The Nifty Foodie

This time last week, our living room was completely full. While I enjoy having family over to visit, it wasn’t because of a celebration. Rather, we were sitting in our living room, praying for our power to stay on,  and stressing about how terrible the wind/rain would be. Hurricane Isaac visited slammed southeast Louisiana, almost making landfall on the exact day that Hurricane Katrina hit. All of these feelings of anxiety just rushed back, and I hoped and prayed that our levee system would hold for my family’s sake.

When the storm was at its peak, I noticed that my family and I were definitely stress eating. I know stress eating isn’t healthy but sometimes, something like a freshly baked cookie just hits the spot and helps a little to make things more comforting. Of course, sitting through a hurricane where the winds are howling past your windows, rain is pouring horizontally, and the dogs are freaking out just can’t ever be comfortable, but something about snacks…I can’t explain it, but it just helped to get our minds off of things. These cookies were thick, chewy and just darn delicious.

Now, as for me and my (immediate) family, we were very lucky. My parents’ fence fell down, and that was the worst of it for them. However, my heart is heavy for those whose homes were flooded or otherwise destroyed from this storm. When I go to Facebook lately, quite a few of the statuses from my friends aren’t about football or politics. They’re about finding a place to do laundry, because they have no power; finding a place to take a shower after spending their whole day hauling damaged items out of their home; hoping they can find water and food for their families; hoping that FEMA can assist them in some way; scared about what the rest of the hurricane season has in store for us.

I’m tearing up as I write this post, because I’m sitting on my couch, with an intact roof over my head, knowing that all of my family members are safe and sound. I’m thankful, and I realize how truly blessed we are. We are truly blessed. If you have some prayers or good thoughts to spare, there are thousands of people out here who could use them as they rebuild. I don’t know of many local charities right now who are accepting donations for disaster relief (feel free to leave a comment if I’m wrong, though), but I do know that the Red Cross is out here. (Just to note, I’m not writing this post to ask for money, but if you wanted to donate, here’s the link for Red Cross.)

Levain Copycat Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: Confections of a Foodie Bride

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter (very cold, shredded with your food processor or cut into small cubes)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 12 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, beat the cold butter and sugars until just combined. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix until just combined.
2. In another bowl, stir the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together. Add this to the wet mixture and mix until everything is just barely mixed together. Add the chocolate chips and hand mix in until the chocolate chips are well mixed into the dough.
3. Divide the dough into 12 balls, about 4 oz. each. (Size-wise, a little larger than a golf ball. You can use a jumbo cookie scoop to get a slightly rounded scoop as well.) Place the balls of dough in the fridge for about 20 minutes to chill.
4. Once chilled, place 6 balls per ungreased cookie sheet. Bake the cookies for 18-22 minutes, until browned along the edges and set in the center.
5. Allow the cookies to fully cool on the pans before transferring to an airtight container.

A few weeks ago, I decided it was finally time to organize the pantry. Food was just stacked all over the place, and it became pretty darn difficult to figure out what we already had when it came time for grocery shopping. The shelf I spent the most time on was the baking shelf. Y’all…I can’t even tell y’all how many extra boxes and bags of baking supplies were in there, and sadly some of them were expired. What a waste. Within that, I also discovered that I had two unopened jars of peanut butter, and one of them was expiring in a month. So, of course I needed to use it up ASAP. Lesson learned….I’m cleaning the pantry more often from now on!

I’m a big fan of cookies, but for some reason, I hardly ever make peanut butter cookies. I like them, but I’m so used to making cookies involving chocolate or just good ol’ sugar cookies. To me, these are sort of the forgotten cookie, and there’s really no reason for that, because peanut butter cookies are delish!

Peanut Butter Cookies
Source: King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the shortening, sugars, egg, vanilla and peanut butter, until the mixture is smooth.
3. Scrape down the bowl and add the flour, baking soda and salt to the wet mixture, beating slowly until the mixture is just combined. This is a dry dough, so it could take a while to come together. If the dough is too crumbly, add a little water at a time until the dough is no longer crumbly.
4. Using a tablespoon scoop, drop the cookie dough onto your baking sheets, making sure to leave 2 inches between each cookie. Take a fork and flatten the cookie to a 1/2 inch thickness, making a cross-hatch type of design on them.
5. Bake the cookies for 12-16 minutes, until they just start to brown around the edges of the cookies. The tops will not brown at this point. Cool the cookies on a rack and enjoy!

Ahh cookie dough. Whenever I see cookie dough, I imagine myself sitting on the sofa with a roll of Pillsbury dough and a spoon. Don’t judge me. I know half of you are nodding your head and smiling — y’all know how awesome it is! I know, I know…salmonella risk. However, I’ve been eating cookie dough for years and I’m still kicking.

Because I’m paranoid, I just want to disclose that I’m not encouraging ANYONE to eat cookie dough containing raw eggs, like Pillsbury dough…I don’t want to get sued over this post darnit!

Anyway, since I have been seeing cookie dough all over the blogs lately, I just had to make something involving it. The craving was just too strong. I had some heavy cream in the fridge, and I figured that it would be the perfect excuse to make some ice cream. I had this recipe from Annie’s blog starred for quite a while, because it wasn’t your ordinary cookie dough ice cream. No…it was DOUBLE chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Oh man, y’all. Not only are there chunks of cookie dough in there, but the ice cream is also cookie dough flavored.

Once I finished making it, it was SO hard to not eat the whole batch right out of the ice cream maker bowl. Seriously. In fact, that little ice cream bowl you see in the picture is my secret weapon while I’m calorie counting. It’s dainty, makes me feel all sorts of fancy, and it fits two scoops of ice cream on it. For this gal who could put away a pint of ice cream, this is awesome. Portion control y’all. I’m learning.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream
Source: Annie’s Eats (ice cream from Joy the Baker and cookie dough from The Perfect Scoop)

Ingredients:

For the cookie dough:

• 5 tbsp. salted butter, melted (or unsalted butter plus ¼ tsp. salt)
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

For the ice cream:

• 3 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 2/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 4 large egg yolks
• Pinch of coarse salt
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. To make the cookie dough chunks, stir the melted butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until everything is smooth. Add in the flour, then the vanilla and mini chocolate chips. The dough will be very soft before chilling. Form the dough into a disk over some plastic wrap, wrap the dough well in the plastic wrap and refrigerate until the dough is firm.
2. While the dough is chilling, make the ice cream by first melting the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir often over the heat (to avoid burning), until the butter is a deep golden brown color. Whisk in the heavy cream and heat the mixture until simmering. While this is going on, in a medium bowl, vigorously stir the egg yolks and the brown sugar are pale and fluffy.
3. Once the cream mixture is warm, add a small amount of the cream mixture to the bowl with the egg yolk mixture, whisking well. Once that’s done, slowly whisk in the rest of the cream mixture. Then, add in the salt and return the egg/sugar/cream mixture to the saucepan and heat the mixture until slightly thickened, (the temperature should read 170-175 degrees on a thermometer). Immediately take the saucepan off of the heat and pour the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl.
4. Stir the vanilla extract and milk into the egg/sugar/cream mixture until well-mixed. Then cover the bowl and chill the ice cream mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator.
5. Once the ice cream mixture is chilled, churn the ice cream in an ice cream maker (according to the instructions on your specific ice cream maker). While the ice cream is churning, chop the cookie dough into small chunks. Once the ice cream is done churning, transfer to a freezer safe bowl or container and stir in the chocolate chips and cookie dough chunks. Freeze the ice cream in the freezer for a few hours (or until firm) before serving.

I’m not usually a fan of shopping. My goal is to get what I need, and get out as quickly as possible. I’ve been like this since I was a kid. You can ask my Mom. A trip to the mall was agonizing. I remember most Sundays after church, there was a decision to make. Shop with Mom or shop with Dad. I usually opted for shopping with Dad. It’s not that I have issues with my Mom. Heck, I feel super blessed to have an amazing relationship with my Mom. However, my method of operation was to go on the shopping trip that would be the shortest, and usually, that was with Dad (with the exception of his trips to the sportsmen stores).

Now, as an adult, shopping trips are still quick for me. It’s very rare that I linger around a store for a while. Take the grocery store, for instance. I can usually do the weekly shopping for H and I within 20 minutes (unless the lines are crazy). This usually means that I have to stick to my list. The only time I stray away from the list is when I’m starving, which I try to avoid, but well, a few weeks ago, I went to the store starving. The chocolate chips were definitely calling me….and they were on sale. So yeah, some chocolate chips went home with me that day.

I decided that the best way to handle this situation was to make cookies, of course. I’ve had this recipe pinned for quite a while, since they went viral on Pinterest, so I wanted to see what the fuss was about. The cool thing about these cookies is that cornstarch is involved. I was really intrigued to see how cornstarch affected the taste and texture of the cookies, so I really wanted to finally give these a try.

These end up making mini cookies (with a tbsp sized scoop), so they bake up fairly quickly. I found that these were a nice, fluffy texture, and they were very chewy as well. I prefer a more butterscotch-y flavor cookie, like these cookies, but I will say these cookies were still really good. This recipe made a few dozen mini cookies too, so this recipe was perfect to make just one batch to the office so everyone could give them a try.

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: Kelsey’s Apple a Day, originally from Anna Olson

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tsp. cornstarch
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the butter and sugars together with the paddle attachment for a couple of minutes, until the mixture if fluffy and light. Scrap the sides of the bowl with a spatula, add the egg and vanilla and mix.
2. Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt together in a separate bowl and add to the wet mixture, mixing until everything is just combined. Using a spatula, stir in the chocolate chunks.
3. Using a small tablespoon sized scoop, drop dough onto a silpat or parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, until the cookies are barely golden brown around the edges. You don’t want to cook these cookies for longer than 10 minutes (that will overdo it), and just as a note, the tops of the cookies will not brown during baking.
4. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for five minutes. Then, move the cookies to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.

Somehow these cookies have survived in our house for well over a month. I guess I was afraid to open these or something. I mean, these cookies only come once a year, and I’m known for eating these a sleeve at a time. I can behave when it comes to Tagalongs, but Thin Mints? Oh no. I had to ignore them…had to.

Then, this past Saturday, I opened my freezer and stared the Thin Mints down. Then, in my cheat day rage, I ran to Pinterest and looked over recipes using thin mints and stumbled upon these blondies. Of course I had to find a way to make thin mints less diet friendly.

The wonderful thing about bars or brownies is they whip up so quickly. It’s kind of dangerous, but it’s also a good thing when you want to bake something for your coworkers after getting home from work, but also before you have to start cooking supper. I had a small taste of these when I was cutting into them, and whoa. If I wasn’t counting my darn calories, I’d save half of the pan for myself.

If you happen to be one of the few with a box of thin mints stashed away, definitely give these a shot. You, or whomever you give these amazing bars to, will thank you a million times over. Just to note: The original recipe calls for Andes chips, but since I couldn’t find these in the store, I made them with a mixture of milk and white chocolate chips.

Thin Mint Blondies
Source: Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Pinch salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 box Thin Mint Cookies, cut or broken in half
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9×13 inch pan and set it aside.
2. In a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter for 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Then, add in the white and brown sugars and whip the butter and sugars together for 2-3 minutes until everything looks light. Scrape the bowl down
3. Add in the eggs one at a time, as well as the vanilla and beat the mixture on low speed for about 30 seconds, scraping down the bowl after adding each egg.
4. Mix the salt and flour with a whisk separately in a small bowl. Then, add your flour mixture to your wet mixture with the mixture on low. Mix everything together until everything is just fully incorporated.
5. Turn off the mixer, and using a spatula, fold in the milk chocolate chips as well as half of the box (one sleeve) of the Thin Mints.
6. Spread the batter into your 9×13 pan. If it’s too thick to use your spatula, dip your fingers in warm water and spread the batter using your fingers.
7. Bake the blondies for 20-25 minutes, until they are set in the middle.
8. Once you take them out of the oven, working quickly, sprinkle the white chocolate chips evenly on top of the blondies. Allow them to sit for a minute, and then gently press the other half of the Thin Mints into the top of the blondies.
9. Allow the pan to fully cool on a rack before serving.