long overdue cookies

When I mention I have a cookbook featuring 101 different chocolate chip cookie recipes, compiled from entries in a contest to find the best chocolate chip cookie, I am usually met with expressions of awe and naked greed.  Oddly enough, it wasn't until December 13 of last year (the birthday of a friend of ours) that I finally got around to making the Grand Prize Winner.

Prize-Winning Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 3/4 C flour
1/4 t baking soda
1 C butter, softened
1 t vanilla
1 C granulated sugar
1/2 C dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1/3 C unsweetened cocoa
2 T milk
1 C chopped pecans or walnuts
1 C chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cream the butter and sugars.  Add vanilla.  Beat in the egg.  Add the cocoa, then the milk.  Beat in flour and baking soda just until blended.  Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
3. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets.  Bake 12-13 minutes.  Allow to cool slightly on sheets before removing to counter or wire rack.

It's what's stewed for dinner

This is one of the recipes the Chief Taster likes to use.  This time, when she suggested beef stew for dinner, I thought that meant I had the night off.  I was wrong.

Old-Fashioned Beef Stew (from an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook)
2 T flour
12 oz beef stew meat, cut into 3/4" cubes (I have no idea how much beef I used, but I think it was closer to a pound)
2 T cooking oil
3 C vegetable juice
1 C water
1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges (I used about half an onion, because I think these older recipes referenced smaller vegetables)
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 t beef bouillon granules
1 t dried oregano
1/2 t dried marjoram
1/4 t black pepper
1 bay leaf (I used my dad's rule of always adding an extra bay leaf. Nobody died.)
3 C cubed potatoes
1 1/2 C frozen cut green beans
1 C frozen whole kernel corn (instead of looking for these specific frozen vegetables, I used an equal amount of whatever frozen mixed veggies I had handy)
1 C sliced carrots

• Put the flour in a plastic bag or a bowl with a tightly sealing lid.  Add meat cubes, a few at a time, tossing to coat and removing the coated cubes to a large saucepan or Dutch oven with the oil.  You may have to add a little more flour; I did.  Brown meat, drain if necessary, and add vegetable juice, water, onion, Worcestershire sauce, bouillon, bay leaf, and seasonings.  Bring to boiling, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer 1-1 1/2 hours, until meat is tender.
• Add potatoes and veggies.  Return to boiling, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer another 30 minutes, until potatoes are done.  Discard bay leaf.  Eat.

Beef stew is meant to be a hearty meal, but for some reason, when I have a hearty meal, I want bread, too.  We didn't have any dinner bread at the time, and I didn't have the time to make any, nor the ambition for biscuits, so I took the easy way out and made some libum.  Libum is one of the oldest existing bread recipes, and my personal favorite for short-notice bread baking, but it's also a post for another time.  For now, suffice to say that if you make libum with gorgonzola cheese, you get green bread.

It's greener without the flash, but it's also too dark to tell it's green with just the overhead light in my kitchen.  Just trust me on this one.

go bananas

When I unloaded the car from a recent "camping" trip, I discovered that the bananas which made it all the way home were in no fit state of banananess.  The backs of two of them were very soft from bruising, probably a result of fitting three adults and their collection of food and winter gear into my fierce but tiny car.  It's a wonder we didn't all have soft spots.  My revulsion at sinking into the fruit was short-lived; soft bananas means it's time for banana bread.

I used to use a recipe from Betty Crocker when I made banana bread, but it called for buttermilk, which I never have, and always substituted an equal amount of milk, curdled with the addition of 1-2 t lemon juice and half an hour of time.  Now I prefer the recipe from The Complete Family Cookbook, a tome Dad has in his kitchen, and which, after extensive searching, he found in a secondhand bookstore.  He got copies for my brother and I, and despite the age-yellowed pages (the only date I can find on it is 1969), my copy seems untouched.

Many years ago, before I moved to Oregon, I was talking to a  co-worker about my plans to make banana bread that night (still using BC's formula), and I mentioned that I wasn't sure I had chocolate chips.  He was appalled, certain that chocolate chips in banana bread would be a mistake.  I was equally appalled, as I knew from years of Mom's baking that chocolate chips belong in banana bread in the same way that cheese belongs in an omelet; it can be done without, but why would you bother?  My plan this time hinged on the bag of morsels I knew was on the bottom shelf of the fridge, but I was sidetracked by one of the variations suggested in the cookbook: prune nut banana bread.  Thing is, I'm not crazy about prunes, but I knew we had dried apricots, and I love those little buggers.  We also had pecans, but I toyed with the idea of going apricot-chocolate chip.

Prune Apricot Pecan Banana Bread
3/4 C sugar
1/2 C oil
2 eggs
1 C mashed bananas (wait until they're bruised badly or WAY too ripe--it makes for easier mashing)
1 3/4 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 C chopped pecans
1/2 C chopped dried apricots (coarser chopping means larger chewy chunks later.  Keep that in mind if you like larger chewy chunks, but don't just throw them in whole, because you still need to slice the bread, you animal)

Two bananas mash into one cup.  Your results may vary according to bananas.

• Preheat oven to 325F.
• Combine sugar, oil, and eggs in large bowl. Beat until frothy.  Add fruit and nuts, mix well.  Mix in dry ingredients.

Add apricots, pecans, and bananas; mix well.

• Pour into greased 9" x 5" loaf pan.  Bake for 1 hour, until brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (As the loaf bakes and expands, it will develop a crack running along the middle of the top of the loaf.  If appearance concerns you, poke the toothpick in here, where it won't disturb the crust and leave a nice-looking loaf intact).  Let it cool ten minutes in the pan before removing to a wire rack.  You may need to run a butter knife around the loaf inside the pan to loosen it a little.

One administrative note: if you follow my other blog, you know that I'm going to spend a good chunk of this year backpacking.  Monday will be my first day on the trail.  Backpackers eat a lot of crap, and do very little actual cooking.  Most of the time it's a matter of boiling water and adding carbs.  If I get creative, I'll stir some peanut butter into my noodles for calories and protein, and pretend it's Thai food.  Suffice to say, most of you won't be interested in my food over the summer unless you already follow my other blog.  But fear not!  Knowing this day would come, I've been stockpiling lots of posts to get you through the summer, although we're switching from Weekly to Bi-weekly until I return from my trip.  I did get a little ahead of myself, though, so the bi-weekly schedule won't start for a couple weeks.  We still have to try beef stew and some cookies (no surprise there).  And I still might wedge in a couple food-related posts from the trail.  Check back often, or Follow this blog to get all the updates.

Happy Trails,
Ryan