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| Photo by Katie Kay |
Some of my favorite Italian dishes are some of the most simplistic ones with very few ingredients. I love this sauce made of good quality canned tomatoes, garlic, and basil. The first time I made it I served it with my own homemade pasta and it was restaurant-worthy. Truly fabulous. I bought bagged linguine noodles this time, and they looked like they might taste fresher than pasta in a box. They were still excellent, even if they weren't homemade.
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| Photo by Katie Kay |
Take note, this is an overnight French Toast recipe, so don't look at the pretty pictures without reading the recipe, then wake up at 8am in the morning with big promises to little kids, thinking you can whip up some of this sticky sweet goodness! You'll be about 8 hours short.
I don't like cooking in the kitchen once I've already entered my evening relaxation time. Once dinner is done and the kitchen is clean with lights off, I want to leave it that way. But thankfully this recipe prepares quickly, and from start to fridge it only took me about 20 minutes with minimal mess. It was an easy recipe to make, especially the caramel. I hadn't heard of a caramel recipe that calls for dumping everything in a pan and cooking it all at once, but it turned out dark, thick, and perfectly sweet.
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| Photo by Katie Kay |
These Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies are so soft and gooey. When they first come out of the oven, they'll fall out of your fingers and into the bottom of your glass of milk if you try eating them too early. Which I did. And I'd do it again.
If you're patient and don't eat them all in the first 5 minutes after their exit from the oven, then you can enjoy how soft they stay for days. I'm not saying I serve old cookies, but if I have cookies in my cookie jar and you eat one without asking me (you know who you are), that's at your own risk. It's not my fault if they're old. As long as they taste fresh--which these do--who cares?
Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
16oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp instant espresso powder
10 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup sugar
1 bag semisweet or milk chocolate chips
Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Whisk gently, then set aside.
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler until smooth, then set aside.
Crack eggs into a small bowl and stir with fork. Add vanilla and espresso powder and set aside to dissolve.
In a mixer bowl, cream butter until smooth. Add sugars and beat for 45 seconds. At a low speed, slowly add egg mixture until combined. Drizzle the chocolate in at low speed and scrape sides of bowl with a spatula until combined. Slowly add dry ingredients and mix only until incorporated. Add chocolate chips and stir by hand. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for about 30 minutes until consistency is like fudge and you can scoop it with a spoon.
At this point, you can refrigerate or freeze it. I froze it and cooked off small batches over a few weeks with excellent results.
Preheat oven to 350 and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Bake for about 10-12 minutes.
Source: Baking Illustrated
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| Photo by Katie Kay |
Theme cookies are so much fun! I wanted to make Halloween cookies but never had the time. I was very motivated this weekend and stayed up way too late a few nights in a row working on these Thanksgiving / Fall cookies. I had no reason to make them other than to share them with you, and the whole time I wondered where I was going to offload all this sugar. My kids' teachers, Matt's co-workers, and my co-workers are getting an even distribution. The neighbors are tired of my cooking, I'm sure. I don't want to wear out that welcome.
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| Photo by Katie Kay |
Out of this WORLD. I am so in love with this super easy, moist, flavorful coffee cake. I usually make my own apple pie filling, but I happened to have a can of it in the pantry so I used it here and everything else in this recipe is a pantry staple for me. I was able to make this spur-of-the-moment without a trip to the grocery store! I don't think fresh apples would have made a big taste difference, so just go with the easy canned filling!
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| Photo by Katie Kay |
I had my eye on an Italian Chicken Soup recipe for dinner, but I foolishly read the ingredients to Matt and he vetoed it due to the coconut milk. I allowed it. I get to be the boss pretty much every single day when it comes to the food on our table, so I thought I'd let him have this one.
This looked to me like a very simple recipe with few ingredients. Sometimes that's a good thing, but mostly that just makes me distrustful. I never trust a recipe that looks too easy. I'm coming around on that, especially after this new marinara recipe I have (to be shared later) and I'm willing to give simplistic a try.
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| Photo by Katie Kay |
Every now and then I come across a recipe that I can't screw up. In fact, the more I adjust and play with it, the better it gets! This is one of Matt's favorite crockpot meals, and it smells my house up like nothing else. It makes me feel like the mom on Home Alone with my perfectly Christmas-decorated house and my apple pie on the counter (except for the whole 'forgetting-my-kid' thing.) There's a special homeyness to that house that I feel so wistful about, especially around the holidays.
It takes me back to the time my mom left me alone for a holiday. Only it was 4th of July, not Christmas, and she dropped me off at my (closed) school. I hid at the top of a fire escape, thinking that was the safest place for me until she came back for me. I'm pretty sure she still loves that story.
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| Photo by Katie Kay |
I have lists of recipes I want to make, kind of like my Netflix queue. I find new ones I'm excited about and add them to the list, then occasionally I go through the list, re-prioritize, and delete some, and sometimes I get hung-up on themes--like cupcakes! And sometimes the theme is more specific, like cheesecake.
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| Photo by Katie Kay |
I kind of love Tortellini as much as I love Ravioli. I'm sure anyone can guess why. They're pretty similar in really awesome ways. You know, noodles stuffed with yummy surprises? I found this recipe on Pinterst and was intrigued. I've heard of putting noodles in soup, but tortellini in chili? Interesting.
