I spent a good portion of this evening perusing recipes at foodgawker and feeling guilty about the fact that I wasn’t working on comics or writing. Tomorrow, I have resolved, is going to be a productive comics day. I have four stories I’m working on, and I will be thrilled if I can get one ready to print and the others mostly penciled. Just gotta get my head in the game.
But back to food. Though I have gotten less work done today than I might have liked, spending time with food is far from an unworthy activity. I love food. I would love for more people to make me food so that I can spend more time eating and less time cooking, but I like cooking too, when it all goes well. Of all the cooking I’ve been doing since I’ve been in Vermont, the most notable is my newly adopted cookie making habit.
I used to think I wasn’t very good at making cookies. I could never tell when they were done, and my sister was more of a sweets baking fan than I was, so I never really tried. I was mostly content with slice and bake cookies, as long as I could eat them straight out of the oven. Store bought slice and bake cookies are only good until they cool completely; once cool, they are mediocre at best.
But a few weeks after moving to Vermont, I came across a chocolate chip cookie recipe and I realized I had everything I needed to make them, so I did. Thus began a sting of baking experiments which I hope to continue for some time to come.
The first batch of cookies turned out well, and if you’re looking for a straightforward buttery chocolate chip cookie, it’s not a bad one to make. I skipped the step where they refrigerated the dough overnight, with no ill consequences.
For the next batch of cookies, I found myself pouring through Mark Bitman’s cookbook, How to Cook Everything, and discovered that once again I had everything on hand that I would need to make cookies (having noticed this trend, I’m working to keep it that way). They were oatmeal chocolate chip, and they were decent cookies, but I wasn’t blown away. The recipe that blew me away was the next one.
Peanut butter banana chocolate chip cookies.
They were the best. I’m a fan of all of the things listed in the title, and think they go brilliantly together. Added to that was my new found love of dark brown sugar and the richer flavor it brings with it. All in all, a spectacular cookie.
The pumpkin chocolate chip cookies I made next were also good, but in a different way. They felt a lot more bread like, and it was much easier to convince myself that they weren’t a dessert food but a healthy snack. Still tasty, and a good use for the can of pumpkin I bought out of a desire to celebrate fall flavors.
My most recent batch of cookies, with chocolate chips and toffee pieces, came with me to the election result viewing. I pulled them from the oven, onto a plate, wrapped then in a dishtowel and ran through the cold from my apartment over to the gathering, and to my great happiness they were still warm when I got there. They went fast. I enjoyed the ones I ate, but didn’t have the time to savor them, and I think they could have used another minute in the oven. The gooieness of the hot cookie was great, but I don’t know how it would have held up as it cooled. I think I’ll have to make them again, which is a terrible shame because I do so hate baking and eating cookies.
Ah well, it is suffering I shall simply have to endure.
Now, because I don’t spend enough time thinking about food already, I would love to get recipes from you all. Link me to your favorite cookie recipe, a food blog you like, or write up a family favorite and send it my way. Doesn’t have to be sweets–I’m up for cooking all kinds of things if I can get the ingredients without breaking my budget. Eating is one of the few things we cannot cut out of our busy schedules, so lets enjoy it and share good food.