Chewy Brownie Cookies

You know the best part of a brownie - that chewy yummy bit around the edges of the pan? Well, here you have it - in a cookie! No more fighting, there's enough for everyone.

I first got turned onto this recipe on Pinterest ... it was pinned from Divine Baking but it turned out she "adapted" the recipe from Epicurous. Yep - it's nearly identical ... so I'll compare what they did to what I did ... I don't think I can really call it an adaptation because the basis for the recipe is the same ... I just changed a few things.

Epicurous	My Changes or Comments
Nonstick vegetable oil spray	I keep a stick of butter in the fridge door and just use that to grease pans (mom's trick)
1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (about 9 ounces), divided	I used 200g chocolate which is only 7-1/2 oz. That's the size of baking chocolate here so it's easy and it was plenty. The bars are usually divided into 8 squares so I break 4 apart to melt and chop the other 4 for putting into the dough as chunks.
3 large egg whites, at room temp	no change
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar	I found 1-3/4 cups is plenty (1 cup goes in the eggs first and the other 3/4 cups gets mixed with the cocoa powder)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder	Get the best European cocoa powder  you can - trust me - avoid Hershey's ... if you need some I'll mail it to you ... it's worth it!
1 tablespoon cornstarch	no change
1/4 teaspoon salt	no change

Preheat oven to  175°C / 350°F. Spray 2 large baking sheets with nonstick spray or use a stick of butter.

Melt 1/2 the chocolate in glass bowl in microwave - I set the timer 30 seconds at a time, taking it out and stirring it each time until it's smooth. Cool slightly.

Using electric mixer, beat whites in large bowl to soft peaks. Gradually beat in 1 cup sugar. Continue beating until mixture resembles soft marshmallow creme.

Use a fork to combine 3/4 cup sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt in medium bowl. On low speed, stir dry ingredients into meringue.

Stir in lukewarm chocolate and the remaining chocolate cut into chunks. The recipe says the batter will be very stiff. Mine never has been but if your kitchen is warm I would recommend refrigerating the dough for at least a half hour.

Then you're supposed to roll the dough into balls - yuck! It's sticky and sometimes not stiff enough. So I just drop it by teaspoonfuls directly onto the baking sheet. And they turn out just as pretty and round without all the hassle but be sure to leave enough space between because they will spread.

Instead of rolling the balls in powdered sugar I just sift it generously over the top - perfect and a lot less messy! (In the pictures I wasn't generous enough ... will remember to use more next time. I was also reading the comments on Epicurous ... oh my goodness, there are a ton of comments about adding things like cinnamon to the dusting sugar, or chopped jalopenos, ginger or almonds to the batter. Hehe, this is obviously for me ... not the hubby except maybe the almonds.

Bake for 10 minutes until the tops are cracked. Cool on the sheets (on a rack) for 10 minutes then transfer to a rack and allow to cool.

Epicurous says this quantity makes about 24 cookies. Diving baking says it makes 18. Yikes, I don't know what size there cookies are but mine made 32 and they were plenty big enough - a tad bigger than my camera lens cap - so definitely big enough.

Roll 1 rounded tablespoon dough into ball; roll in sugar, coating thickly. Place on prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until puffed and tops crack, about 10 minutes. Cool on sheets on rack 10 minutes. Transfer to rack and allow to cool.

My GO-TO {pregnant} Salad

This being pregnant thing is crazy ... I know it's different for everyone. But I am so glad I pulled the straw I did ... I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING SWEET!

In fact it's the opposite .. the more savoury the better. Spicy, salty, you name it I am there. Salsa, Chili, Feta Cheese, OLIVES and Axel's fantastic spaghetti sauce are just a few things that get routinely rotated throughout the week.

But this week it's all about one of my all-time favorite salads. I used to order it at least once a week at a little cafe just a block from the newspaper offices in Everett.

The must have ingredients are a huge pile of fresh spinach leaves!

Plus spring (or finely chopped red) onions and lots of sliced mushrooms.

Optional ingredients include croutons, crumbled bacon and / or grated mature goat's cheese or parmesan.

But the SECRET? The secret is in the dressing!

Ok, so I don't actually use measurements .. I just start pouring into a glass jar until it looks right and adjust if necessary. It starts with soy sauce probably about 1/3 to 1/2 of the total quantity you're making. Then add a splash of vinegar - I use water I have on hand: rice, white wine, apple and you could probably even try balsamic, but I avoid just plain white vinegar - ew! Then double the quantity by topping up with oil and I always add a bit of water. Screw the cap on a give it a good shake! I love how it gets a bit foamy ... dip a spinach leaf in and taste ... maybe a bit more soy sauce (to add flavor and saltiness), if it's too strong add a bit more water. 

Let me tell you, this salad hits the spot every single time! I've had it for lunch every day this week.

With WINTER spinach I tend to tear it up quite a bit because the leaves are thicker. You can even get away with dressing this salad and tossing it a few times before serving.

With tender spinach you probably don't want to handle it as much - the leaves are usually more tender and smaller so dress and toss just before serving.

And enjoy!

Apple Spice Cake

September flew by and October was here before I could say boo! .. but was it really October?

The thermometer sure didn't agree .. we were basking in upper 20Cs (upper 70Fs) and complete sunshine without a cloud in the sky.  But the apples say fall. They've all been harvest .. and wow, what an improvement from last year. We had oodles, and we've received more as gifts from friends with abundant gardens: Quince, Pears, more Apples and fresh Walnuts - lovely!

So I confess .. there are no pictures .. the cake is gone. But wow, it was gorgeous - surely the best apple cake I've made in the last couple of years.

You'd like the recipe? Well that's easy, it can be found here. Yes, it's my staple carrot cake recipe. Just replace the shredded carrots for roughly chopped apples - I even leave the skin on. For seasoning this time I just used a teaspoon of ground nutmeg, but you can experiment too .. any combo of cinnamon, allspice and / or nutmeg work well. But don't over do it, I think the success this time was down to the wonderful flavor of the apples coming through without an overwhelming amount spice.

One thing that changes too is the baking time but I think even that's dependent on how juicy the apples are. My best advise is to start checking at 30-40 minutes and then every 5-8 minutes thereafter. The cake I baked to celebrate the 1st of October, my mostest favorite month took about 50 minutes.

I like to do mine in a bundt pan which does help with even baking .. plus it looks very pretty if served with a scoop of unsweetened whipped cream and a generous drizzle of the most amazing salted caramel sauce ever!

For Better or Worse - Roasted Tomato Sauce

It was our anniversary last week, on Thursday, we had nothing in the house and planned to go out on Saturday night but I still wanted to make a nice dinner.

We had *nothing* in the house ... except ... a bowl of very ugly tomatoes. It all looked so promising. A week earlier I had taken these photos. See those huge, multi-forking branches of big, beautiful ready-to-ripen homegrown tomatoes?

Well, a week later they looked like this! We've had a very, very rainy August and it was just too much for the dear things.



Some had ripened enough though that I was able to trim off all the bad spots, a whole bunch of garlic and a few scallions for the best ever Roasted Tomato Sauce.

It's a breeze to make ...

To spice things up just a tad, I added one. Axel 
is not a fan of hot but I didn't even notice it. 
Tonight I'm going for two and hoping for just a 
tiny kick. We can all use a little spicing up, right?

1. Cut tomatoes in half or quarters and squeeze out seeds (optional, the first batch I didn't, the batch I'm making for tonight I did - I think it will just make the sauce just that much smoother and more enjoyable.) Oh wait, "how many tomatoes?" you ask ... Enough that the bottom of the pan is covered. I used a 9" x 13" baking pan and it made enough sauce for four hearty servings.
2. Peel and roughly slice four to five or more scallions.
3. Peel as much garlic as you can stand - I probably used about 7-8 gloves and it was very garlicky but yummy good.
4. Add a chili pepper if you like some heat.
5. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and a healthy drizzling of olive oil.
6. After about an hour at 200C / 400F it looks something like the middle picture, I gave it a stir and then just kept checking it every once in a while until it was starting to brown and most of the juices  had evaporated.
7. Blend the sauce until it is smooth, serve over warm pasta and top with grated parmesan (or in my case now that we've discovered the source of all my tummy troubles - mature goat's cheese).

It turned out to be a lovely evening, Axel opened a couple bottles of wine and we devoured my peasant meal. Sometimes it pays to have nothing in the house, it's often my most creative moments. Not that roasted tomato sauce is all that original but it did make me feel better about losing that glorious crop. Better luck next year .. and here's to another 14. Cheers!

Zucchini Bread or Muffins

This simple recipe makes a wonderful, moist "bread" that's not too sweet.  The whole wheat flour adds a lovely nutty flavor and "healthy" color to the loaf.

Zucchini Bread

1-1/2 Cups / 300 g sugar
1 Cup / 235ml vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 Cups / 250 g all-purpose flour
1 Cup / 140 g whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups shredded zucchini
1 Cup / 100 g chopped walnuts or pecans - optional

Cream sugar and oil together. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add dry ingredients and mix well, the batter will be thick. Stir in zucchini

Bake at 350F / 175C for 45-55 minutes until golden brown and an inserted knife comes out clean.  Cool on wire racks for 15-20 minutes before removing from pan.  If baking muffins, check them at 25 minutes and monitor closely.

Makes two regular loaves or four mini loaves. I baked these in my Pampered Chef mini loaf pan and had enough batter left over for two ramekin-sized muffins.

Mock Apple Pie / Zucchini Pie / Courgette Pie

Click here to skip to the Recipe

Call it what you like but it's good and is sure helpful when trying to use up a bountiful zucchini harvest. My mom used to make it, we all thought she was weird or at least a couple of us did. But then I was faced with her dilemna, a HUGE zucchini that just couldn't be eaten between the two of us no matter how I did the math. A few years ago, my neighbour gave me the infamous monster zucchini along with a recipe for soup which I still need to try but it was soo hot that summer that soup didn't sound good so I turned the oven on instead. Yep, who's weird now?

So I made "apple" pies and took one to my neighbours, but didn't tell them anything. Well, these lovely people have huge sweet teeth so when I asked if they liked it they just said "it wasn't so sweet." Well, I cracked and confessed that it wasn't apple pie. A week later they baked and brought me a cake ... a Bretagne Apple Tart .. hehe with whole apples in it .. there was no mistaking what kind of pie that was.

A few weeks later I made mock apple pie again and took it to a friends. The husband is a bigger apple pie freak than Axel. We served up the pie with whip cream and dug in. Eh, it was ok but not completely doing it for me. There is just something very strange about eating a pie that tastes like apple but you KNOW it's zucchini. About five minutes into his piece, we asked Andy what he thought, to which he declared "this is an apple, APPLE pie, yummm!" Axel and I nearly fell out of our chairs, offended Andy in the process and confessed again.

The impetus to nail this recipe came yesterday when I decided to make it to take along to a cooking evening with a bunch of other ladies who also harvest at our local CSA. We have an over-abundance of Courgettes (Zucchini) and Red Beets. In the course of our evening we made five different Red Beet recipes - but that's a whole other story.

In the meantime, I can report that the pie went down a success and a few ladies asked for the recipe. Normally I would happy pass on the one I used but after I started to follow it I discovered things which were just a bit wacky so I cut back on this, added that, changed another so I'm just calling this one my own and telling you how I did it.

Mock Apple Pie / Zucchini Pie / Courgette Pie

---

6-7 cups zucchini - peeled, seeded and chopped
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 Cup / 220g packed brown sugar
3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

One package puff/filo pastry or a prepared pie crust or your favorite pie crust recipe. Yesterday I used a puff pastry, it was lovely and I think it's firmness held the pie together very well.

Crumble topping: Cut together: 1-1/4 Cups / 150g flour, 1/3 cup / 70g sugar, 1/3 cup / 75g butter or margarine.

1. Peel the zucchini, cut into quarters, cut out seeds (unless they're very young zucchini and then I don't bother) and chop into apple-pie like chunks. Toss these into a frying pan with the lemon juice and cook just until they're done and still firm enough to bite into. Pour into a sieve and allow to drain thoroughly while they're cooling.
2. In a separate bowl (large enough for your zucchini later), mix together the remaining four ingredients. Add the cooked zucchini and mix well.
3. Line 9-10" / 23-25cm spring-form with a pastry or the crust of your choice. Place the filling in the crust and sprinkle crumble mixture on top. If you're using a spring-form, pull the edge of the pastry away from the pan and fold down over the pie.
4. Bake at 400F / 200C for about 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Tongue in cheek disclaimer: I FORGOT to take a picture of the pie I made yesterday. I was stressing all day that it was going to turn into Mock Apple Flop and I completely forgot. So my pie looked different, but we just won't let that get in the way. It looked close enough.

I say Zucchini, He says Courgette

I only ever remember my mom making zucchini bread or pan-frying them like this ... but without the garlic and onions. Just a splash of salt and pepper.

And simple still tastes the best to me.  Chop on large-ish or several smalls, add a chopped red onion and a couple of gloves of garlic to a pan with a tad of butter. Don't overcook or stir them too much or they'll turn to mush. 

Tonight I even left out the salt and pepper and served them with rice, white fish and a fresh tomato salad - or toe-mah-toe salad as Axel would say.

If you think speaking "one" language at home should be easy .. think again .. we have had some funny moments and some frustrating ones.  We might say Tomato and Potato different but we spell it the same. If I'm looking for my purse, I better tell him it's my handbag that's missing. He keeps his purse in his back pocket while I keep my wallet in my purse.