The BBFCCCC's

Oh ya, I HAD to try it! The BBFCCCC's (as in Best, Big, Fat, Chewy, Chocolate Chip Cookies)
All Recipes BBFCCCC link
This recipe has a zillion fab reviews on All Recipes and I needed to find out what all the hype was about.
Well, it was all about these excellent cookies!!





INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I used mini chips for mine)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

They came out spectacular! Nate loved them and I took two to work today and they received rave reviews!! I'll still make my ole reliable Chocolate Chip Cookies, but this is a great tried and true recipe that really is fantastic!

Beer Can Chicken~

Oh MY! This is every bit as good as everyone says!! We saw it for the first time several years back when Bobby Flay did it on the Food Network and I've been dying to try it for ages! There are a million differnt rubs, sauces in-can ingredients, possibilities to how you make it and I'm sure eveyone does their own thing a bit so here is what we did...

The Basics
1 4-5 lb whole chicken (not frozen, giblets removed)
1/2 full can of Bud Light beer
Disposable baking pan/dish for the grill
A Grill

In the Can
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 spoonfull spice rub * recipe below
2 sprigs fresh rosemary

Spice Rub (not exact measurements, just made aprox 1 1/2 cup total of the stuff)also I had some leftover...
Kosher Salt about 1/3 c.
Black Pepper about 1/3 c.
Onion Powder about 1/4 c.
Garlic Powder about 1/4 c.
Cayanne Pepper about 1/4 c.

1/2 stick of butter cut into thin slices

Or use any spice rub that you want! :)



Instructions:
Crack the beer and drink half of it- I love recipes that start this way!

Rinse the chicken and pat dry with paper towel & put it on a plate
Mix all the rub ingredients together in a bowl.
Use a spoon to spoon rub mix onto the chicken and rubdown until completely covered
Add Garlic, Rosemary and a spoonfull of rub mix to beer can
Insert beer can in backside of the chicken and stand it up in the pan (as shown above)

On the Grill on low heat, roast the chicken for 3 hours.
Basting and adding little slices of butter to the drippings every 30 minutes for first hour, every 15-20 minutes for second hour and every 10 mintues 3rd hour.

Remove from grill & let sit for 5 minutes
Using tongs and a helper hold the chicken and lift up, the helper can poke with the baster through the neck hole to push the beer can out- be really careful, the liquid is all VERY HOT!

Quarter the chicken using a very sharp knife and kitchen shears.
Here are Food Network's Instructions:
How To Quarter a Chicken


We had this with garlic mashed red potatoes, and grilled corn on the cob. I can't wait to make it again. Moist, delicious and WONDERFUL!

Bakingblonde's Berry Cheesecake Muffins~

I hope I didn't mess this recipe up too bad! I definately pulvurized the raspberries, and used 6oz of cream cheese but the cheese mixture seemed thin,which could have been the liquid from pulvurized berries~ sometimes even with directions right in front of me- chaos is the only outcome! Nate freaking LOVED them, I was expecting something that had like a layer of cheesecake in it, and since I wasn't sure what they were supposed to look like, so I was on the fence till I had one. They might have come out a little funky looking- but the taste was gooood!
I got this recipe from Bakingblonde on the Nest's What's Cooking? Board. Thanks, it's a keeper! I'll defintely try to make them again sometime... Also, I skipped the pecans because I totally spaced buying them at the store!





Definitely Berry Cheesecake Muffins
By Bakingblonde
1/3 cup butter, room temp
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temp
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup milk
6 oz. cream cheese, softened (I used 3oz. regular, 3 oz. 1/3 less fat)
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg, room temp
1/2 cup fresh raspberries (I used about 3/4 cup)
1 cup fresh blueberries (I didn't have quite a full cup)
3 TBS brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1 TBS butter, chilled
Preheat oven to 375. Lightly spray a muffin tin with PAM spray.
In a small mixing bowl combine the baking powder, flour and cinnamon. Set aside.

In large mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and mix well. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternating with the milk. Using an ice cream scoop, fill the prepared muffin cups 1/2 full with batter. Set aside.
In a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and mix well. Add the egg and mix to combine and mixture is smooth.
Fold in the fresh berries. Divide mixture evenly over batter in muffin tin by dropping by tablespoonfulls on top of batter in the muffin tins.
In another small bowl combine the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon and pecans. Stir to combine well. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry blender or two knives until crumbly.
Sprinkle crumb topping evenly over cream cheese/fruit mixture in each muffin cup.

Bake for 22-27 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes and transfer to rack.
Serve warm for breakfast or with a scoop of ice cream for dessert

300 Gougeres

No I did not make 300 of these lil'devils~ On Sunday we went to a friends for dinner & to watch the movie 300 on DVD (they have some special DVD player and TV so it was all 1080p which was exciting) I don't think I'm going to include a movie review, so back to the baked cheese balls). We brought these with some dry salami and wine. The recipe comes from the Williams Sonoma Briday & Groom Cookbook that we recieved as a shower gift.
Next time I'll add some roasted garlic and herbs, maybe try different cheeses...(makes about 2 dozen cheesy balls)Here is a link to a WS recipe on their site, different than the book a bit, but for reference~
Recipe on Williams Sonoma




3 T Butter
3/4 C Flour
3 Large Eggs
1 1/3 C Gruyere Cheese
1/4 tsp Ground Cayenne
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt or more to taste

Preheat oven to 375 and line baking sheets with parchment (baking) paper.
Combine butter and 1/2 C water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.
Add the flour all at once, quickly stirring with a wooden spoon, until the batter is glossy and smooth and pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.
The dough will form a ball around the spoon.
Remove from the heat and add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition until thoroughly incorporated.
Stir in cheese, cayenne, and salt.
Use 2 spoons or a pastry bag with out a tip to form 1-inch balls on the prepared baking sheet. Bake untill balls double in size and turn golden brown and a thin bladed knife incerted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cook slightly or compeltetly before serving.

*Our store did not carry Gruyere (and we didn't have a great back up plan- so we went with an aged Gouda, which was good- I still want to try it with Gruyere and definately want to try it with roasted garlic and some herbs. It was yummy and there was not one leftover!

Turkey Fajitas & Guac

This week we went to our local farmers market for the first time. It was still open when we got home from work Tuesday night so we walked over there with Leela and scoped it out. I still had red bell peppers and a maui sweet onion from our excursion so I thought fajitas would be good. I found this recipe on Foodnetwork.com and modified it only slightly.
I also made some brown rice and guacamole and our friends brougt over chips & beans and it was really good!
Food Network Recipe





3 tablespoons canola oil
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pound skinless, boneless turkey breast, cut into thin strips
1/2 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 dashes cayenne pepper
6 large red leaf lettuce leaves
2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro leaves
4 ounces shredded Colby Jack cheese, Monterey Jack, or Cheddar
1/4 cup sour cream
Equipment: toothpicks
Heat the oil in large skillet over high heat. Add the onion, peppers, and garlic and cook, stirring, until slightly softened. Add the turkey, cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne and cook, stirring, until cooked through, about 5 minutes.
Spoon a couple tablespoons of the turkey mixture on the inside of a lettuce leaf, top with a tablespoon of cheese and a dollop of sour cream, and roll up like a burrito. Close with toothpicks. Repeat to make 6 wraps total.
Serve with salsa picante and guacamole, if desired.

*here's what I changed;
(first I noticed they include cilantro as an ingredient then...never mention it in the instruction...anyhow...)
I used Olive Oil and sauteed the onions, bell peppers (I used 2 red instead of 1 red one green), cilantro and garlic- then set aside and covered.
Then satueed turkey and spcies (using Misto Olive Oil sprtizer a bit while stirring)
I served it with warm tortillias (instead of lettuce wraps)topped with guacamole and sour cream with refried beans and brown rice & chips on the side.





Guacamole- winged it;
3 ripe avacados
1/4 chopped maui sweet onion
Lemon juice (squeezed most of the juice of one small-med lemon)
1 finely chopped jalapeno
a few pinches of chopped cilantro
pinch of kosher salt
dash (or two)hot sauce
spoonfull of sour cream

Mix & serve... (and usually cover an refridgerate about an hour befoer serving, but we ate it right away)

Pineapple Cherry Whomp Cake

This is a pretty well-known uber basic recipe~ It is usually knows Pineapple Dump Cake but Nate was not thrilled when I told him that's what it was called. It got the name because all you have to do is dump the ingredients into a baking pan and cook.
Also Nate's note on this one is that he prefers it in small amounts ontop of vanilla icecream. I agree that is a very, very sweet desert!




1 Can Cherry Pie Fillin
1 Can crushed pineapple (in it's own juice)
1 Box yellow cake mix
1 stick (1/2 c. Butter)thinly sliced or small cubes
1 lg bag crushed pecans

8x11 baking pan

Preheat oven to 350
Spray baking pan with non stick spray
Spread cherry pie filling in a even layer across bottom of pan
Pour & spread can of pineapple and it's juice evenly over cherries
Sprinkle the cake mix (dry) as evenly as possible over cherries & pineapples
Spread even layer of pecans over top
Spread butter as evenly in possible either in thin slices or little cubes over top
Bake 40-50 minutes or until brown & bubbly~

Chicken with Lemon Caper Sauce

This recipe came from All Recipes.com, it was perfect because it was already a "for two" recipe- and I actually had almost all the ingredients, so we gave it a whirl and really liked it!
All Recipes Link to Recipe

1 pinch salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 (6 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 tablespoons capers, drained
2 lemon wedges

Mix together salt and flour in a plastic bag, then coat chicken and shake off excess. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Shake excess flour from chicken, then brown in hot oil until both sides are golden-brown, and the inside has turned white and firm, 3 to 4 minutes per side.
Remove the chicken, and set aside in a warm place. Pour white wine into the skillet, and allow to boil as you dissolve the cooked bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the lemon juice, and allow to come to a boil, cook for a few minutes until reduced by half.
Sprinkle the cubed butter into the boiling sauce. Swirl and shake the pan vigorously to dissolve the butter, thus thickening the sauce. The butter must never come to rest, or the sauce will separate and become oily. Once the butter has completely incorporated, remove from heat and stir in capers.
To serve, pour lemon-caper sauce over the chicken, and serve.

A "Little" Tip~




I am not a white wine drinker for the most part, and everytime I buy a bottle "for cooking" so much of it goes to waste. I found these little bottles (they come in a 4 pack) and one was the perfect amount (minus the "make-sure-it's-not-poison" swig I took)and no waste!