Monday, January 23, 2012

Cookies!

From this recipe:

And on the cooling rack (yes, this is an old refrigerator rack, why do you ask?):
Awefully unhealthy, given that it's two sticks of butter. Oh well, I didn't want to live forever anyhow :).

PS: How did I get those so round? Simple: Ice cream scoop. F*** that "spoon onto cookie sheet" nonsense :).

-- Badtux the Baking Penguin

8 comments:

  1. OT: to keep me thinking about cookies (mmmmm, cookies) where in the north-central South Bay do you buy your fish? (I'm not keen on driving down to Blossom Hill/87 area to buy fish.) As I write I'm nibbling on a piece of tuna that was either frozen too slowly or thawed too long.

    In return I offer a recipe developed tonight: Mashed sweet potatoes

    2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chunked
    water to cover sweet potatoes for cooking
    ~ 2 tbsp. apple juice concentrate
    ~ 2 tbsp butter/margarine (optional)
    1/2 to 1 tsp allspice, or more (see instructions)

    Bring sweet potatoes in water to boiling; cover, reduce to simmer, and let cook until sweet potatoes are fork-tender. Combine 1/4 cup cooking water and apple juice concentrate; then drain potatoes.

    In a large bowl mix potatoes and apple juice mixture; sprinkle enthusiastically with allspice. Add butter/margarine if you're using it. Mix and mash until appropriate consistency. Electric mixers work, but I favor an old-fashioned potato masher. (There's something therapeutic about mashing potatoes by hand.)

    Should reheat well for leftovers. Tomorrow night it gets served with some Costco New York steak resurrected from the freezer...

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  2. Best place to buy fish appears to be the Asian markets. I'm in Santa Clara so the Korean markets are where I'd get fish if I were looking for fish. But I don't generally do fish other than canned tuna because it has to be cooked and eaten the day you bring it home or else your refrigerator smells like a cannery. I usually do chicken instead, my usual way of cooking chicken is stir-fry and serve over rice, but that recipe is boring (chicken, chili oil, a dash of soy sauce, and a buncha fresh veggies all stirred together is hardly the stuff of dreams).

    Regarding sweet potatoes, the Louisiana version of that recipe uses dark cane syrup (it's not the same as molasses but can be simulated by instead using dark brown sugar and just enough water to make it sorta syrupy), cinnamon, and butter. Maybe a tiny bit of vanilla flavoring. Pour into pie crust and bake if you want a sweet potato pie. Mini-marshmallows melted on top are optional. Sorry, don't have exact recipe for you at the moment...

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  3. We've gone back to using butter for cooking and baking. Margarine these days has so much water in it that it just doesn't work right for cooking anymore.

    Re-purposing things is great. I once used a refrigerator rack as a pot rack. Hung it from the ceiling and used hooks to hang pots from it. Stored the lids on the rack.

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  4. Cookies -- my weakness, and hey, they're w/w, too!

    I love pecan in my chocolate chip cookies, and sometimes, shredded cocoanut! Oh, the naysayers maligned cocoanut like they did butter and eggs, but now cocoanut's the new olive oil.

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  5. Oh, and MUST use butter. If one is going to have a treat, make it a good one.

    Margarine is some chemical process that takes place in a vat. Our bodies can't process it.

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  6. Kulkuri, about all margarine is good for is toast. And even there, I much prefer real butter.

    Lisa, this was basically made with stuff I had in my pantry or refrigerator (only thing I actually bought special for this recipe was the vanilla extract), and alas I had no pecan in my pantry. If I'd had it, I would have put it, because I like pecan too and it complements the slightly nutty taste of the whole wheat flour quite well.

    To all: The cookies really would have tasted better if I'd let the dough rest at least 24 hours before baking, to let the whole wheat flour better absorb the egg and butter. These aren't the best cookies I've ever had. On the other hand they're far from the worst too...

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  7. French cooking is all about butter. I think the muti-decade anti-fat campaign in this country is largely misplaced. It's trans fats that are the killers. Also, we eat too much of everything, and most especially simple carbs.

    We put some fat-free (ignore previous para) sour cream in mashed sweet potatoes. Best accent flavor is fresh-ground nutmeg.

    This is great as a side with salmon. Gloria makes a glaze from orange juice, brown sugar and maple syrup.

    Tonight, we went out to a local diner for the Tuesday special: meat loaf. We brought half of it home, and still felt stuffed.

    Cheers!
    JzB

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  8. BTW, I notice that my readers apparently cannot count.

    (Look at the bottom two pictures again :).

    - Badtux the Arithmetic Penguin

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