A Tale of Two Cookies

I own and love the baking book from Rosies, a local bakery that makes (among other things) the best brownies in existence. I originally had a craving for a Peanut Butter cookie with chocolate chips. I started with her basic recipe

Ingredients
1 stick butter, room temp
1/2 cup + 1tsp white sugar
1/2 cup + 1 tsp brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups + 2tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda

Instructions
combine dry ingredients
Cream butter and sugar
Add egg, vanilla and peanut butter
Gradually add dry ingredients
Chill dough for a few hrs
Bake at 350 for 8-10 min

Alterations
For the peanut butter cookies, I only did a half cup of each sugar, and added a tablespoon of honey (peanut butter and honey sandwiches are a favorite treat of mine). I also added peanut butter anc chocolate chips and an extra 1/4 tsp salt to balance the honey.  Also, to chill the cookies I rolled them into tubes, wrapped them in cling wrap and threw them in the freezer for an hour. Then when you want cookies, preheat the oven, slice and bake

These cookies led to another idea: nutella cookies. I replaced the peanutbutter with nutella, only added 1/2 cup of each sugar, and upped the salt ( I did a whole teaspoon, next time I would do 3/4). I also added an additional 1/2 tsp of hazlenut extract because we had it on hand, a half cup chopped hazlenuts and a cup of white chocolate chips. I am pleased with the result.

http://www.rosiesbakery.com/rosies-bakery-cookbook/

Experimental Cherry Bourbon Sour

To supplement our farmshare produce, I like to hit up Haymarket, a chaotic outdoor produce market in downtown Boston that happens every Friday and Saturday. It is crazy cheap, with vendors shouting and people from every walk of life jostling for the best deals.

A few tips:
1. make a pass through before you buy. One vendor may be selling 3 lemons for a dollar, but a few stalls down another vendor will be selling 5 for a dollar

2. Bring a market bag. Otherwise you get stuck with a zillion crappy thin plastic bags that rip

3. Bring small bills. Its cash only.

4. Best deals are on rainy days and later Saturday

Anyhow, there have been a bunch of bing cherries, so I pitted about half a pound and soaked them in some Jim Beam with a slice of orange peel to make cherry infused boubon.

I made myself a whiskey sour of a sort tonight.

2oz bourbon
1.5 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz agave (couldn't find the simple syrup)

The cherry infusion makes it pretty sweet, as does the agave. I like it, but I like sweeter drinks than some. Next time I might cut back on the agave, and/or use lime instead of lemon

Quickie Farmshare Panzanella

I'm always looking for ways to use our farmshare veggies. We had some cucumbers, tomatoes, basil and flat leaf parsley. I also picked up some "fresh yesterday" bread and fresh mozerella. I had a lemon that was about to go, and the usual garlic and olive oil in the pantry.

First, I crushed some garlic and heated it up in olive oil to flavor the oil.

I cubed up the bread and tossed in the olive oil. Then I toasted it in the oven.

I used the leftover oil, juice and zest of a lemon, a grated garlic clove, salt, pepper and fresh oregano from the garden to make a vinagarette.

Then I chopped up a cucumber, one and a half tomatoes, and some fresh mozarella.

I took the toasted bread cubes, veggies, and cheese, and toss with the vinagarette.

Then I took a fistful of basil and parsley, chopped it up and sprinkled on top.

It may need extra salt

Let it sit so the bread can soak in the dressing

NOM!

Blueberry Cornmeal Cookies

For some reason, I really like cornmeal and blueberries together. I had some blueberries from the CSA farmshare leftover, so at first i thought i would make Blueberry Cornmeal pancakes or muffins, but then I found this recipe on the Five Star Foodie blog. I made a couple of changes and doubled the recipe. They came out pretty tasty!

Ingredients
1 cup blueberries
1/12 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup flour
pinch salt
1/2 cup softened butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp almond or hazlenut extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 lemon

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• combine cornmeal, baking powder, flour and salt
• cream butter and sugar
• add eggs, extract and zest
• slowly combine dry into wet
• by hand stir in blueberries
• bake 1 tbsp drops in 350 oven for 12-14 min or until edges start to brown