White Chip Chocolate Cookies

I like cookies. But I am also pretty particular about my cookies, and I get bored with chocolate chip if I make them too often. So sometimes I branch out a bit. Snickerdoodles. Lemon crinkles. Heath bit cookies. You get the idea. Well, today's offering is these little beauties.

Sorry for the blurriness... I'd take another one but I ate them all.

Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips. I make them small - about 2 inches in diameter - so that I can eat a lot of them. One thing to be careful of with this recipe - don't over-bake them or they'll get much too hard! If you aren't sure if they are done, break one in half and check the middle. They should have cracks on the top when you pull them out of the oven. I did make a few minor ingredient changes based off of the comments given on allrecipes.com, so my version does not exactly match the link.

White Chip Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

- 1 cup butter, softened (I usually just microwave it for 30 seconds or so in a glass dish)

- 2/3 cup white sugar

- 2/3 cup brown sugar

- 2 eggs

- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 2/3 cups white chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Fold in the white chocolate chips. (The dough will be pretty stiff at this point.) Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are set. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Also, for those of you wondering what the mango lassi recipe was from Indian food extravaganza, it was this one. (I didn't make it though, so I can't really take any credit for how good it was.) And here's a picture to send you off.

Chicken Taquitos

I tried a new recipe for dinner tonight, and there was much rejoicing in the house! But I'd better start from the beginning. Almost a week ago, my cousin invited me to try Pinterest (which until that point I had resisted on the theory that I had plenty of other ways to waste my time online already). I still haven't used it a ton, but I did pin some recipes that looked tasty and not too tricky. Today's recipe comes from there: chicken taquitos.

I ended up being able to fit about 8 on a cookie sheet.

They turned out delightfully crispy!

I've coped the recipe (with my notes added in) below.

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos

Yield: 12 taquitos (I only assembled 8 so far but it looks like it will make more like 16-20)

- 3 ounces cream cheese, softened

- 1/4 cup green salsa (I used store bought mild green salsa since I'm a wimp with spicy stuff)

- 1 Tbsp fresh lime juice (juice from half a lime) (I actually used a whole lime, but it wasn't a very juicy one.)

- 1/2 tsp ground cumin

- 1 tsp chili powder

- 1/2 tsp onion powder

- 2 cloves garlic, minced (I used about 1/4 tsp garlic power)

- 3 Tbsp chopped cilantro (I skipped this ingredient because I forgot to buy some) (UPDATE: I made this again and it's even better with cilantro)

- 2 Tbsp sliced green onions (I used about 2 tsp dried onion)

- 2 cups shredded cooked chicken

- 1 cup shredded Mexican flavored cheese

- small flour or corn tortillas (I used 8 inch flour tortillas)

- kosher salt

- cooking spray

Preheat your oven to 425˚F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, salsa, lime juice, ground cumin, chili powder, onion powder and garlic. Once combined, stir in the cilantro and green onions. Add the chicken and cheese; mix thoroughly.

(If you decided to prep this in advance, refrigerate the mixture at this point until ready to continue.)

Working with a few tortillas at a time, heat them in the microwave between two paper towels until they are soft enough to roll (about 20 – 30 seconds).

Spoon 2-3 Tablespoons of the chicken mixture onto the lower third of a tortilla. Roll the tortilla as tightly as you can.

Place the rolled tortilla seam side down on the baking sheet. Repeat with remaining tortillas until the mixture is gone.  Make sure the taquitos are not touching each other. Spray the tops lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until crisp and golden.

Serve with salsa, sour cream or guacamole.

**To freeze:  Before baking, flash freeze the taquitos in a single layer on a baking sheet then place in a labeled freezer bag and store up to 3 months.  To bake a frozen taquito (no need to thaw first): Preheat oven to 425˚F and bake for 20 minutes.  (Flash Freeze means freezing the taquitos in a single layer for 15-20 minutes (until hardened) so that when you add them to the freezer bag, they will not all stick together).

~~~

I made my filling goop in advance, and my tortillas were room temperature so I didn't need to microwave them at all. They turned out very tasty, despite some of the filling oozing out each end. I served them with sour cream. The sprinkling of salt on top is definitely important - there's no salt added to the goop, so that sprinkling really adds a lot to enhance the flavor overall. Despite my initial nervousness at the recipe containing salsa and chili powder, it was not at all spicy, just very flavorful. 

I'm definitely going to try out the flash freeze method because these are really easy to make ahead of time, and also a really easy dinner if they're waiting in the freezer. And we all know how much I like easy, quick dinners. :) Seriously though, if you make the goop ahead of time, it only takes maybe 10 minutes to assemble these. My oven hadn't even finished preheating before I was done.

We each ate three and were stuffed, so this recipe will easily feed at least 4 people, maybe more (depending on the people). 

Potatoes Supreme

My mom had a certain potato dish she always made for special events (mostly holidays and big family dinners). She got it from my Dad's mom, who got it from... somewhere. My recipe genealogy doesn't go that far back. :P It goes very well with ham, and, in fact, my sister-in-law will often put chopped leftover ham in the potatoes directly for added convenience.

And now, enough chatter. May I present....

Potatoes Supreme


Ingredients:

- 1 can cream of celery soup (if you don't like the store bought kind, I like this recipe for homemade cream soups)
- 3/4 can water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 2 Tbs chopped onion
- 3/4  grated cheese
- 7-8 medium potatoes
- 1/2 grated cheese
- ham (optional)

Directions:

Peel potatoes and slice thinly. Mix cream of celery soup, water, salt, pepper, onion, and 3/4 c cheese (and ham, if desired); layer in a casserole dish with potatoes. Make 5-6 layers, covering all potato slices. Top with 1/2 c. grated cheese. Cover and bake at 350 F for 2 1/2-3 hours. Uncover for the last 15-20 min.

Serve with: ham/turkey/etc, crusty bread, and vegetables of your choice.

I have actually only made this myself once (several years ago), but my brother gave me some of their leftovers from yesterday and it reminded me how good it was. You can even try increasing the amount of sauce if you'd like; the leftovers tend to suck it all up so there's not as much on day 2 or 3 (though it still tastes delicious).

Chicken Curry and Naan

For writing group tonight, we workshopped Nathan's latest book. And what better way to celebrate than with delicious food? We made a fabulous spread centering around chicken curry and naan bread (with a potato side dish, mango lassi for drinks, and two kinds of rice).

The remains of the naan bread.

Writing group: 1, Curry: 0. So delicious.

And now, for the recipes:

Indian Chicken Curry*

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup finely chopped onion (1 medium)

- 1/2 cup finely chopped celery

- 2 tablespoons butter

- 3 tablespoons flour

- 1 teaspoon curry powder

- 1 1/2 cups chicken broth

- 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

- 1 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken

- 1/2 cup tomato juice

- 2 cups cooked rice

Directions

In medium saucepan cook onion and celery in hot butter until tender. Stir in flour and curry powder. Add chicken broth and Worcestershire sauce. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Stir in cooked chicken and tomato juice; heath through. If desired, season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve over hot rice. Makes 4 servings.

*I got this recipe from a friend, so I'm not sure where it originated. If you know, tell me in the comments!

Naan*

Ingredients

- 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast (I used a bit more than 1/2 Tbs)

- 1 cup warm water

- 1/4 cup white sugar

- 3 tablespoons milk

- 1 egg, beaten

- 2 teaspoons salt

- 4 1/2 cups bread flour

- 2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)

- 1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough.  (If you add too much flour, it makes it hard to roll out later.  Plan on it still being a little bit sticky.) Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.

Punch down dough, and knead in garlic  (I skip the garlic). Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat.

At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. (I use a lot of cooking spray to make sure it doesn't stick on anything.) Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. (If you don't want really buttery naan, just don't brush with butter... I promise they are good either way and I acutally preferred them when I didn't brush with butter, just used a bit of cooking spray as needed.)  Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

*recipe from here.

Baptism (and some other stuff)

Today my nephew was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (I actually had another nephew baptized yesterday too, but I wasn't able to attend that one, unfortunately.)

Nathan gave the talk, and I got to play the piano. I approve of this division of labor, since Nathan is much better at giving simultaneously funny, interesting, and spiritual talks than I am. My niece gave the other talk, grandmas from both sides gave the prayers, and all the kids from my brother's family did a special musical number. It was a beautiful meeting and a wonderful experience overall, and I feel blessed to have been asked to contribute my talents to help invite the Spirit.

Afterwards I was able to spend most of the remaining day with my parents, whom I have not seen in so long - since Christmas, in fact. :P And I'll see my mom again in a few weeks when she comes to help with the new baby upstairs. It's fun to be able to see them often, even though they don't live in the same state. (And I know it's kind of a fluke that they are visiting 3 times in 4 months; that's not really typical.)

In other news, I have some fun recipes that I'll be posting in the next week or so, and I also have a substantial backlog of books that I'm hoping to get to this week. (My brother gave me four that he got from the library, so I'd better crank through them this week before they're due back. I also have Partials to read by Dan Wells, and that's just the beginning.) So I'll probably be doing some book reviews coming up too. I'm slowly working my way through Dragon Quest V: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride, but I'm only 16 hours in so I might have a ways to go on that one before you get a review. But so far, I really like it. Lastly, I'm rapidly approaching my 100th post (it should be on Thursday, if I remember correctly) so don't forget to check back then for something awesome (that has not yet been determined).

I hope you are all having an excellent weekend!

Rustic Crusty Bread

I was inspired by Mel's Kitchen Cafe (once again) and decided to make this recipe for Rustic Crusty Bread. Even the name sounds delicious. You can't go wrong here...

In an effort to be thorough, I baked half of this the same day I made it (which was Sunday), and half on Thursday night after it had been stored in the fridge for 4 days - that way I could tell if it really tastes phenomenal both ways. :)

So how did it fare? The first loaf was phenomenal fresh out of the oven, and it was still good even when I finished the last of it 4 days later. I suspect it will start to taste a little dry after that point, but since you can make these loaves as big or small as you want, you can adjust the size so that you make about as much as you'll eat in 3 days and save the rest of the dough (or bake it all into smaller loaves and freeze all but one).

The second loaf probably could have risen longer than an hour and a half. Maybe my kitchen is on the cold side, but that dough was still really cold when I popped it in the oven. As a result, I don't think it rose as much as it could have, so it was a little denser (and it also got lopsided in the oven, but that's beside the point). It also was still doughy in the middle after baking for 26 minutes (a fact I lamentably did not discover until it was too late). So I personally would recommend baking all the dough right away and freezing the loaves you aren't going to eat immediately. If you do decide to refrigerate the dough, find a warmer spot for it to rise right before baking - maybe put it in a warm oven instead of on the counter (or don't try it in winter with a cold kitchen).

I think next time I will try making smaller, 1-2 serving type baguettes because those would be awesome with potato soup or something similar.

Anyway, here's the recipe in case you don't want to click the link above. (But you should. Because she posted pictures for each step, which I'm not copying over, and also instructions on what to do if you don't have a baking stone.)

Rustic Crusty Bread

*Makes 2-4 loaves of bread

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast (I used about 2 Tbs active dry yeast and let it proof about 5 min)

1 tablespoon salt

6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting dough

3 cups lukewarm water

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover lightly with a kitchen towel but don’t seal the bowl airtight. Let the dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours).

Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered in an airtight container, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife (I have only ever made two loaves out of the batch of dough so I just divide the dough in half to form my first loaf). Turn the dough in your hands to lightly stretch the surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put the dough on a piece of parchment paper set on a pizza peel or a rimmed baking sheet turned upside down. Let the dough rest for 40 minutes for room temperature dough; if you have used the dough out of the refrigerator, let it rest for 1 1/2 hours. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

Place a broiler pan on the bottom rack of the oven. Place a baking stone on the middle rack and preheat oven to 450 degrees. Heat the stone at that temperature for 20 minutes before baking.

After the dough has rested and is ready to bake, dust the dough lightly with flour, slash the top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide the dough (with the parchment paper) onto the baking stone. Pour one cup of hot water into the broiler pan and shut the oven quickly to trap the steam. Bake the bread until well browned, about 24-28 minutes. Cool completely.

Book Review: Midnight in Austenland

I loved Shannon Hale's Austenland when I first read it, so when I heard the sequel (well, sort of sequel - you can read them on their own or together) was coming out, I was pretty excited. Then I saw Midnight in Austenland was only $3.99 on Amazon for the kindle edition, and that was it. (It's still $3.99, incidentally, but I don't know for how much longer. So jump on that if you have an e-reader.)

The basic premise of both Austenland and Midnight in Austenland is that a woman who is not currently romantically involved with anyone winds up, through various circumstances, going on vacation to England to a getaway that promises an authentic Jane Austen experience (i.e. they pretend to live in the Regency era). The experience is complete with actors and love interests and even a proposal of marriage. As a Jane Austen fan, I found the concept to be quite intriguing and fun. 

Midnight in Austenland in particular focuses on Charlotte, a recently divorced woman trying to find a way to live again that isn't painful emotionally. A "let's pretend" vacation seems like exactly what she needs to start healing from her divorce and all the baggage that entailed. At first Charlotte comes across (to me) as somewhat unsympathetic. She is clever, yes, but an emotional ice cube and rather prickly. Still, there is an excellent reason for it, and as a reader I came to find her more and more sympathetic as the book progressed. The pacing was fast enough that I never found her stand-offish-ness too bothersome. By the end of the book I felt like she had grown tremendously, and the payout was well worth putting up with her emotionally numb character in the beginning.

I enjoyed some of the plot twists as well, particularly the love interest development. (Of course I did. That's one of the best parts of a Jane Austen-esque story.) I thought it was very well done. It was interesting to learn a little more about the history behind the woman running the Austen retreat as well, and great to see some of the returning side characters fleshed out a little more. 

As a whole, I found this book to be a fun, fast, light read. It's on the fluffy side, but well worth the time. I do think Austenland is my favorite of the two, but I still enjoyed this one tremendously.