I have to say that this has been one of those weeks when I have been completely uninspired. I've been just absolutely exhausted the last day or two.
It's amazing how much energy PMS takes up.
But it's like I've always said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing right."
Actually, I don't always say that. But it sounded good, didn't it?
All I really want to do tonight is lie on the couch and eat peanut butter M&M's. And maybe some chocolate chip cookies. And isn't that handy since I just made some yesterday.
I tried out the recipe that Holly left last Friday in the comments. Oh heavens. I think I have found me a new favorite recipe. I posted it on the recipe blog here.
Did y'all go back and look at the recipes that everyone left in last week's comments? There's some good stuff there. One even has a substitution for eggs if your family deals with food allergies.
Speaking of which, Kim from Just a Southern Girl posed some questions in last week's comments and I wanted to address those for her.
Kim finds herself in an interesting situation which most of us will never face. Cooking while living in a foreign country. Now, I will say that I did face this challenge while living in France one summer during college. As close as France is to the U.S., many things are just not the same.
Just try finding H.E.B. tortillas, picante sauce/salsa, and Dr. Pepper in southern France. Just go ahead and try. It's a little hard to make enchiladas without tortillas.
I'm just sayin'.
But back to Kim. Her concerns were 1) no Crisco, 2) different brown sugar, and 3) no chocolate chips.
If you don't have access to Crisco or other types of shortening, I'd just stick with good ol' butter. The difference is that butter has a lower melting point than shortening. Therefore, a cookie made with butter may tend to spread a little more than one made with all shortening. Just keep that in mind.
A couple of ideas for mitigating this issue is to: A) Let your cookie sheet cool completely before placing more dough on for the next batch. Placing dough on a completely cool sheet will keep the butter from beginning to melt before it gets into the oven and hopefully will keep the spreading to a minimum. B) Store your dough in the refrigerator between batches. Cold dough on a completely cool cookie sheet will go even further to accomplish this same goal.
Next, brown sugar. Brown sugar is just regular sugar with a certain amount of molasses mixed with it. Light brown sugar has less molasses, and dark brown has more. So, Kim, if yours is REALLY dark, my guess is that it has a lot of molasses already in it. And if you'll notice from the recipe that Holly sent, we are adding extra molasses to the dough. The idea is that liquid sugar (like molasses) will hold moisture and keep your cookies moist longer than solid forms of sugar (like regular white granulated sugar). Your brown sugar down there might accomplish the same result without adding any additional molasses. All that to say, I wouldn't do a thing to the sugar.
And if you really want to geek it up, you can read additional information on sugar here.
Lastly, no chocolate chips. I really can't help you there. The next best thing would be to see if you can just find some chocolate bars and make chocolate chunk cookies. Let me know if you're in dire need of some. We'll find a way to get a girlfriend her chocolate. :)
Kim finds herself in an interesting situation which most of us will never face. Cooking while living in a foreign country. Now, I will say that I did face this challenge while living in France one summer during college. As close as France is to the U.S., many things are just not the same.
Just try finding H.E.B. tortillas, picante sauce/salsa, and Dr. Pepper in southern France. Just go ahead and try. It's a little hard to make enchiladas without tortillas.
I'm just sayin'.
But back to Kim. Her concerns were 1) no Crisco, 2) different brown sugar, and 3) no chocolate chips.
If you don't have access to Crisco or other types of shortening, I'd just stick with good ol' butter. The difference is that butter has a lower melting point than shortening. Therefore, a cookie made with butter may tend to spread a little more than one made with all shortening. Just keep that in mind.
A couple of ideas for mitigating this issue is to: A) Let your cookie sheet cool completely before placing more dough on for the next batch. Placing dough on a completely cool sheet will keep the butter from beginning to melt before it gets into the oven and hopefully will keep the spreading to a minimum. B) Store your dough in the refrigerator between batches. Cold dough on a completely cool cookie sheet will go even further to accomplish this same goal.
Next, brown sugar. Brown sugar is just regular sugar with a certain amount of molasses mixed with it. Light brown sugar has less molasses, and dark brown has more. So, Kim, if yours is REALLY dark, my guess is that it has a lot of molasses already in it. And if you'll notice from the recipe that Holly sent, we are adding extra molasses to the dough. The idea is that liquid sugar (like molasses) will hold moisture and keep your cookies moist longer than solid forms of sugar (like regular white granulated sugar). Your brown sugar down there might accomplish the same result without adding any additional molasses. All that to say, I wouldn't do a thing to the sugar.
And if you really want to geek it up, you can read additional information on sugar here.
Lastly, no chocolate chips. I really can't help you there. The next best thing would be to see if you can just find some chocolate bars and make chocolate chunk cookies. Let me know if you're in dire need of some. We'll find a way to get a girlfriend her chocolate. :)
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Tune in tomorrow when I'll post my stew recipe over on the recipe blog for Soup's On Saturday over at But I Had a Tiara. We finally had some cool weather this week and I was able to make it. And I used venison. It was yummy.
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Lastly this week, I want to give you guys a little bit of a heads-up for what's in store. I'm planning a blog carnival that we're calling Way More Homemade Holidays. It's going to be a time when we can share our
2 Comments:
Muchas gracias for addressing my questions from last week! I'm going to "geek" it up and go read more about sugar on the link you provided.
For now I'm okay on the chocolate chips since I brought a 3 lb. bag of Ghirardelli's with me and have already put in orders for additional bags from people coming to visit next year :-)
A friend who spent a number of years in Spain tells the story of meeting missionaries from Germany who could get Dr. Pepper from military pals with access to the PX. Anyway, they'd meet "covertly" in the parking area of whatever hotel the missionary conference was being held, and discreetly transfer the contraband from car trunk to car trunk. hehehe
And during the year we spent in Uganda our daughter coerced one visitor into bringing a 6-pack of 20 oz. Dr. Pepper in his carry-on and then she wouldn't even share any with him!
Oh the lengths you die-hard Dr. Pepper fans will go :-)
Yum! I think just slathering your chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter might be a good idea:)
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