We Have Cookies (and Salsa)

Between joking about the dark side, and I’ll be the one making cookies, and my friend Sean telling me the next food porn blog had better be my chocolate chip cookie recipe, OR ELSE…

Here you are!

stand mixer
The Stand mixer makes it all so easy.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • 2 ¼ c flour
  • 1 tsp Baking Soda
  • 1 tsp salt (optional. Do not use if you will be using salted butter)
  • ¾ c white sugar
  • ¾ c brown sugar
  • ½ c butter
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 pckg (12 oz) Chocolate Chips (we prefer semi-sweet)

Melt the butter, place in the stand mixer bowl with the sugars, begin mixing. I like to pre-beat the eggs a bit, then pour in, it won’t matter if you just add them. Add in vanilla, chocolate chips, baking soda, and salt (if needed), then slowly add flour. Do not keep mixing once all the four is incorporated into the batter. Switch off mixer, scrape beater, and scoop cookie dough with a teaspoon (the small spoons you eat with). Using a second small spoon to push it off with, place 12 cookies on a cookie sheet. I have a pair of airbake sheets I have used for well over 20 years, best investment my mother ever made for the kitchen! (Thanks, Mom!)

Place sheet (s) in oven at 375 deg, bake for 10-12 min or until golden brown. Remove to rack and let cool. Remind kids, husband, and various family members who teleport in to taste, that they will burn their mouths. Have vast quantities of cold milk to soothe said burnt mouths.

Chocolate chip cookies
Warm from the oven!

Or, if you are like me, and there are only two people living in the house at this point, and you really don’t need the 3-4 dozen cookies this recipe makes (dependent on size of your cookie) then you freeze some. Freezing cookie dough is the easiest thing in the world. I just put cookies dished out like above on another clean cookie sheet, only really close together, even touching (if you were to bake them like this on a flat sheet, they would make a mess. On a sheet with a lip, you get cookie bar, voila!), then pop the sheet not in the overn, but the freezer for an hour or two. Once they are hard through, pull them off the sheet and place in a gallon ziplock baggie, then back in the freezer. Now, you can pull as many or as few as you want out at a time, baking as directed above, with no need for thaw time.

frozen cookie Dough
Ready for freezing, and I could have fit more on this pan.

oh, I should add a note. This recipe is modified from the Alton Brown recipe I saw on Good Eats, and which is in his book “I’m just here for More Food” and which I highly recommend. I own several of his books, and the geeky science aspect makes me a happy girl. Seriously, I own maybe 8 cookbooks anymore, I get everything else online. Four of those books are by him.

Poblano chili
Very ripe Poblano chile, a bit red on the inside, but that dark green exterior won’t change colors.

Salsa Fresca

This has nothing to do with the cookies, I promise. Only when I’m in the kitchen, I tend to multi-task and while one thing isn’t needing my direct attention, I work on another. I’d picked up a bunch of tomatoes cheap, and found poblano chiles which I love, so…

  • ½ poblano chile (you could do a whole one with a bigger batch of salsa) diced small.
  • 4-5 medium tomatoes, diced small (this is tedious. Netflix on my tablet made it fun)
  • ½ onion, diced finely
  • 1-2 tbsp cilantro, fresh, chopped fine
  • salt to taste

I chop all the vegetables and herb and mix together, then put in the refrigerator overnight. Before salting, I drain most of the liquid off, then salt. Otherwise you wind up with soupy salsa, not very yummy. Serve with… anything, really. Chips are ok, hot fresh tortillas are better. I was also making chili in the slowcooker, and a dollop of this and cheese is good on that. Some with eggs is excellent. I always resent having to eat the nasty canned salsa, after having gotten used to this stuff. Especially here in Ohio, where if you order salsa in a restaurant, it was likely tinned tomato SAUCE at the beginning of the day. *shudder* That stuff is vile. This stuff is where I come back to remember why I fell in love with Mexican cooking.

Salsa Fresca
Salsa fresca, as simple as it gets.