Oh the cuteness!!!!

Gingerbread houses that perch on the edge of your mug! Can you stand it? I am SO making these for next year's cookie swap!

The grades are in! Drum roll please!

I am, for the first time in my entire academic career, a Straight A Student. Yes, devoted readers, I am officially a nerd. No weggies please. All of my grades were posted today and I am happy to report I got an A in everything. Even Purchasing. It's a Hannukah Miracle, y'all. It feels pretty good. Truth be told, it hasn't quite sunk in yet. It will when I see my name on the President's List, I am certain. My school has a Dean's List if you make at least a 3.00 GPA in a semester. If you make a 4.00, your name goes on the President's List. Too bad that goes out after Christmas, or I'd frame it for my mother for her gift.

I went to a cooke swap tonight. I made two kinds of biscotti. One had cranberries, currants and pistachios, the other chocolate chips, walnuts and anise seed. They were thankfully a hit because I still have 2 dozen at home. I got some good cookies to bring home too! Yay!

My biscotti


The spread




I also wanted to include a link here to my photos of Montreal. At the cookie swap tonight, my friend JP went all fangirl on me (just kidding) (Hi JP!) and mentioned the photos on my blog. I use a plain ol' Kodak point and shoot digital. It's the Kodak Easy Share M883. I got it while working at my old job, employee discount and all, you see. For most of the food photos, I use the close up setting. The header photo I took at Le Marche Jean Talon in Montreal. I actually took hundreds of photos in Montreal, but posted some of the best ones on Flickr, which you can find here.

Cookies make everything better.

I work with a girl, T., she about 28 or 29. As a coworker, she's merely okay, but as a person, she is a very sweet, soft spoken girl. She has a son, J., who is about 10 or 11. If I have extra goodies, I'll give them to her to pass on to J. because I know he'll eat them. I also do it because T. doesn't cook or bake and really, every kid needs a freshly baked cookie every now and again. I've also passed on goodies that neither she nor he have tried before and have yet to find something that they don't like. I think the last thing I shared with them was red velvet cupcakes. I've only met J. once or twice in the past. He's a super cute, super sweet kid. T is doing an amazing job as a single mother and I have no doubt that J will turn into a fine man someday.

Two mornings ago, T comes up to me and tells me that her son has just learned how to make those slice and bake Toll House cookies and he's going to make some for me. Yesterday, she tells me that J wants me to know that he didn't make the cookies the night before because he had to watch the wrestling draft and he hoped I would understand. I told her to tell him I would have done the same thing. This morning when I got to work, T hands me a little plastic baggie with 4 chocolate chip cookies. I almost cried. Seriously. He made me cookies because I am always sending things home for him.

I was late this morning because I had a doctor's appointment. I found out that I have to have knee surgery in a week or two. Getting cookies that J baked especially for me made my day!

Chocolate Crackles

When I get sick, I crave two things. Kettle cooked potato chips and chocolate cookies. These are the cookies I crave. A little crunchy on the outside, a little soft on the inside. I think what I like most about this recipe is that you have everything you need to make these cookies in your kitchen right now.

Many years ago, when I was working in professional kitchens, my aunt and uncle gave me a cookbook called Light Cooking. It doesn't seem to be written by anyone in particular, and it uses ingredients by Dannon, Dole, Borden, and many other household brands. It includes some nutritional information at the end of each recipe. Since not everyone (read: my family) wants to try Olive Lemon Cookies, this is a nice option for healthier stuff that everyone will like. This might be my favorite cookie. Observe:


You can see where this is going, right? I only took 2 dozen of these to the swap. I got about 3 dozen out of this recipe, which claims to make 4 dozen. My first batch were definitely a bit too big.

Chocolate Crackles (yield 4 dozen), from Light Cooking
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1/3 cup Crisco vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 egg whites
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Combine Crisco oil, granulated sugar and vanilla in large bowl. Beat a medium speed of electric mixer until blended. Add egg and egg whites. Beat until well blended. Stir in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt with spoon.

3. Place powdered sugar in a shallow dish or plastic food storage bag.

4. Shape dough into 1" balls. Roll or shake in powdered sugar until coated. Place about 2" apart on an ungreased baking sheet.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 7 to 8 minutes or until almost no indention remains when touched lightly. (Do not overbake.) Cool on baking sheet 2 minutes before moving to cooling rack.

Nutrients per serving (1 cookies):
60 calories
2g fat
5mg cholesterol
35 mg sodium

Notes:

I always use parchment paper for baking. I hate silicon baking mats. They don't work as well as parchment, they are hard to clean and hard to store. Many people like them. More power to them, but I'm old school. That's how I roll.

Olive Lemon Cookies

I had a tough day at work a couple weeks ago, so I amused myself by brainstorming sweet-savory cookie recipes. One idea I had was a cookie with oil-cured olives, herbes de Provence, and lemon. I thought it should have honey in it, maybe some brown sugar. Imagine my delight and surprise when Gourmet published their favorite cookie recipes online and included this fine specimen, the Honey Refrigerator Cookie. Rather than take the time to experiment, which I did not have with a cookie swap looming on the horizon, I figured I would just modify that recipe. With some good luck, it worked out well. There were many people both at work and the swap party who claimed to not like olives but they loved these cookies. At some point, I will play around and create my own recipe, but for now this recipe works well. You are free to use this recipe, however please be sure to give Gourmet some credit.

I am proud to report that everyone who tried these cookies raved about them!

Olive Lemon Cookies (yield about 4 dozen cookies)
------------------------------------
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
2 1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
zest of 2 lemons
1 tbsp dried herbes de Provence, finely minced
1/2 cup minced oil-cured olives (smaller, wrinkly kind)
-------------------
juice of one lemon
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Add honey, brown sugar, and shortening to mixing bowl and cream. Add egg and mix until combined. Sift flour, soda and salt and add to wet ingredients. Add lemon zest, herbes, and olives to wet ingredients and mix all until combined. Shape the dough into a roll about 1 1/2" in diameter. Allow the dough to ripen for a day or two in the refrigerator. Freeze for one hour before you slice with a very sharp knife. Slightly reshape into rounds and bake for about 10 minutes, depending on oven, or until cookie is slightly golden on edges. Underbake these slightly.

Mix lemon juice and powdered sugar to make glaze. When cookies are cooled, drizzle glaze and let dry. Explain to your friends these cookies aren't as weird as they think. Enjoy.



Notes:

My oven temperature is spot on, but it seems to be a little slow, unless my oven and oven thermometer are in cahoots. Things always seem to take a little longer to bake. Bake one or two cookies first to get an idea of how wacky your oven might be.

Olives are salty. Really salty. I highly recommend that you soak your olives in cold water for a couple hours ahead of time. Also, be sure the olives you buy are just oil cured olives, no fancy pants marinade. If they do have some crazy marinade, soak for a couple more hours.

The Gourmet recipe calls for a hot oven, 400 degrees and 10-12 minutes. My first batch was overcooked.

The cookie swap was a success.

How do I know? Because I really, really need to brush my teeth.

Chacon Chip Cookies

1 recipe Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, prepared according to directions

1 pack, or 18 oz, Black Forest Dry Rubbed Salt Cured bacon (minus the three pieces that I ate before I made cookies)
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Cook bacon in oven on 425 degrees for about 15 minutes. It's important to cook the bacon pretty well done, but not burned. Cut off any burned bits or extra fatty pieces. Chop bacon into 1/4" dice.
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When you get to the point where you add the chocolate chips to the dough, add the bacon also. Mix just until combined.

Bake according to directions on the chocolate chip bag.


Notes:

First of all, if you're going to make a chocolate chip cookie, don't mess around. Just use the Toll House recipe. It's the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Don't be fooled by imitations. If you don't have the Toll House recipe, let me know and I'll add it here.

I didn't buy butter because I had a ton of shortening already. I used butter flavored Crisco in place of the butter.

I had a hard time finding a good bacon to use. Most of the bacon I found were too fatty. Don't get me wrong, bacon fat has it's place, but I wanted a meatier bacon for the cookies. (Move over bacon, now there's something meatier!) (Sizzlean, anyone?) (Sorry.)

I settled on this Black Forest bacon for a couple reasons. One, it was meatier than the others. Two, the girl in the Whole Foods meat department (who thinks I'm crazy) suggested this might work better. She said the rub on the bacon was sweeter than the others. I was actually leaning towards the applewood smoked bacon. I got this Black Forest kind instead, which I am assuming has a seasoning like a Black Forest ham, which is tasty.

I spoke to a friend who has a friend who makes chocolate covered bacon. I understand that through trial and error he has discovered that the smoked bacon doesn't work quite so well. In this case, I think I just got lucky and picked the right kind of bacon. While this bacon won't be my first choice for breakfast, I will definitely use it for these cookies again.

I think I'm Kristina's new BFF!!!!

Okay so the bacon chocolate chip cookies are, like, so freaking good, I'm beside myself! Seriously, I'll post details later. You have to try this. If you eat bacon, that is.

Gourmet Magazine Favorite Cookies

Go here for recipes from Gourmet Magazine. They've reprinted their favorite cookie recipes from the past 60 plus years. There are some really great recipes here. I think the Honey Refrigerator Cookies might work well as a base for my Provence Olive Cookies I'm making this weekend for the cookie swap next week. Details to come!