Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

 

 

After yesterday's Coca-Cola Cake Disaster, I had to come up with something new. My first thought was to make a peach pie with the frozen peaches from last summer - but cookies were quicker. Sometimes speed trumps desire. (I may be making that pie this weekend, though. I want the freezer space back!)

I've been making variations of this cookie for a long time and started mixing in mini peanut butter cups about 5 years ago. What I keep forgetting is that mixing the mini peanut better cups in with the mixer tends to break them up - they really should be mixed in by hand.

I'll probably forget next time, too.

This recipe calls for regular cocoa powder - not Dutch-processed.  Cocoa that is Dutched is treated with alkali to neutralize the cocoa acid, so baking soda doesn't react properly with it. Dutch-processing makes for a darker and more complex cocoa while natural cocoa powders like Hershey's, Ghirardelli, and most other American brands are lighter in color and fruitier in flavor.

Most single-origin and other top-shelf cocoa powders are generally natural. In most cases, it's just a personal preference, but remember that if the recipe calls for baking soda - you need to use natural cocoa.

If you only have Dutch-process, the workaround is to add 1/4 tsp of vinegar with the vanilla to add the acid back into the recipe.

Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp espresso powder
  • pinch salt
  • 2 cubes (1 cup) butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 12 oz mini peanut butter cups
  • 1 cup chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 350°.

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, espresso powder, and salt. Beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and mix well.

Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in mini peanut butter cups and chocolate chunks.

Use a heaping #30 scoop (a good 2 tablespoons) and place about 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake about about 16 minutes.

The recipe made 24 over-sized cookies. That will get us through to the weekend. I do think a peach pie is in order...

 


Dinnertime

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It hasn't all been cake and pasta sauce this week! We really have done other things, as well.

I do take pictures of dinner most nights, but they don't always get posted on the blog. I can get busy doing other things and next thing I know, a week has gone by without a post! Quelle horreur!

So here we have a few from this past week... Starting with tonight.

Roast beef. How ... uh... normal. Normal, except we rarely actually cook a roast. It was an impulse buy at the store a while back and I decided it was time for it to come out of the freezer and see the light of day. I'm rather glad I did! I rubbed it with garlic, salt, and pepper and then seared it before going into the oven with about a cup of red wine.

I made a mushroom gravy, added caramelized onions from last night, and mixed it all with wide egg noodles. They were pretty good. They were a bit of a tribute to my mom who used to make some wicked-good noodles and gravy when I was a kid.

And speaking of caramelized onions form last night... They topped steaks that were also topped with some chopped bacon.

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The broccoli rabe and the mashed potatoes were also topped with a bit of chopped bacon. It was good. Real good. None of us cleaned our plates.

And sadly, neither one of us can remember the sauce we had on the pork tenderloin.

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Flat-out no idea.

I'm sure it was fabulous.

 


Coca-Cola Cake FAIL

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I just threw out a cake. A homemade cake. That I made.

I have to admit that I have not thrown out too many cakes in my life. I'm a cake-eater and - for better or worse - can eat just about any of them out there. But I met my match, tonight.

I don't drink soda as a rule, but a couple times a year I can go for an ice-cold Coke. Real Coke. The stuff made in every country but the USofA. - with sugar - and not high fructose corn syrup. At $1.25 a bottle, it's pricey enough that I'm not downing six-packs of the stuff, but eminently affordable to have around. There's been a bottle in the cupboard for a couple of months that I first thought I'd use to make a BBQ sauce. Today, out of the blue, I decided to make a Coca-Cola cake.

I should have made the BBQ sauce.

I got the recipe from the Coca-Cola website. I had done a bit of searching and just about every recipe out there was identical. I thought I'd go with the pro. It was horrible. The cake was moist and all - but it just had no flavor.  And the icing was nothing but sugar-flavored sugar.

Victor summed it up perfectly: "All I can taste is sweet. There is no flavor, at all - just cloying sweet."

What a disappointment.

I went back and read comments on the Coke site and while a couple of folks didn't like it, either, we're in the minority. Most folks who have made it love it.

I have to admit I didn't know what to expect because I had never had one, before, but the ingredient list should have given me a bit of an alert - 2 cups of sugar and a cup of Coke is going to make a sweet cake no matter what else goes in it. And the icing was just more sugar and more Coke.

I guess it would have been nice if there had been a hint of Coke flavor - but it was buried under all the sugar.

Oh well... Live and learn.


Sunday Sauce

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Welcome to Sunday at the Dineen/Martorano household. Just starting to simmer on the stove is a vat of sauce I will be canning later on today. A 21-quart pot prit' near filled to the rim with simmering scintillating sauce! I'm pretty psyched!

We used to make big batches of sauce and freeze it in 1 quart tupperware containers - and then Victor got me a pressure canner! What a great addition to the family!  I have had so much fun canning different things - and I really can't wait until the summer garden is over-producing! Making sauce with quality canned tomatoes is one thing - making it from tomatoes out of your own garden is a league of its own!

He doesn't make a complicated sauce. It's rich and flavorful and stands on its own, but can also be used as a base for other things. It's the perfect all-purpose sauce. And we're gonna have lots of it!

Victor's Sauce

  • 2 - 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes
  • 1 - Sm can tomato paste
  • 1-2 cloves of garlic (or to taste if you like more) chopped fine
  • Olive oil
  • Dried Italian seasonings
  • Hot red pepper flakes (a tsp or more or less to taste)
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • Red wine (always cook with a decent wine, never “cooking” wine) about a cup or cup and a half
  • Meat – such as Italian sausage or some nice beef or pork ribs or pork chops

Ok…I ALWAYS make my sauce with meat, so start with a deep, heavy pot and add about 3-4 TBS of olive oil. On high heat, once the oil is hot, start frying the sausage or pork, Let the meat get good and caramelized although you don’t have to cook it all the way through because you’ll add it back to the sauce to finish. Once the meat is browned take it out of the pot, put it on a plate and set aside.

Lower the heat to medium and sauté the tomato paste for a couple of minutes until it begins to “melt”. Add the chopped garlic and sauté with the tomato paste for just a minute (no longer or it will burn). Then add about a cup of the red wine and deglaze the pan with it, scrapping up all the good bits that stuck to the bottom when cooking the meat.

When the wine reduces by about ½ start adding the canned tomatoes.  Add one can of hot water for every can of tomatoes you use.

Now start adding the dried Italian seasonings.  I eyeball it but I would guess a good 2 tbsp is fine.  Add about another ½ cup of red wine, with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Stir everything into the sauce. It will be very thin at this point.

Add back the cooked meat. Now this is important….at the bottom of the plate you let the meat rest on will be some of the oil and juices that seeped out. Pour that back into the pot. It has a lot of flavor in it.

Bring the sauce back to a boil then turn the heat down low and let it simmer for at least 1 and a half hours, stirring every 15 to 20 minutes to keep it from burning. It should reduce by about a third or a little less and get thicker. The meat will absorb the sauce and get very tender.

When I make meatballs, I don’t fry them, I bake them on a sheet pan. When I do, I add them to the simmering sauce when they’re done so they also absorb the flavor.

I usually make the sauce early in the day and after it’s done, just let it sit on the stove until dinner then I re-heat it. This should make enough sauce for a couple of dinners or good sized lasagna.

We just used up the last of the batch he made before Christmas. Some of that batch went out as Christmas gifts. This one is going into the cupboard! It's mine!  All mine!!!  All 18 quarts!

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We used one for dinner.

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The older I get - and I am getting old and crotchety - the more I really appreciate slower, simpler food. I'm totally over mass-produced instant gratification food. I just don't care that a frozen whatever or a canned or refrigerated whatever tastes fabulous - I'm not bringing it home. I can totally appreciate the artistry behind a fabulous restaurant meal. I'd rather sit home and make a pot of soup.

Of course, in a mere 82 days we'll be heading to Sicily for 2 weeks. I think there will be a restaurant meal or two in my future while we're on the island. But I also think the places we'll be eating will be off the beaten track and more neighborhood rustic than Michelin starred. And the villa we rented has an organic garden - and we have exclusive use of it. More time in the kitchen!

Then, again... I'm not there, yet. Anything is possible. Because my preference today is for one thing does not preclude me from wanting and/or enjoying something entirely different tomorrow. It's why I don't make meal plans and figure out meals for the week. I don't know what I'm going to want on Thursday. I'll figure that out, then.

In the meantime, I'm going to have a lot of sauce to play with.

I'm pleased.


Pistachio Ricotta Tart

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It's always fun when Victor disappears into the kitchen. I know I'm in for a treat. And treat is what I got on his take on a Mario Batali recipe.

We had ricotta, we had pistachios, we had pistachio cream - why not make a pistachio ricotta tart instead of his Sambucca and orange and stuff?  Why not, indeed?!?

The original recipe called for a 9" cake pan. Victor used a 10" springform to make a thinner tart-like dessert.

Pistachio Ricotta Tart

  • 1 16oz container ricotta
  • 2/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup Pistachio Cream Liqueur
  • 3 eggs, separated
  • 3/4 cup coarsely-chopped roasted, unsalted pistachios
  • Butter for greasing the pan

Preheat the oven to 300°.

Lightly butter a 10" spring form pan.

Combine the ricotta, sugar, pistachio cream, and 3 egg yolks. Mix until blended. Add the egg whites 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Pour the ricotta mixture into the prepared pan and bake until light golden brown, about 45 minutes.

Serve warm, room temperature, or cold!

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It rocked! Rich and creamy with the perfect amount of crunch. I even went back in and sneaked another sliver. I could have consumed more.

The beauty of a dessert like this is as long as you keep the proportions in line, you can make it into anything you want.

Have fun with it - and when you're heading back for that second piece, don't say i didn't warn you!


Roast Chicken and Chicken Pot Pie

A roast chicken is the meal that keeps on giving. I love that the day after there is always another meal waiting to be created - a soup, a stew, or, as we did last night, a chicken pot pie.

Roasting a chicken is pretty much the easiest thing in the world to do, yet... it is also often the first thing an aspiring French chef is asked to cook during an interview. Any roasted chicken is good - a perfectly roasted chicken is... well... perfect.

I tend to lean towards the any roasted chicken is good category. I don't fuss with them. I'll rub a bit of butter or olive oil on the outside, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and into the oven on a vertical roaster at 425° for however many minutes it takes for the juices to run clear - or 165° if I use a thermometer. A good chicken tastes great with minimal fuss and a mediocre chicken is going to be mediocre no matter what you do to it.

I started doing beer can chickens a while ago and when we received an actual vertical roaster as a gift, it pretty much cemented my like for them. The neck and innards boil down for broth and mix the drippings to make gravy.

Waste not, want not, and all that...

Victor is a huge crispy-skin fan - me, not so much - so the vertical roaster really delivers for him.

So... un-stuffed chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy with oven-roasted cauliflower on Saturday became Chicken Pot Pie on Sunday.

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I do a double crust because we all really like the crust and it's easier to clean the dish! I made my standard pie crust but I used half lard half butter and for the vodka, I used Absolute Peppar that has been in the bar cabinet for what seems like an eternity. No idea where it came from but I need to start using it - I'm tired of looking at the bottle.

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The filling consisted of onions, fresh carrots and celery, and lots of frozen mixed vegetables - along with the chicken meat that just slid off the bones from the long-simmering carcass.

The pot kept growing - as is typical when I'm making something like this - and I ended up with a huge pot pie - enough for dinner last night and lunch today - as well as TWO containers for the freezer! I have dinner for a couple of lazy winter nights...

Definitely the bird that keeps on giving...


Snow Day and Biscotti

I missed the Staff Meeting and Cookie Contest last night. I think I've mentioned that I'm not quite as adventurous in the snow as I was in my youth. Not getting power until Monday and heading up north to get Nonna Tuesday left no time for baking cookies, anyway.

But since I'm home enjoying a snow-day, I thought I'd bake a batch to bring in for the staff tomorrow. These may well have been the winning cookie, but, it's a moot point, now. The good part is now folks can just enjoy them - no pressure involved! That is assuming, of course, that the township does come by at some point and plow our street. We just got the latest robo-call from them letting us know how hard they're working - and they are - but they're still concentrating on main thoroughfares. They will get to the side streets within 8-10 hours after the snow stops - tomorrow.

I did shovel out the driveway this morning while it was still coming down because I knew that rain and ice were coming between snow storms. The joys of the Winter of 2014!

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It's blissfully quiet outside. It's one of the joys of snow - the muffling of sound. We are assaulted by so much noise all of the time that the quiet is really welcome.  I brought Cybil out to romp while shoveling. Our neighbors across the street and our new neighbor next door were also out clearing their drives. She went and visited and we all stopped for a few moments to catch up and kvetch about the weather. There were no problems with her crossing the street - there are no cars traveling on our block until it's plowed.

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By the time the next round hits us this evening, I'm expecting the bottom rung of the fence to be buried completely. Drifts have covered the top rung in places already. There's a lot of snow out there!

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So while the snow falls, I'm cooking and baking. There's a pot of black bean soup on the stove and the last batch of biscotti coming out of the oven any minute.

Pistachio Biscotti

  • 2 3/4 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 cube (stick) butter
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 tbsp cream of pistachio liqueur
  • 8 oz pistachios, roasted – unsalted
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 egg mixed with a splash of water
  • demerara sugar

Sift together dry ingredients.  Cream sugar and butter, add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and pistachio cream. Stir in flour. Stir in pistachios.

Divide dough in half.  Shape into logs.  Place on greased cookie sheets and brush with egg wash. Top with demerara sugar. Bake at 350° for 18-20 minutes.

Cool completely.  Slice into 1/4 to 1/2″ slices and toast on both sides in 350° oven - about 20 more minutes.

Here's to another storm!

 

 


Cube Steaks and Snowmageddon

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The good thing about the power outage last storm was going through the freezer and actually taking inventory of everything in there. Last night some cube steaks came out to be breaded and fried not unlike a chicken-fried steak. Seasoned flour, egg-dip, and bread crumbs, and then browned in a minuscule amount of oil and finished in the oven. I made a simple garlic butter with some fresh garlic and melted butter and drizzled it over the meat for a bit of added flavor. We had a can of creamed corn on the shelf from a corn souffle that was never made so I mixed in some frozen corn and made it reasonably palatable. Mashed sweet potatoes finished it off. Cake for dessert.

The perfect meal to start Snowmageddon. 

Okay. Don't hate me but I really do love all this snow!

And I did say snow - not ice, sleet, or power-outages. Snow. Growing up where it doesn't snow changes ones outlook. We had to go to he snow - it didn't come to us.

My earliest snow memories are from Lake Tahoe not long after the 1960 Winter Olympics. I remember those Olympics well - the first ones I ever saw on TV. I decided right then and there I wanted to be an ice skater and that Christmas I got my very first pair of ice skates!  They weren't the figure skates I lusted after, though, they were hockey skates! I secretly wanted to be Carol Heiss doing fancy spins to music but if I wanted to skate, I was going to have to play Bill Cleary, so I butched myself up, laced up those hockey skates, and became a tolerably-good hockey player.

During the '60s, the family would head up to Tahoe for weekend vacations, always staying at the now-defunct Kent Motel on the South Shore.  And sometime around '65, my mom's best friend from childhood bought a motel - The Villa Del Mar - right on the lake! They had 4 kids of their own and one year we set up a sled run from the top up the hill in their parking lot, down the hill onto the boat deck and into the lake. Very soon there were screaming, laughing, freezing, dripping wet kids running around inside and out. The adults put  the kibosh on us repeating that trick.

10 yeas later I was living up at the lake on the less-developed North Shore, first in a little cabin with my buddy Steve and working at the Old Post Office in Carnelian Bay. Our first winter there we had a burst water pipe and a frozen Niagara Falls from the kitchen through the living room and out the front door. It's amazing what you can deal with in good humor when you're 24 years old.

The following years we moved into the big house with 2 guys I worked with at the Hyatt. I lived there for 4 years with a brief hiatus back to San Francisco in 1978. Boston in late 1980 and Buffalo in 1984. Do you see a snow pattern, here?  My father would just shake his head in amusement when I'd tell him what blizzard-prone place I was moving to next.  His response was he had used his last snow shovel in 1940 and was never picking up another one. And he never did.

Mountain snow is a lot different than city snow and living in a resort where you make your money fleecing the flatlanders with snow activities is a lot different than just another day of having to get to work to pay the mortgage. It was almost always powder at 7000 feet and rare was the heavy wet snow that I see falling outside this morning. I did a lot of skiing in that powder and even digging the car out - we never had a garage at Tahoe - was easy and really took no time, at all. We lived in a snow region and were always prepared to be stuck somewhere for a few days. Lots of food at home and free snow-rooms at the hotel if we were stuck there. And a fully-stocked bar no matter where we were.  We actually threw a few snow parties when the forecast was for numerous feet of snow and could have 20 or more people in the house for a couple of days, eating, drinking, and making merry.

Of course, I'm also remembering being 24 and living the high life with no cares in the world. While mentally I may still be an irresponsible youth, it now hurts when I fall down and it takes longer to get back up. I actually can't afford to be as foolhardy as I once was. I'm not sure if it's wisdom or simple self-preservation, but when the township calls and says winter storm warning, stay off the roads, I don't really question it - I will simply stay off the roads. And I also make sure there's plenty of food in the house and we can survive whatever is thrown at us.

I had a lot of fun in those devil-may-care days and I'm still enjoying the snow, today, albeit with a slightly different attitude.

And it really doesn't matter if it's wisdom or self-preservation that's keeping me in. I'm staying in.

 

 

 


Winter Storms and Cooking with Gas

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It was great to be back in the kitchen with hot water and heat, today! We've been cooking every meal on the gas cook top, but somehow it's just not the same. Six days without electricity can take a toll on a person. Ya just don't realize how much life revolves around it until it is taken away.

Not even talking about the computers and electronic devices that litter our home - it's little things like light. And refrigeration. And hot water. And heat.

Heat. What a concept. It was starting to get cold after 6 days with no thing but the fireplace to warm the house. Thank the stars for that. And thank the stars for the new window and doors that Sharpe Builders put in this fall!

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That really was our saving grace. We would have frozen with the single-paned window we had... I'm getting frost-bit just thinking about it.

The other thing that worked was Victor's brother bringing their mom up to their sister's house in North Jersey. Poor Nonna would not have lasted here. We maintained about 60° in the living room, but the rest of the house was decidedly chillier. And Nonna would put on a sweater if she was standing in front of a blast furnace. No... it was good that she was not here. I'm heading up tomorrow afternoon to bring her back down - just in time for the next storm to hit.

We did eat well in spite of the weather and difficulties. I mean... we do have our standards. And while I have always lusted after a walk-in refrigerator, I finally had a walk-out refrigerator/freezer!

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We used a couple of plastic bins and kept all of our fresh and frozen food outside. We did not lose a single thing. Meats and such were still frozen solid and refrigerated items were cold and fresh. And we got to totally clean the fridge and freezer - something that really doesn't happen often enough.

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This is standing towards the back of the driveway looking to the street. I dug all that out to get to work.

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This is a part of the front yard. Our front walk is under that somewhere.

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And that top wire is our electricity. It was ripped from the house by a neighbor's falling tree.  A couple of nice guys from Boston fixed it this afternoon.

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It was a nice thing, because I was running low on ground coffee. Brewing is easy - boil water and use a strainer and a filter. It just takes a while when you're doing it by candlelight.

Candlelight... Tapers are the only way to fly. Pillars look great, but they don't throw any light. We have lots of tapers, now, and a simple plate and a drop of wax makes a simple candle-holder. We got good at this stuff.

And even with the mass destruction out there - our neighborhood looks like a war-zone - there is such beauty in the snow and ice. It is treacherous, for sure, but damn, once the heat comes back on, a guy can really appreciate just how beautiful it is.

I've lived where it snows a hellava lot more than this and I've had to deal with burst pipes and no electricity and snow on the ground from October to May - piling up storm after storm. There's a part of me that absolutely loves it.  And then we have the rest of me saying I'm gonna be 62 in a few more months - I'm no longer 25. I'm prime heart-attack-while-shoveling-snow-age.

I think I'll go for the beauty...