Brownie chocolate chip cookies

After I brought some chocolate chip cookie Oreos to work, one of the foodies I work with inspired me to try baking chocolate chip cookies and brownies together.  It was so awesome idea I couldn't resist.

Even if it would have been disappointing.  The planning was harder than stir-fry, trying to find a brownie recipe with baking conditions close enough to those required for the cookie that I would have some grounds for hoping for success.

But, I was lazy and used the break-apart square cookie dough things just to keep things simple.  I guess we'll see if I ended up saving time in the long run or if I just created more work for myself.

Anyway, we'll get back to the cookie dough, but here's what I put into the brownie batter:

• 1/2 c AP flour
• 1 1/4 c sugar
• 65g Dutch cocoa powder (sorry about switching units here; I wanted to use my scale)
• 1 t salt (I had kosher on hand, so that's a slightly heaping spoon full there)
• 1 large eggs
• 1/2 T vanilla
• 10 T butter
• 1/4 c chopped walnuts

I started by mixing the cocoa, sugar, butter, and salt over a double boiler on medium heat, stirring

occasionally.  I actually had a little more butter than I needed according to the recipe I was cribbing from, 1 stick and then 3 tablespoons left from another stick, so I took a pat and greased an 8"x8" pan and then tossed the rest back into the mix.  It never quite got smooth, but once it was at least uniformly grainy, I took the top pot off the heat to let it cool until it was just warm.

At this point I added the eggs and vanilla.  The original recipe said to add the vanilla, then one cold egg, then the second cold egg, but since I didn't anticipate any mixing problems I scrambled both eggs with the vanilla in advance, stuck it back in the fridge, and then stirred half of the mix at a time into the chocolate.

At this point, if you want something more like fudge, you can forget to add the flour.  I did that once.  It still tasted good.

I had half a cup of finely chopped walnuts but that just seemed like too much, so I added maybe a third of that to the batter along with the flour.  When it was all pretty even, I poured it over--wait, interlude for a cookie:

Okay, so buttered 8"x8" pan and prefab cookie squares.  Left them on the counter just long enough to get soft so I could press them more easily into the pan.  You don't want to let it warm up too much or it will start sticking to whatever you use to press it.  I ended up using the glass I had already employed to hold my premeasured flour and walnuts.  It worked pretty well because I could twist the glass when I lifted it from the dough and there was no pullout.  I put the mass of cookie squares in the middle of the pan and pressed it toward the corners, but in retrospect it might have been easier to put it at one edge of the pan and then work my way across.  Well, it wasn't exactly a Herculean task either way.

Back to the brownies!  I poured the batter over the cookie substrate until there was little enough batter left in the pot that I wouldn't feel ashamed licking it clean.  I sprinkled half the remaining walnuts over the top--really, it seemed like there was plenty to go around--and put it in a 330° oven.  Seemed like a reasonable compromise between the chocolate chip cookie and brownie recipes.

This was really the toughest part.  Everything's going to cook more slowly with the extra mass.  My instinct is to go with longer times at lower temperatures, so the thermal gradient in the food is flatter, but you can't just lower the temperature arbitrarily or nothing gets cooked.

I originally had it in for 25 minutes, but a toothpick in the middle wasn't coming out clean.  I put it in for another ten minutes, and then ten more minutes again.  Toothpick still came out wet.  Okay, ten more minutes, but at 320° this time.  Still a little wet at the bottom, but starting to look done in the middle:  fifteen minutes at 300°, and the toothpick finally comes out clean.

The hard part here is all these door openings coupled with the fact that I can't turn off the oven timer without turning the oven itself off, so trying to coordinate the time is a hassle; I was probably only getting 7-9 minutes at temperature, but maybe that's close enough.  Now that I've extended the time thrice, it occurs to me I could use the timer on my microwave instead.  Oh well; good reason not to drink Coke and vanilla vodka while I'm doing science.  Maybe next time.

Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie

This recipe was another case of "I must experience this for myself now that I've heard about it."  Since I was a little impatient, I tried using cookie dough from the store instead of making it from scratch.

I actually made two attempts.  The very first was with storebought dough and I tried completely encasing the Oreo with it.  Unfortunately, the normal cookie dough is so fluid at baking temperatures, before it starts to set, that I ended up with chocolate chip saucers with an Oreo island in the middle.  Fortunately, short of burning the cookies entirely, it's still delicious.

My second time, I thought I'd leave the cookie dough as thick dollops above and below the Oreo, so as it settled during baking, it would, I hoped, just encase the Oreo.

Nope.  Close, but no cigar.

Obviously the storebought dough just isn't firm enough.  I'd have to do something like try making it by hand.  Adding extra flour might work, or substituting a fraction of AP flour for something with higher gluten like bread flour, but since I knew someone has already figured all these details out to have posted this idea online in the first place, I thought I'd see what they had to suggest.

The original recipe apparently comes from here.

After all that hassle, I came up with a workable, if inelegant, compromise:  muffin tins.

I overdid it, but it worked:  two cookie dough squares in the bottom of each depression of the muffin tin, then the Oreo, then two more squares.  It was almost too much cookie, but it held together and baked up just fine.

Big hit with my coworkers, even the diabetic one.  I just wish I'd made more to share.

I tried it again using a mini muffin tin and one square each on top and bottom (and mini Reese's peanut butter cups--I thought they'd melt and fall apart without the support of the tin--but let's not get distracted), but that didn't turn out as well.  The top squares spread out during baking and all touched, so I couldn't twist them out one at a time like I could with the regular size muffin tin.  They did bake up fine and were delicious, but I had a lot of cookie shrapnel piled up by the time I got all the cookies extracted.  But that's an adventure for a later time.

Avocado-quinoa dip

This dish was adapted from a salad recipe I got at Wegmans.com.  I like avocado more for its versatility, especially its capacity for becoming guacamole, so I thought this one might work better as a sort of dip.

The main cast:

• 10 oz red quinoa, cooked
• 12 oz frozen whole corn, thawed (or fresh, whatever)
• 1 c sliced green onions
• 2 plum tomatoes, diced
• 2 avocados, mashed
• 1 t minced garlic
• thyme, coriander, cilantro, and celery salt to taste
• 1/2 T lime juice
• 1 T sesame oil

The quinoa I cooked per the directions on the bag, except I added some chicken bullion after adding the water.  I should have added it to the water first, but I had been trying to redeem some vile s'mores vodka, and it didn't occur to me until it was too late.

Okay, so:  Cook the quinoa, chop up all the vegetables as you see fit, mash the avocados, and mix it all together.  The original recipe said to let the quinoa chill for 20 minutes first but I got impatient, and it didn't seem to hurt not to wait.  As for the herbs and spices, you can adjust those however you see fit; the original recipe called for a cup of chopped fresh cilantro but I only had dried, and it's not my favorite, so I thought I'd throw in the other things to bring it more to my wavelength.  Maybe subconsciously I was trying to make it more like guacamole but with corn and quinoa in it.  And tomato.  Well, whatever.

I thought it was phenomenal.  I got full on it and still wanted to keep eating the stuff.  Seemed to go better with tortilla chips than water crackers.  Probably could have used a third avocado and/or tomato, though.  Maybe a little sour cream would make it more dippy, but I might still have guacamole on the brain.

I really need to get a better way to present these dishes.  Sometimes the big red plastic bowl is just not amenable to presentation.  

Bailey's Mousse

Went to a shindig at a former coworker's farm last summer and he pulled this out at the end of dinner. It's pretty strong, for pie.

• 3 T water
• 1 package unflavored gelatin
• 2 c whipping cream
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/2 Bailey's Irish cream

Dissolve gelatin in water, heating as necessary.
Chill whipping cream and bowl, then beat to firm peaks.
Add gelatin solution and whip back to firm peaks.
Mix in sugar, then fold in liquor.

You can substitute Kahlua or Buttershots for the Irish cream. Other substitutions can probably also be made, but I haven't tried them.

As-is, serves 4. Doubled, it should fill a pie crust. Make sure you bake the crust first, if you're supposed to. I forgot to do that on the last chocolate mousse pie I made so I had to run back to the store at midnight before Thanksgiving and pick up all the ingredients I'd just wasted.

Orange cranberry relish

My sister makes this at holidays sometimes.  It's delicious; tangy without being overly tart.

1 bag of cranberries
1 entire navel orange, in chunks but not peeled
Sugar

Wash the fruit and put it in a blender until the consistency is even (not smooth...unless that's what you like).  Add sugar to taste.  Easy, tasty, festive.

Hi, sorry about the hiatus.  I took a new job in Rochester, NY where some of the ideas I thought were so original have cropped up in local stores.  Oh well.  The hours haven't been conducive to experimenting in the kitchen, and I'm still not even fully unpacked, but I plan on changing that, so there will be more to come in the near future.  Thanks for sticking around!

Pretentious tuna salad

I mentioned some pinot noir vinegar in my post on bread and butter jalepenos, but I didn't say much more about it other than how good it was.  I'll tell you right now, the brand is Lucini, and I don't know how it compares to the stuff Alton Brown keeps under lock and key in his cellar (if I am to believe the "Good Wine Gone Bad" episode of Good Eats), but I'm really starting to understand where he's coming from.  But growing up, all I knew were white and apple cider vinegar.  Now?  Now...I'm even starting to appreciate those more.  But I digress.

I'm not a huge seafood fan.  Tuna I mainly use to add protein to the mayo and relish I spread on a piece of bread at lunch, and even then more often these days I fall back on salmon.  However, in recent months I've found myself acquiring through no fault of my own some cans of tuna packed in oil, and I had to do something with them eventually.

The idea was really borne of a comment made by my boss.  I'd mentioned having them and how I tended to prefer water-packed tuna because it didn't have all that fat, even if the oil does taste a little better straight up.  He said "Well, if you just dump the whole can over a salad, you just need to add some vinegar for your dressing!"  So obviously true, it was, that I hadn't thought of it that way.

I thought it would be pretty good, too, since the cans I had contained garlic-infused olive oil, so it should be tasty and heart-healthful anyway; but I never got around to make a regular bowl-of-greens salad with the stuff.  My mom did, however--actually she didn't.  She started with water-packed tuna over lettuce and then made a vinaigrette with the Lucini's vinegar and the juice from one lemon wedge.  I'm not normally a fan of fruit in a non-fruit salad but this sounded delicious to me, even factoring in the fact that when she told me about it I hadn't eaten all day.

So, where's my tuna salad idea?  Okay:  start with your oil packed can of tuna, preferably infused with garlic or whatever other flavors you can get.  You don't need all the oil, but don't try to drain it first.  Spread it all over the inside of a submarine sandwich bun.  I managed to find some that weren't spit and cut a longitudinal v-notch to help hold everything in place, like Subway used to do back in the '80s.  Over the top of that I poured a few tablespoons of Lucini's pinot noir vinegar and pressed the v-wedge of bread back on top to start soaking it up so everything didn't fall apart on the plate.

Man, that was good.  Garlic, a little oil, the pungency of a rich vinegar to offset the fish...I could eat this stuff every day and twice on Friday.  Maybe not, but maybe. I tried it both with and without relish (on separate occasions, of course--what kind of enlightened philosopher would I have to be to have relish and no relish at the same time?), and either way is pretty good; whatever your druthers are.

Oh, did you want some bullet items so it looks like a recipe?  Let me sum up:

• 1 can tuna packed in oil (preferably garlic infused)
• 1 submarine sandwich bun
• A richly flavored vinegar, such as Lucini's pinot noir

Split the bread however you want, if it's not already. Apply the tuna; don't drain the oil, but you don't have to sop it all up with the bread, either. Pour vinegar over the top as you see fit, then put the top of the bun on to help soak some of it up.

That wasn't bad, was it?

Lucini's also has a pinot grigio vinegar, which I found at The Savory Swine down in Columbus over the weekend, but I haven't tried that yet.  I'll keep you posted.