Cookies: addendum

I don't usually post recipes; there are two main reasons for this:

1. what I make is the result of haphazardly tossing things into a pan and hoping for the best.

2. I use recipes others have written and published. I have this thing about respecting copyright. Weird librarian thing, I guess.

Having said that, I am offering up a recipe for last night's cookies, sort of. I figure that I'm explicitly crediting the source for one, and I made a small change to the recipe (that anyone with a brain might have conceived, I admit). I seldom have macadamias on hand, but dried cranberries are not too unlikely a presence in my cupboards. So, try these out, and if you go for macadamias, use a cup of chopped nuts for a single recipe, toasting them first.

White Chocolate Chip and Dried Cranberry Cookies

2.5 cups sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ lb (1 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup dried cranberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
3. In a mixer or with handheld beaters, beat together the butter and sugars together at medium speed until light (5 minutes).
4. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula after each addition. Add the vanilla extract.
5. At low speed, add the sifted dry ingredients in 3 additions, mixing only until incorporated after each. Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula between additions.
6. Add the white chocolate chips and dried cranberries, mixing only until just incorporated. Use a rubber spatula to mix by hand.
7. Drop slightly heaping 2 Tbsp portions of the dough on non-stick, buttered, or foil-lined baking sheets (I don’t butter my sheets – they are fairly well-tempered now – but I will use parchment paper to save me some clean-up bother). Space well apart. Hayot suggests that a sheet can accommodate 12 cookies, and I concur. Well, depends on the size of your sheet.
8. Bake the cookies until golden brown – approximately 12-14 minutes.
9. Cool the cookies on a sheet on a wire rack for a few minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool them.

The cookies will store well in an air-tight container for up to a week. Hayot suggests making a double batch and freezing some. I have done this more than once, with felicitous results. The recipe scales well, I’ve found.


Note:
Recipe is adapted from Dinner at the Authentic Café by Roger Hayot and Sheila Linderman, page 226-7. Original recipe calls for macadamia nuts.

Back to baking

We used to have a cartoon posted near the cash register at the restaurant (well, we used to have a lot of cartoons - I'd really love to find the one of the dog on a chain wound round a tree, the dog thinking to itself something like, "Now if I go in the other direction", captioned "Skippy attempts to dabble in logic") that had the Cookie Monster, drunk, belligerent, complaining in a bar, "Sometimes C is for cookie isn't enough for me!" All of which is my lead up to a posting about me baking again, cookies this time.

Joe's recent post in his blog on chicken sausage (and you should check out his blog - I am stunned by what good stuff he produces, and I'm dying to know if he actually goes to an office job all day and then comes home to whip up such things. If so: DAMN!) hearkened back to my mind a cookbook I like: Roger Hayot's Dinner at the Authentic Cafe. He has some good recipes I've made over and over - the breakfast couscous, the pupusas, the pan de maiz with serrano lime chicken sasuage and chipotle gravy (the linkback to Joe), and - best of all - his white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies (already I can hear Greer's throat constricting from a distance). I had a hankering to bake tonight, so I settled on that recipe. All I needed were the white chocolate chips and the nuts!

The last tray is in the oven - some 4.5 dozen large cookies baked or in process. There will be some happy co-workers tomorrow, I think. I also realized something in this entire process: I'm doing this baking because I'm trying to eat a lot better now that we have to accommodate some changes in Conrad's diet. No more treats, or very few. No scone or cookie or muffin with a morning coffee. Fresh fruit for dessert. Moan moan moan. Like it will kill me. However, it dawned on me that I am doing the baking because I can justify the copious pinches of cookie dough I eat as making sure the dough is okay. See, very rational. Remind me of this when you see photos in weeks to come and I've added back on all the weight I've lost and want to keep lost.



And what of SB? He's busy in the living room knocking out some work he brought home.

chicken and night views

Back to work, back to reality, to borrow from the Beautiful South (who, in turn, lifted a little too liberally from Soul II Soul): Monday means coaching swimming, and that always affects how easily I can get dinner on the table and how late. We all know now that I prefer to dine earlier, but practice ends at 7:30. Compounding it tonight, alas, was Conrad's work keeping him out until 8:15. I ate a plum to hold me until dinner itself.

I started dinner last night, though. Karen Barnaby has a recipe for chicken marinated with lemon, garlic, and fresh lavender leaves in her Screamingly Good Food cookbook. It's a real simple winner, and one I use turn to whenever I find fresh lavender leaves at Whole Foods. An underrated herb, I think. I left the bone-in chicken breasts marinating in a a zip-lock bag overnight. When I got home from work this afternoon, I cranked up the oven to 425 and baked them both up. When they were done, I turned off the oven and removed the pan. After ten minutes, I covered the breasts with a casserole dish, popped them back in the oven, and didn't worry about them.

Once home again, the oven went back on at a low temperature. I also started heating the dinner plates. Meanwhile, I chopped garlic and sauteed it gently. When crispy golden, I mixed the oil and garlic with salt and sherry vinegar to dress a simple salad of lettuce and tomato. The chicken breasts were so large that we hardly needed side dishes!

It was a lovely evening once again for sitting outside and eating. A simple dinner and some sparkling water. I grabbed a couple of minutes of twilight to photograph the eastern (deeper blue) and western skies from our balcony.

The Lobby

I got home from work and almost immediately turned around. The snapper I'd taken from the freezer last night hadn't thawed, and I was feeling lazy. Happily, Conrad is an enabler in situations like this, so a quick browse of Opentable.com (and if you're not signed up, why the heck not? Come on people!) later, we were getting ready to head down to Michigan Avenue. Dinner at The Lobby in the Peninsula Hotel beckoned. I duly showered and decided to wear my light blue khakis for the first time. Sales at The Gap are a lovely thing sometimes. Gads but I'm such a big homo.

The Peninsula is supposedly the hotel where all the stars stay, but at 6:30 on a Friday night, the The Lobby was a little quiet. A lot quiet. Ah, no matter, it's a big airy space with lots of light from the wall of windows overlooking the Shanghai Terrace restaurant, and we were able to have an enjoyably quiet conversation. Conrad got to order wine - I still have a few weeks to go - and asked for an Oregon Pinot Noir. I launced myself into the breads set out for us, and we debated our menu choices.

We've been eating very very lightly lately. Low cards for Conrad's dietary needs. Tonight I made up for it, indulging in some bread in each course. Smart idea. Conrad and I decided to order appetizers but switch halfway through, so it was a spinach salad for me - it included some roasted tomatoes, heart of palm, asparagus, and a crouton slathered with a green olive tapenade. His was a bowl of wok roasted mussels. I think he had the better choice, for while mine was certainly a pleasant bowl of roughage, his mussels floated in a fragrant, piquant broth that had bits of garlic and lemon grass in it. Springs of thyme and a few thin rings of red jalapeno offered clues to other ingredients. I was glad to switch, enjoy the juicy mussels, and especially enjoy dipping a slice of his garlic bread into the liquid.

I think I liked my dinner better, so let's call this meal a draw. Conrad ordered the grilled salmon. I thought it rather a plain fish - I think it was Atlantic salmon, an inferior fish to something like a good sockeye - with nice sides of tomato and olive relish and sauteed spinach. He liked it, though, and washed it down with a second glass of the same wine. Mine was the roasted monkfish: crispy topside, floating in a crab pot-au-feu broth that wasn't at all spicy as promised but was more than tasty enough regardless. Alas, only one crouton to sop in the soup, drizzled lightly with rouille.

No dessert for us. There was a buffet of chocolate treats just set out nearby, and certainly they were lovely, but we behaved after indulging through dinner. I DID have rabbit food, on the other hand, so kudos to me. No, I musn't joke, I really liked the salad, simple as that.

What then? Over an hour spent browsing at Borders. And now home to cap the night with, well, this. LOL. Well, there are worse ways to spend a night!

Buttermilk baking binge

You know how it is. You have a litre of buttermilk in your fridge, and you've meant to use it. And suddenly, it's at its expiry date, so you gotta use it fast.

Welcome to my Thursday night.

Oh, I'll come clean, I had wanted to do baking tonight anyway. Souffles aside, it had been far too long since last I really baked. And, sadly, the rustiness showed.

Conrad cooked dinner for me. Yes, it was his specialty: turkey burgers. And yes, I did make the (simple) salad dressing - oooh, try this: just toss the salad with a little plain low fat yogurt, salt, and pepper. Easy, breezy, yummy salad dressing! In any case, he did this for me since I was so late home from work. As if I didn't have reason enough to love him.

Dinner done, I settled into the kitchen. Before dinner I'd looked up a few recipes using buttermilk, so a few things - the cakes - were new to me tonight. I put on some CanCon and got to work. Jane, Kate and Anna, Holly Cole, Rufus, Martha, the Ladies, kd, and others: ahhhhhh....

First up: get some lightly sweet pastry made and put into the fridge to rest. Not a problem doing it, but I'm not happy with the result. More shortly.

Next up: warm sour apple and buttermilk torte. That's the recipe name, but I suspect it will be served up room temperature at either Conrad's office or the Library tomorrow. An easy enough recipe, and the apples atop the cake do look attractive. The texture seems light, though I had hoped it would rise a little more. Ah well. Pretty simple cake otherwise.

Then: jam tartlets. Damson plum and raspberry. These things are popular at work, and I haven't made them in ages. I decided I was burned out on blackberry after the souffles, and I only had a little of my precious Saskatoon berry jam, so the two flavours are what resulted. Now then, the pastry: I think I used too little butter in it (and yes, Steven, I know lard makes pastry best, but butter is what I had on hand). It all held together and wasn't too wet, but I think it became easily overworked. The tartlets are alright. I ate one (and ugh - how much dough/batter did I consume tonight? Far too much. Bad Peter!) and thought it too crispy, not flaky or rich. Butter does that, I know, makes things crisp, but I think some more butter would have been better. Am I getting too alliterative here? The other concern is that the filling is a little skimpy. The jam boils up during the baking, and if it overflows the pastry, it's a real nuisance to clean up, let alone try to fish an intact tartlet out of the tin. I haven't made them in a while, and my eyeballing abilities have atrophied.

I took the leftover scraps of pastry I hadn't eaten and made something like what my Mum used to do. She called it an eccles cake and filled it with raisins, butter, sugar, and cinnamon. I had some apple slices leftover from the first cake, so I diced them and used them in place of the raisins. A misshapen little thing, but it should taste alright. I've had eccles cakes from bakeries in Canada and the UK - they aren't exactly like Mum would make.

After that: a maple buttermilk spice cake. Not sure how this one will be. I think I may have had it in a bit long as well, for the cake seems a bit dense and, well, solid. We'll see. I have yet to unmold that one.

And then: two simple buttermilk cakes that are meant to be brushed liberally with a syrup made from sweet dessert wine and topped with macerated berries. Not tonight. Two cake layers, each of which I will wrap and freeze and use for a furture casual dinner party when I can dress one or both with a syrup, some cream, some fruit, whatever. Maybe a wedge alongside poached pears?

Finally: chocolate chip and candied ginger scones, something to honour the good mornings back in Terrace when I would show up at Skeena Jr. Secondary with some fresh from the oven to give to my friend Greer on her break. I hope she made the other teachers jealous! Man, I am rusty. I forgot that I had adjusted the recipe to make twelve rather than ten, so these scones are big! I think they turned out well. Jeph received his copy of the cookbook I use for them today. May he give them a go and play with other combos of things for them rather than the currants in the recipe.

And that, my friends, used the entire litre exactly. Conrad did have to run to the store downstairs for eggs, but ah well.

Ah, and just to brag a little (oh let me - I have the tartlets' pastry to keep me humble!): I got all this baked AND clean up done by 10:20. As one thing was baking, the next was being mixed and put in the pans. So, a pat on the back to me, and let's hope that people tomorrow like what they're snacking on!

Skewers

I'll keep this posting short: I hear ironing calling to me from the bedroom, and there's a basketful of folded clean laundry that needs some love as well.

Chicken breast cut up, marinated in (I'm almost blushing here) last night's vinaigrette for the beans, skewered, and baked in the toaster oven. I should say I use the toaster oven rather than the big one at this time of year in the interest of keeping overall kitchen temperatures down. Back to the plate: I rested the skewers atop "Greek salad". I have a soft spot for that sort of a jumble of things, dressed with something slightly sharp and tossed with feta. Ah well. It takes me back to my days of waiting tables during the summer at Savala's Steak House in my hometown. Sort of - that place was heck! Dinner on the balcony and an hour-long walk in the neighbourhood was anything but!

Travellin' thru

I find this site kind of fascinating; it utterly appeals to the data-geek in me. My map looks as follows:

create your own visited countries map

Of course, I am using the Geoff Heuchling Rules, Peter's modification*.

The sister site is also cute. I do wish they'd get the Canadian provinces on a site, but I'd be embarrassed to have accomplished no more than 8 and no territories. Plus I would be forced to admit that my experience of NB is as paltry (but qualifying) as mine of Norway!


create your own visited states map




*To qualify as visiting a city, state, province, or country, the person must first leave the airport and go elsewhere in the locale. Then one of the three following criteria must be met:

1. Have a meal there
2. Use the toilet there
3. Spend the night there

Productivity

Ahhh, a little Nana Mouskouri playing right now. Fun! Lovely voice, and singing a Kate McGarrigle song to boot!

I feel as though today were my first true day back at work. Meetings and research time and coffee with FXK in the morning. Yep, feels like normal. I didn't exactly doze off in my 2:00 as I might normally, but I will confess to glazing over a little, spacing out, wool gathering. What to do for dinner. What to do for dinner. Conrad's dietary restrictions plague me. I had chicken, garlic, and basil sausage links thawed in the fridge at home. Normally I might toss together some sort of a "Thai curry". Well, I like it, at least.

Not tonight. Coconut milk, even the light stuff, is rich, and what's the point of all that sinfully good sauce if I'm cutting back on the rice to soak it up. Oh yes, I know, I can make rice and just serve him a moderate amount. I'd prefer to save his carb binge for going out for a meal later in the week, though. I might otherwise bake the sausages in the toaster oven and prepare a sweet and tangy chutney to offset them, some broccoli rabe if I had any. Nope, not those either.

It's a little ludicrous, innit, that I should be sitting in a meeting dealing with the ins and outs of our ILS and all I can think is what sides and condiments to offer for dinner.

On the way to the blue line, I had it partially figured out: sautee greenbeans in a simple vinaigrette and maybe do a bit of potato as well. Screw the carb count - I'd just serve Conrad a little less potato! But then I got home with time to spare before heading over to coach practice, and with a bit of fishing in the fridge I surfaced with a yellow summer squash, some white onion, some sweet red pepper, and a better idea.

The sausage did go into the toaster oven to bake. Prick it here and there and let it plump and bake. Easy.

I topped and tailed the beans, then blanched them to take off the edge of rawness. The vinaigrette was a whisked concoction of OJ, some crushed garlic, dry thyme, salt, pepper, sherry vinegar, and olive oil. The beans were sauteed at medium-high heat shortly before serving and laid down as a bed for the sausage.

I cut up some onion, squash (seeded), and red pepper into a large dice. Set that aside. Softened some sun dried tomatoes in hot water, squeezed the excess water from them, then chopped them up a bit and added it to the veggie mix. All of this went into a heated skillet with a bit of olive oil. Salt, pepper, dried thyme. When the veggies had softened a bit I added chicken broth and turned the heat to high to reduce the liquid. It stained nicely thanks to the tomatoes. This I held until almost serving time, then returned to a good heat before adding about a tablespoon or two of butter to finish. This all got spooned over the sausage.

In the end, it was a good mix of flavours: Some orangey sweetness and garlic on the beans, the garlicky, salty sausage, the savoury vegetables with a tang to them. A nice meal we finished off by snacking on fresh blueberries.

Plus, it's a lovely evening out. A bit cool, hence Conrad's jacket. He's still outside with a lamp now, working away on something. What I especially love is seeing the sunset reflected in the high rise across the street. Sometimes it's a remarkable orange glow. The moon, too, is bright and full (or close to it) tonight, and while the camera couldn't zoom well enough to get it as large as it appeared to us, I did get a few shots with some clouds obscuring it slightly.

I am glad, however, that I'm fairly clear on what I'm cooking tomorrow night so as not to spend any further meeting time deliberating over it this week!

Riddle

What do you get when thousands of gay men fill a half mile of Halsted Street, drink a lot of booze, wear a lot less clothing than they would to work, and all of this not on the last weekend of June?

Market Days.

I missed the weekend last year while I was coming back from BC/off to LA, but yesterday afternoon Conrad and I wandered down to see the crowdds, look at the booths (nothing caught our eye), and hang out with some of the Yoshi's crowd outside of the restaurant at Laura's mother's booth. Gwen, Laura's mother, sells handmade jewellry, mostly necklaces of chunky, interesting beads and stones. I really like some of it - it touches the tiny little drag queen inside of me (and believe me, there's not much drag queen in me at all).

Back out to the balcony

99 Fahrenheit degrees. Suzanne Vega CD, or actual temperature in Chicago earlier this week? The latter, though the first guess is close. Too bloody hot to do much of anything outside, including dine on the balcony. Wednesday's storms that slightly disrupted Project Runway were a breaking point, though, and today has been warm. Happily, that meant dinner out on the balcony with Francis and Kim.

Relax, I didn't cook up a dinner party. Conrad and I resorted to Ping Pong for some delivery: chicken spring rolls, lettuce cups, chilled tofu with crispy fried garlic, sesame beef, cashew chicken, peapods with shrimp, and basil chicken. Also known as far too much food - there's lunch for both of us - at the very least - in the fridge now.

What a lovely evening to be outside, though. Kim came by at about 6:30, the food followed 20 minutes later, and Francis was hot on its tail. Conrad opened a few wines: an Argentinian white, a sweeter Hawaiian white, a 1999 pinot noir that was on its way to becoming madeira and met a fate down the drain, a Chilean cabernet, and a more successful pinot noir. I toasted and sipped a little of the too-sweet Hawaiian stuff - a toast to getting through the appendix thing and to our trip to Maui together in October - but otherwise stuck with water.

The food? Not bad. Takeaway is never quite as hot and fresh as one might like, and I found the basil chicken a bit sweet and stodgy. I liked the peapods, and though the beef was sweet as well, the broccoli in it was a good, crunchy texture. I kind of wish we'd ordered something spicy, but as I picked out the items, I have only myself to blame.

But still, the sun went down, we were treated to the glow of sunset on the highrise windows around us, the night air was a very comfortable temperature, we had our friends there. A good time.

Dessert. Oh, I got a bit fancy here. Not entirely a success, but fun to do. I made us some blackberry/raspberry souffles. In truth, it was too sweet. I used fewer berries (I was a little short) and too much jam (I think I was trying to compensate for the berries). It needed some lemon juice to cut it, or less sugar. Kim even noticed the texture of the sugar grains in the finished dessert. IT did rise well, though. I was pleased with that.

The other part was the OTT thing: tuile cookies rolled into cones and filled with some fresh raspberries and blackberries. Simple recipe, but I really need practice at timing the cookies and manipulating them. I have made ice cream bowls with a different recipe that involves honey. I also hate to say it, but in the case of both recipes, I like the taste of the batter more than that of the baked coookie!

Anyway, making the cones was a pain. The first few attempts were too well cooked and brittle. Snacktime! So I baked them less and was able to manipulate them a bit better, but they didn't then dry/harden into a nice crunchy cone. I smartly made extra, though, so there was enough to make four attractive plates.

It's almost midnight, the dishes are done, and I should be off to bed. No swimming yet again tomorrow, so a walk will be in order to work off the very big meal tonight!

I cooked again! I cheated!

Conrad let me cook dinner again! Yay!

Alright, so elements of the meal may look suspiciously like last night. A bed of spinach. Poach shrimp cooked in a similar liquid to last night's chicken. Toss the shrimp with the leftover couscous salad and asparagus, add some fresh tomato and a bit more quickly-made dressing. Bob's your uncle: a dinner reminiscent of last night but just different enough to allow me to retain my position in the kitchen.

And wonder of wonders, I actually got Conrad to watch a DVD with me after dinner. Wimbledon was the movie. I'd seen it before. Jeph's post and Steven's responses regarding rumours of Paul Bettany being considered to play the Joker made it a nice choice for the evening. Better still, the very handsome Danish actor playing the part of Bettany's German training partner! How nice - he shares a birthday with me!

I can cook once again!

Let me preface this by stating that Conrad IS taking VERY good care of me, but I am getting better. He did not ask me to cook dinner - I just went ahead and did it. Took the practice in to the team, made it through announcements, then came back home and got my kitchen ya-yas on.

Conrad, I should add, must modify his diet further. Not content with removing a lot of cholesterol from his diet, he must now watch carbs and fat in order to avoid diabetes. The fun really never does stop in our house. You can well imagine how all this is going down with me, Mister 12-Pounds-of-Unsalted-Butter-in-the-Freezer. I'll modify my eating as well - what can it hurt? - but gosh will I miss some of the baking I could be doing....

Tonight's dinner (a dinner for eating indoors while temperatures soar above 90 outside):

Poached boneless, skinless chicken breast, served sliced atop a simple Israeli couscous salad, surrounded by quickly cooked asparagus. The poaching liquid was composed of water, dried lemon and orange zest, bay leaves, a sprig of rosemary, black peppercorns, and a few cloves of garlic chopped. The couscous was mixed with chopped parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Why yes, we are a little skimpy on groceries here!

I should be going to bed...

(ETA I ended up going to bed because Blogger just wouldn't upload photos. I'm doing this as I eat my porridge)

...but I napped a bunch when I got home from the hospital this afternoon. Yes, the hospital: one more night there for observation. Oh, the fun of having an IV inserted (third attempt was the charm). Ah, how wonderful to urinate into a plastic container so they can track (presumably) my hydration levels.

Anyway, enough of that. Conrad and I have spent much time quietly today - in the hospital and at home - planning the NZ trip. I've also been playing with my iTunes on the new laptop, and figuring out what I love about ACDSee 8, which I downloaded a few days back.

In the meantime, I finally got around to some of our own photos. I'm posting a shot of my salmon from the other night:

I'm also posting a shot of some flowers sent me. Kristina and Christopher had some lilies delivered a handful of days back; in bud at the time, they are blooming wonderfully. They are not as heavily fragrant as some other lilies, but I did catch their scent on coming home today. I am sorry not to be skilled at flower photography, but among all the lovely bouquets and plants I have received, I did want to capture at least one on photo while it was still in its prime: