Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

It was a drizzly day, so I wanted to make something easy. I also wanted something with chocolate chips. I've never made chocolate chip cookie bars before, so the conditions were perfect to give it a try. They turned out great. It's a lot easier to make one gigantic cookie and then cut it into pieces than to make individual drop cookies!

This is a pretty standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. Nothing new or surprising. The recipe is also scaled to fit rather well into a 13x9 inch pan. If you want cookies without much hassle, make these.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/3 C brown sugar
1/2 C butter (softened)
1 t vanilla
1 egg
1/2 t baking soda
1 1/4 C flour
1/2 t salt (only if butter is unsalted)
1/2 C nuts (optional!)
6 oz chocolate chips

Put the butter and sugars in a bowl. Mix at a medium speed until well combined (a minute or so). My butter was still a bit firm, so I cut it into slices.

Add the vanilla and the egg. Mix well.

Now mix in the baking soda and flour until combined. (Also the salt if needed.)

Stir in the best part (the chocolate chips!). Also the nuts if you really want to.

Press the cookie dough into a greased and floured 13x9 inch pan.

Bake at 375 for 12 to 15 minutes. The cookie will be lightly browned when done.

Cool and then cut. I cut them while they were still a bit warm to make the cutting easier. Enjoy!

Clear Tomato Soup

I'm going to start expanding my recipe range to include non-desserts and non-baked goods. Most of these types of recipes in the old cookbooks seem complex and not tasty. Fortunately for me, this clear tomato soup was easy to make and tasted pretty good. However, it was not clear. I'm guessing the title is to distinguish it from creamy tomato soup.

There are some homemade style tomato soups that are good, and then there are the homemade tomato soups that taste like pasta sauce. If I wanted to consume straight pasta sauce, I'd just open a jar and start drinking. This tomato soup is nothing like pasta sauce: it is a bit sweet and the clove is a bit strong. I'm going to play with the recipe in the future. I'll start by decreasing the amount of clove added and the amount of sugar added.

Clear Tomato Soup (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 1/2 quarts fresh tomatoes (2.5lbs)
1 small bay leaf
1/4 C chopped onion
4 cloves (1 t ground clove)
1 T butter
1 T flour
1 t sugar
1 t salt
Pepper to taste

Cut up the tomatoes and place them in a pot. Add the bay leaf, onion, and cloves.

Boil this together for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Some people may complain about the smell of clove during the boiling process. Just ignore them, the clove smells good.

Press the soupy tomato mixture through a sieve into another pot or bowl.

Discard the skins and onion that don't go through the tiny holes. I ran the tomatoes through the sieve twice to make sure all the seeds were removed.

Rinse out the original pot you were using. Melt the butter in this pot over low heat. Stir in the sugar and flour. It will make a thick paste. Slowly add approximately 1/4 C of the strained (sieved?) tomato and stir until smooth. Heat this for a few minutes.

Slowly stir in the remaining tomato liquid. Constantly stir for 5 minutes over low heat.

Pour some into a bowl and enjoy! This soup would go great with french bread if you have any handy.

Carrot Garlic Doggie Cookies (2nd attempt)

It's been a while since I've made doggie cookies. The previous few attempts were failures and that made me decide to give up on the quest for a while. But, I am back at it. This is something that Lucky appreciates very much. He is, of course, the official taste tester! And he loves these cookies.

My previous attempt at making these carrot dog treats didn't turn out at all as I expected. This attempt worked better. The result is sort of a drop cookie for dogs. It has a kind of chunky texture, the outside is dry and a bit crisp, and the inside is nice and soft. This recipe does include garlic, which is okay to give to dogs in small quantities. However, if your dog has known issues with digesting garlic, simply remove it from the ingredient list.

Note: After a few days, the cookies I made lost most of their crispiness.

Carrot Garlic Doggie Cookies

1/2 C mashed carrots (puréed would give a smoother texture)

1 egg

1/4 t garlic powder

1/2 C oatmeal (uncooked)

3/4 C flour

Cook and mash the carrots and place them in a bowl. Add the egg and garlic powder. Mix at medium speed for about a minute. This mixture will only get as smooth as the mashed carrots allow.

Add the oatmeal and mix until blended.

Add the flour a quarter cup at a time. If you want to roll the dough out, add a bit more flour until it isn't very sticky. Otherwise, the dough will be somewhat sticky. You may need some extra flour if you used puréed carrots.

Drop globs of the carrot dough onto a baking sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Bake longer if you want them to be crispier.

Cool completely before serving! Keep these in a cool and dry place. If the cookies have some moisture in them, they may start to get moldy after a week, so keep an eye on them.

Banana Kuchen

As promised, here is something very delicious to make up for the failed cookies of the last post. This cake was very easy to make. It didn't make very much, so it is great to bake and snack on for a few days. Or you can share it with people if you are feeling nice.

The texture along with the cinnamon crumble on top makes this very much like a coffee cake. The banana flavor is not overwhelming at all. The crumbly top is not too sugary. This seems to be a nicely balanced dessert which would probably go great with a glass of milk.

Banana Kuchen (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1/4 C shortening
3/4 C sugar
1 egg
1 medium banana, sliced
1/4 C milk
1 1/2 C sifted flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/3 C brown sugar, packed
1/2 t cinnamon

Cream together the shortening and sugar.

Add the egg, banana slices, and milk. Mix until smooth. Mine was still a bit lumpy, but that is fine.

Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon.

Pour the batter into a 8x8 inch pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar mixture on top.

Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. Be sure to test at 25 minutes by poking it with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, it is done!

Serve warm or let it cool first. It is delicious either way.

Enjoy!

Brown Sugar Drop Cookies (Failure...?)

**Edit** I have been told that these cookies aren't that bad. I may be exaggerating a bit here. 

These cookies may be a good example of why I should not attempt to fix a broken recipe. The recipe resulted in dry crumbles so I added an egg and some vanilla. Oh my goodness, are these cookies awful. I wouldn't advise making them unless you are going to give them to someone you don't like.

They look nice, don't they? They look like yummy and safe cookies. But when you eat one, you realize that they are terrible and no one should ever eat them. I guess we can call these cookies a failure. Expect another post on Thursday of something edible.

Brown Sugar Drop Cookies (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 C brown sugar (packed)
1/2 C shortening
1 egg
1/2 t baking soda
1 3/4 C flour
1 C raisins (or anything else you want to put in/on them)

Cream together the brown sugar and the shortening.

Add the egg and mix until well blended.

While the egg is mixing in, sift the flour and baking soda together. Then add the flour mixture to the mixer and let it do its thing.

You will probably get a crumbly mixture. If you want to be foolish like me, add another egg and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. This will make a dough.

Take globs of cookie dough and place them on a cookie sheet. Press raisins, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, or nothing into the top. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Don't attempt to enjoy these cookies.

If you are foolish and still want to make these cookies, try sifting the flour before measuring. You may not need the extra egg and vanilla. This suggestion comes with no sort of guarantee.