Cookies!!!

Yesterday afternoon, we made chocolate chip cookies. These aren't just ANY chocolate chip cookies, though. They are AMAZING chocolate chip cookies (at least we think so). Here are my helpers, Jo and Beth:

[Prior to making the cookies:

Beth (picking up the bag of chocolate chips): I LOVE these. (pauses) Ooooh, mom, mom.

Me: What?

Beth: USUALLY, when people make chocolate chip cookies, they taste the chocolate chips before making the cookies.]

Now, initially, a dozen of these cookies was supposed to accompany each of the prizes that I finally, just this morning, sent out to moo, Saly and Alice. But then I got to thinking:

Real butter + Chocolate chips + 2 to 3 days travel time + Summer heat = Possible food poisoning.

Possible food poisoning did not seem like a good prize, so I ditched the idea of including cookies. HOWEVER, I thought I'd provide you all with the recipe, as the cookies are to die for. It's really very simple. You use the Toll-House cookie recipe on the back of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate chips with the following changes:

Change the first: Either double the recipe except for the amount of chips, or use half the amount of chocolate chips the recipe calls for. This is because my modified recipe for the cookies makes them so rich that also using the amount of chocolate chips the recipe calls for could quite possibly kill you. I even half the chocolate chips when I DON'T add the secret ingredient that makes them so rich because it really is just too many chips. I suggest doubling the recipe, so you can put plenty in the freezer for later and still have plenty for NOW.

Change the second: Where it says butter or margarine, you use half the amount of REAL BUTTER and half the amount of Crisco shortening.

Change the third: Add the SECRET INGREDIENT:



Vanilla pudding mix. Mix this in with the dry ingredients before adding the dry ingredients to the wet ones. Play around with how much. One box per recipe (two boxes if you double) is what I usually use, but I have made a double recipe with only one box and the cookies were still awesome. Also, I don't think it matters if you use the cooked or instant variety, but I generally use the cooked. And the back story behind this secret ingredient was that a guy I knew in college told me about it. A GUY. In COLLEGE. What college guys do you know of who know how to bake awesome cookies? I probably should have knocked off his girlfriend and married him. But... you know... she was nice and I liked her and I would've felt guilty. Not to mention the jail time.

That's it. Other than that you just follow the recipe they give you. Afterwards you can eat THESE:



I really need a new counter-top...

German potato salad

I have a bunch of posts in my head that will probably never see fruition, because no doubt I will forget them before I have a chance to write them. Things are INSANE here, what with all the end-of-year crapola. Yesterday I spent the day at T's field day. Today I had to run German potato salad to S's school for her German class's food day, and THEN had to go to T's school AGAIN for her end-of-year party. Whew! So, while I don't have time for much, I did at least photograph our preparation of the German potato salad and will now regale you with it's yumminess. [Shauna, it uses a WHOLE POUND of bacon, INCLUDING the grease!]

First you get a five-pound bag of red potatoes, cut them up into chunks and put them on to boil. While they are boiling, you want to finely chop about 3 stalks of celery.



You also want to finely chop some onion (I used one medium yellow onion) and fresh parsley (the curly kind, not the Italian - this is a GERMAN dish, after all). I don't have pictures of those two things. You also want to finely chop one pound of bacon. If you have a big, sharp, heavy meat cleaver (which I don't), you can even do this part prior to frying everything, which makes it easier. I tried with my butcher knife, and ended up with kind of a mess of bacon, but it all straightened out by the end. I just fried up the mess and then chopped up what didn't chop nicely before. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Fry up the bacon. When it's nice and crisp, if you didn't before, pull it out of the grease and chop it up finely. To avoid burning the grease while you're doing that, throw the celery, parsley and onion in the grease. Throw the chopped bacon back in and stir it all around.



Mmmmmmmm. Don't you just want to eat that out of the pan with a spoon? Okay, then you take the potatoes, which are probably done by now, drain them and throw them in a bowl.



Then you pour everything from the frying pan over the top of the potatoes. Let it sit on the counter for two hours. Then toss it all together. Serve warm.



This recipe came from my step-father's step-mother (Yeah. Also he is no longer my step-father since he and my mother divorced.), who escaped from East Germany during the rule of the Nazis by crossing a river in the middle of the night with her brother. Neither could swim and she was the only one who made it. She then hid from soldiers as she made her way to safety. So this is probably pretty authentic. Even if it's not, it's damn good.

Winter Woods Chili

I had been keeping an eye out for a chili recipe that didn't use ground meat (I wanted chunks of beef) when I came across a recipe in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine that looked pretty good. I tore it out and then procrastinated a while, but I finally made it last night. Um, hold on a sec while I search the web for the recipe so I don't have to type it all in...

[jazzy elevator music version of "Livin' on a Prayer"]

OK. Found it. Here's the original recipe:

Ingredients
4 slices bacon
3 lbs beef stew meat
1 large onion, sliced 1/2 inch thick
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 (28ounce)cans whole tomatoes
1 (15 1/2ounce)can navy beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15 1/2ounce)can red beans, rinsed and drained
2-3 tablespoons chili powder, to taste
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
shredded cheddar cheese (optional)
snipped fresh oregano (optional)
cooked bacon, crumbled (optional)

Directions
1. In 4-6 qt Dutch oven cook bacon and beef, half at a time, over medium heat until beef is browned. Drain fat. Return meat to pan. Reduce heat; add onions and half of garlic. Cook and stir till onion is tender.

2. Add undrained tomatoes, beans, and 1 Tbsp of chili powder. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Stir in remaining garlic, chili powder, and vinegar. Cook, covered, 1 hour. Add water to desired consistency. Season to taste. Top servings with cheese, oregano, and crumbled bacon if desired.

This chili is heavy on the meat and light on the beans, which is how I like it. Too many beans ruins a good chili, but I think this chili actually could have supported the addition of another can of beans. It didn't need it, but it could have handled it with no ill effect. The above picture (which I got from the web page of the recipe from Better Homes and Gardens) is a little deceiving in that it pictures a greater ratio of beans to meat than existed.

The recipe calls for 2-3 tablespoons of chili powder; I used three. I added two of them at the same time as the tomatoes and beans and the last one with the second half of the garlic and the vinegar. In my opinion, the chili did not require the addition of any water; the consistency was perfect. I served it with shredded cheddar and sour cream. I would have also had crumbled bacon if I had been able to restrain myself and the other bacon mongers in the house from eating the cooked bacon before the chili was ready. The recipe also suggests fresh snipped oregano, but to me oregano belongs in Italian dishes, not chili.

If you enjoy a good chili, you should give this one a try. It wasn't too spicy for my oldest daughter, but had enough spice for my husband. If you like fire-breathing, eye-watering chili, just add some Tabasco sauce to your bowl. I imagine that would do it. Or you could just go with straight Tabasco. Because if you're breathing fire and your eyes are watering, are you really TASTING the chili?

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For any of you wondering, I am walking with less pain today, though my knees still hurt if they get bumped, so I think they'll be okay soon. Luckily, I'm a pretty fast healer.

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I am tired of not having a digital camera. I still use my Nikon N80, but that's for home use, it's too much of a pain to scan pictures in to use those shots here. I can not at the moment justify buying the camera I desperately covet, the Nikon D300 (but Nikon, if you're reading, I would gladly accept a free one in exchange for many laudatory posts on your wonderful product), so I need help deciding on one of those little silver jobs. Do any of you have one that you particularly love or hate? A feature to me that is of utmost importance is NO SHUTTER DELAY. I hate pushing the button for a perfect shot and waiting just long enough for the shot to SUCK before the camera actually takes the picture. So, help me out. What would you recommend and/or what should I steer clear of?

Valentine treats

If you're like me, then whenever you are presented with a snack sign-up sheet, you sign up for whatever day is available as far in the future as possible, because SURELY BY THEN you'll have your shit together enough to bake some cookies or something. So I invariably end up with Valentine's Day. Then February rolls around and it turns out that while I THOUGHT my shit would be together, in fact IT IS NOT.

The good news is that there's an easy way to make it look like you worked hard on something, when really it only takes five to ten minutes of your time. Also, these are good for ANY holiday.

Step 1: Buy a package or two of individually wrapped Rice Krispy Treats or some ready-to-decorate pre-baked cutout cookies.

Step 2: Buy icing that comes with tips. It comes in either bags or cans that work like Redi-Whip.

Step 3: Wander through the bulk-candy section of the store and purchase holiday-specific candies to decorate the tops of the treats. These can be anything: gummies, hard candies (depending on the children's ages), chocolates, etc.

Step 4: If you bought Rice Krispy Treats, unwrap them.

Step 5: Using the icing, decorate the cookies or Rice Krispy Treats. Stick on a candy, and you're done.

This year I bought pre-baked heart-shaped cutout cookies and used a large-sized conversation heart as the candy. I don't have a picture because our digital camera is broken. But last year I made these using Rice Krispy Treats and a large heart-shaped gummy candy:



Awesome, no? They're a HUGE hit and seriously only take a few minutes.

The sauce

Friday, I posted about meatballs. But what good are meatballs without the sauce? (Well, they're still good, but I'm talking about sauce today.) Oh, but first a shout out to Dixie, just because I like saying her name. She's in Georgia, y'all. And I'm from South Carolina, so we're like next-door neighbors. Or were, before I moved to PA. And she's my new reader. AND, over on her blog, she punctuates "y'all" correctly, which we all know is EXTREMELY important to me. So everybody say, "Hi." [Hi, Dixie!] And HI to Jill, another lurker (we already met Katie). I have TWO lurkers!!!!! Exciting stuff! And bananafana, who is no longer a lurker, but a full-fledged participant, and who also has a name I like to say, that I say often when singing "The Name Game" to my kids. As CS pointed out, I could have had a bit more patience waiting for my lurkers to come out of the woodwork. True. But really, my impatience was all in jest. I don't care if you lurk and NEVER let me know you're here. That's okay. But it's better if you tell me I'm awesome, like Shelly did. Sometimes we, and by we I mean I, need that. So to all of you, my regular readers and commentors, my occasional commentors and my lurkers: YOU ARE ALL AWESOME!!!!!!!

But I digress. Yet again. Back to the sauce:

So this recipe came from another of my sister-in-laws, and my mother-in-law also uses it. They're all Italian, though, so wherever I got it, it's legit. It's just a very simple basic sauce. And totally simple to make. First, you go pick fresh red ripe Roma tomatoes off the vine... what? Okay, just do what I do, then. Go to the grocery store and buy 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes and 6oz cans (or, if you're willing to do math, the equivalent of what you need in bigger cans) of tomato paste. I make A LOT and freeze it in containers roughly the size of a jar of sauce you'd buy at the store, so I usually get 6 of the 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes and 2 18oz cans of tomato paste (because I'm willing to do the math - gotta use that degree for something).

**Edited to add -- Duh! You can't do the math if I don't give you something to work with, can you? For every 28oz can of crushed tomatoes, you use 6oz of tomato paste. **

[Aside: Is it commentErs or commentOrs? Probably neither. It's probably not even a word. But I've never let that stop me before. Google spell-check doesn't like either, yet it's okay with "gotta."]

Anyway, you'll also need olive oil, basil, oregano and garlic. Fresh is best, but I generally, like this time, end up using at least one dried herb. Here are all the ingredients:



So then you throw everything in a big pot and add the same amount of water as tomato paste. Stir it up and simmer it for a few hours. Then you're done. Freeze it in small batches and take it out whenever you want a quick meal. Throw some meatballs in for spaghetti and meatballs. Make chicken parmesan sandwiches. Whatever. Last night I made stuffed shells. Anyway, here's what the sauce looks like:



What's that? You want AMOUNTS of oil and spices to add? Just to taste, I guess. For that HUGE amount of sauce I make, I guess I add about 1/4 cup of olive oil and a couple tablespoons of each spice. I don't measure it, though, I just dump and pour. The amounts must not be crucial, since it always tastes good.

Pathetic with a side order of meatballs

I see [blah blah blah, stuff about a post I'm not transferring, blah blah blah] That is just pathetic. And sad. And did I mention pathetic? But we did meet Katie (our lurker). Hi Katie. :) And we met Alanna from Two Fat Als, who will now be focusing all of her energy (and that of the other Al, I assume) on figuring out how to get my kids to eat something.

Speaking of eating... (FABULOUS segue, that)

Last night I made meatballs. I do this every couple of months or so and freeze a bunch of them for quick meals. I make sauce, too, but I didn't do that last night. I'll do that over the weekend. Anyway, like I was saying, meatballs. You all want to know how to make homemade meatballs, Italian-style, right? Okay, then. I got this recipe from my sister-in-law, and it's damn good. I'll tell you the recipe, but I should add that I have NEVER followed it exactly. I ALWAYS add more garlic, because there's no such thing as too much garlic, and the meat mixture is always different, depending on what is available in the meat case at the grocery store the day I'm there. And probably a few other things that I'll remember as I'm typing this. And I ALWAYS double the recipe so as to have PLENTY in the freezer.

First, you want to gather your ingredients:



And those ingredients are (I'll list amounts for the single recipe, so use twice that if you want to double):
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1 lb ground veal
3 eggs (I use large size, what the heck does anyone use small size eggs for anyway?)
3 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley (yes, you can use dry parsley if you insist, but it won't be as good)
1 large clove garlic, chopped fine (you'll notice my laziness has purchased ALREADY chopped garlic in a jar)
1/4 cup grated Locatelli cheese (just use grated Pecorino Romano, or an Italian blend of Romano and Parmesan)
3 pieces of bread (I've used white, whole wheat and this time potato bread - doesn't matter, though there are subtle differences in the taste of the finished meatballs)
Salt and pepper to taste (but don't go tasting the raw meat mixture, just guess; I always forget to put these in anyway)

You will not need the baby oatmeal, that was just there. Although, it could add an interesting twist. Feel free to try it. Anyway, it so happens that I went to the grocery store late at night (as usual) and had to take whatever ground meat was available (as usual). Usually, that means I end up with half beef and half pork, but this time there was actually ground veal on the shelf. There was only one package of pork and one package of my preferred 95% lean beef (I also had to get a package of 90% lean). So my meat mixture ended up being 1/2 beef, 1/3 veal and 1/6 pork. In any case, what you do is mix your meat and eggs. Add your chopped parsley, garlic and grated cheese and mix it up some more. Then wet the bread and squeeze out the water. Mix it into the meat mixture. If the mixture feels too soft (I don't KNOW, just use your judgment) add some dry bread crumbs. I've only ever added the bread crumbs once, and I don't really know that I needed them then. By the way, you are using your hands to mix. And it is dadgum cold. I have to keep stopping and rinsing my hands in warm water to stop the PAIN from the cold. Maybe if I had one of those fancy industrial sized mixers with a bowl... But I digress (I do that a lot). Your final mixture should look something like this:



Now, according to the recipe, you now shape into balls and either fry in very little oil with some garlic or place on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Then you put into your sauce to finish cooking. I don't do that. Because it is a rare occasion indeed (in fact it has NEVER happened) that I am making my sauce and meatballs at the same time. What I do is this: I put my meatballs in a mini-muffin pan (isn't that an AWESOME idea?):



Then I bake them at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. The meatballs are done then (I guess mini-muffin size is smaller than whatever size the recipe assumes you'll make). Cool them off and store them in freezer bags in your freezer until you are ready to use. Then you can take them out and throw them in some sauce to heat up when you need a quick and easy meal (you can thaw them first, but that step is not required). The cooked meatballs look something like this (I didn't realize my picture was blurry until this morning, and the meatballs are already frozen, so you'll have to imagine what they'd look like in focus):



Oh, and by the way, my two picky eaters WILL NOT EAT these. But the rest of us will, and they are oh so delicious.

Easy chicken corn chowder

You may have noticed that this week lacked an update to the world's most reluctant stage mother series. Yeah, well that's because I didn't finish it. I'm like that sometimes. It'll show up eventually. In the meantime:

For those of you who like measurements for your recipes (like I generally do), this recipe may not be for you (though somehow I manage). If you like just throwing random amounts of things together with crossed fingers, like Flibberty's fiance (how do you make those stupid accent things?), then this is for you. It is a good wintertime chowder, and it is easy easy (I meant to type it twice) to make. You will need:

• regular old white potatoes (I usually use 4-5 medium-sized ones - I see you measurement people are already cringing)
  
  
• one medium onion
  
  
• water - I'll tell you how much in a minute
  
  
• a small can of evaporated milk (I don't know how many ounces - I've only ever seen two sizes, a small one and a bigger one. Use the SMALL one.)
  
  
• one can of creamed corn (the 15oz size, or is it 16? Who cares - just use it)
  
  
• one can of kernel corn (again the 15 oz size, or I suppose you could use frozen - hey, go nuts)
  
  
• one can of chicken breast meat (I KNOW, I didn't realize these little cans of meat had any use either! Other than, you know, BOMB SHELTER supplies. Oh, and for you vegetarians, this is optional, you could have plain old corn chowder. OR, for you folks who like a lot of meat and want to use up what the vegetarians are letting go to waste, add more. I'm kidding vegetarians; don't attack me.)
  
  
• butter, the real thing, no margarine people!
  
  
• salt and pepper (preferably fresh ground cracked peppercorn pepper from your pepper mill. You do have one, right? If not put it on your shopping list right now.)
  

Okay, so now what you do is first peel and dice the potatoes into chunks approximately the size of, I don't know... DICE? Throw them in a pot and just cover them with water. Yes, that's how much water to use, just cover the potatoes. Chop the onion and throw it in. Boil until the potatoes are done. The onion will be done then too; it works out nicely that way.

Add the can of evaporated milk and the can of creamed corn. Then add the can of kernel corn, but DRAIN IT FIRST! Add the chicken, also only after draining it first. Then add a big chunk of butter. No, I don't know how much, how much buttery goodness would you like it to have? Add that much. I usually use about 1/3 of a stick. You can always add more to your own bowl later. Salt and pepper to taste. Heat it through and serve.

I don't have a picture, because I made it and we ate it before I realized that this would be a quick and easy post that maybe people would like. But it looks yummy. Just take my word for it.