pieces. The chocolate chips and chunks weren't as many as it appears when I dumped in the pouch. I thought about adding more and I should have. I think these also would have benefitted from the addition of walnuts. The chocolate flavor was consistent but I wonder how much the fudge sauce contributes to the flavor. "Real" brownies don't need that sauce to be chocolate.

I could just eat them plain, but warm, from the oven brownies just scream for ice cream. I was worried I didn't have any. But, I moved a bag of peas and there was a pint of Haagen Das vanilla bean ice cream; the perfect complement to chocolate brownies. This can be supper on a cold, cold winter night.

So, if you're in the market for brownies and don't want to take the hour to make homemade ones, and you see this on sale for $2.50 or less, it's worth it. You don't get a 9x13 pan of them unless you buy two boxes. They won't be as dense as the photo on the box or as you're used to but they are fine for an afternoon or evening treat. They tasted great and warm, with ice cream, it was very satisfying. Don't buy them if you are looking for a heap of chocolate. They aren't that chocolaty. Buy them if you want a quick treat.

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast Tea

Deb

On Vacation -- I Really Should Have

Carole and I went to WalMart to get the ingredients for the cheesecakes I was making for the guild party on Sunday. We were wandering about, looking for items and these were on the end cap of an aisle.

At the time, I didn't want to spend the money. But, as the time has passed, I realize I should have. I really should have bought one of each and made them.

I'm curious about the colors. Usually, making something like this, with swirls of other colors, is a somewhat time consuming process. You have to separate batter and add the food coloring. Then, put the main color in the pan, adding the additional color(s) slowly so they don't mix. This is akin to paint and if you mix the colors, not swirl them, you'll come up with a brown, muddy mess. It's still edible, it just looks like a fresh cow pie. I realize its a horrid stereotype but I can't see the average WalMart shopper doing a labor intensive project like a red, white and blue cake. I missed my chance to check these out. I was just so dumbfounded at seeing them in the aisle.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

It's A Market, Not a Grocery, Photo 13

There's no shortage of places to buy foodstuffs around here. That's the beauty of living in a reasonably well-off suburban area. Choice is abundant, even if you want to drive a little.

In February, a new grocery store opened in a new strip mall on the site of a former Chrysler car dealer.

The place I go to get my hair cut is to the right, out of sight. A Firehouse Subs shop is off the photo to the right and a dry cleaner with dry through pick up is at the far left of this strip mall. In terms of use, this is not a bad use of the space. There are still three vacant storefronts, but there are so many empty spaces along this stretch of roadway that it will be interesting to see if these fill within the next year.

I had a list of items I needed so I felt this was the time to check out this place. I've seen them around the Chicagoland area but never been in one. The first thing to notice is the cart area.

I've mentioned how I like the little carts. I don't spend as much and they are easier to load and unload. Well, the carts to the left are just two baskets on a rolling cart. I was not impressed. It felt cheap, like they couldn't be bothered to buy real carts.

This is a European-style market. It's similar in scope although not as big, as Whole Foods. They sell organic or niche items here. All the produce, which looked great and was competitively priced to Mariano's, was listed as organic. They have daily specials which are listed on a chalk board at the front of the store. I thought the ones for Sunday were on par in terms of price, with anything I'd seen elsewhere.

They have no prepackaged meats. There is a meat counter where you get what you want packaged to order. I'm used to this because I shopped at Whole Foods and it's what I grew up with. The meat looked very good. There is a small bakery, but I liked their offerings. Look!

Hot cross buns. They are good and they are the only ones I think I will find this season. Panera is not selling their version this year.

In store bakeries can seem to cater to the sweets department. Mariano's is three cases of donuts, rolls, cakes and cookies. Whole Foods has a sweets section but they do have a larger assortment of breads and rolls. Fresh Market's bakery area was small but had more artisan breads and rolls than sweets. I wasn't in the market for bread this trip but when I am, then I will critically look at their offerings.

They have a large prepared food area and a small, but functional salad bar. On the whole, the store is smaller than Whole Foods but offers similar items. I love the lighting and the look of this store. I don't like Mariano's lighting. It's too fluorescent. It's not a pleasant experience to be in the store. But it has things like cat food and kitty litter and Spam and dish soap and Mom's Best Cereal that Fresh Market doesn't carry. There is no pharmacy and, unlike Whole Foods, there isn't a section near the prepared foods devoted to holistic living, with any kind of herb or vitamin you could possibly want. There was half an aisle and I didn't look very much because I didn't need anything from there.

I came home with fruit, flour and salt, and impulse purchases, like the hot cross buns. This is surprisingly good.

It's too expensive to be consumed at any but occasional times. I'll stick with my LaCroix flavored water, but this comes in watermelon flavor which I will have to try. This was on sale for the same price as a pint of Ben and Jerry's.

I know I've had gelato but not recently. There has been this craving for ice cream lately. I'm giving this a try. There are other items which will merit their own posts in the future.

The bottom line is that while I like this store, for how it looks and how it feels and the fact that it doesn't play old rock and roll over the speakers, it's not a daily stock-up store. I'm still going to have to go to Mariano's for kitty litter. There was no section devoted to pets. It's on the way home. I pass it most every night unless I go the back way. I can see myself stopping there for fresh fruits and veggies and, once I look over the meat and prepared foods cases, getting those items there, too. I like that it's similar to Whole Foods and closer to me. That's an incentive to eat a bit healthier, a bit. The vegetable drawer in the fridge will always be, I fear, a secondary composter.

Beverage:  La Croix Cran-Raspbearry seltzer

Deb

Batter Will Be Lumpy

Ya think?

Actually, I was not at all convinced this would become the pear walnut cake the recipe advertised it to be. So incredibly easy to make, I've been wanting to bake this for some time, but I tend to eat the pears before they become ingredients in cake batter. Having found the fruit dipping caramel at Mariano's, pears and caramel can be a legitimate supper choice. But that doesn't leave pears for cake and you need a lot of pears, according to the recipe.

That's five (5), count 'em, FIVE D'anjou pears diced. You don't peel them. You just dice them into half inch cubes. I looked at the recipe several times as I was dicing pears, thinking I'd misread it. Nope. "Dice 5 D'anjou pears. Do not peel." That's a lot of pear pieces.

Then you mix up a batter.

It's a simple lightly spiced cake batter. There's cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, brown sugar and oil in this. Beat it to creamy and add the pears. "Batter will be lumpy". I looked at this and thought, "There is no way this is making a cake." But, I'd come this far so let's pop it in the oven for an hour at 350 degrees and see what happens.

The smell as it baked was just a hint of cinnamon. It strikes me that baking pears don't really have a smell. The timer went off and I opened the oven.

Well, how about that. It's cake! I took this cake to Iowa on a recent visit. It's dense and moist and tastes very good with vanilla ice cream. The great niece and nephews loved that they could pick it up and eat it. I liked that it traveled well.

This recipe is a keeper. The preparation time is long because of the dicing of the pears and it takes an hour to bake, but it's so worth it.

Beverage:  hot cocoa

Deb