While there's no chance in hell that I'm going to give up my beloved meats, cheeses, and other animal products, I still like to mix it up with vegan food now and then. Some of it is just darned good -- rich soups, excellent salads, and some tasty dessert treats.
Above you can check out Everyday Dish's vegan chocolate chip cookies. (Get the exact measurements here.) Making use of a ton of pantry items, this looks like a great way to whip up some tasty cookies last-minute. They also fit into a lot of dietary restrictions -- you can used unrefined sugar and other types of flour. (I kind of wish I saw this recipe last week, when my chocolate-craving friend was over and in the midst of a refined sugar fast.)
So that 36-hour cookie (unless you make use of vacuums and cut the time) has been all the rage these days, and I've been itching to see what all the fuss is about. While I'm not crazy enough to make them in my AC-free apartment, I happily accepted some fresh-baked cookies from a friend of mine. You know what? I was far from a big fan. Very far.
I loved the texture, but there was just too much darned chocolate, and my mouth even rebelled at the taste a little, getting a bit itchy. Even though my friend knows his way around baking a chocolate chip cookie, there's a chance he fudged something up, but even still -- it should've been good enough for a "wow" instead of a "huh..." Any of you out there feel the same way?
Personally, I'm going to stick with my faux Tollhouse recipe that's part of The Essential Baking Cookbook. It's great with chocolate, white vanilla, and sinfully delectable with butterscotch. Check it out after the jump.
While it's not exactly the most scientific and perfectly matched comparison, Ideas in Food took on the notion posted in The New York Times, where the perfect chocolate chip cookie takes 36 hours. I don't know about you, but whenever I want cookies, I'm sure as hell not waiting 36 hours, especially since that amount of time will usually end the craving and make me remember just how unhealthy and dangerous it would be for me to make a bunch of cookies for my single self.
Anyhow, to simulate the 36 hours, Ideas in Food vacuum-sealed the dough. "I did not make a test batch of cookies with unprocessed dough so this was an entirely unscientific experiment. What I can tell you is that the dough darkened and became fully saturated, similar to the way that the dough usually looks after a couple of days in the refrigerator. It also changed the texture of the dough, making it a bit more elastic to the touch." So, is there anyone out there with a vacuum sealer that wants to put the two techniques head to head?
Jennifer decided that the very best way to celebrate Bake or Break's second birthday was to share her very favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe with her readers. She baked up a batch (these puppies have two kinds of chocolate and homemade oat flour in them) and took some seriously drool-worthy pictures of them. This particular one makes me want to leap through my computer screen in order to show down.
Jennifer, thanks for adding your image to the Slashfood Flickr pool and happy anniversary!
Jim Mamary and Alan Harding were Brooklyn restaurant pioneers, opening a dozen restaurants in the past decade. But now people are mad because they say their restaurants are chains. Chains are bad. Yuppie fight!
If the above item makes you roll your eyes at New York, consider this: the city has roaming "Sweetmobiles" serving cookies, hot waffles, and crème brûlée. I heart New York indeed.
Eric Asimov gives poor, maligned dry sherry some love.
Now this is what a chocolate chip cookie should look like. Thick, chewy, moist at the center, with a toothsome density that makes it feel like you're really eating something. And so full of melty chocolate chips that when you break the cookie in half chocolate drips from the edges. Thank Vanilla Sugar for the recipe, which attempts to replicate the cookies sold at Levain bakery in New York. Full of brown sugar, walnuts and a healthy dose of salt, these make for the kind of 4 p.m. snack that satisfies you in a way that a Snickers bar never could.
Of course, if you want to make chocolate chip cookies, here's the original Toll House Cookie recipe. I keep a bag of the Toll House semi-sweet pieces in my fridge and snack on them constantly.
I haven't heard about these cookies, but it sounds like they are pretty popular. The cookies are actually baked in flight, which I found surprising. I have a hard time thinking of any airline food as good. I guess there is an exception to every rule. Has anyone had these cookies who'd like to share their opinion?
AOL Food has a slideshow at their site, with ideas on how to add bacon to, well... pretty much everything. No, not your typical breafast dishes. That's too obvious. We're talking about putting bacon on hot apple pie, in oatmeal, in an ice cream sundae, and in chocolate chip cookies. Someone is even trying to get the smoky flavor of bacon inside a glass of whiskey.
A lot of these ideas are too out there for me, but I think I'd try bacon in popcorn.
One of the most fun parts of cooking is when you hear a tip (or come up with one yourself) that makes the cooking easier. Adam at The Amateur Gourmet was dismayed recently when he discovered that he his friend Diana took her cookie sheets with her when she left, and he didn't have any like hers, that were flat and didn't have any sides to them. So he came up with this idea: use the back of the cookie sheet.
He puts parchment paper on the sheet and then uses an ice cream scoop for the cookie dough. He then flattens them a little bit with his wet hand and cooks them a little less than usual, which is something I've always done with my cookies too. He loved the results.
There are very few activities that you can do that are as good as making cookies. Maybe playing a favorite sport or listening to your favorite CD or maybe even sex. But there's just something special about making homemade cookies.
Today is Homemade Cookies Day, which means if you go to the store and buy anything in a package the food police will come to your home and slap the handcuffs on you.
This is where I usually link to various recipes, but have you seen how many cookie recipes there are on the web? 94 trillion (I counted). So I'll link to a bunch of collections at various sites, such as AllRecipes, Food Network, Joy of Baking, and Kraft Foods.
A chocolate chip cookie is a chocolate chip cookie, so it's never really bad. If there's one in front of me, I'm going to eat it. On the other side, very rarely does a chocolate chip cookie ever "wow" me. Sure some of them might be cuter because they're smaller, or impressive because they're the diameter of a dinner plate. At some point,though, they're all pretty much the same.
However, I recently came across a chocolate chip cookie that actually made me take notice. A friend and I were out at "shopping event" where local food vendors were sponsoring refreshments up and down the street. One of the stores was offering Deluscious Cookies.
The cookies are just slightly smaller than a CD, so they already stand out for size. They're fairly flat, and somewhat flimsy, which means a lot of butter. I took a bite, and after that first bite, I think I finished the whole thing in about 45 seconds. The cookies are lightly chewy, a little sticky for all that sugar, and though you can't tell from the surface, it's overflowing with chocolate chips.
While I only got to try the chocolate chip (the second one I had was also chocolate chip), there are 24 different "flavors" of Deluscious Cookies. I haven't seen these cookies in stores or bakeries, but they are available for order.
In case some of you aren't aware, super mega store Target has its own line of grocery store products, Archer Farms. If you think about it, Archer Farms is just a fancy rooster sticker on the generic white store brand, but that is beside the point. The point is that though I knew about Archer Farms, and though I go to Target on a regular basis for "stuff," I never actually stopped to try any of their foods. The only thing I ever eat from Target is pizza from Pizza Hut because really now, I could never, in good conscience, eat Pizza Hut outside of a discount superstore.
This week, my Slashfoodie friends, it is "Sarah Tries a Lot of Foods From Target and Blogs About It!" Week because I somehow found myself with all kinds of "rare and wondrous foods" from Archer Farms ("rare and wondrous" are their words, not mine) in my pantry and my countertop.
First up, it's the Chocolate Chip Petite Cookies -- "rare and wondrous" indeed!
Did you know that states have "official" foods. Yup, and Massachusetts is no exception. The foods include Boston Cream Pie, cranberries, baked beans, chocolate chip cookies, and corn muffins (corn muffins?).
Gridskipper takes that list of foods and tells us what restaurants in Boston serve the best ones. For example, though Boston Cream Pie was invented at the Omni Parker House Hotel (also home of the Parker House Rolls), you can get the best one at The Oak Room at the Copley Plaza Hotel. For beans, head on over to the Blue Ribbon BBQ. They're not traditional baked beans, but they're great (and I can vouch for this place - best BBQ I've ever had. If they were closer to my house I'd probably eat there twice a week).
Notice that it isn't National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. There are other things you can do with them besides the cookie route.
AOL Food has a slideshow at their site, with ideas on 
Did you know that states have "official" foods. Yup, and Massachusetts is no exception. The foods include Boston Cream Pie, cranberries, baked beans, chocolate chip cookies, and corn muffins (corn muffins?).
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