Browned Butter Chocolate Chippers

You can kind of see the deeper color of the butter...

Ready for the "setting up" in the fridge

Did I eat the whole other half...?! Oh, they're in the oven

 

Cookies, as far as the eye can see

 

 

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Joy The Baker

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons molasses
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
coarse sea salt for sprinkling

Brown the butter in a saucepan.
Place butter in a heavyish pan if you have you one, regular pan if you don't, and melt over medium heat. once it's lost it's shape it will start to sizzle and pop. This is the water cooking out of it and it will take a while with two stick, but be patient.
Once the sizzle has slowed down the bubbles will get smaller and it will start to smell nutty. Watch this very closely.
Start to swirl the butter a bit to see through the froth. The bottom will start to darken and when this has turned a deep amber color (and smells unbelievable! I mean, the only thing in here is butter, right?) immediately pour it into a glass measuring cup, scraping all the brown bits in.
Let it cool about 20 minutes.

Cream the sugar butter and eggs.
I use a wooden spoon for this because the butter is liquid. Beat the butter and sugar for about a minute until the sugar has started to dissolve. Add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla, molasses and beat a bit more until it's smooth.

Mix dry ingredients together.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a different bowl and add all at once to your butter. Stir it in.
Stir in chocolate and nuts.

Spoon dough onto a piece of parchment paper and wrap. Let it set up in the fridge (remember, the butter was liquid) about 30 minutes.

Bake.
Preheat the oven to 350 and line your cookie pans with parchment paper.
Drop dough two tbsps. at a time onto your pans and bake for 12 minutes, being very carful to keep the bottoms from getting dark. Because the butter was already cooked once this seems to happen easily. Keep 'em soft!

Enjoy.
(No explanation needed)

Reusable Grocery Bag w/ Cityscape Applique

I've posted a new bag in The Shop (www.etsy.com/shop/TheSistersNeedle).

This one is about the size of a brown paper bag with two pockets and a cutout cityscape.

 

I'm very particular about my grocery bags. My biggest complaint is that they're too big, more specifically, too wide. If the bag is too heavy to carry once it's full then make it smaller.

I try to keep all my bags a realistic size and rugged enough to carry whatever would fit in them.

 

If you try one out please please please give me a review. I would really like to know how they handle themselves out of my care.

Thanks! Cass

The Not-So-Healthy But Really Tastey Trail Bars

 

All the hiking and biking we've done this summer has had me on the look out for some good bars. After checking some recipes and noticing that they all call for some sort of corn syrup or rice syrup, which I don't really want in my bars, I decided to just throw something together and see how it stuck together.

 

This was very spur of the moment, this deciding thing. I had a pan with chocolate chips on the stove before I really knew what was happening and when Spence said "whatcha making?" I didn't really have an answer.

 

I had about 2/3 cup of dark chocolate chips, I added a couple tbsp. honey, two marshmallows, and 3/4 peanut butter. After it was all melted and smooth I poured it over 2 cups of rolled oats, a small bag of Tropical Medley dried fruit and 2/3 cup of sunflower seeds.

 

I pressed it between two pieces of parchment paper in a baking dish and coerced it into a rectangle. Then I put it in the fridge until it was firm, sliced it up and ate some(maybe two and half). Yum. So good!

It's pretty sweet, I probably didn't need the honey, but it's actually a lot of oats versus chocolate stuff so it's pretty hearty.

 

What do you do for bars on the go?  

Another Way To Use Up Multiple Eggplants...

This week at our CSA they had a table set up in the barn with three crates full of Asian eggplant. And signs that said "Help Yourself". I took four. FOUR! What was I thinking? I still had two in the fridge!

I was thinking about 30 hypothetical things I could do with them. And I couldn't remember a single one when I got home.

 

After thinking and scratching my head and chewing my pen I decided to come up with some sort of  sandwich with thin crispy pieces of eggplant that allow you to actually taste the eggplant, unlike eggplant parmesan.

 

Tyson walked in and said "Wow, it smells like a restaurant in here!" A few minutes later he took a bite and said "...That's why! Because this tastes like a restaurant!"

Whoo-hoo! Ten points for the midweek meal!

 

Here's how it happened.

 

Fried Eggplant "Restaurant" Sandwich

 

for the eggplant:

2 Asian eggplants, cut into three pieces and then sliced the long way 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick (see pictures)

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 flour

salt and paprika

4 eggs whisked in a large bowl

 

Mix your flour and cornmeal, salt and paprika on a baking sheet. Oil another baking sheet and have at the ready. Preheat your oven to 425 Fahrenheit.

Dip and drip the slices in the egg.

Lay them in the cornmeal mixture and make sure both sides are evenly covered.

Arranged on oiled pan and bake for 6 minutes or until crispy. Flip over and bake another 6 minutes.

 

 

for sandwich:

1 Loaf of bread, mine was about the size of a football, sliced the long way through the middle

2 tbsp. mayo mixed with one clove minced garlic

3 leafs of Romaine

4 slices of red onion

Cheddar cheese to make sufficiently cheesey

Oregano (garnish)

 Thinly sliced Red Bell Pepper (garnish)

 

I put my bread cut side down right on the oven rack for the last 6 minutes of my eggplant.

Spread the mayo and arrange romaine. lay eggplant in an overlapping chevron pattern (see pictures).

Follow with onion, cheddar, peppers and oregano.

 

Place 'sandwich' open faced on your oiled pan and place in oven until melted.

Slice huge chunks and serve.