Remix: Peanut Butter Cookies

When I say peanut butter cookies, I know what you're thinking:

(peanut butter + sugar + eggs) * oven = cookie

Well, it's time to rethink the peanut butter cookie. The original recipe came from Alice Medrich's book, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-your-Mouth Cookies. I made two batches--one was exactly as she specified in her book, the other with my own addition. Mine won, hands down.

These are the originals, with chopped peanuts on top

The cookie itself is crispy but gets stuck in your teeth like cotton candy. The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup I snuck in the middle? The chocolate and peanut butter melt and stick to your tongue. It's an incredible play of textures.

The best part? The cookie is only 50 calories.

You'll burn off at least 2 cookies if you whisk by hand.

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Peanut Butter Surprises

makes 30-35 cookies

adapted from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich

Equipment

whisk + really strong arm OR electric mixer OR stand mixer

bowl

measuring cups OR scale+1 measuring spoon

rubber spatula (OR something similar)

parchment paper

2 baking trays

plastic bag OR pastry bag OR spoon

oven

Ingredients

3 egg whites

0.125t cream of tartar

4.60 oz sugar (2/3c)

3oz chunky all-natural peanut butter (1/3c)

2 bags Reese's Minis (they come in bags and are pre-unwrapped)

chopped peanuts (optional)

Book Review: The Curious Cook by Harold McGee

Another book I found hiding in the university's chemistry library, this was a fairly fun and entertaining read. You may have heard of Harold McGee—he writes for the New York Times and has written a couple of other books (one of which I'm currently reading!).

The Curious Cook is basically a book about playing with food. By playing, I really mean performing pseudo-scientific experiments. The first part of the book reads like a series of lab reports, just lab reports from the best lab course you could ever take.

McGee talks about searing meat, sous vide cooking, beurre blanc and persimmons from an objective and scientific standpoint, creating experiments to explain the chemistry behind the concepts. While the chapters aren't as in depth as his tome On Food and Cooking, they're a lot more fun and accessible. Plus, I'm game to read any book that has a whole chapter on sorbet, particularly if that chapter has recipes and instructions for making your own.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't really go out with a bang. The second part of the book is about food and our health, including heart disease and cancer. Although his explanations of how food might affect our health did give me more information, they weren't as accessible as the first few chapters.

The highlights
- It's a fun, light, easy read.
- It piqued my scientific curiosity about food, and made me think about ways to ask and answer my own questions.
- The last few chapters were really a lot less fun to read.

The verdict:
This book would make the perfect present for a teenager who likes both science and food (but maybe doesn't have a huge background in either). It also has a few pretty handy reference tables scattered throughout the book. It's a cheap enough book that I would consider purchasing it as a reference book, especially if I made a lot of fruit ices/sorbets or cooked a lot of meat.

Pots de Creme

A few minutes after I asked D what he wanted for dinner, I found myself clicking on the first post on Tastespotting--pots de creme from Lick My Spoon.

I had everything on hand, so I made them. As with every other food blogger, I made my own substitutions (otherwise why would I bother posting again--I could just direct you to her post!).

First, I used peppermint tea (with loose peppermint leaves) instead of coffee. I brewed it strong, but you could hardly taste the mint. I think it needed mint extract!

Second, I used extra bittersweet chocolate, because it's what I had on hand. Next time I'd made it with semisweet. D found it a little bit too bitter for his tastes, although I thought it was delightful.

In other news, I started my culinary school application today!

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Chocolate Pots de Creme
makes 4 servings

Equipment
hot beverage maker (tea kettle, microwave, coffee maker, etc)
blender (see Notes if you don't have a blender!)

Ingredients
6 oz. semisweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
2 eggs
1t vanilla extract (or mint extract)
0.5t salt
4oz. very hot peppermint tea, brewed very strong (0.5c, although beware it evaporates fast, so brew a little bit extra)

M+D's Favorite Pasta Sauce

A while back my dad sent me his amazing meat sauce recipe... but I lost it. I asked him for it again, but I don't think he ever remembered to resend it (probably for fear that I would lose it again and it would fall into undeserving hands).

Found this frying pan in the kitchen. It was perfect for tossing.

Instead, D and I searched the archives of Tastespotting for a recipe and found this one. Of course, we didn't actually follow the recipe (for a lot of reasons) but it ended up being delicious.

Over the past year, it's transformed a couple of times and improved a lot. It takes a decent amount of time to get everything in the pot, but most of it is inactive time. It's a great project if you're working on something else in the kitchen--writing blog posts, watching a movie or even making/decorating cookies.

The instructions are long, but they're very step by step. (You don't even have to read all the way through them before starting--they walk you through when to chop and when to add.)

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M+D's Meat Sauce
makes enough for 3lbs of pasta

Equipment:
Cutting board
Chef's knife
Wooden spatula
Medium frying pan
Large pot (plus one for cooking pasta)
Grater (for nutmeg)
Butter knife (or you can use the chef's knife)
Sink
Two burners

Worth every minute. Yum!

Ingredients:
2T olive oil
3T butter, divided
0.5 large onion
2 large carrots or 2 handfuls of baby carrots
2-3 stalks of celery (you want about the same amount as the carrot)
4 cloves garlic
1.5lbs ground beef (as fatty or unfatty as you desire)
1c milk

1 can sweet corn kernels

1 can (15oz.) beef broth (or you can use half broth and half wine--we weren't 21 when we first started making this recipe)
1 32oz. can and 1 15oz can of whole peeled tomatoes (if you have tomato haters, use crushed or diced, or crush them with your hands)
5-10 brown mushrooms (optional, although D's pretty upset that they ever became an option..)
1t red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
1-2t Italian seasoning, basil or thyme (whatever you have)
0.5 nutmeg
salt, pepper

(Almost Vegan) Banana Bread

I was so excited for this to be vegan.. but then I used honey. Oops. I have some ideas for future honey replacement, so expect to see an updated, actually vegan version of this in the future.

For now, if you're an ok-with-honey vegan, give it a shot. (Or replace the honey with either agave or malt syrup! Although honey works as an emulsifier, which you need if you're leaving out the eggs, so this may not work very well. If you do this, you may want to consider using egg replacer instead of flaxseed meal.)

Also, coconut in banana bread is a great idea. Do it.

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Almost Vegan Banana Bread
makes one loaf

Equipment
kitchen scale (although I've included approximate measurements!)
measuring cups
bowl
loaf pan (or muffin tins)
fork/spoon

Ingredients

2T flaxseed meal

3.8oz soy milk (7T + 2t)

3.2 oz vegetable oil (6T)
3.75 oz brown sugar (0.5c)
1t vanilla extract
0.75t baking soda
0.5t salt
3 super ripe bananas (about 15 ounces without peels)
3oz. honey (6T)
8oz whole wheat flour (about 1.75c)
2oz chopped nuts (about 0.5c)
handful of unsweetened, shredded coconut (optional)