Mother Knows Best

When I was in Portland, OR last month visiting family, we were able to try a restaurant that has been on my list for a long time - Mother's. The love project of chef Linda Schroeder, Mother's is all about the beauty in comfort, from the vintage textiles to the sparkling case of baked goods in the front, to the home-style dishes served up to the crowds. There are staples such as Chicken Liver, Matzoh Ball Soup, Meatloaf, and Chicken and Dumplings, as well as monthly specials featuring a M.O.M., or mother of the month.

Of course I was thrilled when I learned that there was a cookbook available, and even more thrilled when Linda came to our table in her orange chef's jacket to sign our copies. How often does that happen? Not only that, but she stayed for at least 20 minutes, chatting with us about France, South Africa, the Midwest, traditional Jewish food, Culinary School, being a mother, and being a grandmother (especially significant because my own mother had just become one). In my book, she wrote "To Liz, From one cook to another, XO, Linda". What a charming woman, so full of life and passion - she was truly an inspiration.

The book is full of motherly advice, which is so helpful when making classic recipes or simply learning to cook. She calls them "love notes", such as putting bacon in the freezer for 10-15 minutes before chopping, which are things that make sense but that the average home cook might not think of.

Today I decided to make Parisian Chicken for my friend Andrea, and it was a very tasty and simple recipe, using ingredients that are normally on hand. It requires a some basic technique and preparation, but nothing that couldn't be handled on a weekday night - it's the kind of recipe that you make once, and then you can make it again from memory. I roasted some red fingerling potatoes while I was cooking the chicken, and made a simple mixed greens salad, and we had a home-cooked meal on our plates in very little time.

The dredging of the chicken pieces is in the opposite order from what I am used to - usually you do egg mixture followed by flour, but doing it this way means you use far less flour and the egg on the outside creates a lovely crispy crust. I had to cook the chicken much longer than the recipe called for (probably because I didn't split it so it was a little bit thicker than it should have been), so just eyeball yours and check for doneness during the process. I didn't have clarified butter, so I used 1 T. vegetable oil and 1 T. unsalted butter instead.

Parisian Chicken

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 1/4 t. kosher salt (divided)
• 3/4 t. freshly ground black pepper (divided)
• 2 T. whole milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 C. all purpose flour
• 2 T. clarified butter or vegetable oil
• 1/2 C. white vermouth
• 2 T. lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
• 4 T. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 T. chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley

If the breasts are very thick, you may slice them in half horizontally to get 2 cutlets per half. Spread a 12-in piece of plastic wrap on the counter. Place a chicken breast on it, then lay another 12-in sheet of plastic on top. Using a flat meat mallet or a large heavy skillet, pound the breast to 1/4 in thickness. Repeat with the remaining breasts.

Lay the cutlets on a rimmed baking sheet and season each on one side with 1/4 t. salt and a pinch black pepper.

In a shallow bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs. Place the flour in a plate or shallow dish. Set these near the stove.

Place a large (12 to 14 in) saute pan over medium high heat. When hot, add the clarified butter. Used one hand to dip one cutlet in the four, dredging int on both sides, and then in the egg mixture. Use the other hand to immediately add it to the pan. Repeat until you have a single layer of chicken.

Cook until lightly golden on the first side, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn over, lower the heat to medium, and continue to cook until the other side is golden and the chicken is cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes.

Transfer the cutlets to a serving plate and tent with foil to keep warm. Return the pan to high heat. Add the vermouth and lemon juice to the saute pan (to deglaze), stirring to scrape up any browned bits. Season with 1/4 t. salt and 1/4 t. pepper. REduce by half, remove from the heat, and wisk in the butter pieces. Add the parsley.

To serve, place the chicken on individual serving plates and pour the sauce over the chicken.

Stawberry Fields Forever

Spring is in the air, and with it have come the first strawberries of the season. The ones at the Farmers Market this weekend were so lush and beautiful that I bought 3 pints! That day I had a party to go to, so I made cupcakes inspired by one of my favorite desserts, Strawberry Shortcake. The recipe comes from Food & Wine magazine, with the only change being that I used strawberry jelly as opposed to strawberry jam, for a smoother textured frosting.

The cupcakes were delicious, but a few days later I was craving the real thing - traditional strawberry shortcake. It's been years since I have made it. So when I invited my friend Andrea over for lunch today, I baked some sweet biscuits and whipped some cream, and voila, one of the best desserts of summer.

Normally when you make strawberry shortcake, you sweeten the strawberries with sugar until they get very juicy and pulpy. I didn't do that this time because the strawberries were already so naturally sweet, and I put a little bergamot mint on top which added a little bit of brightness. The biscuit recipe is from my old standby, the Silver Palate New Basics cookbook. It has an English feeling to it, which made it perfect after a round of Wii Tennis!

A couple of notes about making biscuits. You don't want to overwork them. They are easier to make than pie crust, but the principle is the same: you work butter into flour and pat out the dough to a uniform size (no rolling involved though, thank God) before cutting it. I use my hands, never a pastry blender or two knives. Also, every time I have made this recipe, the bottoms of the biscuits have burned. I just cut the burned part off and the tops are perfect.

Sweet Biscuits

• 1 3/4 C. all purpose flour
• 1 T. baking powder
• 2 T. sugar
• 1/2 t. salt
• 5 T. unsalted butter, cold
• 3/4 C. half and half
• 1 T. butter, melted, and 1/2. T. sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

In a large bowl, toss together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.

Cut the butter into small pieces, and cut it into the flour using two knives, a pastry blender or your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Add the half and half, and stif gently until the mixture forms a mass. Gather it into a ball.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface, knead it for about 30 seconds, and then pat it out to form a 3/4 in thick rectangle.

Using a 2 3/4 inch cookie cutter, cut out 8 circles.

Arrange the biscuits about 1 in apart on a baking sheet. Baked until puffed and golden, about 14 minutes.

Transfer the biscuits to a wire rack and allow them to cool.

An Unfortunate Name for a Delicious Dish

Larb. Sounds like "lard" or "barb", and neither of those words makes me think "fantastic, delicately flavored meat salad".

But that is exactly what it is. My friend Suzanne introduced me to it at Modern Thai, a restaurant that I had gone to for over 5 years without knowing anything about this dish. I read that it originates in Laos, and is a mixture of minced meat (I like chicken), lime juice, raw onion, herbs and lettuce. It is both satisfying and refreshing.

Now that I know about it, I like to get it after a night at Iron Cupcake Challenge, when my taste buds are on sweet overload and I am craving something savory. It's not too filling, and I can eat a good sized portion without feeling overloaded - in fact, it feels cleansing. It makes me want to go back to Thailand, a place that I have been fortunate to visit once and that has stayed with me ever since.

Lemon Whoopie Pies

 

 

I thought I would save time and just direct you to this link.
http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2008/04/lemon-whoopie-pies/

I made these today. I followed the recipe exactly except that I made them smaller – about 1 Tablespoon of batter for each cookie. The plan was to give them away, but I couldn’t part with them. So much for the weekly exercise – now I’m going to have to start all over again.

Cheddar Cheese Wholewheat Bread

This bread is so delicious I ate the whole loaf in 1 and a half day. It's cheesy and crusty (from burnt cheese) and soft and chewy. I so wanted to bake another loaf but I won't be able to stop myself from devouring it again. So good it's bad.


Cheese overload.

Ingredients

• 8 oz wholewheat flour (I used 4 oz traditional wholewheat flour and 4 oz white wholewheat flour.)


• 4 oz bread flour


• 2 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 8 oz water


• 1 oz light tasting olive oil


• 8 oz diced cheddar cheese (I used Dubliner aged Irish cheddar cheese.)

Directions

1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a bowl of an electric mixer. Add water and oil. Turn on the mixer at the lowest speed with a paddle hook.


2. After everything is wet, change to a bread hook and mix at slow speed until you get smooth dough - about 10 minutes. Knead in cheese. Let rise in the bowl, covered with a plastic wrap for about 1 and a half hour.


3. Grease a bread pan. Shape the dough into loaf (gently flatten the dough on floured counter top, fold the bottom half to the middle, fold the top half, crimp the edges close. Roll back and fourth to get the desired shape.) Let rise in the pan covered with plastic wrap for another 1 and a half hour or until the dough rise over the top of the pan.


4. 30 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.


5. Turn out of the bread pan and let cool on a cooling rack for at least 1 hour before devouring. It's really great warm. Next time I might bake into rolls, so I won't have to wait.

Buttermilk Puddings with Agar Agar

This is a great way to use up buttermilk in the refrigerator. The original recipe is from Gourmet using gelatin which I didn't have. What I used instead was Agar Agar powder which, in Thailand, is used for desserts similar to jello with more chew and made with coconut milk or basil seeds. I got a few envelopes of the powder and a bag of basil seeds from Chinatown to make basil seed jello last summer but never got to it.



Ingredients

• 2 cups milk


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 1 vanilla bean


• 1 teaspoon agar agar powder


• 2 cups buttermilk

With blueberries

Directions

1. Heat milk, sugar, scraped vanilla bean and agar agar powder on a stove top over medium heat until agar agar powder completely dissolves - about 15 minutes. Stir constantly to prevent jelly to form at the bottom. Don't turn your back. Milk boils over very easily.


2. Turn off the heat and let cool for about 30 minutes on the stove top. Do not refrigerate yet. This is so that when you pour buttermilk into milk, milk protein won't separate and become cheese.


3. Stir in 2 cups buttermilk. Divide into 6 individual cups and refrigerate. Agar agar sets a lot faster than gelatin. Serve cold by itself or with fruit.

Balsamic Apple Cobbler

In Jamie Oliver's Happy Days with the Naked Chef, he made fruit cobbler with a few kinds of berries, a pear, an apple and "a good glug of balsamic vinegar." What a great idea! The vinegar gave the fruit a complex sweet and sour note. I was wondering if it would work without the berries.



Other than the slightly un-appetizing brownish color, the baked apples tasted fantastic - best tasting apple filling ever. I will try this again in apple pie form.



For the topping, I used buttermilk fruit cobbler recipe from Christopher Kimball's The Cook's Bible which basically a biscuit recipe with 2 tablespoons of sugar. And like recipe in this book, this will be the best biscuit/cobbler topping you'll ever make.

Ingredients

• 8 apples - peeled, cored and cut into chunks (I used combination of Granny Smith, Greening, Golden Delicious, and Gala.)


• 2 tablespoons sugar


• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar


• 2 cups all purpose flour


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 teaspoons baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda


• 2 tablespoons salt


• 3 tablespoons chilled butter


• 2 tablespoons shortening


• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss apples with 2 tablespoons sugar and balsamic vinegar in a 9 inch square baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.


2. In a food processor, pulse flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and salt together a few times. Cut butter and shortening into small chunks and add to the mixture. Pulse into you get coarse crumbs but not wet sticky dough.


3. Transfer into a bowl, sprinkle buttermilk over and mix with wooden spoon.


4. Gather into a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap. Flatten into a disk and refrigerate.


5. Remove apples from the oven, increase the temperature to 425 degrees. Roll out the dough and place on top of the fruit. Bake for 15 minutes.


6. Let cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. Best when warm.

Mini Breakfast Quiches

Breakfast is definitely my least favorite meal of the day. I would say most days I skip it because I get busy and forget or there just isn't anything that sounds good. I haven't wanted to eat cold cereal for a few years now so if I do eat breakfast it's usually toast. Well, toast can get a little bit boring. I was excited when I saw this recipe on Our Best Bites. I was even more excited after I made them this morning. They are just the perfect thing to solve my breakfast problem. They were tasty, easy and much more fancy then my regular breakfast. One of my favorite things about them is they can be frozen and reheated when you are ready to eat them. So, my plan is to eat one of these with a piece of toast every morning. The flavors of these little quiches can be easily changed by choosing different veggies. I really loved the combinations in the recipe. I know the recipe says you need to use foil liners, but I just sprayed my muffin tin with pam and they came out just great.

4 eggs
1 C egg substitute*
3/4 C shredded low-fat sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 C shredded Parmesan cheese
1/4 C cottage cheese
5 oz frozen spinach (that's half a standard frozen box)
1/3 C roasted red peppers, diced (jarred, or make your own)
1 oz finely diced ham, canadian bacon, or crumbled bacon (about 1/4-1/3 C)
1/4 C finely diced onions
1/4 t kosher salt
1/8 t black pepper
1/2 t hot sauce

foil muffin tin liners

*1/4 egg substitute = 1 whole egg, so if you're using all eggs, or some eggs and some egg whites, you can adjust accordingly.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350

Thaw spinach (you can nuke it in the microwave) and squeeze out all the liquid. Putting it in a clean kitchen towl and ringing the heck out of it works well. After it's drained of all the liquid, give it a rough chop.

In a bowl, combine all ingredients and stir well.

Place foil cupcake liners in the muffin tins and spray with cooking spray. Don't forget this step! And yes, they really do need to be the foil ones. If you have a silicone muffin pan, those work great and you don't need to line them. My silicone pan makes them taste like soap, so I don't go there. As you're dividing the egg mixture into the muffin cups make sure to keep stirring it so all of the ingredients are well-dispersed. My pan takes about 1/4 C in each hole and it fills them up perfectly. You want them to fill right up to the top.

Place in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. The tops should be just barely set on top. Over-baked eggs get tough and spongy so don't do that! They'll puff up while baking and then sink down when cooled. You can store them in an airtight container in the fridge, or freeze them. When reheating in the microwave, make sure to take off the foil liner! And if you're reheating from frozen, I try to take them out the night before so they can thaw in the fridge. Then when you microwave them, set them on a folded paper towel to drain excess moisture.

Oatmeal Pumpkin Pancakes

My sister-in-law, Dani, gave me a recipe for some yummy oatmeal pancakes. I had some pumpkin that needed to be used up, so I thought it would be good to use some in the recipe. They turned out really good! We really like the regular recipe, but everyone agreed that it was even better with the pumpkin. Here is the recipe... I'll also put the recipe for the regular oatmeal pancakes for those who may not love pumpkin, or just don't want to use it.


Oatmeal Pumpkin Pancakes

1/4 c. melted butter
1 1/4 c. buttermilk
1 c. pumpkin puree
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
2 c. quick oats
1/2 - 3/4 c flour (I usually have to use about 3/4 c.)
3 Tbl sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
dash of cloves

Mix everything together well and cook just under medium heat (these are pretty dense, so you don't want to cook them too high or they won't cook all the way through). Make sure to spray your pan well. Top with your favorite syrup, or some other clever topping. Makes about 12 pancakes. These are very filling, so I recommend making them a little smaller than your average pancake.

**To make regular oatmeal pancakes: leave out pumpkin and use 2 c buttermilk or about 1 c regular milk.

**For either recipe: Add more flour, if too runny, or more milk, if too thick.

Middle Eastern Chickpea & Rice Stew Recipe

Healthy and delicious Middle Eastern Chickpea & Rice Stew Recipe. The nutty goodness of slowly browned onions, spices and sweet potato are offset by a burst of fresh cilantro in this chickpea and rice stew. Serve this hearty dish with whole-wheat pita and a salad of sliced cucumbers tossed with yogurt and a pinch of salt.

6 servings, 1 1/2 cups each
Active Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced (about 3 cups)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 cup orange juice
4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth, or vegetable broth
2 15-ounce cans chickpeas, rinsed
3 cups peeled and diced sweet potato, (about 1 pound)
2/3 cup brown basmati rice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat; add onions and cook, stirring often, until tender and well browned, 10 to 12 minutes. Add cumin and coriander and stir for about 15 seconds. Add orange juice and broth. Stir in chickpeas, sweet potato, rice and salt. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to a gentle simmer and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the rice is tender and the sweet potatoes are breaking down to thicken the liquid, about 45 minutes. Season with pepper. (The stew will be thick and will thicken further upon standing. Add more broth to thin, if desired, or when reheating.) Serve topped with cilantro.

Shish Taouk with White Rice - Kushari Recipe - Middle Eastern Eggplant Salad

Save and share Middle Eastern Chickpea & Rice Stew Recipe

Want to share this recipe with your family and friends? Click the button below to send them an email or save this to your favorite social network.

Very Simple Granola

The deli, where I got my lunch almost everyday before the office moved, carries these yogurt parfaits. They are layers of plain Greek yogurt, slices of very lightly baked apples, honey, granola and topped with chopped fresh apples. They were meant to be breakfast. So by lunch time, there would only be one or two cups left, if I was lucky. I usually had them as afternoon snacks instead of getting candies from the evil vending machine.

About a week ago, the office moved 10 blocks north from 32nd Street to 40th Street - the land of cafes/delis/and lunch places. Since then, I have visited about 20 delis looking for something similar to the apple yogurt parfait. What I found were either overly sweetened yogurt with a few pieces of fruit and soggy granola or watery yogurt with chunks of cantaloupe and pineapples. Why you would want to add watery fruit to watery yogurt, I have no idea.

So I set out to make my own. Start with the granola - which was just lightly sweetened toasted oats. No nuts or dry fruit or any extra stuff. I came up with this recipe with just 4 ingredients: oatmeal, Agave nectar, oil and vanilla. The granola is very good on its own with either just milk or yogurt. But I like it best with honey and berries/chopped apples/chopped pears. I haven't tried with baked apples yet. So I can't say I succeed what I set out to do.



Ingredients

• 4 cups traditional oatmeal (320 g)


• 1/3 cup Agave nectar (95 g)


• 1/4 cup light tasting olive oil (40 g)


• 1 vanilla bean (or a couple of teaspoons of vanilla extract)

Directions

1. Adjust the oven racks to top 3rd and lower 3rd. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.


2. Whisk Agave nectar with oil. Scrape vanilla bean into the mixture. Mix well. Add oatmeal. Stir until well combined and pieces of oatmeal are wet.


3. Divide into the two baking sheets. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the granola is golden brown. Stir, rotate and switch the pan after 8 minutes.


4. Let cool completely in the pans and store in airtight container.

Minestrone Soup

Heather asked me to post this a couple of weeks ago, so since I'm so on top of things, I'm posting it now.  I love Minestrone Soup.  I've been making this one for a few years now, and I just can't find one that beats it.  I think the key is the can of Bean with Bacon soup.  I don't love condensed soups, but the smoky flavor in this one really makes the difference. I got this recipe from the Mormon Essential Celebrations cookbook, by Julie Badger Jensen.

1 lb. pork sausage- (I just use ground pork so I don't have to mess with the casings.  I've tried using bulk Italian sausage, but it just overpowers the soup.)
4 c. water
2 stalks celery, diced
2 large carrots, diced
1 (10 oz) can beef broth
1 can bean with bacon soup
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 T. sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. dried oregano
1 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
1 cup cooked noodles (optional)

Brown sausage in a large pot.  Drain off fat. Add remaining ingredients except noodles, and stir together. Simmer uncovered over low heat for at least 1 hour. Add cooked noodles before serving.

This soup tastes even better the next day.

The noodles are completely optional, but there are some in my family that are more likely to eat a soup that has noodles.  If you do add the noodles be sure to cook them first before adding them, otherwise they soak up a lot of the broth.

Crock-pot option: You can make this in your crock pot, by browning the sausage, and then dumping everything except the noodles in the crock pot and cooking on low for the day.  Then just add the noodles before serving.

This soup also freezes well.  Again, just freeze without the pasta, and then add it before serving.

Caramelized Rice Pudding with Pears and Raisins Recipe

Enjoy delicious rice recipes and learn how to make Caramelized Rice Pudding with Pears and Raisins.

This method of slow-baking gives a rich, caramelized flavor to the rice pudding and is based on a technique from cookery writer Sue Kreitzman. It takes some time to make, so prepare the rice pudding the day before. Cool the rice pudding before caramelizing the sugar topping. To create the crisp sugar topping without a torch, visit www.CookingLight.com/features for a stove-top method.

Ingredients (makes 8 servings)

4 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
1 cup Arborio rice or other short-grain rice
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons nonfat dry milk
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
1 (3-inch) piece vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 1/2 cups chopped peeled Bosc pears
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup apple juice
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 300º.

2. Combine first 7 ingredients in a 3-quart casserole. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean; add seeds and bean to rice mixture. Place dish in a 13 x 9-inch baking pan; add hot water to pan to a depth of 1 inch. Bake at 300º, uncovered, 2 1/2 hours or until the rice is tender, stirring occasionally. Discard cinnamon stick and vanilla bean; stir in cream. Cool.

3. Combine pears and next 4 ingredients (pears through cinnamon stick) in a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 10 minutes or until tender. Discard cinnamon stick. Spoon about 1/3 cup pear mixture into the bottom of each of 8 (8-ounce) ramekins. Top each serving with about 1/3 cup rice pudding. Just before serving, sprinkle 1 tablespoon sugar over each serving. Holding a kitchen blow torch about 2 inches over rice pudding, heat the sugar, moving the torch back and forth, until sugar is completely melted and caramelized (about 45 seconds). Serve within 30 minutes. (Do not refrigerate or caramel will melt).

Creamy rice pudding with plum compote - Coconut rice with pears & coconut-caramel sauce - Yoghurt rice pudding recipe

Save and share Caramelized Rice Pudding with Pears and Raisins Recipe

Want to share this recipe with your family and friends? Click the button below to send them an email or save this to your favorite social network.

Chocolate and Bacon

It may seem like a weird combination...until you try it. I first experienced this lovely union a few years ago in Vosges Chocolate's Mo's Bacon Bar. If you have never tried one, go out and get one immediately! It comes in milk chocolate, and dark chocolate - you simply can't go wrong. They sell them at fine chocolate shops, Whole Foods, or online on their website. The sweet/savory combination is irresistible:

So you can probably imagine how excited I was when my sister-in-law sent me her recipe for Chocolate Chocolate Chip with Bacon cookies. I finally made them for the first time last week. Wowza, yum. I changed a couple of things from the original recipe after making them a few times and getting some feedback - increased the amount of bacon from 6 slices to 10 slices, left the bacon in chunks rather than crumbling it, and changed the regular salt to coarse salt (thank you, Martha Stewart, for introducing me to this practice). Also, the original recipe calls for chocolate chunks, which I can never find, so I used Guittard chocolate chips which worked really well.

Overall, most people loved them, even those who were a little bit skeptical about the combination! It's a great recipe and destined to be a new classic. In case you are wondering, they taste mostly sweet with just a hint of saltiness from time to time.

Finally, may I just say how wonderful it is to have another baker in the family!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bacon Cookies

Ingredients:

• 10-12 slices of maple cured bacon
• 1 1/2 C white sugar
• 1 C unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 2 t vanilla extract
• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 2/3 C cocoa powder
• 3/4 t baking soda
• 1/4 t coarse salt
• 2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Cook bacon in a large skillet over med-high heat, turning occasionally until evenly browned. Drain the bacon slices on a paper-towel lined plate. When cool, tear into small pieces (see above photo for approximate size).
3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, until well blended. Add the vanilla and beat until well blended.
5. Add the flour & cocoa mixture and stir until just blended. Mix in the chocolate chips and bacon.
6. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.
7. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes on cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes approximately 32 cookies.

Cinnamon Apple Muffins

Apple madness continues.

These muffins are a little too sweet for me (but my friends loved them) even though I reduced the sugar from 1 1/4 cups to only 3/4 cup. Maybe it's because my apple are not so sour (I used Granny Smith.) The original recipe was from AllRecipes.com for Jumbo Fluffy Walnut Apple Muffins. My muffins were not jumbo and didn't contain walnuts although they are very fluffy. So I'm calling them cinnamon apple muffins instead.



These muffins came out like really good moist mini coffee cake studded with apples in every bite. I felt like I had way too much topping. I might cut it to half next time but the topping added great crunchy texture and sweetness to the muffins.



Here are the ingredients I used for the muffins:

• 1 stick butter at room temperature


• 3/4 cup sugar (I will reduce to 1/2 cup next time.)


• 2 eggs


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 cup whole wheat flour


• 3/4 cup all purpose flour


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon cinnamon


• 2 teaspoons baking powder


• 1/2 cup milk


• 3 medium Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and chopped - about 3 cups

View original recipe here.