It's the holiday season, which means I bake like a mad woman; I'll bake regardless of rain, sleet, snow, or hail, just like the mail people. Good thing baking is done primarily in the indoors.
I call them Wonder Cookies because they look like your everyday chocolate chip cookie but Ho Ho No, they are not. They are also flourless, so when they come out, you're like, I wonder how that happened.
Here is the recipe, although the measurements are approximations.
2 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used reduced fat Jiffy)
1/3 cup oatmeal (I used Quaker instant oats and shook the canister a few times)
3 bars (1.45 oz. each) of Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate bars
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp ground cinnamon (or two very generous shakings, I think that was two tsps.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Shred/chunkify the chocolate bars with a serrated knife (break them in half and stack to make them easier to cut.) Combine ingredients in a bowl and mix. Batter will be stiff. Drop by 1.5 inch balls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly brown.
I'm not sure how much this yields because I ate quite a few of them before I remembered to count. But I think it's around 2 dozen.
Because the peanut butter and sugar are allowed to carmelize without a third wheel, this cookie practically melts in your mouth once you start chewing. Oatmeal makes for a more liberal chaperone than flour while the sugar gives this incredibly chewy cookie a crispy bottom. The cinnamon spices its way through the thinkness of peanut butter, festifying in gooey harmony. And I must say that it wafts pleasantly throughout the kitchen.
I made this up using whatever we had in our tiny apartment kitchen so if you think it's disgusting, you probably didn't do it right. But you can blame it on me.
posted by Erin || 0 Comments
A few weeks ago I worked on a Goodyear Tires commercial. For lunch, I ate the above plate. In the foreground you see a fried lump which may not look like much. But little do you know that it is the world's best fried chicken. And I don't mean "World's Best" like Will Ferrel thought in Elf about coffee, but legitimately the best tasting fried chicken I have ever had. The batter was perfectly crisp, and every bite evoked hot steam emiting from the finely seasoned chicken. I think the key was a perfect mix of pepper and other spices. I wish I knew. Because damn, that was good.
But it didn't stop there! Behind the greatest chicken ever is another lump of brown stuff, which is actually sweetly marinated pot roast. It was perfectly tender and would slide apart at the touch of your fork. Add in some tangy barbeque sauce and you have a taste sensation in your mouth between beef and chicken. Oh boy. I ate a lot of meat during this meal, let me tell you, and it was heavenly. Thank you very much Silver Grille catering.
Now, I often expound on just how much food there is aside from our main meals, and so to illustrate what I have been talking about, I took some pictures of the rest of the food.
You'll see here three different kinds of salads for the choosing. Ceaser, Greek, and a regular Romaine. In the lower right hand corner is an almost gone platter of corn bread (which I love). To the left of the salads are every condiment you can possibly think of (even Sriracha sauce!), and to the left of that is some plate with pickles and cheeses and other various gourmet goods.
From the opposite end of the table you can see most of the desserts. They have cookies all the time, and they're usually warm, and I usually eat one, tell myself I shouldn't eat anymore, and then five minutes later I go back and stuff five cookies into my pocket. I am a greedy little monster. Also included are some chocolate cake, lemon cake, a raspberry gelatin thing, and fresh fruit. Beyond the desserts and back towards the salads, you can see the plate of sushi.Ah yes, all that food. But that was only the catering company! We still have our craft services guy, who provides smaller snacks and treats for everyone to munch on throughout the day. What they offer may vary, but here is an idea of the staples:
In picture one we have the 'Ming' table with all the cookies and candy. Picture 2 has some more healthy fare, like mango, vegetables, and cheez-its! Actually now that I think about it, these pictures make craft service look weak. Hah. Just imagine. ITS USUALLY MORE FOOD THAN THIS.
Labels: Cookies, Fried Chicken, Salad, Srirancha
posted by Jon || 3 Comments