Homemade Oreos

I have had my eye on a homemade oreo recipe on Smitten Kitchen for months. Deb, the author of Smitten Kitchen, suggests that this recipe falls into the “you’ve been warned” category because once you make these you will have to make them a million times as everyone will love them and request them. I’m okay with that!

I grew up with an actual cookie jar that was almost always filled with oreos. We had a two cookie rule in our house so sometimes the oreos would even get stale – tragic. These days I don’t have oreos in my house unless they come in a 100-calorie pack and we all know those aren’t even close to the real thing. I have the feeling this version will get shared, and devoured before they get stale…

Happy dunking!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I think it’s true you never know how much you love something until you let it go… in this case I’m not talking about some sappy love story, I’m talking about my oven! A month or so ago I was baking muffins when the second batch just wouldn’t bake. I kept adding another 3 minutes to the baking time since it didn’t dawn on me that the oven would just stop working mid-baking. Just my luck – my brand new GE oven that had plastic wrap on it when I moved in was already busted. Needless to say, I finally got it fixed. And, of course I felt compelled to put it to good use.

This summer one of my mom’s friends baked some cookies for her. They were so good she refused to bring them to a family BBQ and froze them to enjoy on her own terms. Now, for anyone who knows my mom, that is saying a LOT, because she could sit with a humongous bag of candy, or a big batch of brownies in front of her and have one little nibble. The woman has amazing will power and is not tempted by sweets. Sadly, I did not inherit that from her.

Anyway, I was told these delicious chocolate cookies were from a Williams-Sonoma recipe so I did some digging and here is what I found… Chocolate Crinkle Cookies. The best part is these are so easy… so if your oven hasn’t been used in a while, I recommend a chocolatey reunion.

Happy crinkling!

Lentil Soup

Every Friday my co-teachers and I buy lunch (instead of being frugal and bringing something from home). With the weather getting colder, one of the only things I get excited about is having soup for lunch on Fridays. Devon and Blakely has a million soup options, but some how I always get vegetarian lentil. Despite the warm, sunny day, I felt inspired to make my own today. I began my search for a recipe by looking on Epicurious. It was overwhelming - so many recipes with so many different spices and ingredients. So I called my dad who didn’t have a recipe for me. Mom was my next call, a lentil soup recipe from Moosewood Restaurant. In the end, I used the reviews from Epicurious, the recipe from my mom, and came up with my very own lentil soup recipe. The experiment was deliciously successful.

Happy soup-ing!

Grilled Peaches

Having a barbecue to use inspired grilled pizza and peaches. Admittedly, my mom does not have a lot of baking ingredients on hand, so grilled peaches was also inspired by the fact that we had butter, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla in the house. Our peaches could have been grilled a little longer, but I was getting impatient, and eaten alive… even under-grilled they were still quite good. The brown sugar topping was like the topping on a cinnabon – don’t waste any of it. Be sure to drizzle any extra on top of the peaches and ice cream.

Happy grilling!

Pesto Potato Salad with Green Beans

I just spent 3 weeks in Truro. With so much free time on my hands, I certainly had to do some cooking. It’s always fun to play in non-nyc kitchens. It’s also nice to cook with such fresh ingredients and it doesn’t hurt when your family is impressed no matter what you do! Here is recipe number one…

Summer barbecues often seem synonymous with boring potato salad. Yuck. I hate mayo and therefore most potato salads. When I came across this recipe for Pesto Potato Salad on Smitten Kitchen described as “just perfect for the mayo-phobic” it was very intriguing. Pesto, green beans, scallions, pine nut, cheese… what could be bad? Now, if you really want the potato salad to be delicious bring it to the beach for dinner like we did… eating dinner while the sun sets over the water makes any meal better.

Happy summer cooking!

Low Fat Banana Muffins

Over-ripe bananas? Not sure what to do? Here is a low-fat banana muffin recipe that puts those brown bananas to good use. I grew up eating traditional banana bread which was extra delicious because we’d eat it sliced, toasted and buttered, what could be bad? But, now that I’m a bit more calorie conscious I’d rather eat low-fat banana bread and devour high-calorie chocolate with slightly less guilt.

I experimented on my own substituting applesauce in my banana bread recipe and the result was a gummy mess. So I went on a search for recipes using yogurt or some other substitute and found one using buttermilk. (See below for how to make your own buttermilk!) This low-fat recipe calls for 1 tbls. oil and 1/3 buttermilk compared to my old version which used ½ cup butter and 1 tbls. milk – while I’m no chemist, I know that is significantly lower in fat! Unfortunately after finding the recipe online, I copied it into my cookbook and can’t seem to find it again… my apologies to the original chef for lack of credit for this recipe.

Happy Baking!

Lemon Kissed Cupcake Tarts

So, I’m not a very good blogger. I haven’t been cooking much lately, and I tend to question what meals are truly blog worthy. But, today I finally whipped up a dessert creation I’m calling “lemon kissed cupcake tarts.” When I made the fragrant yellow cake in March I had some leftovers. I tried to make thin layers but the first attempt came out way too thin so I froze them and started from scratch. Today I took the frozen layers out of the freezer, cut them in tiny circles, and frosted them with lemon frosting. Yum.

Happy leftover-ing!