Sunday, September 28, 2008

Inspirations | Kitchen Decor

Hrm, someday I will have an awesome kitchen. In the meantime I'll keep collecting photos in my decofile...here's my favourites (click here for more)





Sunday, September 21, 2008

Recipes | Chocolate Chip Cookies


(photo from stock.xchng)

For Kait, here is my chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's from my Betty Crocker Cookbook. It's the recipe my mom, my aunt and my cousin all swear by. In my mind, there is no other recipe. Barb makes them tiny and undercooks them just a touch for chewy goodness. I make them a touch bigger (but still small) and get them just brown on the bottom. I also add less chocolate then it calls for. These stay nice and soft, but don't melt into the bendy puddles that some cookies do.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Evah!
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 large egg
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips


My adjustments are:

add 1 tsp vanilla
a bit more salt (I just prefer salty sweetness)
Instead of the chips I take a good bar of dark chocolate and chop it up. I love the bittersweetness and you don't need as much this way.

It makes about 4 dozen cookies they say. I sometimes eat a cookie or so worth of dough (bad I know, but I'd rather risk getting food poisoning someday for the years of yummy dough eating I have enjoyed). You bake for 10 min at 375.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Recipes | Pasta/Pizza Sauce

Sorry for ditching you guys again! I anticipate my life becoming normal again next week :P I've escaped my partially moved in house this week to visit my parents (because it's just been so long?). No really, the pool is shut down this week, Craig is away catching small mammals, dipping them in flourescent powder and then following their footprints around the woods at night. I'm not kidding. And I'm kinda jealous. But anyway I'm canning pasta sauce, roasted tomato soup, and pickled beets.



Want my amaaaazing pasta/pizza sauce recipe? Of course you do. I invented it last week. This makes one 5 Quart crock pot full...which is 3-4 3 cup jars. Which each make one good 2 person meal...so this recipe would serve...8-10 if you just ate it fresh.

Roast 4 or 5 sweet bell peppers. Just throw them in the BBQ until they're all charred, then throw them in a bag for a bit to steam. The skins will just flake off leaving yumminess beneath. Deseed and mince

Mince:
4 cloves garlic
4 smallish shallots

Fry in olive oil with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.
Add a splash of cooking wine at the end (white wine is yummy in it)

Throw in the crock pot with the peppers and about 1/4 wine.
Mince a 1/2 cup or more fresh basil and oregano. You can use dried, but only use a tablespoon or so.



Blanch and peel tomatoes. fill the crock pot with diced tomatoes.
Salt to taste.

Let it simmer for a few hours, we leave it overnight to the next afternoon.
If it's still soupy add a couple small cans of tomato paste halfway through.

Enjoy!

I am doing my second and third crock pots today.