The Cookie Experiment

My boyfriend doesn’t cook.  Or bake.  When I met him he didn’t have any butter or salt in his apartment.  Honestly he’s totally clueless about food.  Awhile ago I got this idea that it would be funny if he tried to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch (they’re his favorite dessert and he constantly nags me about not making them often enough).  He’d follow a recipe with no help from me, and we’d see what happened.  Given that he’s shown absolutely no interest in helping me cook, I was surprised when he excitedly agreed.

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Three Cheese Sausage Lasagna

This lasagna is impressive. It is delicious. It does take some time to make. It also makes many of my friends very very happy.

You can easily serve 10 people on this lasagna. The ricotta mixture always makes a lot so I usually stretch this to make two trays, one large and one 8×8. The only thing you need to double is the sauce. I always run out of sauce when stretching. If i had a family to cook for, I would assemble both, cook one and freeze the other prior to cooking. I also have a confession.. since the invention of no-bake lasagna noodles, I have never looked back. That kind of convenience I just can’t pass up, especially when I’m making my own meat sauce. With all the ingredients and cheese the cost usually comes to maximum $30, which may seem like alot, but like I said, it feeds 10 people easily.

This recipe is adapted from a Bon Appetit one which uses carrots. I have made some adjustments, carrots just don’t seem like an Italian food to me. I added in crimini mushrooms, and this time instead of ground beef I used just sausage. Last time I made this I used a combination of ground turkey and sausage and it was delicious as well. This is a winner and sure to impress. Make sure you watch the cook time at the end, mine got a little crispier than I would have liked.

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Apple Pie

A few weeks ago Pat asked me why I don’t like pie.  I thought this was an odd question because I do like pie.  I actually like it a lot.  He pointed out that I haven’t made a pie the entire time I’ve known him.  At first I was skeptical.  I’ve know him for almost two years.  It didn’t seem possible that I haven’t made a pie for that long considering how often I bake, but he was right.  I realized I needed to make a pie soon to remedy this strange gap in my baking repertoire.

My Nana makes amazing apple pie, but I didn’t use her recipe.  She only uses shortening in her crust, but I wanted the extra flavor that butter provides.  I found this recipe on Epicurious.  It claims to be the “best ever”.  I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it is very good.  I definitely will use this in the future.

The number one reason I don’t make pie very often is that rolling out pie crust can be a big pain.  To try and combat this problem I bought this pie bag from the King Arthur Flour baking store.  Since I haven’t made a pie in such a long time it’s sat unused in my cupboard.  It actually works really well.  It completely eliminates the problem of your dough sticking to the counter.  And since the dough doesn’t stick you can turn it after every roll, so you actually get a round crust.

I used 4 gala apples and 3 granny smiths for the filling.  I love the taste of gala apples, but think they were a little too soft.  They got a bit soft and watery in the pie.  I also think I probably cooked it about 10 minutes longer than necessary.

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Ben & Jerrys Free Cone Day March 23rd! Tomorrow!!

My Attempt at Ice Cream Creation

Tomorrow is one of the highlights of my year! Ben and Jerry’s free cone day comes but once a year, and lucky for my taste buds, this year it is coming early! I’ve had a long history with Ben and Jerry’s. I thoroughly enjoyed reading their cookbook cover to cover as a kid. The book opens with a wonderful tale of two men taking their dream of making fresh delicious ice cream, from an abandon gas station to a global production of flavor joy. Over the past few years they have expanded into trademarked celebrity flavors such as, Colbert’s Americone Dream and Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler.

March 23rd, 2010 12pm-8pm, visit your neighborhood Ben and Jerry’s for a huge free scoop of ice cream. They have three new flavors they are pushing as well. Peanut Brittle, Milk and Cookies, and Maple Blondie. I had the Maple Blondie the other night and really enjoyed it, but I always love me some classic Chunky Monkey goodness.

Happy Monday friends!

Caramel Pecan Cookies

Last week in I spotted a bag of Kraft Caramel Bits in my local supermarket.  I didn’t realize this product existed and couldn’t help but get excited.  I love sweets in the caramel/butterscotch family and have never found a way to add this flavor to cookies as easily as chocolate lovers can add chocolate chips.  Butterscotch chips are the only comparable product available, but instead of tasting like butterscotch I think they have an excessively sweet chemically taste.

In lieu of chocolate chips I used my newly discovered caramel bits, mini m&m's, and mint morsels.

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Green Velvet Cupcakes

When I first saw these cupcakes on Nutmeg Nanny, I definitely had a “Why didn’t I think of that?” moment.  I used her post as inspiration but chose a different recipe for the cake.  My friends and I had done some red velvet recipe testing last summer when I was making cupcakes for Jody’s wedding.  Our favorite was the Elisa Strauss recipe that Deb from Smitten Kitchen made on her site.  This recipe features more cocoa than lots of red velvet recipes which definitely dulls the color, but gives the cupcakes a really good flavor.

Green food coloring – it’s your day to shine.

In Nutmeg Nanny’s post she mentioned that it takes less green food coloring than red to get a really vibrant color.  This is what the batter looked like after a half bottle of green food coloring, but before I added the flour.  I figured it was enough.

This is what the batter looked like after I added the flour.  Pond scum anyone?

So I added the rest of the bottle and then added half of another one.  I thought it looked much better and that the color would come through after baking.

I wouldn’t say the cupcakes are emerald green, but hopefully it’s clear that they are green.  The color would definitely shine through more if I had used less cocoa.  They taste so great that I’m willing to sacrifice a bright color for good flavor.

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Lemon Baby Bundts

This was supposed to be a post about how valuable it is to have some standard recipes that you can make in a variety of ways.  In this case the recipe is Ina Garten’s Lemon Cake.  I have made this recipe as two loaves, as a three layer birthday cake, and as cupcakes for a friends wedding.  On Sunday I decided to make this recipe in my brand new baby bundt pan.  And you know what?  It didn’t come out that great.  And as soon as I tasted the cakes and realized they had a sort of chewy texture and I remembered this had actually happened before when I made this recipe as cupcakes.

I’m still not entirely sure what the problem is.  It  could be that this cake doesn’t work well in miniature form.   Or that I happen to like cake on the dryer side and this one is possibly TOO moist when you brush it with the simple syrup.  Or maybe it’s that I keep thinking it’s a pound cake recipe and am reminded when I go to make it that it’s not pound cake, and isn’t advertised as such.

The cake recipe in two previous incarnations.

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Tomato, Basil, and Mozzarella Bruschetta

Tomato Basil and Mozzarella Bruschetta

I posted a few days ago about the birthday Macaroni and Cheese. Well in addition to that birthday request, as an appetizer bruschetta was on the menu. I found this great recipe on Food Network, and using my food processor, this took no time at all! It’s really pretty simple, almost as easy as frozen mozzarella sticks, but with more panache. And all anyone ever really wants, is an dinner party with panache. Tomatoes at the supermarket have really been disappointing lately, so I was really glad this recipe uses canned whole tomatoes. By using canned tomatoes, you also get to skip the step of blanching and peeling off the tomato skins, making this super fast. Nobody has to know these only took you 10 minutes to make. It will be our little secret.

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Peanut Butter Buttons

When I first saw these button cookies on Bakeralla I sort of freaked out.  I LOVE buttons.  I knew I had to make them and luckily I had the perfect occasion.  We were having a special day to honor my best gal-pal at work and she loves buttons and crafty things as much as I do.

These cookies are actually really easy to make.  Bakerella uses a peanut butter cookie mix, but I used my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe.  It’s actually my favorite cookie recipe-period.  Even if you don’t have any interest in making button shaped cookies I recommend every peanut butter cookie fan tries this recipe.  If you don’t like peanut butter cookies you might want to try them too.  They’ve been known to make converts.

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Coconut Shortbread Sandwich Cookies

Last weekend my Mom was in town.  On Friday we visited the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden (I highly recommend it)  and on Saturday we went to New Jersey so she could meet my boyfriend’s mother.  This could be an occasion for stress, but we’ve both been blessed with incredibly laid back and supportive Moms, so my major concern was what dessert to make.  Both Moms love coconut so it seemed like an obvious choice.  For previous visits with Pat’s Mom I’d made Dori Greenspan’s coconut tea cake and a coconut cream pie so this time I thought I’d try making a coconut cookie.  The toasted coconut shortbread posted on Smitten Kitchen over a year ago immediately came to mind.  When it comes to coconut desserts I apparently have a very good memory.

This dough is very easy to work with. I only chilled it for 35 minutes and it rolled out beautifully.

I had three kinds of leftover frosting in my fridge.  Chocolate frosting from the Bourbon Ball Cake, vanilla frosting from Pat’s Ice Cream Cake, and some lemon frosting which is confusingly dyed pink (this is from a fun, but failed attempt to make a lemon flavored bleeding heart cake).  I decided I’d make little sandwiches with the leftover frosting.  Hopefully they’d taste good and the multicolor cookies would look adorable.

The cookies succeeded on both fronts, but when I make them again I’ll cut the cookie thicker and put a bit less frosting so the wonderful butter-y, coconut-y flavor of the shortbread can really shine.

The cookies do spread so I recommend chilling them before baking and also wouldn't select an overly detailed cookie cutter.

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