What’s On My Mindgrapes

Lately, I’ve been too busy eating to update the blog. In the past two weeks or so, I was lucky enough to have two Thanksgivings with friends, and a restaurant-worthy beef tenderloin dinner with my family, and various junk food and cheese-and-cracker binges here and there. I love the holidays.
 
For the first Thanksgiving, or Thankskegger as we say, I made the usual hummus, and had a bowl of candied almonds out for munching. My main job was kitchen manager, or yeller-at-everyone, and I made sure every dish was properly reheated and everyone was fed.

A view of the buffet table, photo courtesy of Sarah

The second Thanksgiving was with our closest friends from college and their SOs. We had an all-American meal, played board games, went rollerskating… We’re the urban nuclear family. It was one of the most fun weekends I’ve had with them.

My plate at Thanksgiving (complete with big ass turkey leg)

For the this Thanksgiving, most dishes were covered, so my contribution was an easy cookie recipe. This oatmeal chocolate chip recipe from Orangette was ideal. It called for quick cook oats (which we had in the house) when most recipes require the old fashioned oats, which results in a different sort of cookie. These turned out crunchy, and not too sweet. To the delight of many, I substituted butterscotch chips for the chocolate chips, and that made all the difference.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
Adapted from Orangette

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¾ cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 Tbs best-quality vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 ½ cups butterscotch chips
1 ½ cups quick-cook oats, or rolled oats zizzed in a food processor for a few seconds

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease cookie sheets with cooking spray or line them with parchment paper or silicone baking mats (Molly and I use the latter, which keeps the cookies from spreading too far and makes for easy clean-up).

2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter and brown and granulated sugars until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk, mixing until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients, working until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips and oats by hand, using a wooden spoon. Drop hefty tablespoons of dough onto mat, at least 1 1/2 inches apart.

3. Bake cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cook completely. Eat. Or give to friends to eat.
 
If you’re looking for more cooking inspiration, check out the links in the right column. I highly recommend food blogs by two friends who live far away, but thanks to the power of the internets, we can check in and see what they’re up to.
 
Margee lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, and recently started a delightful food/travel blog called Aquacate. We’ve been friends since our first year of college, but I never had a chance to see her talent in writing. Now I know why she got As on all the papers she wrote the night before they were due.
 
Emily lives in DC and has a wonderful food blog (with videos!) called Voila!. We traveled together in Israel in 2007, but neglected to realize our mutual love of food and cooking until now! I’m really impressed by her skills.

Tags: cookies, holiday, recipe, sweets

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 10:05 am and is filed under Food & Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.