SRC

Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Crunch Cookies- SRC

November 14, 2016

So… it’s been a rough week.

I haven’t felt like doing much of anything. I have ignored my blog. I have ignored it’s FB page. I have just done the bare minimum to get by… pbj sandwiches and eating my feelings. On Saturday, I went to my mom’s, as planned, for Autumn’s bday, and Autumn spent the whole night throwing up. I couldn’t even catch a break during my break from reality.

And in one last woes me eating my feelings day, I enjoyed quite a few of these Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Crunk Cookies. Worth it.

Making these couldn’t have come at better timing.

Sometimes things happen for a reason.

Case in point, I had retired from Secret Recipe Club last month as it as my 5th anniversary and I felt it was time to move on. But then I found out that this very month would be the last month for Secret Recipe Club as the whole group so I just had to pull a Jordan and step out of retirement

Getting CJ’s blog, Morsels of Life, for my very last SRC post was so great because she has so many wonderful recipes to pick from. I enjoyed browsing through her wide selection of recipes, including her breakfasts, pizzas, and desserts. I ultimately picked her Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Crunch Cookies.

Autumn and I made these cookies together, which was such a fun thing to do with her. She is so eager to help out by adding the ingredients to the mixer and turning it on. So fun.

The end result are great chocolate chip cookies that have great texture from oats and rice krispies. They are not exactly oatmeal cookies, nor are they super crunchy. It’s this loely in between that

Thanks to CJ for such a great recipe this morning. Also, to everyone who has partipated in Secret Recipe Club. It’s been real.

Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Crunch Cookies

Makes 30 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 Cups quick cooking oatmeal
1 Cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 Cup brown sugar
1/3 Cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
12 ounces chocolate chunks
1 1/2 Cups rice krispie cereal

Process

In a large bowl, combine the oatmeal, flour, baking, and salt. Set aside.
Beat together the butter and sugars for several minutes, until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides occasionally.
Add the eggs and vanilla extract, beat well again.
Incorporate the dry ingredients
Gently mix in the chocolate chunks and cereal.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Form heaping tablespoon rounds and arrange on the cookie sheets with enough room around them for some spreading.
Bake for 12 minutes, rotating half way through.

Adapted from Morsels of Life

errr, ignore the mess in the background. ooph!

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Double Tree Hotel’s Chocolate Chip Cookies- SRC

July 11, 2016

We are in the middle of potty training right now.

It’s been going well, and it’s really hilarious. Can’t beat it when a little naked tush goes running by as you hear ‘I have to go pee pee!!!”. ha!

The big thing is that delicious rewards are working for Autumn. Pee on the potty… get a marshmallow. Pee on the potty… get a gummy worm. Poop on the potty… get a chocolate covered marshmallow. You get the gist. Thankfully, she doesn’t remember the reward system or she would be jacked on on sugar all the time.

But I think that the reward system works for all kids of all ages. And I am speaking for myself at this point as well.

I will have a crazy month ahead of me and the craziness really begins tomorrow so I am giving myself a little pep talk tonight and treating myself to a cookie before it all begins.

I think taking a moment to give yourself a pep talk before doing something big is needed, just as much as rewarding yourself.

So I took a little moment with on of these cookies and now I’m ready.

For this month’s Secret Recipe Club post I was given Sarah’s blog, Well Dined. I dove right in searching her recipe index and came across several recipes that sounded great, like Sarah’s Ricotta and Chard Pizza (love pizza!), Baked Eggs in Avocado (whole30!), and Fish Tacos with Chipotle Mayo and Coleslaw (tacos, duh!)

Ultimately, I came across these Double Tree Hotel Chocolate Chip Cookies. I knew I had struct gold!

I have only stayed at Double Tree a few times but every time I have enjoyed their cookies and they are addicting. If you haven’t been to a Double Tree I suggest you stay there. Sure, it’s a good hotel, but the cookies… stay for the cookies. ha!

I stuck to Sarah’s recipe except that I realized that I only had 2 cups of chocolate chips and not 3 Cups, as the recipe calls for. I didn’t feeling going to the store again so I just tossed in a cup of Mini chocolate chips. Still chocolate, so it’s still okay in my book. I also used vanilla bean paste instead ox extract since I recently got a jar and I am determined to use it on everything. I just love it so hardcore.

The cookies are so good. They have great flavor and texture from the oats. The tiny bit of cinnamon in them also adds a great scent and flavor. Don’t skip the lemon. I swear it’s like skipping salt in a sweets recipe. You think you can, but you are so wrong.

So glad that I picked these cookies from Sarah’s blog for this month’s SRC post. My family enjoyed them and we shared with our neighbors too. Now, it’s time for you to give them a try!

It would be wrong to not make these cookies. Reward yourself.

Double Tree Hotel’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 20 (big!) cookies

Ingredients

1/2 Cup instant oats
2 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 Cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 Cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 Cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 eggs
3 cups semi-sweet, chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Processed

Grind the oats in a food processor or blender until they are very fine. Add the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, pulse until mixed. Se aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, sugars, vanilla, and lemon juice in a stand mixer. Mix for at least 3 minutes until you have a fluffy texture. Scrape down the sides as needed.
Add the eggs and mix until the mixture is smooth.
Add the dry mixture and mix until combined. Add the chocolate chips and nuts and mix to just incorporate.
Let the dough for at least 1 hour, but for the best results, chill the dough overnight in the refrigerator before baking the cookies.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spoon rounded 1/4 cup portions (will yield 20 cookies) onto an parchment lined cookie sheet. Place the scoops about 2 inches apart. Bake for 16-18 minutes or until cookies are light brown and soft in the middle. Remove and let cool on a wire rack.
Store in an air tight container.

Sourced from Well Dined

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Check out all the other great Secret Recipe Club posts HERE this month!

And be sure to check out my 4+ years of Secret Recipe Club posts!!!!

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Shrimp & Curried Coconut Risotto

October 26, 2015

Is your refrigerator running? Well, you better go get it! ha!

Okay, I have a point with starting with corny joke. I swear.

Our vacuum was acting up so I kept joking around that “Our vacuum sucks since it doesn’t suck” So Price dove into research mode, making me continually joke “But does that vacuum suck?” every time he would tell me about his findings. In the end we bought the Shark Rotator Pro Complete Lift-Away Vacuum (NV552), because we wanted a vacuum that had a hepafilter, had the ability to turn off the roller when on hardwoods, had a lot of attachments, and was relatively affordable (about 1/2 as much as a Dyson).

Since getting it we have been cleaning every inch of our house. It is amazing and horrifying at the same time as we are living in one of those corny infomercials when the people vacuum with their old one and then go over it with a new one to discover everything that was left behind. It’s amazing and horrifying. At the very least I am enjoying Price cleaning every surface in sight with every attachment the vacuum has. Win!!

Highly recommend this Shark vacuum #notsponsored!

Anyway, it’s Secret Recipe Club Reveal Day!!!!! YAY!!!! It’s my 4th year now!!

This month I had Sue’s blog Couscous and Consciousness. She is from New Zealand! So far away, but that is why I love blogging and Secret Recipe Club since it connects everyone from everywhere.

I had a lot of fun going through Sue’s Recipe Index since she had such a wide variety of recipes. We picked out several for considering, including her Salted Caramel Coconut Macaroons, Homemade Ricotta, and Pearl Barley Salad with Pistachios, Fava & Pomegranate (which I still have on my to-do list!). Ultimately, I selected her Shrimp & Curried Coconut Risotto.

I hadn’t made risotto in sooooo long so I was drawn to it. Plus, the combination of the flavors was so enticing. I couldn’t resist.

I’m glad I made this as it was a very satisfying lunch on a cool fall day. It made it really glad that I made a double batch since it made for great leftovers.

Sue’s tips about preparing this dish were spot on, like how you shouldn’t toast the coconut shavings. Sure, it will look pretty, but the contrasting texture from the crisp coconut to the soft risotto just wouldn’t work. I heeded her advice since it made a lot of sense.

So my 2 cents, if you like the flavor of curry then add a bit more. But, of course, this all depends on your curry blend, so just try it out as you go.

Hope everyone has a fantastic Monday! xox

Shrimp & Curried Coconut Risotto

Makes 2 servings

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons butter
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon medium curry powder
3/4 Cups arborio rice
4 Cups chicken stock, hot
1/2 pound fresh shrimp, peeled & uncooked
1/3 cup cream de coconut
generous handful chopped cilantro
toasted shaved coconut and wedges of lime to serve

Process

In a large stock pot, heat the oil and 1 Tablespoon butter in a large frying pan, set over medium heat until te butter is melted and the oil is simmering.
Add the shallot and cook until softened, approximately 2-3 minutes.
Add the garlic and grated lemon zest, cook for another minute
Then add the curry powder, again cooking for another minute before adding the rice.
Add approximately 1/2 Cup of the hot stock, continue stirring until all the liquid is absorbed. Then continue in the same way, adding the stock in ladle full batches, and each time stirring until the liquid is absorbed before adding the next ladle. Continue doing this until the rice has begun to release its starches and becomes “creamy”, but still has a little bite left to it.
Add the shrimp when you have 1 last batch of stock to add. By the time the rice has absorbed the stock the shrimp will be almost done, and will finish off cooking in the final resting time.
Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the rest of the butter and the coconut cream, cover and allow to rest for 5 minutes.
Stir the cilantro just prior to serving.
Garnish with the coconut shavings and wedges of lime when serving.

Adapted from Couscous & Consciousness

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Check out all the other great Secret Recipe Club posts this month!

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Homemade General Tso’s Chicken- SRC

January 26, 2015

Oh, back to life. Back to reality.

We’re back from our Caribbean cruise vacation. It was such a wonderful time. A wonderful break from life. It was a wonderful way to celebrate my 30th birthday!

But we’re back home now and back to the normal grind. Back to work today…

But it seems like Tuesday will be a day at home, and maybe even Wednesday, because of this blizzard heading our way. Yay? I mean it’s great for another day ‘off’ but I’ll need to make up the time in the end and snow. But, damn, I love a good Nor’easter. I heart you already Winter Storm Juno!!

I am a Weather Channel junkie. JUNKIE. Whenever there is a big storm I watch the Weather Channel, or our local news channel, 24/7. I love tracking storms. I love watching the updates throughout the day(s) as they get more and more information from different areas to get more specific quantities of snow/rain with tides or wind gusts. Oh, it’s so damn exciting.

Plus, it’s a good break from reality so we get to veg out and I get to cook!! I have some fun recipes to get to work on too! I’ve had my eye on a brownie recipe for awhile that I gotta make. And I’m working on perfecting my chocolate chip cookie recipe. It’s getting there!!

And I know I am going to be making this General Tso’s Chicken again.

Hot damn, this General Tso’s Chicken is so freaking good. It will make you toss your take out menus in the trash. Okay, maybe you still need take out for your egg rolls and such, but I doubt we’ll ever order General Tso’s again. It is gonna be homemade for us all the way now.

This is another one of those instances when I love Secret Recipe Club as it helped me discover another great blog and recipe. I thoroughly enjoying checking out the recipes on Asiya’s blog Chocolate and Chillies. She posts delicious recipes while sharing about her life in Toronto as a stay at home mom to 2 little boys. Her recipes often pack some heat (from chillies!) since she is Indian and her husband is Pakistani. There were quite a few recipes that caught my eye, including her Chocolate Truffle Energy Bites, Black Bean Burger, Pasta with Spinach Pesto, Roasted Red Peppers and Sundried Tomatoes, but I picked out her General Tso’s Chicken recipe.

I stuck with the recipe with the exception that we love broccoli with our General Tao’s so I added that. Because of that addition I doubled up the sauce. If you don’t want broccoli then cut back the sauce to follow the recipe exactly as it was on Asiya’s blog.

So while the Northeast is getting slammed with snow, we’ll be cozy at home making chocolate chip cookies and another batch of General Tso’s Chicken, since we know take out is not getting through 24+ inches of snow!

General Tso’s Chicken

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1″ cubes (about 1 lb)
1 teaspoon orange juice
pinch of salt
1/3 cup cornstarch
3 1/2 tbsp canola oil, divided
2 Cups pieces of broccoli
1 inch ginger, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
5-7 dried red chillies
2 green onions, white part only, cut into 1 inch length

Sauce

5 Tablespoons rice vinegar
6 Tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce
2 Tablespoons hoisin sauce
1/2 Cup water
1/4 Cup sugar
1 Tablespoon orange juice
2 Tablespoons cornstarch

Process

Marinate the chicken in orange juice and salt for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl and set aside.
Coat the chicken with the 1/3 cup cornstarch.
Over high heat, heat 2 Tablespoons of oil in a wok/large non-stick skillet.
Add the chicken and fry until cooked through. Remove and put on a paper towel lined plate.
Add the broccoli and stir every 20 seconds or so. After 2 minutes add 1/4 Cup of water and cover for 1 minute. Remove the broccoli, set aside.
Heat the remaining oil in the wok and add the garlic, ginger, and dried red chilies. Fry until you can smell the spices.
Add the sauce and mix. When the sauce boils and thickens add the chicken, broccoli, and green onions. Stir to coat everything with the sauce. Serve immediately with some hot steamed rice or quinoa.

Adapted from Chocolate and Chillies

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Brown Butter Sea Salt Cookies

December 15, 2014

I love cookie season!!!!!!!

This is cookie season right? Let’s go with it. It’s basically the only thing I like about winter.

I just love the variety of it all. Cake it great but you can’t eat 4 slices of different cakes without someone raising some concern for your well being. But eat 4 cookies, eh not so horrible.

So that is exactly why I was so excited for the First Annual Cookie Carnival from Secret Recipe Club. I’ve had so much fun with my monthly Secret Recipe Club posts the I knew this cookie themed post would be a blast. It’s just a blast to try a new recipe, especially cookies.

I was given Kates’s blog, A Spoonful of Thyme. I checked out her recipe index, which boasted plenty of cookie recipes. I checked them all out but the one that caught my eye was her Brown Butter Sea Salt Cookies.

I made browned butter recently and now I want to browned butter all the things. So I was gavitated to this recipe. Plus, Kate kinda put up a challenge for the recipe as she felt it could use some tweaking as it wasn’t as sweet as she preferred and a bit to dry. Of course, I wanted to give it a try then. I figured I would play around with it, like I do with more recipes anyway, and see what resulted.

I amped up the butter amount from 1 1/2 sticks to 2 sticks since she thought they were too dry. Plus, instead of browning both sticks up butter I would just brown 1 stick and cream the other stick of butter with the sugar, before adding in the browned butter. That would keep great browned butter flavor, but lighten up the texture.

Next I added more sugar to the original recipe. I noticed the recipe called for 1/2 Cup of browned sugar, but most cookie recipes I see use more so I added some more granulated sugar to help sweeten things up.

While I didn’t have the bakery cookies that inspired Kate to make her own, I can say that these are kick butt cookies. They are buttery, tender, crumbly, and totally amped up from the seat salt sprinkled on top.

I brought these into my office to share and they were a huge hit. I would love it for Kate to try out how I adapted her recipe and see what she thinks of it.

Brown Butter Sea Salt Cookies

Makes 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

2 sticks of butter
1/2 Cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/4 Cup sugar
1 teaspoonp vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Sea Salt for sprinkling

Process

Using 1 stick of butter, make the browned butter following these directions. Let cool.
Cream the other stick of butter with the brown sugar and vanilla extract. When that is light anf fluffy, pour the brown butterand mix to incorporate again.
In a small bowl whisk together the flour and the baking soda. Add to the butter and sugar mixture and mix. The dough will be slightly crumbly.
Roll the cookies into 1″ balls and sprinkle with sea salt. Press the top of the cookies lightly- to shape and help the salt stick. Let chill for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 325° F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper/silpat. Arrange the cookies on the baking sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown. Overcooking will make them dry and crumbly. Let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes prior to removing.

Adapted from A Spoonful of Thyme

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There are TONS of Secret Recipe Club members posting cookie recipes today. Check them out!!!