Chocolate Chip - Oatmeal Cookies

When Ryan and I got married almost three years ago, we stayed at the DoubleTree Hotel the night before and the night of our wedding.  (Gaaaaa!  It's been almost three years!)  At the DoubleTree, when you arrive, they give you these really yummy chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies.  They're big and chewy and delicious and big.  Did I mention they're big?  I'd take a dozen home if I could but my waistline miiiiight not appreciate that too much.  I've been trying and trying to find a cookie that is almost as good as they ones I got at the hotel.  I know it won't be EXACTLY like it.  I'm pretty certain that it has a pound of butter in each cookie, it's so moist.  I have finally found a cookie that comes pretty darn close and I wanted to share it with all of you.  You should feel so special! :-)  Every time I ate one of these cookies, it took me back to my special day with my husband, who traveled 1200 miles to be with me all those years ago.  Yeah, I'm pretty darn lucky :-)

Chocolate Chip-Oatmeal Cookies
courtesy of Nestle All Time Favorite Cookie and Baking Recipes

1 3/4 c. All Purpose Flour
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 1/4 c. Light Brown Sugar, packed
1 c. (2 sticks) Butter, salted, softened
1/2 c. Sugar
2 Eggs, large
2 Tbsp. Milk (I used skim but use whatever you have on hand)
2 tsp. Vanilla
2 1/2 c. Quick Cooking Oats (feel free to use old fashioned if you've got it)
2 c. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (12 oz. bag)

Preheat the oven to 375.
In one bowl, combine the flour and baking soda and set aside.
Using a mixer, beat both of the sugars and butter together until creamy.
Next, add in the eggs, milk, and vanilla to the sugar-butter mixture and mix well.
Gradually add in the flour mixture until everything is well combined.
Stir in the oats and chocolate chips.  (This is going to make a thick batter so it might be tough to incorporate everything but keep trying because it will come together.)
Drop by the tablespoonfuls (or using that wonderous cookie scoop I tell everyone to get) onto your baking sheet.
Bake for 9 to 10 minutes for chewy cookies or 12 to 13 minutes for crispy cookies.  (Chewy is the way to go for me.)
Let cool for one minutes before moving to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Key Lime Bread

I think I may have mentioned here a couple of times that my husband likes key lime stuff.  Like a lot.  And I could've possibly mentioned that I love King Arthur Flour things... maybe.  My best friend knows that I love KAF stuff so she's given me a subscription to the KAF Baking Sheet (a bi-monthly newsletter full of yummy recipes) for the last few years as a Christmas gift.  (Aren't best friends... the best??)  So when my Spring 2013 Baking Sheet arrived and I saw the recipe for Key Lime Bread, I jumped at the chance to make it.  This was very different from some of the other quick breads that I've made because it packed such a lime punch but it wasn't overpowering.  Most quick breads are very sweet but this is not.  It's a very refreshing change and a perfect bread to eat on a spring day, sipping some sweet tea :)

Typically, I like to always use recipes that don't call for special ingredients because I want these recipes available to everyone, hoping (hopefully) at-hand items.  This recipe, however, does require one special ingredient that is well worth the effort of purchasing - Key Lime Powder.  It is a great way to add lime flavor without having to worry about adding additional liquids.  You can use it in scones (KAF has a great recipe for Mojito scones), cookies, glazes for cakes/quick breads.  It's worth the price - and if you sign up for the KAF emails, you can receive special offers, some of which are for free/really cheap shipping!  (With all the KAF spotlighting I do, I really should be on ten percent... hehe)

Key Lime Bread
courtesy of The Baking Sheet, Spring 2013

6 Tbsp. Butter, salted (if using unsalted, add 1 tsp. salt), melted
2 Tbsp. Canola Oil
3/4 c. Sugar
1/4 c. Lime Juice Powder
2 Eggs, large
Zest of 1 Lime
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 c. All Purpose Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
3/4 c. Milk (I used skim, but whatever you have on hand will be fine)
2 Tbsp. Lime Juice
1/2 c. Walnuts, chopped fine

Lightly grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan using a cooking spray with flour (like Pillsbury).
Preheat oven to 350.
Cream the butter, oil, sugar, and lime juice powder together.
Mix in the eggs.
Add in your zest and vanilla extract.
Make sure everything is all mixed together happily.
In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt (if using).
To your butter-sugar mixture, alternate adding the flour mixture and milk (beginning and ending with the flour).
Stir in the lime juice and walnuts.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a tester can be inserted and come out clean.
Let cool slightly and remove from pan to finish cooling on a rack.
Glaze if desired (recipe follows).

Glaze:
2 Tbsp. Lime Juice
1 Tbsp. Lime Juice Powder
1/2 c. Powdered Sugar
2 Tbsp. Heavy Cream
Zest of 1 Lime

Combine together and brush over the warm bread.

Eat and enjoy!!

Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars

So my husband's birthday is on Valentine's Day.  As in, yesterday.  Lucky for him, I've never been the biggest fan of Valentine's Day.  I know that seems strange for a female to not really be interested in it.  I've never understood why you pick one day to suddenly show how much you love someone.  Isn't that something we should be doing every day?  So every year, I always tell Ryan that his Valentine's Day gift to me to keeping me out of the chaos that surrounds restaurants every February 14th.  I'd much rather stay home and cook Ryan a big birthday meal than go out and wait for two hours just to get a seat at a table.  No thank you.  Ryan's big meal this year consisted of his favorite meal - homemade spaghetti and meatballs with the homemade focaccia bread.  You might remember that bread from this post, perhaps?  I always want to make him a really good dessert to go along with his birthday dinner and that usually either means this key lime pie or something chocolaty.  But this year, I decided to change things up a bit and make something I'd never tried before.  The recipe seemed way too easy to be real but we pushed on anyway. 

Ryan and I love to eat at On the Border Mexican Restaurant.  One of our favorite things?  Their sopapillas.  You absolutely cannot go wrong with baked, sweet yeast dough that's covered with cinnamon sugar and then dipped into honey.  I mean, that's like heaven on a plate!  When I came across this recipe on The Tale of Two Kitchens blog (you might recall I got her delicious cookies in the cookie swap last December), I knew this was a recipe that I couldn't just put in my binder of "found recipes" and then forget about it.  It combined two of my favorite things - cheesecake and sopapillas!  Cheesecake!  Honey!  Sugar!  CINNAMON!! 

Here's the trick - it needs to be COLD when you eat it.  The taste is not right when its a room temperature or especially not when it's hot.  Just be patient and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours.  You'll thank me for it!

This recipe will easily reduce by half to fit into an 8x8 pan instead of a full 9x13.  Keep the cook times the same but remember to only use half of the can of crescent roll dough on the bottom and the other half on the top.  Feel free to use reduced fat crescent roll dough and reduced fat cream cheese (I think I used one full fat and one fat free - they were on sale) to make yourself feel better about eating the whole thing one piece.

Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars
courtesy of The Tale of Two Kitchens

2 cans of Crescent Roll Dough
2 8 oz. Cream Cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 c. Sugar, divided
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
2 tsp. Cinnamon
2 Tbsp. Butter, melted
Honey (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350.
Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
Unroll your first can of crescent roll dough into the bottom of the pan, pinching the seams together.
In a mixer, combine 1 cup of sugar, vanilla, and both packages of cream cheese and mix until smooth.
Spread over your crescent roll dough.
Unroll the second can of crescent roll dough over the top of the cheesecake mixture; again pinching the seams together.
Brush the top of the crescent roll dough with your melted butter (use all the butter!).
In a separate bowl, mix your cinnamon and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar.
Now go crazy and sprinkle all of the cinnamon-sugar mixture over the entire surface of the buttered crescent roll dough.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the bottom crust is slightly browned.
Cool completely.
Let it chill in your fridge for a few hours.
Cut into bars, drizzle with honey (if you like), and enjoy!!

Butterscotch Blondies

So when I think of Blondies, I think of one of two things (neither of which is the band)...

This:

This is my mom's dog Blondie.  She was found on the side of the road where my parents live.  Someone had left her on the side of the road, abandoned.  That was not a new sight around my parents' house because living out in the country usually bring lots of strays around the house.  But my parents had recently lost their Lab, Jake, and even though they weren't looking to add a new dog, they got one!  This is behavior everyone expects out of ME, not my mother.  She's happily living with my parents, even now :)

The other things I think of when someone says, "Blondies" is the food!  Of course, this is a food blog so you knew food was going to come up at some point.  I like blondies - they're brownies but without the cocoa!  What's not to like??  Of course, I'm all for chocolate in most any form.  That Super Bowl commercial where the wife wished for a lifetime supply of chocolate and was hooked up to a chocolate IV bag?  That's me.  However, not everyone is a chocolate fanatic like me (never did understand people like that but I digress) so here is a recipe that should satisfy everyone, chocolate lovers included (because you can always add chocolate to it!)

Note:  The recipes REQUIRES the use of a small stainless steel skillet.  Why?  Because you're going to be browning the butter folks!  Browning the butter means you need to be able to see the color changes in the butter.  If you're using a cast iron or nonstick skillet, you won't be able to see the butter change color and you'll end up with burnt butter and that's just tragic.

Butterscotch Blondies
modified slightly from myrecipes.com

2 c. All Purpose Flour
2 1/2 c. Brown Sugar
2 tsp. Baking Powder
10 Tbsp. Butter, salted (if using unsalted, add 1/2 tsp. salt)
3 Eggs

Preheat your oven to 350.
Melt your butter in a small stainless steel skillet over medium heat.
Cook the butter for 6 minutes or until lightly browned.  (Mine took just under 6 minutes.)
Pour into a medium sized bowl and let cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack.
Meanwhile, combine your flour, sugar, and baking powder (and salt, if you're using) and mix it all together!
After your 10 minutes of cooling butter is complete, mix in the 3 eggs.
Add your butter-egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir - a lot.  This batter is pretty thick and will require some elbow grease.  Ladies, if you'd like your man to feel manly, let him stir or if you're like me and don't like to be defeated, keep going until you have conquered the combined forces of butter and flour.
Spoon into a 9x13 pan that you've sprayed with cooking spray and smooth out the top.
Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick/cake tester comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack.
Slice into bars and enjoy!

Homemade Focaccia Bread

If you've read this blog before, you know that I love bread.  I really love bread.  (My hips?  Not so much.)  I've made some pretty basic breads in the past - sandwich breads, hamburger buns.  But I've been itching to try something different so the other night, I made one of Ryan's favorite meals - homemade spaghetti and meatballs.  He really loves it when I cook that.  It brings back some fond memories for us.  See, when he and I first met in person (we had "met" online many, many months before), this was the first thing I made for him.  Well, I made spaghetti.  I didn't add the meatballs until a while later.  I really wanted to impress this guy that I really, really liked with my cooking and I knew that was the best thing I made.  Ladies, there is a reason why "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" is a cliche.  It's true.  I made him that meal and, now, we're married!  No, I won't give up my spaghetti recipe - it's a secret.

When I was making him spaghetti and meatballs last night, I wanted to make some sort of Italian bread.  Because you cannot have spaghetti without having some sort of bread product.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find a bread recipe that took less than two hours to finish (with rising times and all that jazz) until I looked on the back of my King Arthur Flour Italian-Style Flour bag.  (Ryan says I'm obsessed with flour.  I have no idea why he would say that.  I only have fourteen* different kinds of flour in our pantry.)

This bread can be made in just over one hour.  Which is almost a miracle when it comes to yeasted breads.  If you're just getting started with breads, this is an excellent bread to start out with since its so simple.  And it's really, really good.

Focaccia Bread
courtesy of KAF's Italian Style Flour bag

Bread:
3 3/4 c. All Purpose Flour (I used my Italian-Style but AP works fine)
1 1/2 tsp. Salt (Kosher works best in breads)
1 Packet of Instant/Active Dry Yeast (if measuring, use 2 tsp.)
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1 c. Water + 2 to 4 Tbsp., divided

Topping:
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
Italian Seasoning

In a mixer or using your hands, combine all your ingredients and knead for 5 to 6 minutes, using 1 c. water plus 2 Tbsp.  If you dough is dry, add the additional 2 Tbsp. of water.  You want the dough to be sticky.
Cover the dough for 15 minutes.
Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place onto a large piece of parchment paper and knead gently a few times just to redistribute the growing yeast.
Transfer the dough and the parchment to a baking sheet and pat into a 10"x15" rectangle.
Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
Preheat your oven to 425.
Lightly spray a piece of plastic wrap and place over the dough and allow to sit in a warm place for 30 minutes.  (I let mine sit next to my oven.)
Just before baking, using your fingers, gently press down to the top of the dough to make little dimples.
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown. 
 

(I neglected to add enough olive oil to the top.  Don't make my mistake.)

* - My fourteen (technically fifteen) different kinds of flour:

  1. All Purpose

  2. Self-Rising

  3. Whole Wheat

  4. White Whole Wheat

  5. Bread

  6. Cake

  7. European Style

  8. Italian Style

  9. Barley

10. Pastry

11. Graham

12. Irish-style Wholemeal

13. Kamut (of which I have two)

14. Potato 

(yes, each and every last one of them is from King Arthur Flour.)

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap - pt. 2

Here is a picture of my cookies ready to be packed away!

That was one really cute container!

And now, off to the post office!  They grow up so fast, don't they?  One minute, they're in your kitchen and the next, they're traveling around the country.

 

My matches for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap were.....
K. T. Vorwald
Love and Zest
Angie's Southern Kitchen


The people who were matched with me and sent some seriously good cookies were...

Williams Kitchen who sent some yummy Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal cookies

Second was Adri at Food-n-Thought who sent Nutella Cherry Oatmeal Florentine Cookies.  Yes, that title is a mouthful which is exactly what the cookies ended up as!!

My final batch of cookies came from The Tale of Two Kitchens - a blog I actually found before the cookie swap that I just fell in love with!  Her Minty Mascarpone Oreo Snowflake Cookies were my husband's favorite.  (I think I got one.)

To see all the entries, you can visit Love and Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen to see pictures of the over 500 entries!

Merry Christmas!

I hope all my readers have a safe and happy holiday season!

Merry Christmas from The Gaited Baker y'all!!!