Small batch chocolate chip cookies

Is everyone else carbo-loading their way through this lockdown? Baking is a great learning tool for my toddler, keeps us occupied for awhile, and keeps us flush with comfort foods. Can you be sad about being stuck in your house while you’re shoveling warm chocolate chip cookies into your mouth? I think not. 

The problem I always have with recipes is that I am feeding two people, and one of us is 3, so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for us to make a batch of 40 cookies. For these cookies, I modified this recipe and ended up with a dozen cookies. It was perfect for our family!

7 tbsp butter, just melted

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar 

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips 

Beat together butter, sugars, vanilla, and vinegar. Add egg yolk and beat again. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Beat it. Stir in chocolate chips. Roll into balls. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until the edges are just starting to brown. Eat warm for best results. 

*edited to add: at room temperature, these are reminiscent of Mrs Fields chocolate chip cookies, so you really can’t go wrong when eating them. You’re welcome. 

Quick Vegan Apple Crumble

We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So I’m always trying to improve my breakfast game. These days, it’s hard to make time for muffins or banana bread or baked oatmeal or any of my other breakfast faves. But I’ve recently stumbled onto this apple crumble that cooks in about a minute in the microwave. The most time consuming part is dicing the apple. Take that, bowl of cereal. 

Dice an apple (preferably green) into your favorite oversized coffee mug. Sprinkle cinnamon and about 1 tablespoon of brown sugar over the top of the apple. Then pour 1/2-1 tablespoon of coconut oil on top of that. Stir. Microwave for a minute or until the apple is as soft as you like it. Top with granola. Enjoy your mostly healthy breakfast (or dessert, or snack) and have a great rest of your day!

The Best Chocolate Ice Cream

I love my ice cream maker. It’s especially great during summer pregnancy. I can go from craving to eating in 15 minutes flat. And with only 4 ingredients, I usually have everything on hand for this perfect chocolate ice cream. 

Whisk together 1/2 cup sugar and 1/3 cup cocoa powder. Whisk in 1/2 cup whipping cream. Whisk in 1 1/2 cup whole milk until all combined. Pour into ice cream maker and let the magic happen. Enjoy as soft serve as soon as your desired consistency is achieved, and freeze whatever is left to enjoy later. 

How to Freeze Cookie Dough

Omygod you guys, this is a game changer. Honestly, I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. Remember when I made these awesome snickerdoodles and was complaining about how quickly they would disappear? 

I could have frozen some and saved them for later. I should have. 

Now I know.

The other day, I needed an M&M cookie. I used this recipe, which made 21 balls of cookie dough. I figured 6 would be a not unreasonable number of cookies for my family to eat in one day, so I popped the rest in the freezer.

The next day, my munchkin and I grabbed two frozen cookie dough balls out of the bag and threw them straight into the (preheated) oven. Just add about 3 minutes to the time suggested on the original recipe (at the same temperature). Do they look any different than the cookies I made from fresh cookie dough? They do not. Do they taste any different? They do not!

If you have frozen cookie dough ready to go, you can literally go from "I think I want a cookie" to eating a freshly baked cookie in 20 minutes flat. As I was saying, game changer.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to try this with every other cookie recipe ever, so I can have whatever variety of fresh, warm, delicious cookies whenever I want! What is your favorite kind of cookie that you want to try this with?

Simply Delicious Ice Cream

I notice a lot of bloggers complaining about ice cream makers as being inconvenient because you have to plan ahead and put the bowl in the freezer the day before you want to make ice cream. But they’re wrong. The secret is keeping the bowl in the freezer. Take it out when you want to make ice cream, use it, wash it, put it back in the freezer. Freezers work better when they’re more full, anyway. It’s really the only logical place to keep the bowl of an ice cream maker. Besides, then you can make this whenever you want.



My basic ice cream recipe is 4:1 milk to sugar. So I usually do 2 cups of milk and 1/2 cup sugar.  Add in whatever flavoring you’re in the mood for. Once your ingredients are mixed, pour into ice cream maker (it’s important to turn on the ice cream maker before you pour in your mix) and wait 10-15 minutes. That’s it!

For my first ice cream of the season, I thought an orange creamsicle sounded good. I squeezed two blood oranges into my measuring cup (I should have added a third for more orange flavor, but I only had two) and added milk until I had two cups of liquid. Then I stirred in half a cup of sugar and poured it all in the ice cream maker.



After watching  half an episode of Sesame Street with my toddler, I checked on my ice cream.



Pretty and delicious!

No-bake Cheesecakes

I go through phases when it comes to food. In the spring, I went through a phase where I made muffins for breakfast pretty much every day. Then I was making edible cookie dough almost every night after dinner. 

For about the last month, all I want is a good cheesecake. I had a slice of mediocre (store bought) cheesecake at a friend’s birthday party, but it was hardly satisfying.

I tried Martha Stuart’s no-bake cheesecake, but it didn’t come together at all. It was just gloopy. Don’t get me wrong, we still ate the whole damn thing. But it didn’t satisfy my craving either. 

Here is my list of the 7 most drool-worthy no-bake cheesecakes that I’ve found on the internet. To be updated as I try them all. 

No-bake cannoli cheesecake. Very good, especially if you have leftover ricotta you don’t want to waste. Doubled the powdered sugar and halved the cinnamon and nutmeg. Will make again to take a picture (which I forgot to do because I was to busy stuffing my face with cheesecake). 

No-bake (classic) cheesecake. 

No-bake chocolate peanut butter cheesecake. 

No-bake cookie dough cheesecake.


No-bake Oreo cheesecake. 

No-bake Snickers cheesecake. Damn tasty. Still needed more sugar than the recipe called for. Did not need caramel drizzled over the top.

No-bake strawberry cheesecake. Good flavor, but too runny to be considered a cheesecake. If I had called it an icebox cake, Hubby probably would have liked it better.

Which one should I make next?

Homemade Cookie Dough Ice Cream

WARNING: This recipe is dangerous. Once you know how easy and how damn amazing it is, you'll want to make it over and over and over. Don't say I didn't tell you.

I make my cookie dough first and throw it in the fridge while I get the ice cream started. This recipe is awesome and makes the perfect amount for mixing in to the perfect amount of ice cream for my favorite ice cream maker. 

Now for the ice cream. Stir 1/2 cup sugar and a generous splash of vanilla into 2 cups whole milk until dissolved. Turn on the ice cream maker and pour in milk mixture. Once it starts to freeze but before it’s all the way frozen, pour in a handful of chocolate chips and spoonfuls of chilled cookie dough. Keep mixing another five minutes until it’s mostly frozen. You may need to stir your cookie dough around so it’s not all clumped together. Eat as much as you want and freeze the rest for later. Or eat it all. I won't judge you.

Magical Blackberry Turnovers

I used to think I didn't like cooked fruit. Or maybe I somehow knew that it was safer for me to not like cooked fruit. And then someone gave me a dutch apple pie and it was super tasty. And then my honey made strawberry tarts with leftover phyllo dough (probably the only time I'll use the words 'leftover phyllo dough') and they were super tasty, too. So it turns out, I do like cooked fruit. That's a wonderful and dangerous thing to know, and also how I ended up making these magical blackberry turnovers.

Like, they're literally magical. You make the dough in a food processor and somehow it turns into these beautiful flaky layers in the oven. I will definitely be making more of these, and more variations, at harvest time.

Ingredients
6 oz cold butter
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup flour
a pinch of salt
1 cup fresh blackberries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp flour

Directions
Blend first four ingredients in food processor until well mixed. Smoosh together into a ball, then roll on a floured surface until about 1/8 inch thick. Cut into rectangles.
Lightly smash blackberries, sugar, and 2 tbsp flour until incorporated. Add more  sugar if you want sweeter turnovers, or less if you want to really capture the essence of the berries. Spoon berry mixture onto half of each dough rectangle, then fold dough over itself and pinch down the edges to seal in the berry goodness. 
Bake (on parchment paper so they won't stick) at 375° for 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Admire and enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cookies

Back when I had more free time (i.e. no Baby), I used to get all fancy about potlucks. Nowadays, I consider it a win to leave the house wearing pants. But I still go to kind of a lot of potlucks. 

When Hubby and I went to the super secret preppers' club meeting, it was a potluck. When Baby and I go to the old biddy book club, it's a potluck. Community events are pretty much all potlucks. 

So I decided I need to have a go-to recipe for potlucks that's easy, yummy, and made with ingredients I usually have in the house. These peanut butter cookies are perfect. Except they came out kind of messy because I rolled them into balls with one hand because I was holding Baby with the other. Yay multitasking!

Ingredients 

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup peanut butter 

1 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

How-to:

Beat brown sugar, peanut butter, and butter in a stand mixer until combined. Add vanilla and egg and beat again. Add flour and baking soda and beat again. 

Roll dough into meatball-sized balls and spread out on an ungreased cookie sheet. 

Use a fork to smoosh an X into each cookie. This is crucial, otherwise no one will know they're peanut butter cookies. 

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. They're done when they're puffy and just a little squishy. You'll probably have to eat one to make sure they're done. Just try to wait long enough so that you don't burn the inside of your mouth like I may or may not have. 

Happy potlucking!

Apple Crumble

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What do you have for dinner when you're home alone, pregnant, and the fridge is almost empty? Apple crumble sounded good, so that's what I made. It was quick and easy and made me feel a little bit better about watching this evening's debate. 

Who wouldn't want a nice big bowl of this for dinner? Or dessert, if you want to go all traditional. 

I started with a recipe from Tastes Better From Scratch and tweaked it and it was delicious. Here's how:

First, make the crumble. You can mix together the butter, flour, oats, cinnamon, sugar, and baking powder with a fork or a pastry cutter. Or you can do what I did and use your fingers, which is either way more fun or a way to justify not having a super cool pastry cutter like this one that I kind of totally want. 

Then, slice the apples and put them in a greased loaf pan. This would also be a good time to start preheating the oven. 

Next, mix up the sauce for the apples. I used the same coffee mug for melting the butter and making the sauce. Because I hate doing extra dishes. 

Pour sauce over apples, stir to combine. Then pour the crumble over the top of that and toss it in the oven for 25 minutes, or longer if you like soggier apples. And you get this beauty:

It's crisp, crumbly, and makes about 2 dinner-sized portions. Or more if you're going for dessert-sized portions. 

Ingredients

Crumble:

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup oats

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp butter, softened

Apple goodness:

3 medium apples (I used granny smith)

1 tbsp butter, melted

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp flour

1 1/2 tbsp water

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Mix together all crumble ingredients. Set aside.

Thinly slice apples into loaf pan. 

Mix together all other ingredients for apple goodness. Pour over apples and stir.

Pour crumble over apples and bake at 375◦ for 25 minutes.

Enjoy with vanilla ice cream, if available.

Pregnant brownies

I think I might be pregnant. I have brownies in the oven right now. Not for an after-dinner treat, but for the main course. You can thank my cravings and my hubby. I told him to talk me out of making brownies for dinner, but they have peanut butter in them. He loves peanut butter. Besides, the brownies are made with eggs and peanut butter, which have protein, and you're supposed to eat protein when you're pregnant, right?

Right. 

The hardest part about baking while pregnant is that you often have to break one of the cardinal rules of baking: taste it before you bake it. Luckily, my hubby was on hand to be my official taste tester and give his chocolatey thumb's up (and will be on hand to make sure I don't eat an entire pan of brownies by myself. He's such a giver). The only part I was able to taste was the peanut butter filling (which is why I'm calling these "pregnant" brownies: they're carrying around peanut butter goodness in their middle). I may or may not have cleaned that bowl with my finger. 

Shortly, my pregnant brownies will be cooked to perfection and I'll finally be able to taste them! Recipe to follow (after dinner).