Chocolate Chip Cookies

Do you like crazy crispy cookies? Then these are for you... chewy fans.... pass this one up, these things are so crunchy they will make it so you can't hear anyone trying to talk to you. Got a nagging boss/wife/husband? Just eat some of these and you wont have to listen to them anymore :D I know I know... mean... but funny!

I actually made these as payment for someone doing my taxes, that's how I like to pay people... cookies. I asked him how many an hour he charged... 650... but for me a bakers dozen, score! A box of cookies later I had my taxes all ready to go and he had a full belly, smiles all around :)


Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from cooking light

* 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
* 1 cup bread flour (basically CL says to use 2 1/4 cups white flour... I mixed it up)
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 large egg whites
* 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
* Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Combine sugars and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add vanilla and egg whites; beat 1 minute. Add flour mixture and chips; beat until blended.

(I then refrigerated these over night... because I didn't have time to make and bake all in one night... not sure if that did anything... but just wanted to tell ya!)

Drop dough by level tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on pans for 2 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely on wire racks.

I'm a sucker for good packaging

Are you a sucker for marketing and packaging design? I can be... and this popcorn is beautifully designed I must say. I mean just look at it! I happily won this 479 Popcorn variety pack from Blake Makes! So the packaging didn't get me to buy it, but it's sure getting me to talk about it!

This popcorn screams gourmet, and not just on the outside. Inside these boxes are flavors like:
Alderwood Smoked Salt
Madras Curry Cashew
Black Truffle
Pimentòn de La Vera
Chipotle Caramel Almond
Ginger Sesame Caramel
Fleur de Sel Caramel
Vietnamese Cinnamon


I haven't made it through them all yet, but so far the winner is Ginger Sesame Caramel! Steph, her John, two of their buddies and I had a little tasting this weekend. Apparently the ginger caramel goes well with beer, same goes for the black truffle... the curry however... does NOT go so well with beer :)

What do you think would be your favorite flavor?

Steak Salad with stuffed olives

Remember those olives Mezzetta sent me?



Well Steph (my roomie's) John made this salad with them.

"Hickory smoked steak salad with blue cheese stuffed olives, corn, sweet peas, pepperchinis, and cheese "

Rock on John!

Chandeliers and baking

Everyone has different tastes... and as the years go by... tastes change... I've never been much of a gold fan... so this bad boy... was the first thing to go in the new house.

Some may say "oh steph but why it's retro cool, I love it" if that's the case you can buy it... I'll be putting it up on criags list later this week ;)

John and I are more of a brushed silver kind of folk... so we now have this guy hanging in our atm empty dining room.


MUCH better if you ask me :) Now what does this have to do with chowing?? I'll tell you... we were having some electrical issues... wait why are there ONLY black wires coming out of the wall... where are the white ones... a quick call to one of John's buddies and in a jiffy he was over FULL TOOL BELT in hand. It was awesome :) Anyway... you gotta thank a guy for his help right??

Enter in a raspberry and blueberry loaf, and a 6 pack of Guinness. Thanks again Andy, YOU ROCK!!!! His exact words about the loaf "Super healthy loaf is too good to be healthy" LOL

For the loaf recipe head over to my here.

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Pesto makes my heart happy

Who doesn't like getting stuff in the mail? I love it! Better yet is when you get something you aren't even expecting :)


Big thanks to Mezzetta! I'm a huge advocate of spiking your pizza sauce with pesto, I mean sure you could just use pesto as the pizza base... but I like adding it into my sauce :) And it's a super easy way to add a ton of flavor!


Pesto pizza sauce
6oz can tomato paste
2 tsp chopped garlic cloves
2 Tbs Mezzetta pesto
1/2 Tbs olive oil
black pepper to taste
salt to taste
couple glugs red hot

2/3 cup water

Mix everything through red hot in a bowl, slowly stir in water and stop at desired consistency. Taste, add more spices if you like, that's it, you're DONE.

As for the olives, although I was excited for them, olives are about the only thing I don't like to chow... good thing I have a roommate and her boyfriend who also love to chow. Her man took them home and said they go great with steak salad... sounds good to me :)

Pesto is seriously good on everything... what would you slather it on??

John's Tex Mex

Nope I'm not talking about my John, I'm talking about John's Tex Mex on South Ave here in Rochester! Let me just tell you... DELICIOUS!!! The place is super tiny and it's always full. John and I love ordering take out when we are in a rush and super hungry like this past friday night. I called in an order and 10 minutes later was walking out the door with a big ol bag of fesco tacos!


Since it's lent, that means no meat on fridays... enter in the tofu tacos and the fish tacos. I LOVE their tofu tacos. Lent or not, I order them every time I'm there. The tofu is chocked full of flavor and perfectly tender. They are the best thing there if you ask me!

Tofu Fresco Taco

John on the other hand would heartily disagree. Not that we go back and forth "no way... mine is so much better than that crap you're eating" :D John loves thier fish tacos, I wouldn't know since he ate them all before I got to try... but I'm still sticking to my story... tofu all the way!

Fish Fresco Taco

Not a taco fan? No problem, they have loads of other tasty trests for you. For the full menu check it out here.

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Halloweenish Pie

Did you know that monday was pie day? Like the nerd kind of pie? News flash... in case you didn't know it... I'm part nerd. It's true, and I'm proud of it!! I fly my nerd flag high! And John pretends he doesn't know me... silly man. Well speaking of pie, I recently found out John likes jello pies... really?? Seriously would have NEVER guessed that one. So I went and made him an orange creamcicle pie, kinda looks like halloween... but that's ok :) I had bought a graham cracker crust and when he saw it he looked all sad

"what's wrong?? isn't a jello pie in a graham crust??"
"well it's supposed to be a chocolate one"
"really?"
"yeah.. it's ok though i'll still eat it" (looking even more pitiful)
"nah another trip to the store will solve this"

So a day later and chocolate crust in hand (the 0 trans fat variety... careful some of these things are FILLED with them) I made him his pie... and the man was VERY happy.

So easy it seems silly to write it out.


Jello Pie
1 package sugar free jello
1 cup boiling water
1 cup cold water
8 oz cool whip
CHOCOLATE graham or oreo cookie pie crust

Make jello according to package, let set for an hour in the refrigerator.

Take jello out and blend in 8 oz fat free cool whip. Flop it into the crust and stick it back in the refrigerator. Serve cold about 4 hours later.

Sweet Potato Muffin

Hi there! Welcome back! It's been awhile huh? May I offer you a little snack? Perhaps a sweet potato muffin?? These things happened by fluke this weekend. Those cans of pumpkin are still MIA in my supermarket so I moved onto the baby food isle and got me some gerber sweet potato baby food! Yup, me baking with baby food again, but it's oh so easy!!

These aren't a super sweet muffin but I think they are perfect for breakfast or a quick on the go snack. AKA when you are headed to your new house to paint and have yet to stock the kitchen with anything yet :)


Sweet Potato Muffins
recipe by steph chows

1 cup unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup sweet potato baby food (2 3.5 once containers AKA one package)
2 egg whites lightly beaten
3/4 cup fat free milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup splenda granulated (or use 1/2 cup white sugar)

2 tablespoons turbine sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin tin with non-stick spray.

Mix together dry ingredients (flour through cinnamon) in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix wet ingredients (sweet potato through splenda). In an even smaller bowl, mix the sugar and cinnamon.

Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until thoroughly moistened. Do not beat or overmix. Spoon about 1 heaping tablespoon of batter into each muffin cup. Sprinkle each half-full muffin with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar and fill with remaining batter. Sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar over each muffin.

Bake for 17-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes before serving.

CHOW!

Sweet

Sweet potato muffins comin' up tomorrow! They were super tasty :) Seriously yum... and I promise to have them posted first thing tomorrow!

Hope you all had wonderful weekends!!!

Home owner

We buy our house today... GAH!!!!!!!!

Yup things have been a bit crazy here at steph chows... will be baking again soon though... wicked promise... like pink swear...

ok ready? put out your pinky... and *shake*

we're good right?

John says he should be the first to post again since I'm a slacker this week. I told him to bring it on like Donkey Kong... so what say you ladies and gents?? Think John should get back into it and write a post??

OK time to go write the largest check of my life... I'm going to be a home owner!!!!

chow chow chow

So I'm tagging along on a business trip with John for the beginning of this week... and I forgot my camera cord... yup so no pictures for you yet, sorry about that. But I do want to tell you about this amazing appetizer I had last night. They were like buffalo wings... except they were shrimp. SO GOOD!

Seriously jumbo gigantic shrimp with a barley there crust, drenched in buffalo wing sauce, and then topped off with blue cheese dressing and some crumbles of blue cheese. A-freakin-MAZING!!

Have you ever had a buffalo wing hybrid shrimp? I don't know why I never thought of this on my own. I need to go make some once we're back in Rochester for sure :)

If you are out and about, what's your favorite appetizer to order?

Secrets of a Skinny Chef

So I got an awesome book in the mail the other day.. Secrets of a Skinny Chef by Jennifer Iserloh. The recipes are totally my style the only bummer is not every recipe comes with a picture :( But don't let that stop you from making all of her tasty treats.

After paging through every last page of the book I decided on the chicken enchiladas! They have an italian twist to them which had me a little worried at first but soon enough I realized these were a golden recipe! They came together quick and off they went into the fridge until later that night when we were ready to eat. A quick 20 minute trip in the oven and perfecto!!

The guts of these things were cubed chicken, mushrooms, red bell pepper, thyme, rosemary, low fat ricotta cheese, some low fat mozzarella... then you wrap that all up in whole wheat tortillas and slather on a can of enchilada sauce and some more cheese! YUM!

Now the sad part of this is the same company sent me another amazing cookbook awhile ago...Actually I'm a bit embarrassed by how long ago it was... I happily drooled through all the pictures but have YET to make anything from it! Michael Symon's Live to Cook is an amazing book.


You see the thing is most of these recipes involve pork... mmmm pork! But John doesn't eat piggies... so I haven't had a night where I feel like making something from here for me, and something else for him... but I'm telling you, this book is droolworthy for sure!!

I also love this book since every recipe has beautiful pictures... love love love it!

Sauce Night

Sunday is big sauce night in our house... this past week. Red sauce with spicy chicken sausage, shrimp and mushrooms... *swoon* Now that is one quick and satisfying dinner!

Tira-mis"ery"-su

Tiramisu... a wonderful dessert... I had high hopes for you tiramisu... but you turned into a Tira-misery-su. I wont say where this recipe came from... but it was a cookbook that other amazing recipes have been made from so I was certain this would also be tasty... oh how sad the conclusion was. It was John's birthday sunday and I made this to celebrate. A skinny version of the decadent treat... one bite and the look on John's face said it all, "this tastes horrible... I know I've never said that but... this is seriously the worst thing I've ever eaten"

The parfait was totally lacking in sweetness, and the chocolate layers had not a hint of chocolate flavor... as for that strong brewed coffee?? really there is coffee in here?

*sigh* guess you can't win them all right! I'm just glad it wasn't something I made up... now THAT would have been embarrassing.


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Butterscotch Blondies

These are NOT healthy... I repeat... NOT HEALTHY :) These are dense buttery sugary bars spiked with butterscotch chips. I made them for our wonderful snow blowing neighbor who keeps John's walks and driveway cleared out of the kindness of his heart. He LOVED these bad boys.


I found the recipe over at SugarLaws. The only change I made was to add the butterscotch chips. Ready... set... chow!!!

want to help me or John win a contest?? Go vote for a day at the beach or cupids love potion! :D vote here

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Crepes

My good friend Matt and I have been chowing buddies for over 10 years now. We met by fate setting us both to live on the same dorm room floor our freshman year of collage. Since our first meeting it has taken Matt about 9 years to finally remember that I am NOT a vegetarian... yup that's right... going out to eat together almost weekly for 9 years... and it still surprised him every time I ordered meat LOL. Love you Matt no hate here at all :D


This past weekend we ventured out for a saturday breakfast at a local crepe place... I'd love to tell you how amazing they were... but I'd be lying. Overly chewy in texture and lacking any more flavor than a very large glug of vanilla, they left me wishing for more.

Luckily there was plenty of snow to distract us and we went for a nice walk along the canal after breakfast... guess you can't win them all.


We also made some new friends along our walk

Although we soon realized they were only coming to say hi because they thought we had food, feeling horrible to tease them with nothing we quickly made our way down the canal.

How were your weekends?? I have some tasty and not so tasty treats to share with you :)

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