Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

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There are no words.  Just salivation.

Baking Bites (link here) does a post called “Bites from Other Blogs” where she  introduces you to new food blogs and recipes.  This one caught my eye, and thanks to always buying more than I need I had a fresh box of OREOS in the pantry!  It was fate, my friends, fate.

The recipe came from picky-palate.com and I will be forever thankful to both blogs for introducing me to this cookie!  Bless you, Jenny!  I am now subscribed to your blog : )

The only change I made was to use part of a bag of chocolate chips, some Heath bar bits, and some chopped semi-sweet chocolate to make the full 10 ounces.  I liked the combination of chips, chunks and bits of toffee.  It makes these cookies even better, in my opinion anyway.  These are so evil.  I recommend bringing somewhere to pawn them off on other people so that you are not tempted to eat them all yourself!

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • 2 sticks softened butter
  • 3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 Cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla
  • 3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 10 oz bag chocolate chips
  • 24 Oreo Cookies
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.   In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined.  Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.
  2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined.
  3. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie.  Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie.  Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough.
  4. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking.
  5. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Freezer Pastitsio

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I made this pasta dish back in November to prepare for Carson’s arrival.  We had so many generous people bringing us meals for the first month, then we went home for Christmas, so I hadn’t had an opportunity to make one of my freezer meals until last month.  If I had really been thinking, and if I’d bought more small baking pans, I would have divided this recipe between 2 pans so that we wouldn’t be stuck eating this huge casserole all week!  This pastitsio recipe makes an incredible amount of food.   I think it would feed at least 10 people.  Here is the link to the recipe.

I made some changes, some of which I wish I hadn’t.  Sometimes you can get away with taking liberties with a recipe, but sometimes you can’t.  It’s probably wise to make it the way it’s supposed to be made the first time.  Lesson learned.

When I consider the ingredient list and the way my house smelled while making this dish, I would have expected this to be crazy good.  But Ben and I both found it to be missing something…it was a little bland.  I left out the red wine…mistake.  It would have added some nice flavor.  I skimped on the butter and milk in the pasta mixture, but that didn’t seem to make the pasta less flavorful or too dry.  Since my pan wasn’t big enough, I couldn’t add all of the bechamel sauce…maybe that was part of the problem?  I’d also use Kalamata olives next time.

The pastitsio was good, just not the best.  I would try it again, making a half recipe and being more true to the original ingredients.  If you make a full pan and plan to freeze it, make sure to give the casserole at least a full 24 hours to thaw in the fridge.  Bake at 350 covered for about an hour, and uncovered for 30 minutes.  With a half recipe, I’d still use the long thaw time, and bake a little less.  More freezer meal updates to come!

Frosted Cocoa Brownies

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Oh my.  These are decadent.  I wish I hadn’t made a full recipe because now they’re calling to me from the kitchen, “Carrie, it’s just one more little piece of goodness.  No one will even notice that you ate me…except your jeans!  Mwahaha!”  I hate you evil brownies.

Desserts with which you have a love-hate relationship are usually the best ones.  This brownie recipe will be one that I will make again.  Simple ingredients.  Easy preparation.  Sinfully good.  And while I ate more than one for dessert, a normal person with a healthy relationship with sweets really only needs one to be satisfied.

I found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen, the recipe sharing site from the Pioneer Woman.  Here is the link to the site.  I’ve enjoyed searching through all the recipes, but have yet to submit any of my own.  There are already so many recipes with a pretty great variety that I don’t know if I will.  One of the things I like about sites like these is that real people made the recipes and so they are usually pretty easy and tasty.  Thank you, Tasty Kitchen!

On the site these brownies are called “Are We in Heaven?  No…It’s Just the Brownies.” which is what made me take a second look at this recipe.  I thought it was funny.  Would I say that these brownies are like being in heaven?  No.  Nothing on this earth is going to be that good.  But they are incredibly good.

The brownie is fudgy.  The frosting is pretty sweet, so a thin layer is all you need. (more…)

Pretzel Crusted Chicken

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The idea of covering a chicken breast in a pretzel crust is ingenious!  Add a mustard dill dipping sauce and this becomes an incredibly delicious meal.  This recipe is in the current issue of Fine Cooking, and can also be found here on their website.  Have I said before how much I love this magazine?  It is wonderful.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this chicken other than that it is super tasty.  It’s simple to prepare.  It uses the same breading process as most breaded chicken recipes; flour, egg, then crust.  While I don’t mind handling raw meat, I do HATE the mess that is unavoidable when breading chicken, and the number of times I find myself washing my hands.

I prepped everything (including breading the chicken) earlier in the day to avoid trying to get it all done right before dinner, which is more of a challenge with a little one who is now requiring an earlier bedtime.  I put the chicken in the fridge for about an hour, then let it sit out for about 20 minutes to avoid putting totally cold chicken into the pan.  I had to cook the chicken in 4 batches, so I kept it warm and the crust nice and crispy in a 200° oven.

I served the chicken with roasted veggies (cauliflower, brussel sprouts, red onion and broccoli) and egg noodles tossed with butter and parmesan cheese.  The dipping sauce, which I served in a seperate bowl along side the chicken, was delicious.  It added a great flavor to the already tasty chicken.

Maybe one day I will get smart about the amount of dinner I prepare for just the two of us.  Sometimes I find great uses for leftovers, and other times I end up throwing food away, which I absolutely hate doing.  I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get Ben to eat the leftover chicken.  The crust would just never be the same!  I ended up making sandwiches using a loaf of Italian flat bread that were pretty good. I used the mustard as a spread on both sides of the bread, topped it with a chicken piece then sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on top.  I wrapped each sandwich in foil and put them in the oven for about 25 minutes.

Enjoy! (more…)