Beef Stroganoff

When Brad and I started dating, neither of us had a kitchen. Well, that’s not completely true. The house Brad was renting a room in had a kitchen, but it was not unusual to find bums sleeping at the table and I’m pretty sure there were rats living beneath the dishes in the sink. So, for all intents and purposes, neither of us had a kitchen. We ate out (lucky for us, Berkeley has some of the best cheap food I’ve ever encountered) and at the dining hall most of the time. I think one time we may have made Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in the bum kitchen but, needless to say, we weren’t cooking very much at that point.

Soon after, when Brad had moved out of the House On Paper Street and had a proper apartment with a proper kitchen, our culinary prowess evolved to the next logical stage – boxed dinners that required minimal preparation. We pretty much survived on Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Stouffer’s frozen lasagna, Bertolli frozen meals and Hamburger Helper.

God, I don’t even want to think about how high our sodium intake must have been in 2005.

Brad’s two favorite Hamburger Helper ‘flavors’ were Lasagna and Stroganoff, so when I started cooking real food, these were some of the first dishes I learned to make. Since we’ve covered lasagna, I figured it was about time we go over how to make beef stroganoff.

Most of the recipes I make come from adaptations of recipes I find online. Allrecipes.com is a major resource for me, because most recipes have multiple versions to reference, hundreds of ratings, and reviews that give suggestions on alterations. My recipe for beef stroganoff, however, comes from an ACTUAL COOKBOOK. (Whoa! Those still exist?!?) The Joy Of Cooking was the first cookbook I purchased and is a great resource for all aspiring cooks.

I have, of course, changed the recipe a little bit to fit our tastes and resources (i.e. Brad will not eat mushrooms, so I normally make a version without). It is such a basic recipe, it really responds well to changes, so feel free to interpret the dish however you like it best. If you read the history of beef stroganoff, you will find the versions are so wildly varied, pretty much the only cohesive ingredient is sauteed beef.

Beef Stroganoff
serves 2-4

One pound, one pan, one happier, healthier family.

1 lb. beef (the quality of beef is your choice), sliced against the grain into 1/4 inch strips
1/2 small onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms (optional)
1 tbsp butter, oil or margarine
salt, pepper & nutmeg
1/2 tsp basil (optional)
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup sour cream

cooked egg noodles

In a large skillet, heat the oil/butter and saute the onion, garlic and mushrooms (if using) until onion is soft and translucent. Add the beef and cook until brown. Shake some salt and pepper into the mix and a DASH of nutmeg. (Really, don’t overdo it on the nutmeg. You just want a HINT. You can always add more, but you can’t undo putting too much.) If you’re feelin’ it, add in a little dried basil, or finely chop some fresh leaves. Add in white wine and cook for a minute or two. Stir in sour cream and mix until well combined. Stir in cooked egg noodles and cook for a few more minutes. Remove from heat; sauce will thicken as it cools a bit.

Homemade Indian Dinner

My introduction to Indian food was in college, in the form of a reasonably priced place called Naan & Curry, located conveniently right next to campus. If someone in the dorms brought Naan & Curry home for dinner, everyone could tell by the intense curry smell that permeated the floor. This was only bad if you had already eaten, because then you didn’t have an excuse to go get some for yourself.

The dish I was first recommended, and subsequently always ordered, was chicken tikka masala with a side of naan. The spices were so unique, like nothing I had tried before, and the sauce was somehow creamy and acidic at the same time. I had no idea how it was made, but I could eat it AT LEAST once a week and never tire of the flavor. As a poor college student, I appreciated that the tikka masala was $6.99, and naan was only $1.00 per big, fluffy order. Garlic naan was a 99 cent upgrade that I often indulged in. For not much more than a combo at McDonald’s, I could eat like a Little Princess.

Chicken tikka masala, garlic naan & mango lassi

So when I moved to LA and found that the cheapest Indian food runs about twice that price, it was vital that I learn how to cook my own. I found a recipe and have adapted it to create the appropriate sauce-to-chicken ratio for my naan-dipping needs. You can definitely eat this with rice, but I find the rice an unnecessary addition. Just give me more naan, please!

I’ve made chicken tikka masala in the past with heavy cream, and it is definitely amazing, but so calorie dense that it is hard to justify making very often. This time I substituted milk & a little cream cheese for the cream, and it turned out acceptably delicious. For special occasions, however, I’m still gonna splurge on the cream.

Because there are so many parts to this meal, and a lot of down time, this is my recommended method for interlacing the preparation: Combine yeast and water for naan. While the yeast is proofing, make the chicken marinade and put it in the refrigerator. Return to the naan and mix the dough. Let the dough rise for an hour while the chicken is marinating. In the meantime, mince your garlic (for the naan), garlic and jalapenos (for the tikka masala) and mango (for the lassi) and set everything aside. At the end of the hour, prepare the dough for the second rise. While the dough is rising for the second time (30 minutes), heat the grill and skewer the chicken. Grill the chicken and get the sauce started on the stove top. When the chicken is cooked, set it aside and leave the grill on. Roll out the naan. Remove the chicken from the skewers and add it to the sauce. Grill the naan, and cover it to keep it warm and moist while you finish everything up. Make the lassi, and plate everything.

It seems like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. Even if it was, it really is worth it.

Chicken Tikka Masala
serves 2 

Parsley, to make it look a little closer to how good it tastes.

For marinade:
1 cup yogurt
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp salt, or to taste
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
4 long skewers

For sauce:
1 tbsp butter
2 clove garlic, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped (or 2, if you like it really spicy)
3 tsp ground cumin
4 tsp paprika
1 tsp garam masala (or add an extra tsp cumin)
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
2 cups heavy cream (can be substituted with 2 cups milk & 1-2 oz cream cheese)

Combine yogurt, lemon juice, ginger and the following four spices in a bowl. Add 1-2 teaspoons of salt, to taste. Add chicken to the yogurt mixture and stir to coat. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. While the chicken marinates, soak your skewers if they are wooden.

Skewer the chicken pieces and BBQ on a hot grill for 3-4 minutes each side. Set aside.

In a large skillet, melt butter and saute garlic & jalepeno for 1-2 minutes. Add cumin, paprika, garam masala and salt, and quickly stir. Add tomato sauce and cream or milk. Let sauce simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes, until it thickens. Remove chicken from skewers and add to the sauce. Continue cooking for about 10 minutes. Serve immediately, with naan and/or rice.

Garlic Naan
Makes 5-6 pieces

Naan-stop deliciousness!

1/2 package (1 1/8 tsp) active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
2 tbsp white sugar
1 1/2 tbsp milk
1/2 egg, beaten (I know, I know; this is totally annoying.)
1 tsp salt
about 2-1/4 cups flour
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons butter, melted

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. (This is called “proofing the yeast.”) Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. 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 for 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.

Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough and roll into balls about twice the size of a golf ball. You should end up with 5-7 pieces. Place on a greased or floured tray, cover with a towel, and allow to rise for about 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Preheat grill to high, or leave it on when you are making the chicken skewers.

After the second rise, melt butter. Roll out dough, one ball at a time, until flat and oval shaped. Brush with melted butter and set aside on a plate. Repeat until all the dough is rolled and buttered.

Brush grill with remaining butter. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Turn over and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

Mango Lassi

serves 1-2

Lassi helps to cool down the spicy.

1 cup plain yogurt OR 1 (5.3 oz) container frozen Greek yogurt*
1 mango, peeled, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup milk
dash cardamom
sugar, to taste (optional)

Combine first 4 ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Blend in sugar to sweeten to your tastes.

*The original recipe calls for 1 cup plain yogurt, but I used a individual sized vanilla Greek yogurt that I had in the freezer because I ran out of plain yogurt making the chicken marinade. Because the yogurt was already sweetened, I did not use any sugar.

Giant Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

Now that I’m baking/cooking with the main goal of posting recipes, I’m constantly trying to come up with unusual or creative things to make. Pumpkin pie filled cupcakes, cookie filled cookies, single serving apple cobblers and caramel bacon brownies. Not only are these “stunt food” or “food porn” recipes fun to make, they are fun to share, even if you never plan on actually making them yourself.

But since I am baking so much, I don’t buy dessert food anymore. Brad and I are eating these creations, and while Oreo-ception brownies are awesome to eat for dessert three day in a row, and it’s nice to have a freezer full of thin mints, sometimes we just want a good ol’ fashioned chocolate chip cookie.

But we want ours to be the size of a dinner plate.

There's only three left because we ate the rest.

Okay, so they aren’t actually dinner-plate-sized, but they are pretty big. At least six inches in diameter. And full of milk chocolate chips.

I love all kinds of chocolate, but Brad really prefers milk chocolate to the semi-sweet or dark varieties. At a party recently, I told a friend that I used milk chocolate chips in a recipe instead of semi-sweet, and he firmly told me that milk chocolate can’t be used in baking. While milk chocolate is not typically used in baking, there is certainly no rule of the universe forbidding it.

And that’s a good thing. Because these cookies are pretty much perfect. Soft and crumbly and slightly grainy, with sweet, gooey chocolate chips. Great with a glass of milk.

Giant Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes  about 15 giant cookies
adapted from Nestle Tollhouse 

A chocolate chip cookie is never too big.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 package milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or non-stick spray.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a larger bowl, beat butter, both types of sugar and vanilla until well combined. Beat in eggs one at a time. Gradually beat in the dry ingredients until everything is combined. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand.

Using an ice cream scoop or 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop dough onto the baking sheet, leaving 2-3 inches of space around each scoop. Bake for 11-13 minutes, or until LIGHT brown. Let the cookies cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from baking sheet.

Lemon Muffins with Strawberry Jam Centers

You may not believe this, but I have been baking and cooking a lot over the past few days. The problem is, all of my recipes have either turned out only okay (not good enough to pass along) or extremely unphotogenic (like these brownies, which tasted about a million times better than they looked). The chocolate chip pumpkin muffins I made were beloved by everyone who tried them, but I thought they were too dense, so I went on a research mission to make a light, fluffy muffin.

Apparently, there are a couple of things that make muffins dense, and both have to do with gluten. I’m sure you’ve heard about gluten-free diets, and yes, we are talking about the same kind of gluten, but gluten is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a protein in wheat that helps hold everything together and is activated by kneading or mixing dough. When I made the pumpkin muffins, I used all-purpose flour and ended up mixing the shit out of that batter, which is why I ended up with dense muffins. After some research, I knew I was going to change a few things for my next muffin adventure: 1) use a mixture of all-purpose flour and oat flour, because oat flour has a lower gluten content, and 2) fold the batter gently and as minimally as possible.

After deciding upon the technique, I had to choose what type of muffin to make. I’m pretty sure Brad is sick of pumpkin, so that was out. He doesn’t like nuts or seeds in his bread either, so no banana nut or morning glory. I made apple cinnamon muffins not long ago, so none of that, and I’m not really a fan of blueberry-infused baked goods either. I decided upon lemon muffins, but wanted to add something to make them a little more interesting.

Enter, my sister.

Disguised to protect the innocent.

My sister is amazing. She is one of my favorite people, and she would be yours too if you met her. Aside from being hilarious and able to charm everyone she meets, she takes care of developmentally challenged adults for a living, can give you the scientific name of a plant just by looking at a picture of it, and takes care of a robust garden of fruits and vegetables. A couple of weeks ago she gave me a jar of homemade strawberry jam, made of strawberries picked from her garden. Move over, Smuckers, you ain’t got shit on this girl.

Naturally, I deduced that adding the best strawberry jam ever to fluffy lemon muffins would be an excellent idea. And it was. Oh, how it was.

Lemon Muffins with Strawberry Jam Center
makes 12
adapted from allrecipes.com

Lemon on the outside, strawberry on the inside.

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup oat flour (rolled oats processed into a powder in a blender)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups yogurt (I used honey Greek)
4 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
1 grated lemon peel of 2 lemons
1 juice  of 2 lemons
1 tsp lemon extract
strawberry jam

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a larger bowl, stir the remaining ingredients (except the jam!) until well combined. Add the dry ingredients into the wet and fold together until just combined. Do not over-stir. Lumps are okay.

Spoon half the batter into a greased (or sprayed or filled-with-liners) 12 well muffin tin. Next, drop a spoonful of jam into each muffin. Distribute the remaining batter evenly between the muffins, on top of the jam. Bake at 375° for 15-18 minutes.

Fun with pretzel buns!

So I made some chocolate chip pumpkin muffins today.

I was going to share the recipe with you, but I don’t think it is quite ready to be debuted.

Grow, my pretties! Grow!

I’m also working on a sourdough starter. It’s almost like having a pet. It grows, and you have to feed it every day.

But that’s not really a recipe I can post (yet) either.

Oh, and I made a mess of french toast this morning. Sorry Brad; I hope it tasted good anyway.

The one on the right can't hold it together.

I also made some more pretzels. This time, I made a full batch and used half of it to make some pretzel buns.

First I shaped the buns too small, so they became slider buns for BLTAs. Bacon, baby spinach, tomato, mashed avocado (w/ salt, pepper, garlic & onion powder), onion and extra sharp Tillamook cheddar.

I wonder how much this burger would cost at The Counter.

Then, I made the buns a little bigger, and stuffed them with pork burgers, grilled apples & onions, more extra sharp Tillamook cheddar, mixed baby greens and brown deli mustard.

Enjoyed with a little beer I picked up at Galco’s.

We drank it all before I took any pictures.

All of this is why there is no recipe today. Only Zuul.

 

Pumpkin Spice Granola

I love breakfast. I usually think about what I am going to have for breakfast before I go to bed, but I can never decide because I love all breakfast food equally. (Except waffles, because they are basically pancakes for rich people.) As soon as I wake up, I stumble down to the kitchen and throw together a breakfast medley while my coffee brews.

Lately, because it is September and that is considered autumn in most parts of the country, I have been mixing pumpkin puree into every breakfast food that will accept it. Pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin french toast, pumpkin oatmeal, pumpkin smoothies, pumpkin coffee drinks, pumpkin yogurt… you name it, I’ve pumpkinized it. Don’t tell anyone this, but sometimes I eat it straight from the can. So when I ran out of granola last night (because I ate the last of it with vanilla almond milk out of a mug, standing in front of the open fridge at 1:30 am…) I knew my next batch would have to contain pumpkin.

I’ve been having a problem with granola recipes- either they aren’t sweet enough, or they aren’t clustery enough or they get burnt because I forget about them while they’re in the oven- so I took my knowledge of the mistakes thus far, and formulated my own recipe.

And you know what?

Nailed it!

This granola isn’t too sweet, but it IS sweet enough to not taste like cardboard, and it has the perfect hint of pumpkin pie flavor. You know what else? No oil! So it’s healthier than most store-bought granola too. You can add pretty much whatever you want into the mix in terms of nuts/seeds/grains and maybe even throw some raisins or something in there. Just keep the proportions relatively similar and you are golden.

Pumpkin Spice Granola
makes about 3 cups

For demonstration purposes only. Eating the whole recipe in one sitting is not recommended.

2 cups raw rolled oats
1/2 cup almonds, rough chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, rough chopped
1/2 tbsp ground flax
1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup lite maple syrup
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
dash (about 1/8 tsp) ground clove, nutmeg & ginger

Mix sugar, pumpkin, syrup, vanilla, salt and spices in a large bowl. Dump oats, nuts and flax into the bowl and mix until coated. Spread onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 325° for 20-30 minutes, watching carefully that it does not burn and stirring occasionally. The granola will be soft when you remove it from the oven, but it will get crunchy when it cools. Let it cool completely and store in an airtight container.

Soft Pretzels

I know, I know. I didn’t post on Friday. I’m sorry. After making those crazy Oreo brownies, I needed a break from baking. And every time I tried to cook something blog-worthy for dinner, it turned out not really blog worthy. And I’ve been mostly eating cereal and sautéed vegetables. And Whole Foods has honey roasted peanuts that you grind fresh into peanut butter, so I’m eating way too many peanut butter sandwiches for my own good. But I always only make half a sandwich, so none of them REALLY count… right?

So, after a not-bad-but-not-great try at some cheesy broccoli beef pasta and discovering that I don’t like how mushy gnocchi is, I knew I needed to bake something. But I needed to bake something that isn’t a dessert food, since I have a freezer full of thin mints and a bunch of leftover Oreos in my cupboard. But I also have three loaves of bread on the counter, so standard bread was out of the running. Pretzels seemed to fit all the criteria, AND Brad and I love pretzels, AND you can make pretzel buns out of pretzel dough.

This recipe takes a few hours (mostly waiting for the dough to rise) but it is totally worth it.  I made a half recipe for my first try and will definitely make the full recipe next time.

Soft Pretzels
makes 12 

Like at the mall, only better.

4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
about 3-4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 cup baking soda
large pot of water
egg whites, for wash
course sea salt, for topping

Mix the yeast, teaspoon of sugar and warm water in a large bowl. Let it sit for about 10 minutes, until it is foamy. Add the rest of the sugar, salt, oil and about 1 cup of flour into the yeast mixture. With a dough mixer or your hands, mix until ingredients come together. Add more flour in gradually, mixing (or kneading) the dough until smooth and not sticky.  Add in a few tablespoons of water if the dough gets too dry. (I ended up using 2 tablespoons of water and almost 2 cups of flour for a half recipe.) Knead dough by hand for about 5-7 minutes after adding all the flour you are planning to use.

Clean out the bowl and coat it with vegetable oil. Leave the dough in the bowl, covered with a kitchen towel, in a warm place for about an hour. The dough will rise to about twice it’s size.

After the dough has risen, punch it down and cut it into 12 equal pieces. Roll out each piece into a long rope and fold it into a pretzel shape. (Make a U shape, cross the two legs and press it down.) Cover the pretzel dough again with a towel and let rise for another 30 minutes.

Bring a pot of water with baking soda to a boil. Preheat the oven to 425°. When the dough is done rising, boil each pretzel for 30 seconds on each side, removing from pot with a slotted spoon. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the tops of each pretzel with egg whites (or you can use whole beaten eggs) and sprinkle with course sea salt.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until medium brown.

Triple Layer Oreo Peanut Butter Brownies

Ninety percent of the shakes I order are cookies and cream. Even though I pretty much never buy Oreos, I can’t resist their addition to desserts, whether it is ice cream, milk shakes, cheesecake or some other crazy concoction. And since I’ve been trying to make all our desserts instead of taking the easy way out and buying them, I bought a package of Oreos to make some cookies-and-cream treats on my own.

The funny thing about buying cookies to use in other desserts is that it becomes really easy just to eat the cookies instead of making the other dessert. And you think, “We’ll just eat a few cookies tonight, and I’ll still have enough for my recipe.” But, like good ol’ Axl used to say, “I used ta do a little but a little wouldn’t do so the little got more and more,” and before you know it you are eating Oreos for breakfast along with leftover fried chicken and you have no Oreos left for the magical dessert you had plans to make.

So, naturally, I bought another package of Oreos. And, after pouring over dozens of Oreo-related recipes and much deliberation, I decided on these. These brownie bars are the most delightfully decadent dessert I have ever made. A brownie layer, embedded with whole Oreo cookies, topped with crumbled Oreos and chocolate chips and then drenched in a milk chocolate peanut butter top. I’m pretty sure I was thisclose to a diabetic coma after I ate one of these. But honestly, I would do it again. And again. And I need to go running today even though it is nearly 100° outside because I will surely eat another tonight.

Make these. Really.

Triple Layer Oreo Peanut Butter Brownies
makes 9 large brownies
from How Sweet It Is

It's what's inside that counts.

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
20 Oreo cookies

Preheat oven to 350°.

Butter and flour an 9 x 9 cake pan. (The original recipe called for 8 x 8, so either works.)

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, then add vanilla. Add in cocoa powder and mix until combined. Add flour and salt, mixing well until batter is smooth and comes together. Fold in 1/2 cup chocolate chips.

Spread batter into the pan. Press 9 Oreo cookies (evenly spaced, like Tic-Tac-Toe) into the batter and press gently. Bake for 25-30 minutes. While baking, crush the remaining Oreos in a ziplock bag. When brownies are finished baking, remove from the oven and sprinkle with 1/2 cup chocolate chips and crushed Oreos. Place back in the oven for about 2-3 minutes. During this time, melt remaining chocolate chips and peanut butter together. You can do this in 20 second increments in the microwave, stirring between each. Remove brownies from oven and pour melted chocolate mixture over top, spreading with a spatula. Make sure chocolate gets down into the Oreo crevices, as it is the “glue” that holds the top to the bottom. Refrigerate for 2 hours before serving.

Let brownies sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before cutting. Eat. Try not to pass out after eating.

Homemade Thin Mints

True story: when I was growing up, my mom was the Girl Scout troop leader in charge of distributing cookies to all the local council troops. I remember a point when our whole garage was stuffed to the brim with cases of Girl Scout cookies. Imagine those pictures of drug busts, with rooms stacked full of cocaine bricks and cash, but instead there were Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Dos-Si-Dos and (my favorite) Samoas. You can rightly assume, then, that growing up as a Girl Scout I did my fair share of cookie selling and cookie eating. But, before I made it to Juniors, my mom returned to the work force. Without her as our troop leader, my sister and I weren’t really interested in “living by the Girl Scout Law” and we had to get our cookie fix from the girls at the grocery store entrance like everyone else.

Another true story: I lent my copy of Candy Land to the council for a Girl Scout game night they were hosting. I never got saw it again.

So, I don’t feel so bad now for attempting to make Thin Mints at home, seeing as I’ve already donated all my childhood dreams to them. That being said, do not make these cookies expecting a Thin Mint duplicate. They are certainly Thin Mint-equse cookies, and utterly delicious, but they are not replicas of the original. They are also kind of a pain in the ass to make, so unless you have some free time and like baking, I don’t particularly suggest these as a good alternative to buying from your co-worker’s daughter.

My favorite thing about this recipe, though, is that the dough contains no egg, so you can just eat as much of the dough as you want. That has the potential of a dessert in itself. I may or may not have had cookie dough for dinner last night, instead of the beef stew I had cooked all day in the slow cooker. I’m currently coming up with Thin Mint dough ball schemes, dipped in chocolate and coated with green sprinkles? Yes, I think that will work out juuust fine.

Homemade Thin Mints
makes  3-4 dozen
recipe stolen from Baking Bites 

Can you tell I like them frozen?

For the cookies:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
6 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup milk (any kind)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

Dark chocolate coating: 
10-oz dark or semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. With the mixer on low speed, add in the milk and the extracts. Mixture will look curdled. Gradually, add in the flour mixture until fully incorporated.
3. Shape dough into two logs, about 1 1/2 inches (or about 4 cm) in diameter, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for at least 1-2 hours, until dough is very firm.
4. Preheat oven to 375F. Slice dough into rounds not more than 1/4 inch thick – if they are too thick, they will not be as crisp – and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
5. Bake for 13-15 minutes, until cookies are firm at the edges. Cool cookies completely on a wire rack before dipping in chocolate.
6. In a double boiler, combine chocolate and butter. Melt until chocolate is smooth. Chocolate should have a consistency somewhere between chocolate syrup and fudge for a thin coating. (you can use the microwave for this step, just take care not to burn the chocolate)
7. Dip each cookie in melted chocolate, turn with a fork to coat, then transfer to a piece of parchment paper or wax paper to set up for at least 30 minutes, or until chocolate is cool and firm.  Reheat chocolate as needed to keep it smooth and easy to dip into.

Note: I ran out of chocolate and had to improvise making more. I also played around with adding different amounts of peppermint extract to the chocolate coating mixture. My chocolate coating did not firm up after a while on the counter, so I put them into the freezer and haven’t removed them since, so I can’t attest to the room temperature durability of these.

Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch Treats

I have been on a huge cereal kick lately. I “cereasly” can’t get enough of it. I eat it for breakfast, snack and dessert. So recently, in a house that hasn’t finished a box of cereal in several months, we’ve consistently had two boxes of cereal at the ready, to feed my addiction. As a general rule, we buy one ‘healthy’ variety, like corn flakes, Crispix or Cheerios, and one ‘treat’ variety, like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cracklin’ Oat Bran (sounds healthy, but it isn’t!) or Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch.

A few nights ago, as Brad was pouring himself a bowl of Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch, he noticed that, with only four valid Cap’n Crunch box tops (plus shipping & handling), he could get a FREE retro Cap’n Crunch t-shirt!

If it's free, it must be good!

Buying brand-new retro-style t-shirts is typically a little lame, but I think this is totally awesome because you have to REALLY LIKE Cap’n Crunch to get it, and the only way to get it is pretty retro in itself.

To help Brad in his quest for cereal-related clothing, my brain immediately started cranking out ways to use four boxes of Cap’n Crunch in a short amount of time. Mostly, I was thinking, “Score! Another excuse to eat a shitload of cereal without feeling guilty!” but I also thought of these. They’ve been called the perfect stoner food, though I was not under any influence when they were conceived, made or eaten, and they were still entirely delicious. They take about 5 minutes to make (and maybe 10-20 to cool), which is another reason they might be perfect for late-night munch-a-holics. You can add in whatever chocolate chips, candy or cereal you have lying around, or sub the peanut butter for Nutella… these are endlessly customizable, so use your imagination and enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch Treats
makes 12 squares 

Crumby photo.

1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp peanut butter
15 large marshmallows (about half a bag)
3 cups Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch cereal
1/4 cup Reese’s Pieces candy

In a large pot, melt the butter and peanut butter over medium heat. When melted, stir in the marshmallows until they are completely melted. Reduce heat to low and add in cereal and candy, stirring until completely coated. Spread onto greased 8″x8″ pan and let cool completely before cutting and eating.