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Ultimate Oatmeal Cookies

I just got back from New York. I had a great trip: I biked the 5 Boro Bike Tour, I had an amazing dinner at Lupo, and I caught up with some of my best friends. I stayed most of the time with my friend Blake and his girlfriend Katrina who were attempting to make great oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They were doing fairly well, but I really just wanted to enlighten them to my favorite cookie recipe of all time. It's a recipe I slightly adapted from the pages of Cook's Illustrated. Here's how they go:

1.25 cups (6oz) All Purpose Flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt


whisk these four ingredients together in a bowl and set aside. it's important to whisk them, this is in lieu of sifting. Who does that for cookies?

1.5 cups (3.5oz) of rolled oats
1 cup (4oz) pecans chopped and preferably toasted in the oven until nutty smelling
1 cup (5oz) dried cherries or cranberries, chopped. look for some with less sugar.
4 oz chopped chocolate or chocolate chips. I usually use the ghirardelli bittersweet bars from the grocery store.


stir these four ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.

1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

in a small bowl, crack the egg and add the vanilla extract. whisk together slightly with a fork.

12 Tbls (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, cold but soft. (20-30 sec. in the microwave will soften it)
1.5 cups packed (10.5oz) dark brown sugar

with a sturdy spoon, cream the sugar and butter in a large bowl. mix until it is a uniform creamy texture, then mix it a while longer. stir in the egg mixture, one half at a time, adding the second half after the first is completely integrated.

once mixed, stir in the flour mixture in four batches, waiting until the batter is completely mixed before adding more flour. After the flour is all added, stir in the oat mixture. It won't appear to be able to all fit, but if you keep folding the batter, eventually you'll get a uniform mixture.

Throw the batter in the fridge and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

These cookies should be made rather large, approximately 3 tablespoons, each. flatten each cookie into a puck-like shape and place on a cookie sheet. These can be baked on two cookie sheets at once. Bake for 6 minutes, then rotate the cookie sheets, moving the top sheet to the bottom, and vice versa. Then bake about 6 minutes more. Make sure not to overbake!

If you make these, let me know the results. I think I should make them again, ASAP, just to get some better pictures of them.

chicken chimichangas

When my roommate phil said he was going to be making mexican food this week I felt I needed to make something to go with it. The last two times our house had people over for food, I felt like I wasn't pulling my weight. My friend lisa suggested I make chimichangas, and at first I thought it would be too much work to deep fry some burritos, but I remembered a few weeks ago I made fried chicken, and then it didn't seem so difficult. I found this recipe on cooks.com, filled in a few blanks and made a few modifications, and here's what I did:

1 large potato (peeled, boiled until barely done, diced. set aside for later)

2 pieces of bacon

(cook bacon slowly in cast iron skillet, eat or discard when done)

1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
1 serrano chili, 2 jalapeno chilies (seeded and diced)
2 teaspoons kosher salt (or 1 teaspoon of table salt)

(cook on medium low in bacon grease until onions are soft)

1 lb chicken thigh meat (cut into 3/4" cubes, removing fatty bits)

(add to vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally until chicken is no longer pink)

1 can diced tomatoes
1 can chopped green chilies
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp chili powder

(stir all of this into the skillet. bring up to a simmer, fold in potatoes, cook down any excess liquid)

2 tbsp minced fresh cilantro

(fold in cilantro, remove from heat)

medium flour tortillas
shortening

To make chimichangas: In my electric skillet I melted enough shortening to come up about 1/4-1/2" in the pan. I set it for 350 degrees. any higher than that and Alton Brown says the shortening starts to break down and fill your house with a greasy smell. I heated up flour tortillas by wrapping them in foil and putting them in the oven, until they're just soft.

Put a bit of the meat mixture into the tortilla, it was always less than I thought. I folded the sides in and rolled it up. then I carefully laid it in the hot shortening, with the seam side down. I let it fry until I could see the bottom edges nice and golden brown. then I turned it until all sides were brown and golden. I set them on a cooling rack while I made more. to rewarm them, I put the cooling rack in the oven.

These went great with beans and rice that Pat and Ana brought over, and the amazing verde soup that phil made, or the cauliflour with guacamole topping. But, if you don't have all of that spectacular food, you may want to try just salsa or sour cream or guacamole. I'll try to post pictures soon.

I'm excited to make them again. I've got a ton of filling left.

holy grail chili

I guess this blogger has become about food. I mean, I could write about other shit. about shelby and my dad and the farm and feelings and sadness and school. but while not thinking about all of those things I do my favorite thing... cook. In the last week I've made some weird stir fry, and some peanut butter cookies, and some fried chicken. And last night, I found my holy grail of chili. Let me explain.

For the longest time the only chili I've known is my mother's. and while it's very good, it's fairly tomato-ey and not very spicy. I'm a big fan of spicier and smokier chili and for a few years I've been trying recipes to try and find a new chili for myself. Last night I tried this allrecipes.com chili. I varied it a bit, and here's what I came up with:

1 big onion, chopped.
4 cloves garlic, minced.
3 chile peppers, seeded, stemmed, chopped. (I used one poblano, one jalapeno, one serrano) set half aside for later.

(sweat these in some vegetable oil in a large heavy pot for a few minutes on low to medium heat)

1 lb ground beef. I think I used chuck.
1 lb top sirloin steak, trimmed of fat and cubed

(add this to onions and oil and mix and cook until the redness in the meat is gone. then drain most of the excess liquid off of the beef)

1 (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes
1 (12oz) can or bottle of dark beer. I used some trinity red from trader joe's
2 teaspoons of espresso powder
2 (6oz) cans of tomato paste
1 (14oz) can of beef broth


(open all these cans and add them to the beef and onions. bring this up to a simmer)

1/4 cup brown sugar. (I actually used 1/2 cup, I think it was too sweet)
3-1/2 tablespoons of chili powder (mine is homemade from Alton Brown's recipe)
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon coriander

(feel free to throw these in as the mixture is coming up to a simmer)

2 (15oz) cans kidney beans. (I used a mix of dark and light red)
the other half of the chopped chiles.

(stir these in once it comes up to a simmer. then let simmer, covered, for 1 hour or more.)

1 (15oz) can of kidney beans

(stir in another can of kidney beans and simmer another 30-45minutes)

This chili was so smokey and sweet and spicy. and while I don't normally like to cook so much from cans, I was in heaven. the original recipe can be found here. I made some slight modifications, which I've reflected above. and this isn't exactly what I made, but it's what modifications I will make the next time. it was so good I'm excited to go home soon and have some more.

chocolate chip cookies

I keep trying to make awesome chocolate chip cookies, and while I can make fairly decent ones, I think for the first time, I made some awesome ones. I used the tollhouse recipe and did all the mixing by hand. I changed a few things, so here are the details:

2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

(beat eggs and vanilla together in a bowl, set aside)

2 bars of bittersweet chocolate
3/4 cup of pecans

(chop the pecans and the chocolate and mix together in a bowl, set aside)

2-1/4 cups flour. (I used a mix of AP flour and some bread flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon table salt

(I food processed the flour, soda and salt, to aerate and sift it)

3/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar

(mixed the sugars to combine evenly)

2 sticks of butter (from fridge to microwave for 20-30 seconds, to just soften)

I mixed the butter into the sugar until it was nice and creamy, it took a while and my arms got really tired.

I added the egg mixture, in two batches, making sure I combined it fully between the two.

I slowly mixed in the flour, in at least 3 steps, making sure I got it all mixed together good before I added more. my right arm was dead by this point, but I soldiered on!

I stirred in the chocolate and nuts. the dough looked amazing. I scooped it on to the cookie sheets with a tea spoon, making them heaping and balling them together just a little bit with my hands.

I baked them for 10 to 12 minutes, turning the pans after 5 minutes to make up for hot spots in my oven. I let them cool on the cookie sheets for a few minutes so that I could just pick them off and put them on the cooling racks without them falling apart. and I didn't have to dirty a spatula.

damn, they sure are good.

Shelby

CRW_3579_12112005
Originally uploaded by paanta.

this picture that pat took is awesome.

daft punk is playing at my house

Mountain Man: Nature is fun.
David: Like boobs?
Mountain Man:But it can also be dangerous.
Michael Showalter: Like fire boobs?