Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Personally, I wish my kids were home making me their absolutely perfect choc chip cookies. But they weren't so I tried this recipe and they didn't turn out half bad. As always the best part is sprinkling a bit of sea salt on each cookie before baking. You'll love the effect:

Chewy chocolate chip cookies

12 T butter

1-1/4 cup light brown sugar

¼ cup light corn syrup

2 t. vanilla extract

¾ t baking powder

¾ t. salt

¼ t. baking soda

1 large egg

2-1/4 cups flour

1 cup chopped nuts, opt

2 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375.

Beat the butter, light brown sugar, and corn syrup together until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, baking powder, salt, and soda, and then mix in the egg. Beat well.

Beat in the flour, then stir in the nuts and chips. Drop cookie dough by the rounded tablespoon onto lightly greased or parchment-lined sheet pans. (MY ADDITION? SEA SALT SPRINKLED ON EACH COOKIE BEFORE BAKING) Bake for 12-14 minutes, just until lightly browned at the edges.

For the chewiest cookies, do not overbake. The cookies will look slightly underdone in the middle, but will set up as they cool.

Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, and then remove to a wire rack to cool complete.

To maintain the chewiest texture, store in an airtight container with a slice of apple or bread.

To be sure you have the amount of spread you like in a cookie, re recommend baking one cookie to test it. Then if it does not spread enough, simply flatten the cookie before baking. If it spreads more than you would like, mix in an extra ¼ cup of flour.

The King Arthur Flour’s Baker’s Companion p. 296

Mac and Cheese

And this is what started my hatch-a-meal blog idea....thanx
Heather!



From the New York Times, posted by Heather
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup cottage cheese (not lowfat)
2 cups milk (not skim)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
Pinch cayenne
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated
½ pound elbow pasta, uncooked.

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees and position an oven rack in upper third of oven. Use 1 tablespoon butter to butter a 9-inch round or square baking pan.

2. In a blender, purée cottage cheese, milk, mustard, cayenne, nutmeg and salt and pepper together. Reserve ¼ cup grated cheese for topping. In a large bowl, combine remaining grated cheese, milk mixture and uncooked pasta. Pour into prepared pan, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes.

3. Uncover pan, stir gently, sprinkle with reserved cheese and dot with remaining tablespoon butter. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes more, until browned. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Yummy Quick Wheat Bread

I got this wheat bread recipe from Kimberly Murray who attended the Canton Ward when I lived in Canton, MI.

5 1/2 c. hot water
2/3 c. hoil
2/3 c. honey
1 T. salt
12-14 c. wheat flour
3 T. yeast

Warm oven to 150 degrees. In a large electric mixing bowl(Bosch, Kitchen Aide, etc.), whisk water, oil, honey and salt for 30 seconds. Add 5 cups flour, run machine until batter is smooth and cakelike. Add yeast, run machine for 30 seconds, and add 2 more cups of flour. Using dough hooks, add 2 more cups of flour. Make sure flour is being incorporated, then add 3 more cups of flour, and make sure all flour is absorbed. Add your final 1 to 2 cups flour. Put lid on securely, turn to high speed for 5 minutes. Grease bread pans with a little bit of oil on your hands. make 4 even dough balls. Shape into loaf and place into pan. Put in warm oven for 25 minutes, then turn oven up to 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Take out of pans and place on cooling rack. You may brush the tops with butter. Cover with towel until cool.

**This loaf is a little big b/c I only divided this recipe into 3 loaves, as was written in the original recipe. I really think 4 is the way to go.

White Bread 101

This past week I have been making this bread nonstop, even making it into rolls for yesterday's dinner. This comes from page. 198 in The King Arthur Flour Baking Companion.

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour (but I used bread flour)
2 t. instant yeast (if using regular active yeast, then dissolve yeast in some water first)
1-1/4 t. salt
3 T. sugar
4 T. butter
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
1/3 cup potato flakes
1-1/8 cups lukewarm water

Combine all the ingredients and mix and knead them together---by had, mixer or bread machine--until you've made a soft, smooth dough. Adjust the dough's consistency with additional flour or water as needed; but remember, the more flour you add while you're kneading, the heavier and drier your final loaf will be. Cover and let the dough rise about 1 hour until it's puffy (though not necessarily doubled in bulk).

Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface and shape it into an 8" log. Transfer the log to a lightly greased 8.5x4.5" loaf pan, cover the pan and let the bread rise until the outer edge has risen about 1" over the rim of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Uncover the pan and bake the bread for 35-40 minutes, tenting it lightly with aluminum foil for the final 10-15 minutes if it appears to be browning too quickly.

Remove the bread from the oven, take it out of the pan, and place it on a wire rack to cool completely. After 15 minutes, brush it with butter, if desired; this will give it a soft crust.

ROLLS
Use the above recipe but for ease in rolling, you might want to add 3 T. of dough relaxer ( I used dough enhancer) to the dough along with the rest of the dry ingredients.

Choose the shape you want to create, divide the dough into 16 pieces, and shape.

After shaping, let the rolls rise until puffy and almost double in size. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown with an internal temperature of 190 degrees.

Finished rolls can be brushed with butter for a delicious soft crust; a double coating of butter for a soft, satiny crust, or lightly dusted with flour, if you prefer.

Monterey Chicken

Dawn Mercedes' Monterey Chicken

1/4 c. flour


7-8 T taco seasoning


4 pieces of chicken breast...I had chicken tenders...and had a heaping plate of them.


1/2 c. butter, melted


2 c. tortilla chips, crushed...a lot


3 T. finely chopped onion


1T. oil


2 T. flour


1/4 t. salt


1 can evaporated mlk


1/4 t. hot pepper sauce (or a few dabs)


1 c. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (I had colby monterey jack in stock today.)


1/4 c. sliced olives


1 t. lemon juice (or a splash)




Put flour and taco seasoning in brown lunch bag. Shake chicken (a few at a time) in the bag to coat. Dip into the butter. Then roll in the tortilla chips. Back at 375 for 50 minutes. (Again I did not set a timer so just keep an eye on them.) I flipped the chicken at some point during the cook time.




Saute onion in the oil. Then add flour, salk, milk and hot sauce. Cook until thick. Add cheese, olives and lemon juice. Stir until cheese melts. Serve chicken and sauce on a bed of lettuce.




Ken loved this...I mean LOVED it. LIke he was trying to get every last chip morsel left in the pan. And the cheese sauce would make a nice dip for chips. We had maybe a cup left over. Also, our friend, Chef Randy suggested that you serve the sauce on the side. Or serve it UNDER the chicken so as not to lose the crispy crust on the poultry.

Hatch-a-Meal

I wanted a recipe from Heather and it turns out that their family has a recipe blog and I thought...why don't we? All of my kids/spouses

are good at cooking and menu planning and I am sure they have recipes to share. So here we go.....so when you post feel free to add a picture of the actual dish and then please add a LABEL in one of the following:

Salads/Dressings
Breads
Soups
Beef
Poultry
Pork
Fish
Breakfast
Appetizers
Beverages
Pasta
Potatoes
Snacks
Candies