YiMT: Sweet Tooth -- All the cookies

I don't know what it is exactly that has driven me to make so many desserts lately, but I've made roughly two per week for the last month. To be fair, one is usually for the card night that my local Boston friends and I have every week, but the other one? Oh, just because I have flour and sugar and -- oh, are those chocolate chips? Definitely time to make something sweet. I've also spent some time perfecting recipes because I really wanted to share them with you all.

We're going to go through two recipes today that are variations on some very classic desserts: chocolate chip cookies and brownies. Let's get started!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I was in the seventh grade, I took an elective course at my middle school entitled "Wheel," or something along those lines, in which we had essentially three courses rolled into one. Coursework on technology, computers, and home economics was split into three even sections over the course of one academic year. Within the home economics class, we learned about sewing, interior design, and cooking, to name a few. The cooking bit was the most exciting part for us students, obviously, because what 12-year-old doesn't love food? And, hands down, the best recipe we made was the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe.

I've held onto that recipe ever since the seventh grade. My family loves it, and it is so easy that a seventh grader could do it! But that said, I've always been somewhat apprehensive about using the 1/4 cup of shortening that the recipe calls for. Looking at shortening always makes me feel as though I'm going to develop arteriosclerosis at the age of 35. Eww. Sure, shortening is merely solidified vegetable oil. It could be a lot worse, I suppose. But in the interest of trying to be just a little bit healthier since I'm now living and cooking on my own, I really wanted to try something new.

A brief Google search yielded some interesting results. Fruit purees seemed to pop up on every page I clicked... with the caveat that I might completely change the flavor and texture of whatever I was baking. Because I'm a curious individual, and because I had bananas in my pantry, I decided to see exactly how the flavors and textures of these delectable cookies would change. Here are my results...

Ingredients:
(for approx. 16 cookies)
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup (or more!) semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup banana puree OR 2 Tbsp banana puree + 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 egg

Rachel's Notes:
I always use a little more than 1/4 cup of chocolate chips. Maybe closer to 1/3 cup. Depends on how I'm feeling. The difference in the amount of banana puree is up to you and your preferred cookie texture. Using banana puree will make your cookies fluffier than most cookies usually are. If you use the one-to-one substitution of puree for shortening (the recipe originally calls for 1/4 cup shortening), your cookies will end up tasting a little more like slices of chocolate chip banana bread. Which is still delicious. However, I prefer my cookies to be a little more dense, so going half-and-half with the puree and the butter works great! The cookie is still a little fluffy, but not in such a way that it no longer feels like you're eating a cookie. And the taste of banana is more subtle. Whole oats or steel cut oats are fine.

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 350°F.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the egg, vanilla, water, and banana puree (or banana and butter) until blended and fluffy.
3. Mix in dry ingredients (flour, oatmeal, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda) and beat until well blended.
4. Stir in chocolate chips with a spoon.
5. Fill one teaspoon with rounded cookie dough and deposit onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.
7. Cool for 10 minutes to let cookies set and become firm.

Rachel's Notes:

One thing to be aware of when spooning the cookies onto the baking sheet is that they spread out quite a bit on the sheet, so give them plenty of space to do so! The banana puree is the thing that does it, so you'll get cookies with a larger diameter should you use more banana puree.

Caramel Brownie Pies, or Brownie Cookies
(adapted slightly from here)

Ingredients:
(Brownie cookies, about 16 cookies)
One 12 oz bag of chocolate chips
3 Tbsp butter
2 eggs
2/3 cup pure cane sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

(Salted caramel filling)
1 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup fleur de sel caramel sauce (easily found at Trader Joe's)

Rachel's Notes:
I'll be completely honest here. I think the caramel filling is totally optional. The cookies really can stand alone. Also, the recipe makes TONS of filling, and it's almost too buttery for my tastes. If you really want to try the caramel filling, try replacing a little of the butter with a little more caramel sauce.

Directions:
(Brownie cookies)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Melt approximately 7 ounces of chocolate and all of the butter in a saucepan over low heat while stirring gently. Set aside once completely melted and smooth.
3. Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl until pale and creamy.
4. Add in flour, baking powder, and melted chocolate and butter. Beat together until well blended. Let stand for 10 minutes.
5. Spoon 1 Tbsp dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until puffed and cracked. Let cool completely.

I actually had some dough left over, so I made a couple extra and baked them separately to get this picture. Those cookies went directly into my tummy once they cooled.

(Salted caramel filling)

1. Beat butter in a bowl until creamy. Add powdered sugar and beat together. Add caramel sauce and mix thoroughly.
2. Spread a spoonful of filling onto one brownie cookie and top with another cookie to make a sandwich.

Caramel Brownie Pies, made by spooning 2 Tbsp dough onto a baking sheet for EXTRA LARGE cookies

Brownie Cookies: Delicious. Almost too delicious to share.

Next "Yummy in My Tummy":

Fruit smoothies and a salade aux fruits rouges: fruity desserts for those of you who maybe aren't such big fans of chocolate. :)

Peace, love, and brownie cookies slices of heaven,

Rachel

Yummy in My Tummy: Summer Salad Spectacular!

Hi ho there! Greetings from the sweltering heat of this humid Boston summer! Now, granted, I spend most of my days indoors at work or in my air conditioned bedroom (yes, I know, I live a dangerous life -- do not try it at home!), but it is actually impossible to escape the heat. It always catches up to me somehow. Walking home, exploring the city, sitting on the porch, cooking in the non-air-conditioned kitchen, etc. And when it reaches at least 80°F every day, no one really wants to cook in a non-air-conditioned kitchen. I mean, I love cooking, and even I dread the prospect of turning on my gas stove and boiling water for even a minute. Salads, therefore, are basically the lazy, temperature-sensitive chef's best friends in the summer.

As anyone who lives with me knows, I'm a fan of grabbing whatever is in my fridge and/or pantry and making something new and different out of it. In the case of this salad, I did just that. Here's the recipe:

Almond and Pomegranate Salad

Ingredients:
Baby spinach
Arugula ("rocket" for all you Anglophiles in the audience)
Grape tomatoes
Black beans
Pomegranate seeds
Sliced almonds
Salad dressing
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Wash all vegetables and drain. Remove stems from spinach if desirable. Toss greens together in a large salad bowl.
2. Add tomatoes, beans, pomegranate seeds, and almonds. Mix well.
3. Drizzle salad dressing over salad. Sprinkle with parmesan, if desirable.
4. Om nom nom.

Rachel's notes:

There are no specified amounts in this recipe. I measured nothing out when I threw this together after drinking a bottle and a half of white wine with my roommate and her friends. Everyone likes their salad proportions to be a little different, so play around with the amounts and see what works for you. Personally, I love heavier proportions of tomatoes, almonds, and pomegranate seeds because I think the flavors are so interesting and mesh together so well. One of my closest friends would probably choose to use mixed greens over arugula because she can't stand the taste of it. My roommate in France would have refused to eat the tomatoes. Salad is very much what you make of it, but I felt that this had to be one of the best salads I had ever tasted. And I'm not saying that because I was a little tipsy at the time. I replicated this recipe the very next night when I was 150% sober and still thought it was the best thing since cream cheese. This was a very last minute decision for a meal and it turned out marvelously.

Special note on salad dressing:

I don't usually make my own salad dressing. In this case, at any rate, I didn't. I used the Tuscan Italian Dressing with Balsamic Vinegar from Trader Joe's, and it worked great! I have a default salad dressing that I go to, however, when I run out and am too lazy to run to the store to buy more. I haven't tried it on this particular salad, but based on my past experience with this dressing, it would be a great match! I thoroughly encourage you, dear reader, to try it out and tell me what you think!

Walnut Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp vinegar (red wine or balsamic)

4 Tbsp walnut oil

1 tsp Dijon mustard

Salt, pepper

Directions:

Mix together all ingredients, stirring aggressively as dressing is apt to separate.

This should easily make enough for 2 people to have salad dressing.

Wine of the Meal

Green Fin 2010 White Table Wine 

This is one of the really cheap wines that you can buy at Trader Joe's for about $4 (maybe even less back home in CA, since two-buck Chuck is three-buck Chuck in MA) and is surprisingly good. Normally, I steer clear of table wines because, as experience with French table wines taught me, they normally taste like someone poured some ethanol into some grape juice. However, my current roommates insisted that it was worth a try one night when they were cooking and, boy, was I surprised!

It's somewhat citrus-y, but mostly sweet and fruity (yeah, yeah, citrus usually equals fruit, but I mean something more like mango here). People who know more about these things would likely say that there are oak overtones or something like that. Maybe. Personally, I think it's the perfect wine to share after a long day at the lab as you sit out on your front porch, waiting for the temperature to go down, trading stories with your friends. It pairs pretty nicely with this salad and is a surprisingly good companion for ice cream, as I discovered this evening.

Frankly, it's a cheap wine that doesn't offend my inner scientist (why would I pay to drink ethanol and grape juice when I could make it for free at work?), helps cool one down on a hot day, and doesn't do a number on my wallet. That's a solid wine in my book.

That's it for this week! It's shorter than the last Yummy in My Tummy, and future entries will probably be somewhere between this one and the first one in terms of length and depth. To make up for the simplicity of this week's recipe, I leave you all with a question: What is your favorite summer salad? Leave recipe suggestions in the comments!

Peace, love, and pomegranates,
Rachel

Restaurant Review: WHERE IS MY MEXICAN FOOD?!?!

I have been on a Quest. For two years. This Quest has been so Epic that it has taken every last ounce of my willpower to not break down, throw myself on the ground, and start screaming "IT'S HOPELESS!!!" at the top of my lungs. Yeah, it's been that intense.

For the past two years, I have been on a Quest for (Semi) Authentic Mexican Food Somewhere in the City of Boston [Q(S)AMFSCB for short].

I wasn't asking for much. I knew from the beginning that I would not be finding any El Co here in Bean Town. But I was at least hoping for something that was ever so slightly more authentic than the white-washed tacos my family of solidly European descent can create for a tasty evening meal. In all honesty, I was merely praying to any deity that would listen that I would not be doomed to go to Taco Bell to get my fix. And that was assuming that they even had Taco Bell on the East Coast.

I did not realize it would be so hard. (My roommate would probably be shouting "That's what she said!" right now if she were reading this.)

I figured that the Q(S)AMFSCB would probably be along the lines of searching for a needle in a haystack: difficult and taxing and unnecessarily long and nigh impossible for someone like me who, even with infinite amounts of patience, still demands some sort of instant gratification. Instead, I have decided to liken this experience to getting wisdom teeth pulled without anesthetics while looking for a dark grey needle in a stack of black needles after sunset during an earthquake. In the middle of a blizzard. Without shoes.

Ok, so my tendency for hyperbole is starting to get the better of me. But Southern Californians be warned: New England is not friendly to authentic Mexican food. They just don't quite understand what goes into making a genuine burrito. And I finally figured out why.

After months of agonizing over why it was that Bostonians can't comprehend the difference between a grilled steak burrito and a carne asada burrito, I finally came to an astounding revelation (with the help of the post-doc I was working for): Flavor is a foreign concept. The tacos and burritos of Taco Bell, Chipotle, Qdoba, Boca Grande, and so on, will do to satisfy a desperate woman in need of something warm and wrapped in a tortilla. But they just aren't flavored correctly. I still haven't nailed it down, but it's something in the spices; the seasonings are all wrong. These hunks of meat and rice stuffed into tortillas are often bland and lack the full, rich flavor of Southern California taco shops. You can't just grill up some chicken, throw it on some rice, beans, and cheese, add a little salsa and call it day. You have to cook your burritos with care. You must grill with spices: oregano, red pepper, cumin... I don't exactly know what, but something that will add a little extra kick to what you are creating. Use fresh pico de gallo. Add some guacamole that is a secret recipe handed down through the generations of the family that owns the restaurant. And for Heaven's sake, would it kill you to use a corn tortilla? A taco or burrito is not a taco or burrito unless it has a Spanish sounding name and tastes like heaven.

So after an agonizing search, suffice it to say that I was ready to give up. Yes, dear reader, it was nearly too much for this Californian to take. I mean, there are only so many fake burritos that one can consume before one goes insane and starts massacring the whole town with naught but a stiletto and a whole lotta determination.

And then, as luck would have it, my saviour came in the form of an unexpected find in the midst of one of my wanderings through metropolitan Boston. While wandering through Coolidge Corner and up and down Harvard Street, my Q(S)AMFSCB finally came to a pleasant conclusion as I encountered a small restaurant by the name of Dorado.

This place was a dream come true. I was, as one might expect, quite skeptical at first when I noticed the sign outside of the establishment that read "Baja California-style fish tacos," but out of an insatiable curiosity, I decided to check this place out.

First off, the food looks like this:

And if that doesn't make your mouth water... well, then, you might be an alien. Or dead. Either way, I am impressed that you managed to get this far into my entry. Unless you are just looking at the pretty pictures.

Ahem. Anyway.

The above photo is the dorado fish taco, which is the spicy version of the ensenada taco, which, in turn, is the Baja California-style fish taco. And it does everything right. Now, of course, this may not be the perfect taco - I, in fact, have never been to Baja California, so I have never consumed a real taco from there. However, I have been to Rubio's. Many, many times. And they are famous for their authentic Baja California-style fish tacos. So I know what to look for here. And this taco has it all: two corn tortillas, shredded cabbage, fresh pico de gallo, beer-battered and fried fish of indeterminate origin, and spicy chipotle sauce to boot. My stomach is growling at the mere thought of such a scrumptious composition. There are even a couple of radish slices to top the whole thing off!

And that is just the taco. When I was there, I purchased the two-taco plate, which includes two tacos, a side of Mexican rice and black beans. And these are what really make the meal complete. The Mexican rice is flavorful and just the right color orange while the beans are neither runny nor congealing into a bean paste.

The flavor is there. The spice is there. Maybe it isn't the most authentic taco in the world, but when I took my first bite of this glorious dish, I nearly cried. And I had barely finished my plate when I was overcome with the desire to call home and share this fantastic find on Ye Olde Streete o' Harvard with the parentals. It was pure, homesickness-alleviating, mouth-watering bliss. And for less than $10 total. For dinner. In Boston.

Friends, this is exactly what I had been searching for.

Boston, thank you for not failing me forever. You may be a difficult mistress, but at least you reward your loyal followers in the end.

People of the world, go to this restaurant. Eat a fish taco. Discover nirvana for less than $10.

I am dead serious.

It was that amazing.

Elf out!