award winning

In looking back through some of my previous posts, I noticed that I have shared a lot of my cooking...shall we say, learning opportunities? Yes, learning opportunities. I think it's time to focus on some successes. In addition, I really want to share this recipe with you. It is by far the best cookie recipe I have ever made and every time I share these cookies, people gobble them up and ask for the recipe. Part of their name is "award winning" and you will soon discover why.

(If you didn't already know this about me, you are about to learn that I love lists. If you're a list-lover too, you will like this post. If you don't like lists, hmmm, are you sure? Okay, just skip to the link then.)


Photo courtesy of my lovely sister Camille and her fantastic camera

Here is why they are great:
1. They are soft.
2. They stay soft for days.
3. The entire recipe makes a massive amount of cookies, but you can just as easily make half or a quarter of the recipe (although trust me when I say that there are never enough of these).
4. You can freeze these and reheat them in the toaster oven and they taste just as fresh.
5. You can vary the flavor of the secret ingredient (secret to be revealed below) and the kind of chocolate chips to create an infinite number of fantastic and creative variations.

Oh my goodness. Just thinking about these makes me want one right now.

Are you ready for these?

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to share this! Really ready?

Okay, okay! Here you go:

Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ta-da!

And the secret ingredient is........pudding mix!!! Yes! Love it! This is what makes these cookies soft and delicious! I have tried vanilla, chocolate, lemon, and banana. I also plan on trying pistachio. Lemon wasn't my favorite but my co-workers liked it - they said it reminded them of a fig newton. Suuure.

My favorite combos:

(Measurements are for 36 servings or half the recipe so you need 2 cups of choc chips total)

1. Vanilla pudding / 1 c milk choc chips + 1/2 c semi-sweet choc chips + 1/2 c white choc chips

2. Chocolate pudding / 1-1/2 c of white choc chips + 1/2 c semi-sweet choc chips

3. Banana pudding / 1-1/2 c milk choc chips + 1/2 c white choc chips

But please be creative here... and share your results with me!



Now, I don't know how much baking experience you have, so I will share a few tips that I have learned along the way:

1. The butter must be at room temperature before you start. If your home is hot, put the butter out for a while and then put it in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes before you use it. The butter needs to be soft, as in you can gently press down and leave a finger mark, but not melted. This has a high impact on the consistency of the cookies, as well as whether or not they will hold their shape.

2. You can beat the sugar and butter as long as you want. In fact, I would say that 3-4 minutes is good. You can really beat all of the ingredients as long as you want...until... you add in the flour. Once the flour goes in, make sure you are only mixing until all of the ingredients are incorporated. Over-mixing once the flour is in will create tough cookies.

3. Make sure your baking soda isn't old. This one is kind of random and probably doesn't happen too often, but it's on my mind because I recently discovered that my baking powder was no longer effective. Just something to check if you have any problems.

4. It is very important to scoop the flour out of the container and lightly sprinkle it into your measuring cup. If you use the measuring cup to scoop the flour out of the bag, you will have too much flour and your cookies will be too dense. The best way to make sure you have the right amount of flour is to change the measurements to metric and then weigh the flour. Not sure if you'll be up for that, but it's worth a shot if you any problems and have a scale that measures in grams.

5. In allrecipes.com, you can easily scale the recipe by changing the number of servings (originally 72 cookies for this recipe) and hitting the "Calculate" button. Allrecipes.com does the math for you. And if you're really averse to math, half the recipe is 36 servings, and a quarter is 18. ;-)

6. Cookie scoops are awesome. They enable you to make cookies of the same size, which is good to prevent fighting over the biggest cookies and because they will be evenly baked. I waited way too long before buying this kitchen utensil. I am in love with it and am not sure how I lived without one. Alternately, you could use a tablespoon. (But once you have a cookie scoop, you'll fall in love with it too and also wonder how you lived without one.)

7. It helps to cool the batter a bit before you bake the cookies. Therefore, keep the dough in the refrigerator in between batches. It'll make the cookies better.

8. And one last tip: take these out of the oven even if you don't think they're done. When the edges are starting to brown, take them out! They will continue to bake a bit out of the oven and be just perfect. My oven is about average in temperature, maybe slightly hot, and I take these out at exactly 10 minutes. If you don't know how hot your oven runs, err on the side of caution and check on the cookies at 8 minutes.



Now I hope you're not overwhelmed. All I really needed to say about this recipe is that it is THE BEST!! You can thank me later for sharing this recipe. For now, just go make these.

soup, it does a body good

Weight Watchers has a recipe for zero-point soup. When I read over the ingredients, I thought it sounded gross and I thought for sure that I wouldn't like it. But, it is zero points, and when you're on a diet, it's pretty special to be able to ingest something without worrying about its impact on your diet plan.

You start out by sauteing some onions, garlic and carrots.

Then you add broth, green beans, tomato paste, and cabbage. Also the herbs and salt.

And once the broth is brought back to a boil, add in the zucchini.

It's ready when the zucchini is tender. So much better than (it sounded to me and) it looks. And zero points!!!

A perfect way for me to balance out all of that baking! Bon appetit!

strawberries

I like the idea of strawberries, but whenever I buy them, I lose interest in eating them. Last time I even bought Cool Whip in the hopes that it would motivate me, but that didn't do the trick either. Therefore, as with most fresh fruits and vegetables I buy, I ended up with a lot left as they were starting to lose their freshness.

I decided to bake with them so I searched for a strawberry recipe that wasn't a pie. And that's where the Strawberry Bread comes in. (Although I have to admit that once I cut these up, I was definitely in the mood to eat them instead of baking them!)

I didn't have high hopes, because I thought it sounded weird and wasn't very inspired by the pictures. Boy, was I in for a treat! The bread turned out moist and delicious and I ate right through it.

If you want to try it, find the recipe here, but I suggest reading the comments (especially mine of course) before making it as it doesn't need nearly as much oil as the recipe calls for.

The pictures don't do it justice. Trust me, just try it.

dessert obsession... and two healthy dishes

I have a few things to show you today. Let's start with the sweet stuff, shall we?!

My favorite classic flavor combination is vanilla and chocolate. Take that into baking dessert and we're talking about brownies with vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, and whipped cream. With the brownie preferably warm. One of my favorite ice cream flavors is Ben & Jerry's Half Baked that includes chunks of brownies and cookie dough. Imagine my excitement when I came across a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownie recipe over at recipegirl.com!! I was slightly disappointed, maybe because my expectations were so high, but that doesn't prevent it from being a delicious indulgence that I would still recommend. Here is the result:

Now moving on to actual meals... I tried another recipe from my favorite daily food blog: dailygarnish.com. This Mexican Quinoa with Black Beans and Avocado looked good and I already had most of the ingredients so I made it just a few days after her. The only modification is that I had red quinoa, but I doubt that impacted it much. I thought this dish was really good. I never would have combined these ingredients on my own, but they worked really well together. You should try it. Super easy too.

And last, but not least, I made an oldie but goodie from allrecipes.com. Chicken breasts with balsamic vinegar and garlic served with mashed potatoes. Yum! Look for my comment (in 2008) to see what I change in the recipe... really just don't flour the chicken and add a bit of cornstarch mixed in with cold water at the end to thicken the sauce.

And I will end with this: would you believe that my new blender broke?! It overheated one day while I was making a smoothie. I used it, what, 3 times!?! Anyone know of a good blender I could buy that will actually last a while? Anyone?