Thursdays Are For Cooking….
Oh, gee, it’s that time of year again. Getting cold at night, sweater weather during the day. Time to fix something for the weekend so you can go do other things and not have to pay attention to the stove. All kinds of slow cooker recipes are online, and Betty Crocker has an entire section devoted to crockpottery and slow cookery, as well.
You know what’s really good? Scalloped potatoes with diced ham, oozing with cheese in the sauce. Yowzah!
Someone wanted my chocolate chip recipe so here it is. It’s based on the Tollhouse recipe, with a little extra of this and that.
3/4 cup of cane sugar
3/4 cup of dark brown sugar (more molasses than lt. brown)
Stir that together to get a good mix, then add:
1 cup of melted butter (that’s two sticks, kids, and leave some in the box for the popcorn later on.)
3 teaspoons of extract of vanilla (Yes, 3. Tollhouse calls for 1. Pfft! Wienies!!)
Stir this together, and then add 2 fresh eggs. Stir the wet mixture thoroughly, and keep stirring it until it looks like satin.
Have your dry ingredients handy, mixed together for better distribution:
2.5 cups of unbleached flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
Add the dry to the wet ingredients slowly, mix thoroughly, and halfway through add a 12 ounce bag of chocolate chips. Get the best and make sure they have the MOST cacao (at least 60%) you can find. Don’t be shy about ingredients – ever! I let these cool on several layers of paper towels.
I don’t put nuts in these cookies. There are enough nuts running around loose as it is. Don’t need more of them. Put those in oatmeal cookies with lots and lots of raisins. The recipe is on the lid of the Quaker Oats oatmeal box.
These are drop cookies, so drop a heaping teaspoonful on your baking sheet. Bake at 375F for 8 to 10 minutes, then let them cool. The time length depends on your oven, but if the temperature is too high, they get dried out.
These can be kept fresh by storing them in a ziplock bag in the fridge and/or freezer until they’re eaten up. They won’t last long. If they’re left out, they’ll get stale because they have no preservatives in them. On the other hand, if you leave them out on a plate, they won’t last long because some Invisible Fiend will make off with all of them, and turn up again with chocolate and cookie crumbs smeared all over his/her/its face and hands.
I think the cost to make a batch is about $2.50+/- plus some elbow grease.
Time to get cider, too, and make a pumpkin pie… with whipped cream… and roast a turkey and some acorn squash.
Category: Do You Miss Me Yet?, Economy
When I saw your picture I thought you had a recipe for sparrows.
Nah, that would be blackbirds. Sparrows are all bone and no meat.
That shot was a couple of years ago at the end of March. They were waiting for me when I got up that morning.
You shot the birds last March and they waited for you in order to be shot? Holy Hannah. Dems some kwazy birds.
Thank you for the laugh, AirCav.
Startled the cat with it!
“Sweaters”? Not here. It is fall. Do you know what that means in Florida? Nothing. It means nothing.
Isn’t it the start of the annual snowbird invasion? Or is that later?
Panhandle snowbirds usually roll in around mid-November – same time all the condiments disappear from local restaurants
In Houston it means the days get shorter, the nights get longer, and it’s still 89 degrees with a heat index of 98.
Means another 90 degree day. Taking tomorrow off to hit beach now that most of the tourists have gone,,,,,finally
Up here in New England it means my sailboat has to come out of the water in a few weeks…not a bad season on the water this year, but looking for more destination sails next summer…probably explore more of Long Island’s three mile harbor area….
It also means it’ll be stew time, and sauerkraut, porkchops and kielbasa in the crockpot time…so there’s an upside to be certain.
Potatoes!
Harvest is going strong. Excellent quality and good diggin weather.
The Wicked Good Band did a song to commemorate the harvest. “Ayuh” Sung to the tune of “Dayo”
“It’s gettin dark and I wanna go home”
https://youtu.be/rgApWEJIpx8
enjoy
The potato is a very underappreciated little soul. Such a flexible personality that it has should be appreciated and celebrated, but instead we chop, dice, rice, boil, bake and mash it into submission, and put some of it on Shepherd’s Pie.
Someone once told me that you can live a healthy life on a diet of potatoes and buttermilk. My response was that you have to like buttermilk first.
I am just about ready to go full potato, anyway.
Not true Ex… I can’t stand buttermilk, but it goes great in mashed taters…
And biscuits, cornbread, and some sort of cake my grandmother made.
I love buttermilk biscuits! I think there may be a chocolate cake recipe in one of my old cookbooks that requires buttermilk, too.
It’s fall. I have to get busy making and baking again.
Speaking of fowl, here’s The World’s Best Fried Chicken recipe. You’ll need:
A cast iron skillet in the 10 inch range.
A splatter screen- looks like a tennis racket but with a fine mesh screen instead of nylon. Trust me, spend the $15 or so unless you like an hour or three wiping down the entire kitchen to clean up the oil.
A half sheet pan, and cooling rack.
Thermometer. Good cooks use a thermometer, not a timer.
A timer. Yeah I know, you’ll see.
Lipid of choice- traditionalists use Crisco, I like canola. Whichever, use enough to bring the level of oil up to about an inch, but no more. We’re pan frying here.
Buttermilk (optional)
Package chicken thighs. (pretty much the same size and will cook at pretty much the same time).
AP Flour.
McCormick’s Poultry Season Mix.
S&P
Soak the chicken with the buttermilk overnight. Drain and pat dry. (optional)
Season the yard bird with S&P and McCs’, dredge in the flour. Let rest for about 10 mikes, repeat.
Heat oil to 375 degrees or so, and gently slip the thighs skin side down into the oil. Cover with the screen and set timer for 12 minutes.
After 12 mikes flip and fry for another 12 mikes. Chicken should be 160 degrees internal, or better.
Turn off the heat and put the chicken on the cooling rack / sheet pan combo, and hit with another pinch of salt.
Done!
12 mikes? Is that a new disturbance in the Time Continuum?
Nothing so dire, Ex. No Mikes, or anyone else, were harmed in the posting of this recipe.
Unless you count the chickens…
*grin*
Ex,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the cookie recipe.
I spent the evening canning a batch of apple butter (apples from my MacIntosh apple tree) from a 1950s Kerr canning book. Got 5 1/2 qts.
Great with pork, bread, ice cream……
I made chicken noodle soup on Wednesday, and now I am going to bump it up by adding more chicken to the pot, more stock, and more noodles, plus the rest of the vegs.
Do not EVER skimp on ingredients.
OWB, please post your grandma’s cake recipe if you can find it. I think there’s one in an old home cooking card file I found. If not, maybe Fanny Farmer.