Lemonade!

Mmm, I love fresh lemonade. Especially when it’s hot out. That means here in Texas we need fresh lemonade 9-11 months of the year. To celebrate the 4th of July, here’s my foolproof lemonade recipe. I wash and save my gallon milk jugs and make it straight in them, especially for parties where I need gallons of the stuff.

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Now if you want a really luscious chocolate cookie…

If anyone wants a really luscious chocolate cookie, I have the best recipe ever. These cookies are why I gave up butter last year during Lent. It also halves nicely.

Sinful Chocolate Espresso Cookies

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 Tbsp espresso powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa (can substitute regular)
• 2 cups flour

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Cream butter and sugar, then add in eggs, vanilla and espresso powder. Sift together remaining ingredients and add gradually to your wet ingredients. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop dough by tablespoons onto the parchment paper and bake for 12 minutes at 350 F. Remove from the oven and slide the whole sheet of parchment paper onto a heat resistant surface to cool. Do NOT use a wire rack, the cookies will just fall apart. My table top is tile, and I just use that. Yields 30 cookies. When they’re cool, keep them in an airtight container.

I also highly recommend using one of these scoops, I think mine is 2 Tbsp. It’s worth the $17. All your cookies will be the same size and take the same amount of time to bake. If you use a smaller scoop, you may need to decrease the baking time.

These cookies don’t keep very long, and they don’t travel well unless in a hard sided container. But they’re oh so delicious.

Cookies… For SCIENCE!

Late last year a friend pointed me in the direction of these wonderful science cookies.

I was hooked from my first peek at the electrophoresis gels, but most intrigued by the atom cookies. I had never seen chocolate cut outs before.

I haven’t made cut outs in years, actually. I made some this Christmas (actually I made a lot this Christmas) but before that the last time I made any was Halloween 2004.

But those atom cookies looked so fun, I wanted to try them. And as Ms. Humble wrote how she wasn’t really impressed with that chocolate cut out recipe, well that is something I can do. I like making up cookie recipes.

(Incidentally, I don’t know what whoever wrote that cookie recipe was thinking. Chocolate and cinnamon? Were they mad? Those don’t even remotely go together.)

Anyway. In making this recipe (adapted from my pepparkakor recipe) I realized why chocolate cut outs seem so wrong. When you think chocolate cookies, you think soft, chewy, chocolatey bliss (I also have a good recipe for this type of chocolate cookie). But cut out cookies necessarily have more structure and crispness than that. I think it’s this mental disconnect that makes a chocolate cut out slightly unsatisfying.

I guess I shouldn’t say unsatisfying since I almost literally cannot stop eating them.

Chocolate Cut Outs

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 Tbsp espresso powder
• 3 Tbsp water
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 3 cups flour

Cream the butter and sugar, then mix in the egg, vanilla, espresso powder and water. Sift together the cocoa, baking soda, and flour, and add gradually to the wet ingredients. Mix it well, then wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for a couple hours.

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Roll out the dough on a well floured surface to 1/8 inch thick and cut out shapes. Bake 8-10 minutes. Remove from the oven when the tops are dry. Cool completely before eating, for some reason this improves the eating experience.

If you don’t like coffee, that’s fine, but use the espresso powder anyway. Halve it, if you’re worried, but you really can’t taste it and a little bit of coffee flavor really boosts the chocolate.

Split Pea Soup For April

It may be rather pathetic for my first post in six days to be a recipe, but a recipe it remains. Bah.

Split Pea Soup

• 1 lb. dry split peas
• 2 quarts water
• 4 carrots, diced
• 4 stalks celery, diced
• 2 medium yellow onions, diced
• 1/2 – 3/4 lb. diced precooked ham
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 bayleaf

Put the peas and the water in a big pot, at least 3 quarts. Bring to a simmer and cook on medium for a 1-2 hours (or longer), stirring occasionally, until the peas turn into mush. If you need to add more water (and you probably will), add HOT water. Cold water will harden the peas and prevent them from dissolving properly.
When the peas are done, add your diced vegetables, ham, and seasoning and simmer until your carrots are cooked. Add hot water as needed.

This soup freezes well and reheats well. When cold it’s gelatinous, so add a little water when you’re reheating to help thin it.

Emergency Bacon

We had emergency bacon for dinner tonight. I believe the British refer to it as a fry up, but that doesn’t really convey the right amount of “oh crap it’s 7 what are we eating for dinner what can I cook that my frustrating spawn will eat oh I know bacon!”

And scrambled eggs. And then we were out of bread, so I had to make biscuits. But he ate it without protest, which is what I was going for. I can’t believe how much he eats, he’s only 1.