Friday Favorites 1/23/15

Happy Friday everyone! Here are some of my favorite things from the internet that I've discovered in the past week, or have been shared with me by friends. 

Ever wonder what NFL players are really saying on the sidelines?  

The woman/food critic I aspire to be in my 80s 

Gosh I just love Kyle Mooney on SNL  

Dr. Steve Brule is getting his own show...for yer health  

Throwback to the Will Ferrell school of puppy training  

Some delicious dinners I want to make 

Anyone else still have an iPhone 4? Here's how to keep your battery alive if you're like me and it's down to 30% by the time you get to work.

Celebrating 40 years of the Puddle Jump at Bates College!

Coffee you can drink before bed?? YES PLEASE! 

calendar wisdom du jour

Have a wonderful day, everyone! Here are some tunes to get stuck in your head this weekend.

The best chocolate chip cookies- ever

My parents have subscribed to Cook's Illustrated Magazine for as long as I can remember. The editors develop recipes in what is called America's Test Kitchen- they honestly tweak and tamper with recipes 40, 50, 60 times in order to get the desired end result. In addition to publishing Consumer Reports style rankings of various cooking gadgets and ingredients, they are famous for developing recipes with "about 97 steps" (my dad's words, not mine.) While their recipes may be tedious and at first glance, overwrought with silly cadence (more on that later), they simply know how to do their job over at America's Test Kitchen- the recipe I want to share is their painstakingly developed recipe for Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies. This recipe lives up to it's name- I was a Tollhouse girl through and through until I met this recipe, and I haven't looked back since. The thing that really sets them apart from other chocolate chip cookies is the fact that they incorporate browned butter. The beautiful geniuses at ATK know what's up. My roommate and I have made these cookies several times, and this time we subbed m&m's and coconut for chocolate chips and nuts- I think any combination of mix-ins would be great as long as you make the base batter the same way and keep the same proportions for the mix-ins. And how could we not use these fun m&m's we found at Target in honor of the NFC and AFC championship games this weekend! 

Perfect for us- Packers colors, Patriots colors...and Browns colors?

Cook's Illustrated Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

simply the best

You will need:

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 14 tablespoons butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (they suggest dark brown but I think light brown is fine too)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg plus 1 yolk
• 1 1/4 chocolate chips (we used m&m's)
• 3/4 cup nuts (optional) (we used unsweetened flaked coconut)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and adjust the racks so you can use the one in the middle. 

2. Whisk together flour and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. 

3. Divide your butter into two portions- 10 tablespoons and 4 tablespoons. Cut up the 10 tablespoons into smaller pieces so they melt easier. In a medium non-stick saute pan, melt 10 tablespoons of butter. Stir constantly with a wooden spatula or spoon until melted butter starts to bubble. At this point, it will start to froth. Keep stirring. I think that it starts to smell like Parmesan cheese at this stage, which I know is weird, but it really does. Soon the bubbles will go down and it will clarify. Keep your eye on the butter and keep stirring until it starts to brown and smell caramel-y. Shut the heat off immediately and pour the butter out of the pan and into a glass liquid measuring cup or bowl. You don't want to take your eyes off the butter during this whole process- it takes a few tries to get it down but once you've browned butter a few times you will know what to look for and know once you've gone too far (you've gone too far if too much brown/black sediment starts to accumulate in the pan and it smells burnt). 

4. Add the remaining four tablespoons of butter to the browned butter and allow to melt. 

5. In a larger mixing bowl, add both sugars, salt and vanilla. Add the completely melted butter to this mixture and stir/whisk until combined. 

6. Separate your egg yolk and white, and add the separated yolk along with one whole egg to the sugar and butter mixture. Stir for about 30 seconds. Now here is where the 97 steps come in. Let this mixture stand for 3 minutes, then whisk for another 30 seconds. Repeat this process of resting and mixing twice more until the mixture has thickened up, but is smooth and shiny. 

7. Mix in the mix-ins- chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, candy, whatever! with a rubber spatula. Make sure that there are no flour pockets. 

8. Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out three tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. 

ready for their close up

 9.  Arrange six dough balls on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for 9 to 11 minutes. 10 minutes seems to work well for my oven. Shout out- these Reynolds parchment paper sheets are fantastic. Highly recommended!

tick tock tick tock almost ready!

11. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. They will be soft in the middle when they come out of the oven, but golden brown on top and bottom.

LL cool cookies (ladies love cool cookies...duh)

12. Hang up your apron and clean up.

every baker's kitchen should have an apron hook

 13. Enjoy!!

nom nom nom

What mix ins do you think we should try next? Leave a comment to let us know! 

And last but not least, some tunes! 

guess who's back...back again...amy's back...tell a friend

It's been a while! I'm hoping to bring this blog back from time to time, and now have a much more well equipped kitchen and much less temperamental oven at my disposal. Raising my glass (of almond milk) to this blog and diving in head first for 2015. 

In the meantime, here's some pretty things I've made in the recent past, mostly with my trusty baking partner and roommate. We're like two peas in a pod...or two halves of a bagel? The peanut butter to my chocolate? (She says she wants to be the chocolate.)

white chocolate covered honey pretzels

smitten kitchen chocolate pretzel cookies with sanding sugar

margarita cheesecake (baked with tequila)

apple pie with mom's signature apple cutout

spicy gingerbread cookies

christmas gingerbread- cows, whales, squirrels, dinosaurs

mom's peanut butter mousse cake

   

carrot cake baked donuts

my new pillow- her name is cocoa

See you back here soon for some treats and tunes. I want to incorporate more music into this blog. For now, here are some of my current songs I have stuck in my head.

Almost Vegan Summer Muffins

Welcome back to amycakes! I've been on hiatus for a while, and my excuse is that I moved, but that was 3 weeks ago so enough is enough! I made these muffins as an attempt to empty out my cupboards before moving- no one wants to transport half a bag of flour. It's much better suited baked into these summery muffins! This recipe was perfect because it used up so many ingredients I had on hand and I literally had the exact amount left for the muffins.

I got this recipie by scouring the internet on many bus rides to work- I had a naked lemon (had already been zested for my lemon blueberry cornmeal scones) and some unsweetened flaked coconut that I knew I wanted to use together. Coconut adds incredible texture to baked goods- I'm quite a fan of replacing walnuts with coconut in cookies and brownies. I finally found this recipe on the great vegan blog Oh She Glows. Definitely check that out for more great vegan cooking. Although I am not vegan, I don't eat a lot of meat in general and my undergrad dining hall had a great vegan station and prepared lots of vegan desserts and I always found them to often be healthier and tastiest than their non-vegan dessert friends. Plus, vegan cooking employs a lot of peanut butter, and that's never a bad thing! (I'm thinking that vegan-no-bake-chocolate-PB cookies may have to make an appearance on the blog sometime in the future.) I think the one food group that would prevent me from going fully vegan would be dairy. This girl loves cheese, ice cream and yogurt.

Okay getting side tracked. Here's my recipe for Almost Vegan Summer Muffins, inspired from Oh She Glows. I doubled Angela's recipe and used butter.

Please note the naked lemon

1 1/2 cup old fashioned oats (I had exactly that amount!)
1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour (again, just enough!)
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 cups unsweetened flaked coconut
1 stick softened butter (this was cutting down from what Angela used, but I will cut down more the next time I make them)
1 cup agave nectar
juice from one lemon
zest from one lemon (I did not put this in as I had a naked lemon (see above), but would use zest the next time)
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk

This was also the first time I baked with agave. It has a lower glycemic index than granulated sugar, but does have a somewhat strong honey/syrupy flavor. It also comes from the same plant that is used to make tequila, so I like it for that reason as well. I don't think the sugar : agave conversion is quite 1:1. But in case you've never used it or seen agave before, here it is!

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

2. Line a muffin pan with muffin liners or grease the tin with butter/oil spray. I used fun dinosaur muffin liners. 

Rawr!

 

 

 3. Mix together all the dry ingredients and set aside. This is pretty much the first step in any baking recipe.

4. Mix the liquid ingredients (including the coconut)

Getting it all mixed up in my messy old kitchen

5. Scoop the batter into muffin tin

Look at that TEXTURE! nom nom

6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. In my tempermental oven, it took almost 30 minutes. 

7. Cool before eating, and enjoy!

Perfect work breakfast!

1/4 Italian Cookies

I have been wavering all week about what to call this recipe. The original recipe, inspired by my coworker, was for funfetti cookies. You know, like the cupcakes you had for your (twenty) fourth birthday with the rainbow sprinkles baked inside. This recipe called for literally a cup of sprinkles, and boy was I in luck when I went to my local Tedesci while I had 15 minutes to kill because I missed my bus. I still wasn't sure if I was going to make these funfetti cookies as I wandered around the little shop. Connah- Stowah, if you will. (Seriously, there is a real store called that in the North End.) Amidst the off-brand chips, dental floss and 8 kinds of coconut water (I'm sorry, but I can't get on board with it. I just don't like it. There, I said it.) I found THIS:

Life time supply of sprinkles

Huge jar of sprinkles. I now HAD to make the funfetti cookies. The recipe I used is adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod and Tasty Kitchen.

Cookies! That dishtowel in the back has a map of the London Underground on it, in case you were wondering.

 1 cup room temperature butter (whenever I bake, usually after dinner- I just let the butter sit on the counter while I cook and eat dinner, and by the time I'm done, the butter is soft enough to use)

1 cup sugar
3 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sprinkles
1/2 cup slivered almonds

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar until well combined, and then add vanilla and egg. In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients except the sprinkles and almonds. Once everything else is mixed up, add the sprinkles and almonds, but do not overmix- stir until everything is just blended- you want the almonds and sprinkles to retain some integrity. Bake for 15 minutes on a parchment paper lined sheet. Cool on a wire rack.... (....or just eat right off the baking sheet like I did...) and enjoy!

So colorful

I'm not going to lie- I think I overbaked these a bit- my oven is extremely temperamental (I honestly didn't know that is how that word is spelled. You learn something new every day.) so I always opt for the longer end of baking times when a range is given. When I make them again (because I clearly have to with all the sprinkles of which I am now the proud owner) I will either bake them for less time, or add another egg or some milk. I didn't think they were as chewy as I would have liked them to be. However, since they were so crisp, and with the addition of the almonds, they reminded me of Italian Bakery Cookies!

Italian Bakery! Buttery, almondy cookies. Photo Credit: weheartastoria.com

 Since I am 1/4 Italian, that is why I am calling these "1/4 Italian Cookies" because they aren't quite funfetti cookies, but the funfetti cookies' Mediterranean cousin. Either way, they tasted good, and that's what matters!

You say tomato, I say toh-mah-toes are delicious

This is my dog, Jack. He's super furry, super cute, and has super weird tastes in food.

That's his spider monkey toy in the background.

Meaning, he loves all fish (mostly salmon and tuna) and, as I discovered yesterday, tomatoes. So this post is dedicated to him. My family has a theory that he was a bear in a past life; he kind of looks like one now- not the grizzly bear kind, but the teddy bear variety. He also has no survival skills and I feel like the other forest animals would make fun of him (for his cuteness) if he were released into the wild, so his bear past life was probably several reincarnations ago.

Princess Jackson

Plus, he'd have to sacrifice the cushy standard of living to which he is accustomed, so I think he's going to stick around in a domestic environment.

Clearly getting sidetracked- this is supposed to be about food that I, and my dog (strangely enough) both enjoy. The other night, I made a tuna melt on whole wheat mini bagels with a side of sauteed baby kale. Tuna melts are a quick, protein (and flavor) packed dinner.

Such a good dinner! And ready in about 10 minutes

First, toast your bagel. The oven won't toast your bagel, so it's best to do this step before preparing the rest of the melt. Prepare your tuna how you like it (I do a bit of mayo, pepper, and lots of chopped celery), and then put it on top of your toasted bagel. Put a few slices of tomato and some cheese as well- I like to use sharp cheddar. Place under a hot broiler until the cheese is nicely melted (should take 5 minutes or so), and enjoy!

Cheeeeeeeesy

I've been using a new method lately to sauté vegetables. Sautéing usually involves using oil, but you can achieve the same end result by using a much healthier substitute, vegetable broth. To make my baby kale (which cooks up very similarly to spinach), I put a tablespoon of veggie broth, and a clove of minced garlic in a medium-hot pan, added my kale, and stirred until it was wilted. It tastes delicious and cuts down on oil! Since I was having cheese and a fatty fish like tuna to accompany my kale, this was definitely the way to go!

I will probably make another tuna melt this week with the tomatoes my brother and I picked in my mom's garden this weekend. While we were harvesting, we threw out some of the more rotten/bug eaten tomatoes into a pile. Jack got into said pile, and had a small (3 tomatoes?) snack for himself. Odd snack for a dog, but he really seemed to enjoy them! We picked a ton of yummy, ripe tomatoes, and since my mom is kind of is overrun by tomatoes right now, so I'm happy to take them off her hands!

Check out those Goliath tomatoes in the back!

I'm planning some tomato and cottage cheese lunches, as well as plain ol' tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and basil! Insanely delicioso and insanely easy! I know Jack is going to miss me when I go back to my apartment...

You're leaving?!?

But I'll be sure to eat many a tomato this week and think of him fondly!

YUM!

Blueberry Lemon Cornmeal Scones = YUM

Since summer is winding down, my love affair with fresh berries will come to a halt because I refuse to pay $7 for a half pint of strawberries in November- sorry Trader Joe. Summer is the perfect time to take advantage of all the fruits that are in season, especially ones grown locally. A great friend of mind visited family in Maine this past weekend and was so kind to bring me a pint of fresh picked Maine blueberries that she bought at a farmer's market in Bar Harbor. She even saw Martha Stewart at the aforementioned market, so these have to be some great berries. With instructions to "look for blueberry recipes," my mind immediately went to blueberry and lemon- two of my favorite flavors to combine. I am also in the process of moving (aka haven't actually started packing but am *thinking* about it and getting stressed out) so I want to use up any ingredients I have in my cabinets. I have a three-quarters full jar of cornmeal, so I knew that had to be included as well. The recipe I ended up using is adapted from Life on Breck Hill.

Ingredients:
1  1/3 cups flour
2/3 cup white cornmeal (yellow would work too)
2 Tbsp sugar
2 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup buttermilk (I used vanilla soy milk + 1 Tbsp white vinegar)
1 egg
Zest from one lemon
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 tsp cornstarch

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. Add butter and combine until the mixture becomes crumbly. I used a potato masher (and my hands) for this step because I don't have a pastry cutter. Create your "buttermilk" or use actual buttermilk if you're fancy like that. I'm not. Into the same measuring cup, break the egg. Zest the lemon (just use the finest side of a regular cheese grater) and add to the other liquids. Mix to break the egg yolk. Add the liquids to the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Toss the blueberries in the cornstarch until coated, and then add the blueberries to the rest of the ingredients. (Yes I was using a tablespoon measuring spoon to mix everything. Don't judge. It saves on dishes, and I'm all about that.)

Scoop out onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet until you have 12 scones. Sprinkle a little bit of raw sugar (I use Trader Joe's Turbinado Sugar) on top of the scones. Tip- see that small scone in the bottom left? That's my tasting sample. I always try to make one scone/cookie/muffin/cupcake a bit smaller than the other ones so that I can taste it the day I bake them to make sure they're edible enough to serve to other people! Also I just want to taste my creation right out of the oven- who wants to wait?!

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Clean up the mess you created.

And enjoy!