The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

Last night I had a Big Night In. All of my favorite tv shows were new so I made a pitcher of pina coladas, a frozen pizza and these cookies. I subscribe to Cook's Illustrated magazine. If you're not familiar with this particular cooking magazine, let me tell you - it's awesome. It's like the Newsweek of cooking magazine. It's full of scientific answers to cooking situations - it's the ultimate test kitchen. Why do room temperature eggs work better in baking? Bleached vs. unbleached flour? What can I use if I don't have a potato ricer? The best way to marinate? It's fascinating to a cooking nerd like me.

The latest issue had a recipe for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, which challenged the Nestle Toll House recipe. I have been making the Toll House recipe my whole life. My dad was a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies and making them often got me out of other household chores. "Sarah, take out the trash," "But Dad, I was going to make cookies," "Oh, okay - Ben, take out the trash." Worked every time. This article really challenged the ingredients and techniques used in the classic recipe and I was willing to try it out, but a little skeptical.

This recipe started out by instructing me to not only melt, but brown the butter for a nuttier flavor. Browning butter is simply melting it and then swirling it over the heat for about 3 minutes once it's melted. It smells amazing. Very few things smell better than melting butter. Once you add the sugars, eggs and vanilla you let the mixture sit for a while also. Mix 30 seconds, let it sit 3 minutes, repeat 3 times. This helps the sugars really disolve in the batter, so the magazine says.

The other big difference is that it called for different chocolate chips. The best feature of this magazine is that it does a taste test of a product and find the best supermarket finds each issue. Olive Oil, ketchup, soy sauce...this month is was chocolate chips. They actually rated the Nestle chocolate chips the poorest quality. They recommended the Ghiradelli 60% Bittersweet cocoa ones for these cookies. They melt into the cookies a bit instead of maintaining their shape like the Nestle ones do.

I was also instructed to make the cookies larger than I typically do. About 3 tablespoons of dough per cookie which would lead to a chewier cookie inside.

I followed all these instructions and did come out with a pretty tasty cookie. It did smell amazing, the browned butter really did add a whole new dimension to the cookie. It was a great addition to the recipe. The picture above is of the finished cookies. Which I've had two of this morning. Luckily, it's gorgeous outside today so a long walk will be required very shortly.

Here is the recipe for the cookies:

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie - Cook's Illustrated

1 3/4 cup ubleached flour
1/2 tsp baking soda

14 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cup chocolate chips (I used the whole bag - I like a lot of chocolate chips)

Heat oven to 375

Whisk together flour and baking soda

Heat 10 tablespoons of butter in skillet over medium-high heat until melted. Continue cooking, swirling constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 - 3 minutes. Remove skillet and pour into mixing bowl. Stir remaining 4 tablespoons butter into the hot butter and stir until completely melted.

Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl and whist until fully incorporated. Add egg and yold and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand 3 minutes, then whist for 30 seconds. Repeat that process two more times. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon stir in flour mixture until just combines. Stir in chocolate chips giving dough final stir.

Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tablespoons. Arrange 2 inches apart. Bake 10 - 14 minutes, until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, edges are beginning to set, but centers are still soft. Cool. Eat. Enjoy!

Green advice

I'm *literally* stealing a page from someone else's book this morning. The following was a blog post my cousin Anna did last week. I thought it was a great real life example. I've been an advocate and follower of reusable shopping bags for almost two years now. It's one of the smallest and easiest green changes one can make. AND, it eliminates all those plastic grocery bags in your house. If you really think about it - having one or two around is handy - sure. No one needs hundreds of them. So, below is Anna's story. (By the way SAL stands for Save a Lot which is a division of Super Valu grocery stores where she works. They also own the Jewel grocery store line which is where I now shop in Chicago!)

Thanks Anna, and I hope you don't mind that I flat out stole your post.

Green stories in the real world.

Over the past year, Chuck has been diligently replacing his light bulbs with CFL's as they burn out. Just to set the scene, he does live in a 2,000 square foot 3 bed/2.5 baths two story house (a real adult house). It's definitely isn't as compact as my 12oo square feet 3 bd/1 bath (my little bungalow). He also installed a programmable thermostat last July. In January, Ameren reevaluated his budget building and his electric bill was cut down by more than 40%. Wow. That's impressive.

In SAL's green kick-off for 2008, the green team gave every person in the home office a reusable bag for groceries. We also give a bag to every new employee at the home office (sorry field people and retail locations, but you get short end on this one). As most of you know, there is a grocery store in my building. It's small but convenient. My guess is that a substantial number of the 500 employees take advantage of the mini-store, but I don't have any numbers on it. Since we had a year with the reusable bags, we pulled the numbers to see if plastic bag consumption has gone down in the last year in the mini-store. Well, the numbers came back 22,000 less. We ordered 22,000 less plastic bags. I am impressed and stunned. If this is the impact 500 people can make, what can a regular grocery store do?! It shows that one person can make a HUGE difference.

Next time, you hesitate and think, "Is it really going to make a difference this time?" YES.

Together, we can make a difference.

Some great places to get these reusable bags:
* Your local, favorite grocery store most likely sells them for about a dollar each
* If you want to be fancy - get the Bloomingdale's Medium Canvas Bag* You can be colorful! These were found at a great website for all things reusable related - grocery bags, lunch bags, coffee cups, etc. * Or you can find several that really get the message across. This bag found at a great website called Dogeared.

Good Potatoes

Following is the recipe I mentioned last week talking about Easter. This dish has been a holiday staple in my family for years and we've always called them "good potatoes." I have a friend who calls them cheesy potatoes.

They are the opposite of fancy or gourmet or well presented, as I usually like most of my food - that doesn't make them any less delicious though!! (Please note the picture above is not a picture of my good potatoes - just a potato casserole I found online here.)

Good Potatoes
1 (2 lb) pkg frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed
1 tsp salt
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 c melted butter
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 pint sour cream

Combine all ingredients. Pour into a buttered 13x9 inch baking dish. Bake 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Enjoy!

Cupcakes and rain

Happy to report back on the opening of Phoebe's cupcakes. Saturday was a really nice day here, one of the first where I was starting to feel at home, like this was my life and I wasn't just a visitor.

My mom was in town having come back to Chicago with me from St. Louis last week. She was just one of the girls as we went to a place called Deleece for brunch. It was so great. Everything we ordered sounded amazing and then when plates started arriving we all drooled over what each other had. I had breakfast macaroni and cheese, which was this amazing macaroni with white cheddar, bacon and tomatoes covered in two sunnyside eggs. It sounded strange, but tasted soooo delicious. Next time I'm for sure getting the Pear and Ginger French Toast though. Wow. They also have a lobster eggs benedict and there's ain't nothing wrong with that.

We then headed over to Phoebe's cupcakes, where we thought it was going to be our choice of free cupcake with purchase of coffee - as the emails and press releases said. It turned out they were just handing out the cupcakes for free - no coffee purchase required. That also meant that we didn't get a choice of our flavor cupcake, just whatever we were given. Again, not exactly what I thought we were getting into, but free cupcakes of any flavor are okay with me. The cupcake itself was pretty good - great cake flavor. We had the vanilla and you could see the specks of real vanilla bean in it. That's awesome. The cake to icing ratio was a little high for me. I'm really into cupcakes for the cake and too much icing puts me off. These cupcakes were a little short on cake, but it was just the promo day and I'll be back for a second opinion tomorrow when they "officially" open.

After cupcakes some of the girls went to get pedicures, I went to get mom back on the train and then met up with them in a bit for some shopping fun. We chatted (my mom was a little crabby all weekend, so I did a little venting), we talked about being 30 soon, we searched for a good pair of flats for me (and found some!), and it was just a nice, casual day.

Sunday started with rain, and I was hoping it would let up before that evening because I had tickets to the Cubs/Cards game and I was really excited about it. It never stopped raining and was called as a rainout around 5pm. I'm totally bummed. So, home I stayed and watched some really terrible Lifetime Movies and played a lot of solitaire. I can waste hours of my life on solitaire, it's amazing. This is where I do not love the iphone. It makes electronic solitaire super accessible and I can multi task almost anything while playing.

Countdown to actually getting a couch - 2 days!!! It should be here tomorrow afternoon, then I'll start feeling like a real person even more.

Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail

Today in History:

In the early hours of April 15, 1912, the British luxury liner RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland, less than three hours after striking an iceberg. Some 1,500 people died.

Titanic trivia:

* If in 1912 the Titanic was stood up on its end, it would be taller than any building of that time.

* The Titanic was traveling between 21-23 knots (approx 26 miles an hour) when it struck the iceberg.
* The last tune the band was playing before the Titanic sank was believed to be Autumn by Louis Von Esch c.1810 a popular waltz of the time and not "Nearer My God to Thee".
* No members of the band survived but the Black Talent Agency who hired the musicans, sent the violinist's family a bill for $3.50 for the cost of the unpaid and unreturned uniform!
* The search for survivors and bodies lasted 9 days.
* The total number of people aboard the Titanic was 2340.
* The total number of lifeboats and rafts on the ship were 20.
* Capacity of each lifeboat was a total of 50 passengers and 8 crew.
* Total capacity of lifeboats and rafts was approx 1,000 people.
* Number of lifeboats wrecked in launching was 4.
* The capacity of the lifeboats which were safely launched was 928.
* The total number of people actually taken in lifeboats was 711.
* The number of people who died in lifeboats was 6.
* The total number of people saved was 705.
* The total number of Titanic's passengers lost was 1635.
* Total number of Titanic crew who perished was 685 from a crew of 899.
* Some of lifeboats had no plugs in the bottom so the passengers had to use their hands to stop the water coming in.
* When the Titanic struck the iceberg it was rumored John Jacob Astor quipped, "I asked for ice, but this is ridiculous."
* There were only 2 bathtubs available for the 700 or so third class passengers.
* There were 9 dogs on board, three of which survived. Margaret Hay's Pomeranian (lifeboat #7), Elizabeth Rothchild's pooch (lifeboat # 6) and Henry Sleeper Harper's Pekinese, Sun Yat Sen (Lifeboat # 3) . Among the dogs that didn't make it was champion bulldog, Gamon de Pycombe and a St Bernard. It is rumored that a passenger had freed the dogs from the kennels when all hope was gone.
* Ironically the RMS Carpathia was sunk 6 years after rescuing the Titanic survivors. She was hit with a German torpedo and went down off the Cornish Coast.

Also today in history:

In 1861, three days after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, President Abraham Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called out Union troops.

In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died, several hours after being shot at Ford's Theater in Washington by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson became the nation's 17th president.

I recommend to anyone the Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield, IL. It was full of great exhibits and moving stories about this president.

Brunch wonderful-ness

Brunch was all I could have asked for and more. Great company and great stories (two at the table were in the Greek system in college and lots of good stories came from that. My contribution to that conversation is that I watch the show Greek on ABC Family) and more mimosas than was necessary and really good food.

Had a blast. Here's a picture of the group:

left to right - Katie, me, Laura, Casey

Hope you had a happy Easter!

Easter traditions

Easter has never really been my holiday. While I lived in Louisiana we never went back home to St. Louis for it. Our first year we actually had patio furniture and a new washer and dryer delivered. Our 2nd Easter there was the first we spent with our friends Cyndi, Lee and Amy. It's one of my favorite days from Louisiana. It was kind of a last minute idea and everyone brought something. Lee was really looking forward to a ham and also made the green bean casserole his family always had. I made the ambrosia salad and the potatoes my family always made. Funny stories about both of my items: I was working for the casino at the time and loved the buffets ambrosia salad. I asked one of my favorite cooks for the recipe and she gave it to me as she knew it - for large quantities. It called for gallon cans of oranges and pineapple, etc. I pared it down as best I could. I still have that recipe page she wrote out for me. The potatoes are real family favorites. We call them "good potatoes" and it wasn't until a friend of mine in high school pointed out that was weird that I thought it was. They are good.

Anyway, it was a great Easter, we had a blast and played lots of Catchphrase after brunch and mimosas and I am sad to say the boys beat the girls. The next year Cyndi and Lee hosted the Easter brunch where Cyndi had egg hunts and this amazing lemon pound cake with home made lemon curd - which is a passion we share.

This year I'm spending Easter in Chicago. I've been hearing about the great brunches my friends have been having up here for years. Not only are they not so into Easter, but this also marks the anniversary of Laura's move up here. So, I think it's always been a sort of independence day also. I'm excited to join them this year. We're going to a restaurant called Angelina's, a place known for their lively brunches. I'm not sure what a lively brunch is, but I'll be sure to let you know.

I decided to bake carrot cake cupcakes and bring them as treats to my friends there to take home. (Those with husbands are leaving the husbands at home - they should get treats too.) I found these recipes for carrot cake and fluffy cream cheese icing. In the carrot cake recipe, I did omit the nuts and raisins and added a little extra pineapple. (I actually added that by accident, but I think it worked out.)

I had found some cute cupcake boxes at Sur La Table last week. I love this store. Here's a shot of the cupcakes during prep, icing and boxing.

Undecideds

My friend Alex does an occasional post called RBOC - which stands for Random Bits of Crap. I thought perhaps I would borrow the idea, but with a different title.

I have Cubs/Cards tickets for Sunday, April 19! I'm pretty excited. I've never been to Wrigley Field and I cannot wait to go wearing my Cardinal Red! There will certainly be pictures and it will be very fun, even if it is snowing on me.

I dyed my hair dark brown-ish/copper. My hair has been a variety of reds since I was 15, and while this one is significantly darker than anything I've done in a while, it didn't take long for me to get used to it. It's such a girl thing - when dealing with any kind of break up - I change my hair. It's immediate change and easily fixed or changed again if I don't like it. A very forgiving thing to mess with.

Friday night is going to be margarita night. I haven't had margaritas in a long time and I'm trying to decide if I should do the plain lime margarita or bring some strawberry margarita mix. Big decisions I have, right?

I'm a little sadder than I thought I would be. I'm not miserable, but I'm sad. I think there's more grieving to be done than I had considered.

Process Stories

It's been a bit of a blah day.

I expected these. The days where I lay around and wonder what I'm doing.

I'm trying to decide between making a tuna fish sandwich or risotto with shrimp and asparagus for dinner. I've made this risotto dish before. It's based on a dish I had once at a restaurant called Calo that my friend Laura took me to on a visit last May. It was sooo good and with asparagus from a farmer's market in St. Louis last summer I attempted to recreate it. I did okay. I think I could do it again. I just need to find the energy.

I rented Schindler's List. Not to be depressed, it was just next on the Netflix queue. I've never seen it and feel it's something I should see. Do I make fancy risotto and watch depressing movies? Do I eat tuna and watch depressing movies? Do I take myself out for a drink? The answer to that is 'not likely' since that would require putting on real pants.

I'm good when I give myself a task. Tomorrow, lunch with Emily and Laura, Friday, new makeup shopping with Sarah B. and making dinner with a friend. Today was no plans and no motivation. These days are fewer, for sure. I don't relish them. Although, working up the motivation to write all this out has helped me create the desire to cook actual food. Fancy risotto and depressing film, here I come. Wish me luck on both fronts.