Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I'm taking a quick break from my cookbook recipes to bring you a recipe from the only other place that anyone ever finds a recipe...Pinterest, of course! I came across this Lemon Crinkle Cookie Pin not long after I attempted a lemonade cake and thought I'd give lemon baked goods a second look.


I've now decided that lemon was just destined to be in baked nommies. In both my cake and these cookies, my tongue has cried, "GIVE ME MORE LEMON!" These cookies turned out amazing as is, but next time I may double the amount of lemon juice for a more tart kick!


Ingredients
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 tsp lemon zest (I hate zesting lemons, so I omitted this!)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder
⅛ tsp baking soda
1-½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup powdered sugar


Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside. If using a non-stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.


2. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again.


3. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly.


4. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar.

My dough was really sticky, so I didn't roll it into balls. I just scooped about half a rounded Tbsp of the dough then plopped it onto the powdered sugar with my fingers. Trying to touch the dough as little as possible, I pushed it around with a finger in the sugar until coated then quickly transported it onto the baking sheet.

5. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

I hate the idea of wasting delicious powdered sugar, so after I had rolled all the dough in it, I topped all them all of with the leftover sugar!

My counter-space is so small that I have to do a lot of prep work on the stove. Since the oven was preheated, you can see that the first few balls of dough have already melted!

6. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte -- not melty or shiny. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes.

7. Transfer to cooling rack.

Eat them!

These cookies stay soft and moist for days after baking, so don't worry about eating all 2-3 dozen immediately!

Pot Roast with Fruit

This was only the second roast I've ever made in my slow cooker, so I think I still have a lot to learn about slow cooking a roast. The flavors turned out great; I mean, it's really hard to go wrong with peaches! I just think I cooked the roast a little too long. It wasn't tough -- just very done.

I based this roast on the "Easy Pot Roast" recipe in Better Homes & Gardens' 30 minute meals cookbook which calls for a refrigerated cooked beef pot roast. Figuring that a cooked pot roast costs more than a raw one, I decided to pay my lonely slow cooker some attention and cook that roast myself! I had the day off, so why not? Usually Hubby and I arrive home from work and school at the same time, around dinner-time, and neither of us like the idea of losing precious sleep in the morning to put together a meal in the slow cooker. When you wake up at 4:30 AM, every minute counts!

Ingredients
1 ~17 oz. beef pot roast
1 Tbsp butter or margarine
2 Tbsp minced shallots
   (I used chopped onions instead because I buy them frozen!)
1/4 cup water or broth
   (I used chicken broth left over from the previous day's chicken toss.)
2 Tbsp tarragon vinegar
   (I used rice vinegar because that's what I had on hand. Here is how to make your own tarragon vinegar.)
2 cups fresh, pitted fruit cut into wedges
   (Such as peaches, green plums, &/or red plums. I just used peaches.)
1 tsp snipped fresh tarragon or about 1/2 tsp dried
Hot cooked noodles
   (BH&G recommends spaetzle, but I used whole wheat rotini.)

Instructions
1. Place roast in slow cooker with shallots/onions and water/broth. Cook on high for 3 hours or until it's as done as you would like. Mine was well done after the first 3 hours. eHow has a great pot roast article for more particulars.

2. Add fruit and vinegar. Cook for 1 additional hour on low.

Delightful peaches ready to be slow cooked!

3. Serve over cooked pasta. Sprinkle with tarragon. Peachy!

In case you didn't notice...I actually forgot the tarragon....

I have a nice bag of spinach leaves left over from the "focaccia" recipe, so I made myself a little salad to go with the roast. To top it off, I shredded some cheddar cheese, chopped a carrot, and sprinkled it with sliced almonds. We usually eat our salads with nuts instead of croutons because the recipe for which we buy the nuts never seem to use up the whole bag, and apparently we can't keep croutons in our kitchen (because I eated them....)

The BEST part of our salads is our homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing from Emeril's recipe. You probably already have all the necessary ingredients! We store ours in an empty glass bottle from a store-bought dressing.

Stuffed French Toast

Yesterday I slept through breakfast straight into the afternoon which really only disappointed me in that I had planned to make some pretty exciting French toast! However, as everyone knows, breakfast food is nommy at ANY time of day! So I decided that tea time would be my breakfast, and around 3:00 I began this mouth-watering recipe from the Better Homes & Gardens 30 minute meals cookbook.

Ingredients
1/2 cup cream cheese
2 Tbsp strawberry or apricot spreadable fruit (I used apricot preserves.)
1 loaf of French bread, cut into approx. 8-1" slices
2 egg whites
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp apple pie spice (I just used allspice.)
1/2 cup strawberry or apricot spreadable fruit

Instructions
1. In a small bowl combine cream cheese and the 2 Tbsp spreadable fruit.

2. Using a serrated knife, form a pocket in each bread slice by making a horizontal cut halfway between the top and bottom of the crust edge, slicing not quite all the way through. Scrape out a little of the bread around your cut to make room for more filling!

French bread is beautiful!

3. Fill each pocket with the cream cheese mixture, using it all up.

4. In a small bowl beat together egg whites, egg, milk, vanilla, and apple pie spice.

5. Lightly coat an unheated nonstick griddle with cooking spray. Heat griddle over medium heat. Using tongs, dip stuffed bread slices into egg mixture, turning to coat both sides. Place bread slices on hot griddle. Cook about 3 minutes or until golden brown on both sides.

6. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan heat the 1/2 cup spreadable fruit until melted, stirring frequently.

7. Serve melted fruit over French toast and enjoy your beautiful creation!

What pairs better with breakfast or an afternoon snack than coffee? And since it's summer, who drinks their coffee hot? No one! We all drink it iced!

Remember to brew your iced coffee at double strength since you'll be diluting it by pouring it over ice. I used my French press this afternoon (we alternate between our press and drip coffee maker) because it results in a more full-bodied and flavorful coffee that is perfect for enjoying over ice!

As you can see, a little double strength coffee goes a long way! I used 4 flattened Tbsp of ground coffee for one cup of hot water in the press. Then I poured the hot coffee over a glass-full of ice, stirred in a Tbsp of vanilla flavoring (not extract) and topped it off with about an inch of milk

French press iced coffee with stuffed French toast...VERY nommy!

Unsure of what to do with your leftover yolks? Make mayo!
Then, since you have to use it within a couple of days, make these!

Lemon-Tarragon Chicken Toss and Cheese & Veggie-Filled "Focaccia"

Yesterday was my first day "home" from visiting "home." Hubby and I spent the past two weeks in the South visiting friends and family that we hadn't seen since December. Now he's gone for the next three weeks to teach drum corps again, and I'm stuck here working and cooking! (Of course one of those activities is much preferred over the other.)

Upon my first day back, I undertook one of my favorite weekly rituals: meal planning! I got out my calendar and current cookbook, Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of 30 Minute Meals. This was the first cookbook I ever bought for myself. I bought it in college, figuring that the subtitled, "More than 450 Hassle-Free Recipes," would be an easy introduction to cooking for myself. Well I only delved into a few of its pages during school, but since I'm now working full-time and married to a full-time grad student, I'm finding it fairly convenient. Since all the recipes are quick and easy, the resulting quality can be hit or miss. Of course I'll let you know which ones aren't worth your time after I've wasted my own on them. On the other hand, we've come across some excellent gems that we've already made multiple times and most likely will recreate often in the future!

Lemon-Tarragon Chicken Toss

We've made almost every chicken recipe in this book because it's so easy to buy a big bag of frozen chicken breasts and keep it around for whenever you need it. I had been holding off on this recipe because it includes cornstarch which isn't my favorite ingredient, but I thought I'd give it a shot yesterday since the only ingredients it required that I didn't already have were broccoli and a carrot.

For every recipe that requires chicken broth, I whip some up using chicken bouillon. Keeping both chicken and beef bouillon around is SO much cheaper than continually buying cans of broth when occasion requires.

The only other substitution I made was exchanging white pepper for black. I don't own any white pepper and haven't made anything that called for it since I started cooking, so I figured I could endure a bit longer without buying some. I don't feel like the black pepper was overpowering at all in this recipe.

See how happy the broccoli looks in its whole wheat fettuccine bath! A beautiful combination I must say!

Again, I love the addition of a bright vegetable in this step of the recipe. The tarragon makes my skillet look like a party!

Lemon-Tarragon Chicken Toss with Cheese & Veggie-Filled Focaccia

Lemon-Tarragon Chicken Toss Recipe:

Ingredients

6 oz. dried fettuccine or linguine

2 cups broccoli or cauliflower florets

1/2 cup chicken broth

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

12 oz. skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size strips

2 teaspoons olive oil or cooking oil

1 medium carrot, shredded

1 tablespoon snipped fresh tarragon or 1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon, crushed

Instructions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions, adding the broccoli or cauliflower for the last 4 minutes of cooking; drain well. Return pasta mixture to pan; cover and keep warm.

2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl combine broth, lemon juice, honey, cornstarch, and white pepper; set aside.

3. In a large nonstick skillet stir-fry chicken in hot oil for 3 to 4 minutes or until no longer pink. Stir cornstarch mixture; add to skillet. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Add carrot and tarragon; cook for 1 minute more.

4. To serve, spoon chicken mixture over pasta mixture.

Serves 4.

I wasn't overly impressed by this recipe, but what I made to pair with it was the true gem of the day!

Cheese & Vegetable-Filled "Focaccia"

As I was pulling this recipe together, I grew more and more uncertain of its outcome. Honey mustard and mayo with dilled cheese, picked veggies, and spinach!? Once I sat down to dinner, I took the first bite and couldn't quite comprehend what was going on in my mouth, but as I continued, I found myself delightfully surprised at its unique combination of flavors. I think this would be a hit at a party if guests would give it the benefit of an initial taste.

I couldn't find focaccia bread at my local supermarket, so I bought saloio bread instead. I think this loaf is bigger than the recommended 8-10" round focaccia, and the toppings could hardly fit on it! So I think you could easily split the toppings between the top and bottom halves of your bread instead of in the middle like a sandwich as the recipe instructs. The sandwich style makes for a mighty big bite!

As I was grocery shopping, I was unsure of what "pickled mixed veggies" were exactly. I recalled seeing something involving carrots and cauliflower in the pickle sections before, so upon much debate, I settled on a jar of antipasto in vinegar. I think I chose correctly because unless the dilled cheese was super powerful, the result had a definite "pickle" taste. Nommy!

I must say that the best decision I made for this recipe was to toast it. Honestly, I can't believe that isn't part of the recipe because all of the ingredients just cry out to be toasted! So here's the simple, nommy, toasty recipe.

Cheese & Vegetable-Filled "Focaccia" Recipe:

Ingredients

1/3 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons honey mustard

an 8-10" tomato or onion focaccia bread, halved horizontally

1 cup lightly packed fresh spinach leaves

6 oz. dilled Havarti cheese, very thinly sliced

1-16 oz. jar pickled mixed vegetables, drained and chopped

Instructions

1. In a small bowl stir together mayonnaise and honey mustard. Spread mayonnaise mixture over bottom half of focaccia.

2. Top with spinach leaves and half of cheese. (You can see I got a little carried away and accidentally shredded the cheese instead of slicing it. No biggie!)

3. Spoon vegetables over; top with remaining cheese.

4. For the love of all that is nommy, toast 'em! I stuck them in the oven on 350° for a little less than 10 minutes -- until the cheese is nice and melty.

5. If you're using real focaccia or circular bread, cut it into quarters. If you're using a loaf bread like me, cut it into four big slices.


Thanks, friend, for taking the time to read my first food blog post. I hope you try the focaccia and love it as much as I did!