Recipes – Page 7 – Life In Limbo

Just A Few Chocolate Chip Cookies

January 23, 2013

Because today I woke up to a wind chill warning.

Because sometimes your heart hurts for no real reason (maybe due to that freaking ‘feels like’ -35 weather!).

Because maybe you (like me) always make baked goods and then never really want to finish them after two or three.

Because you want something sweet to go with your evening tea.

Because you want to celebrate getting through a particularly stressful day/week/hour.

Because you just want to, dang it!

Because of all these totally valid reasons, I give you the ultimate recipe for just a few chocolate chip cookies. I can attest: these are the perfect chocolate chip cookies. They’re not only perfect because they take approximately fifteen minutes from ingredients to eating, but they’re the perfect texture and chew as well. I could not recommend them more highly!

The recipe is like the holy grail of cookie recipes. It is designed explicitly to make only two cookies, so no bizarre trying to split an egg in half, yolks, whites and all – it simply calls for the egg yolk! Easy peasy. When I made this recipe, it ended up making five cookies, not two. But considering that I made no alterations to the recipe, I can only assume that the author makes much larger cookies than I, and so I am perfectly justified in having eaten all of them over the course of 24 hours.

And just like that, I’m ready to make them again. Lord help the mister who comes between me and my chocolate chip cookie.

Happy Wednesday! Make it (mulled) Wine Wednesday to chase away the cold.

xo.

Update: I made them again, and they were just as good the second time (and made 6 [!] decent-sized cookies). Long live this recipe.

Homemade Chocolate-Cherry Larabars

January 17, 2013

Yum!

I’ve been meaning to make my own energy bars for a very long time. According to my Pinterest board, I’ve been meaning to make them for 15 weeks, ever since I pinned this recipe for Cherry Pie Larabars! Turns out I didn’t even use that particular recipe, but my point is that the intention to make a healthy energy bar has been in my mind for a while.

For those who don’t know what a Larabar is: it’s an energy bar, made of very few ingredients, combinations of different nuts and dried fruits. I’ve tried a couple flavours in the past and did not like, but I was very open to the idea of making some of these simple bars at home, especially since those bars are pretty pricey!

I had a lovely sushi lunch with my friend Laura the other day, and amidst talk of dating no-no’s and the upcoming running season, we talked about trying to eat healthier, plant-based meals and she reminded me about this great blog, Oh She Glows. It’s a vegan blog with all kinds of delicious-looking recipes, and I’m having a good time looking through the archives! When I looked it up again, the first recipe on the homepage was for homemade Larabars, quelle coincidence. Anyways, I was inspired, blah-dee-blah, and found this recipe for Dark Chocolate Cherry Energy Bites that I made in due haste, yestereve.

I don’t have a very powerful food processor. It is tiny. I think the issues I’m having with these bars being slightly more crumbly than I’d like is due to the fact that I had to process the individual ingredients one at a time in my mini food processor, and then combine all the ingredients with a wooden spoon and my hands. They pressed nicely into the pan and stuck together, but didn’t hold up 100% when I put one in my bag to take to school. But the good news is, they’re delicious! So tasty. Considering that I’ve never liked dates before, ever, eating a nut-and-date-based energy bar was remarkably pleasant. Other notes: I couldn’t find dried cherries as per the recipe, so I used dried cranberries that are flavoured like cherries. That’s sort of weird, but I just went with it. The recipe only made 8 bars, and they are dense with healthy, pure, raw ingredients.

I’m excited to experiment with different flavours of homemade Larabars! I like making trail mixes every once in a while, but these bars are a more compact version of the same thing and I think I might like them better, because bars are more fun to eat, n’est-ce pas?

Happy Thursday! TGIAF!

Best Brussels Sprouts

January 8, 2013

Okay, everybody and my mother (literally: my mom is reading this and rolling her eyes) is sick of hearing about my newfound love for brussels sprouts. I’m sorry, I am. But also, I’m not. Because they are so good! And I am so happy to be incorporating new veggies into my world. Also, please note that there is a great big love for these sprouts all over the internet right now (check ’em out here and here, for starters), so I am not alone.

Here’s what I do (original recipe I used is here!): for one serving (me, myself & I), I use about 7 sprouts. I lop off their stems and peel off the dirty/old first layer. Then I chop them up, usually into eighths, then diagonally slice off any bits of the stem that remain. I pan-fry them in butter, letting them get nice and browned. After a couple minutes I usually add a couple chopped cloves of garlic or a little onion, and salt to taste. A couple minutes after that, I add some chopped pecans. Stir it up until the sprouts are fairly tender, then add parmesan cheese! Delish. I fry a couple of eggs and put them on top and eat as is. For real, so good + easy too.

Compost Cookies

November 26, 2012

Guys, who am I?

One day, I’m like: “look at me making healthy changes!” The next, “put every delicious item in your pantry into buttery cookie dough and then put it in your face”. In my defence? Christina Tosi is clearly a psycho, in the best possible way. I also hasten to add: I’m giving all of these away, ~~after I eat a couple.~~

These cookies are sisters with the cornflake-marshmallow cookies I made earlier this year, because they were both birthed by Momofuku Milk Bar. Speaking of sisters, I love both of mine. In one week, one of them got a cooler-than-thou (and by thou I mean me) cartilage piercing and the other applied to go on exchange in Vienna and be a boss. This is just the usj in my family. Also it was my beautiful, wonderful mother’s birthday yesterday so like, shoutoutz mama! You da best. (Not that I don’t do a shoutout to my mother in every single post I’ve ever written, ever..). Dad, you rock too, I hope you are wearing your snazzy pink pinstriped shirt to work today. Keep on keeping on.

Make these cookies. They have a cup of butter in them and butter makes people happy. I suggest you give these away to everyone you love, like, or see on street, because they are day-makers. Bonus: you can put absolutely anything you want in them, sky’s the limit. I used peanut butter M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, and salt-and-vinegar potato chips (yes I did)(and it was awesome)(so there).

After a thoroughly over-cooked first batch, I learned that right around the 14 minute mark is good for these babies. Also, do not skimp on your refrigeration time. Even after chilling the dough balls for over 24 hours, they spread out and melted almost instantly in the oven. If you didn’t chill them beforehand, I’m guessing you’d pull out a tray that was just corner-to-corner, tray-sized cookie. Of course, if that’s what you’re into, all the power, my friend.

I got the Compost Cookie recipe from Krissy’s Creations, an awesome food blog that does a recipe from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook every Monday. Those recipes are nonsense, but amazing.

Happy eats, and Happy Monday. This going to be an amazing week for all of us, I am sure of it. xo.