Super Sunday Kitchen! (with pics!)

[hippywife]

Not really. Same old Sunday kitchen, just got a little swept up in the...no, no that's not true, either, and now that I think on it, it really DID turn out to be a Super Sunday in the kitchen.

It didn't look like it was going to turn out that way, a few times today, but all results were excellent!

First, I didn't disable myself with my standmixer, so that's a relief!

Second, I made lots of mistakes today but everything turned out, well...super!

Two small one-pound light wheat sammich loaves:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/light-wheat-bread/



One excellent cranberry orange loaf:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Grandmothers-Famous-Cranberry-Bread/Detail.aspx



Now here's where I made a couple of those mistakes. I made this last week and Bill loved it, asked for it again. Great! It's a terrific loaf (well, I had both loaf pans full of bread dough, so I used a casserole)the top is lightly crispy, the flavor awesome. First, I forgot to chop the frozen cranberries. No biggie, right? I enjoy having them whole, that lovely tart explosion in your mouth. The second thing I did was forget to add the butter. It was all mixed up with no butter in it! So I just subbed in a quarter cup of oil. All is well. Even added pecans this week. Yummy!

BTW, if you have something like this that calls for orange juice get tangelos if you can. They juice so easily and completely, much easier than your standard navel and the flavor is great.

And lastly the best chocolate chip cookies:
http://savorysweetlife.com/2009/10/alices-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe/

I usually just make the tollhouse recipe, but I did a quick search on Google for "Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe." Yeah, yeah...we've all been there before. But you know, I really have to give this chick her props because they are really the best I've ever had! It's the salt (I didn't have sea salt so instead of 3/4 t. of sea salt, I used 1 t. kosher salt.) The flavor is awesome. But here's the other mistake that turned out really good. I whipped the butter and sugar a really long time, till nice and fluffy, no problems. When I got all the dry ingredients in, I also added the semi-sweet chips and the pecans at the same time. Turned on the standmixer again (I'm still allowed to use it when Bill is in the house. LOL) mixed it all up and couldn't figure out for a sec what the problem was, then it dawned on me...I forgot to add the eggs and vanilla! (I really have no idea what's the matta' with me today, just having one of those days when it might not be a good idea to be in the kitchen.) What the heck, at this point I just went ahead and added them. You know how you usually end up with one or two scoops of dough towards the end of the batch that has no chocolate chips in them at all? Didn't happen this time. Every last cookie is full of chocolate chips and pecans, and I only used the standard bag rather than add extras as in the recipe. And let me tell you sumpthin'...these cookies are totally awesome, and fairly scream for a glass of milk to be consumed with them. Just look at those babies!



So anyway, that wraps up another Sunday Kitchen. Hope everyone had a very tasty day, Super Bowl or not. :hi:

[grasswire]

1. everything looks so good

Mmmmmmm. The wheat bread loaves are beautiful!

I have to send a care package to the college freshman this week, so I think I'll try the cookie recipe. He should be popular with his friends. Heh!

We spent the day out today. Portland has a Chinese garden; the most authentic one outside of China. This being Chinese New Year, and having a family member visiting from Seattle, we went downtown to have dim sum and go to the beautiful garden that was so gala with red lanterns and drummers and dancers and so on. There's an authentic tea house overlooking the lagoon where the menu consists of dozens of different types of teas brewed at table, plus some different plates of snacks. We ordered one of the plates of assorted snacks. I can tell you that a candied kumquat, a pickled chestnut, or a strip of what we jokingly called "hundred year Jell-O" are no temptation like a cookie is. Beatiful they were, but not toothsome to our palates that are used to butter and sugar.

Here's a picture of the tea house.

[Warpy]

5. It's funny they serve sweets, at all

because they don't have a sweet tooth over there, or didn't until they started to import rubbish from the US. Now they drink warm-warm Coca Cola.

Tea lunches are usually dim sum. There was one great place in Boston for that, upstairs and out of the way and identified only by a small sign when I was there. I was usually the only white face in the whole place and the carts would roll around and I'd point and pray. It was all good, though, most the the fillings were pork, shrimp and veg in various combination.

The one thing you'd never find was dessert unless it was a "sweet" cake stuffed with beans.

[Lucinda]

6. I want to go there!

Now would be good.
Beautiful. :)

[hippywife]

7. Oh, your picture is beautiful!

How serene! I have a friend in CA that really gets into the Chinese New Year thing. She even sent me an ecard. :D

[Lucinda]

2. Looks delicious....I must have missed the mixer story?

I can't for the life of me remember hearing you talk about it. :(

Bookmarked the cookies to try. I have been drooling over a mint chocolate chip cookie that I had planned on trying soon...but I may go with these. I downloaded Opera (browser) because Google was misbehaving and i really don't like IE - bookmarked all sorts of things including saod mint choc chip cookies, and then the browser died. So I need to find them again. :(

Hope you have a wonderful week. I'm sort of out of it tonight too...must be sumpin in the air. :P

[hippywife]

8. Sorry you had a hard time with your browser.

We have used Firefox for years, I didn't even know Google HAD a browser, or am I misunderstanding?

Hope you found your cookie recipe, sweets. :hug:

[Lucinda]

11. Yawp. Google Chrome.

Loved it, but it got posessed recently. :(

[housewolf]

3. You're brilliant, you know it???

So creataive in making substitutions and fixes that turn out great!

HW, our WonderBaker!

[hippywife]

9. No, just lucky! LOL

I think I'm going to start making my cookies that way from now on. :rofl:

I mailed your package today because I wasn't sure when it would get out if I waited. Supposed to have snow again tomorrow night, expecting 4-8 inches. :eyes:

:hug:

[Phentex]

4. So glad to hear others do this kind of thing, lol...

after starting on the FOURTH batch of sugar free cookies the other day I was asking myself DID I PUT THE EGG IN? Did I put the EGG in? Then I counted the shells in the compost bin and realized no I did not. I was tired and cranky by that point.

Your "stuff" looks yummy! I'm always up for a new cookie recipe. :hi:

[hippywife]

10. There are just some days that it doesn't pay

to be in the kitchen, no?

How are all the plans coming? Wishing you all well for this weekend. :hug:

[Callalily]

12. Tasty Sunday indeed! ;-)

If you have any of those cookies left . . . well, they'd go great with the coffee that I'm sipping right now.

Just sayin'

:hug:

[hippywife]

13. You're always "just sayin'" that, but

I don't see you showing up here with that coffee. :D

There's always enough to share. :hug:

[tigereye]

14. nicely done- cranberry bread and cookies look so good

I wonder if it's because you cook and bake so much - that you might have a "brain moment" so to speak... :D Looks like it was all good, after all, though.


Might try those cookies- it's fun to try different c chip cookies!