Easter 2008

A few years ago I took a cookie decorating class at Central Market with a friend. While my first few attempts at these fancy decorated cookies were not exactly bakery quality I learned some really helpful tips that I’ve practiced since then. I’ve made cookies for my cousins’ and sisters baby showers, a wedding shower and of course for Christmas. Last week was my spring break, so I made some for Easter. It’s a time commitment. About 4 days all said and done. However, definitely worth it in my opinion. I have made the cookies from scratch in the past, but to save time I’ve been using a sugar cookie mix from Betty Crocker which works pretty good. I followed the instructions on the bag for cut-out cookies and then chilled the dough in the fridge for about an hour before I rolled it out. Watch them closely when baking or they’ll burn, and I don’t know anyone who likes burnt cookies.

sugarcookiemix

We used the egg-shaped cookies as place cards for Easter lunch on Sunday. Lunch, by the way, was spectacular. Ham, corn pudding, roasted rosemary potatoes, green beans, rolls and lemon tarts. I stuffed myself silly and had to take a nap when we got home. The sign of a good meal.

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Take 5 Cookies

I found this recipe on cookiemadness.net and it sounded like a great combination of flavors and textures. Crunchy, creamy, sweet and salty. The cookie is a tribute to the Hershey’s candy bar “Take 5” which is peanut butter, caramel and pretzels covered in milk chocolate…delicious. The original recipe is on the cookiemadness site. This recipe is basically the same with a few changes I made. I was pleased with the way they came out. The caramel was tough. I would probably make my own caramel the next time so that it is easier to drizzle. Simply melting the store bought kind never got smooth enough to make a pretty drizzle, more like clumps which isn’t too pretty.

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Take 5 Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 Cups creamy or chunky peanut butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups chocolate chunks (your choice of intensity, just use good chocolate)
1 cup of pretzel sticks lightly crushed (good and salty) plus more for garnish
soft caramels to melt and drizzle

Preheat oven to 325. Line baking sheets with parchment.

Stir together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.
In medium bowl, cream together butter and sugars until creamy. Add corn syrup and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the peanut butter, beating until the mixture is light and fluffy. Stir in the flour mixture. Mix in half of the chocolate and the pretzels.

Drop dough by soup spoon full onto cookie sheets. Add 3 or 4 more chunks of chocolate on top and a few nice size pieces of pretzel so that they will show nicely when baked off.

Bake the cookies for 15 minutes, until they are lightly golden around the edges. Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.

When cool drizzle with caramel.

Yield: approximately 40 cookies

Steak Dinner…without a grill

Ben and I have were forced by our apartment complex to get rid of our grill a few months ago. It’s some ordinance of the city of Waco. Anyway, one of Ben’s favorite meals (and the one thing he cooks) is steak. How can you make a good steak without a grill? Well, last night was our second attempt at searing the steaks in a hot pan on the stove and then finishing them off in a 500 degree oven for about 3 minutes. The verdict: not as good as a steak from the grill, but it turned out to be pretty good. We also had brie and crackers, a nice salad with feta cheese and pecans, and bread. The red wine we had was something we hadn’t tried before, a cabernet and shiraz blend from Pechuga. It wasn’t incredible, but it was good.

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Texas A&M @ Baylor Basketball

I had the opportunity to attend the Texas A&M Men’s Basketball game against Baylor last week. I’m an Aggie living in Waco, so I knew I would be in enemy territory. But I also knew that there would be quite a few Aggies at the game since College Station is so close to Waco. So, I figured it would be safe…I turned out to be very wrong about that. My Dad (a UT alum turned Aggie fan) came up from Round Rock to go to the game. As we walked up to the Ferrell Center I expressed my opinion that the Aggies were going to get killed. My Dad, however, was under the opinion that we were going to pull it out. I won’t go into all the details of the game…I am no sports writer. The Ags ended up winning the game 71-57. It was a tense game and emotions ran high. “Aggies Suck” chants from Baylor echoed in the stands, old bald Baylor fans got into arguments with young Aggie fans, and popcorn and cokes were hurled in anger onto the court with just a few seconds left in the game. It was invigorating! I had never attended such an exciting game, and I imagine I never will again. The Baylor fans had bad manners and so I felt OK about cheering pretty loud, clapping at every little positive thing and punching Baylor fans in the face. Allright, I didn’t punch anyone…but there was this guy a few rows down from me who deserved it! I love college basketball and I love A&M. I think Josh Carter is adorable.

Josh Carter

A New Signature Scent?

For the past few years I’ve been switching off loyalties between Dolce and Gabbana’s Light Blue and Babydoll by Yves Saint Laurent. I’ve some flings along the way, but I’ve always come back to those faithful few. I recently tried Angel by Thierry Mugler and it was nice, but not worth committing to. But now, I may have found something promising! It’s called Lolita Lempika and not only is the bottle one of the coolest and most fun things to spray (the sprayer is like an apple stem!) but it smells just delicious. It’s sweet but musky at the same time. Anyway, if you get a chance to try it on, take it. Better yet, go to Sephora and they’ll make you a little sample that lasts a few wears so you can tell how it smells on you. A very yummy perfume…I’m liking it.

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Pizza Party

Making pizza from scratch has always been one of those things that I’ve wanted to try but had been pretty intimidated by. This weekend I decided to face my fears and take on this challenge. I got my recipe for pizza crust from The Best New Recipe. I love this cookbook because it explains so much about what to do, what not to do, and what could go wrong and why. PIZZA1PIZZA2PIZZA3PIZZA5The book even includes diagrams showing how to shape the dough! Of course, even with diagrams I managed only one well shaped pizza. The dough was easy with the help of a food processor and stand mixer. The dough rose well in about an hour and a half. The question of sauce had the lazy part of me and the foodie part of me at odds with each other. Do I use jarred sauce for ease, or do I make sauce for better flavor? That question was answered when I checked in The Best New Recipe cookbook and found a super simple sauce that had 5 ingredients, took all of 20 minutes to make and was delicious. My wonderful sister Sarah drove up from College Station for the night to help with the rest. (more…)