Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's been quite a while since I've posted. Things have really picked up here at CMU, and I've been often too busy fretting about various projects to cook or eat anything vaguely healthy.

I made these cookies a few weeks ago for a Valentine's Day gift (I snuck one or two before wrapping them up). They were awesome! I've been wanting to make another batch to keep in my desk drawer for those times you just need a cookie (alas, I haven't done it yet! And I'm currently eating bargain brand Oreo's knockoffs)

I adapted this recipe from The Bon Appetit Cookbook, which was a totally sweet gift I got from my brother last Christmas. The recipe calls for normal size chips, which I didn't have, but instead I made half a batch, used mini chips, and made the cookies smaller than normal. I still ended up with a lot of cookies!

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
reprinted from the Bon Appetit Cookbook

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (about 12 ounces)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray large rimmed baking sheet with nonstick spray. Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add sugar and brown sugar; beat until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until mixture is creamy and well blended. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until just incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.


Working in batches, drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto a prepared baking sheet, spacing about 3 inches apart. Bake cookies until pale brown, about 15 minutes. Cool 5 minutes on sheet. Transfer cookies to racks and cool completely.

Garlic Tofu Broccoli Stir Fry

Being in college, I'm always on a quest to find quick/easy/cheap/somewhat healthy meals to prepare when I get home from a long day in studio. Especially this month, after rather expensive series of events.

Stir-fry is a great answer to this problem— and this one turned out awesome!

Start by cooking the tofu. Add firm or extra firm tofu, cut up, into a dry nonstick pan and fry while pressing down until you get a nice browned color. Remove and set aside.

Fry up some onion and garlic (two big cloves) on low heat in olive oil. Add some red pepper flakes (I made this one pretty spicy.)

When the onions are clearish add a bunch of broccoli, cut into florets. Add some water to the pan and cover with a lid for a minute or two to steam them. They should turn bright green.

When the water's gone, add the tofu and lightly brown everything. Add some more olive oil if you need to. Finish it off with a bit of soy sauce and sesame seeds. Serve with rice, or maybe pasta?

Cupcake Experiment

I wanted to make cupcakes the other night after reading the recipe for Smitten Kitchen's new chocolate whiskey and beer cupcakes but found that I was missing the ingredients. Still, I decided to improvise on the recipe and make chocolate espresso cupcakes with Kahlua-flavored icing.

I substituted soymilk for regular milk, margarine for some of the butter, and yogurt for sour cream. The original recipe called for melting stout and butter together on the stove and then whisking in cocoa powder; I mixed a good amount of instant espresso powder with soymilk and used that instead of stout— it worked well enough but the whole mixture didn't stay together and kind of turned into lumps. Still, everything whipped up into a pretty good batter.

For the buttercream, I just used Kahlua and some instant espresso instead of the Bailey's.

The cupcakes turned out delicious, but a little dense. Clearly I should just stick to the recipes for a little longer until I can really improvise with baking.

Simple White Cake.

Ever since I went on this "allergy discovery diet" I've been intensely missing the things I need to exclude from my diet— vanilla, chocolate, spices, tomatoes, curry, wine, gin, hot sauce. I'll be able to eat them soon but for now I had to find something to fill in the void of sweets that I can't have.

I found this white cake recipe on Allrecipes.com, and I just substituted coconut extract for the vanilla. It came out perfect— soft and tender, with just a hint of coconut flavor. I got the chance to break out my pure cane sugar from Whole Foods and that really made the difference; cane sugar tastes so much better than regular refined white sugar.


The best part was that it was so easy. I got the ingredients together and got it in the oven in 5 or 10 minutes, and was able to keep doing homework while it was baking!

Simple White Cake
Recipe courtesy of Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract (or coconut)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Cilantro Pesto Pasta

I want to mention the awesome cilantro-flavored pasta I had for dinner. It's very easy and used up lots of things that were sitting around in my refrigerator. I basically followed Heidi Swanson's recipe with a few adjustments: I had a bunch of kale so I chopped that up for the greens in the dish, adding it to the boiling pasta water; also I practiced trying to make my tofu more flavorful by dry-toasting it in a nonstick skillet and pressing down to let the water cook off before putting sauce on it.


The result was delicious- though I wouldn't put so much garlic in next time (I used around twice what was called for). I also topped it with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese which was a great addition.
Boiling the noodles and kale together. I used rotini instead of soba noodles because it's what I had on hand. Quick and easy.
Cilantro "pesto"- it's pretty awesome.

First post & my favorite hummus recipe

I've decided to dork out and create a food blog. I spend enough time on Tastespotting nowadays that I catch myself writing posts in my head as I'm cooking or deciding what the best way to photograph my cooking would be.

Besides doing this, I am a design student at Carnegie Mellon University and I've discovered that if I'm frustrated and tired of working on visual projects, the only thing I can do to clear my mind is cook.

I cook a lot.

So here is my first post— a recipe for a variation on Hummus. Hummus has always been one of my favorite foods, since I was a little kid. Everyone has their version. Since I have a citrus allergy, I use white wine vinegar in place of lemon juice, and I think it works out pretty well.
I enjoyed some here with the crusty bread I baked yesterday.


Makes a good amount. (I'm not one for exact measurements)
Ingredients:
2 cans chickpeas, drained (organic, if you can find them)
2-3 tbs. tahini
extra virgin olive oil
white wine or champagne vinegar, a few splashes
a small handful cilantro
5 or 6 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to taste
smoked paprika, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a food processor— either grate or press garlic cloves so you don't get lumps. This recipe is super flexible, so I usually just start out with a small amount of olive oil and vinegar and keep adding things until it is the consistency I like. Process until smooth and fluffy.

I've found that I love the flavor of fresh cilantro in this, and you'll end up with a green-flecked hummus that's so much nicer than the beige stuff you get from the store.