Mary's Chocolate Chip Cookies

First off, you should know I do not like chocolate chip cookies! Growing up we always made what was supposedly the Mrs. Field's recipe. Everyone but me liked them. Well, my next door neighbor has brought us chocolate chip cookies a couple of time and hers are delicious! I finally asked her for the recipe. Mary sent me a picture of the recipe and it says "Neiman Marcus Cookies" as the title. They have ground oats in them - That's the big difference I noticed between the ones I usually make and the ones Mary makes. I also asked her what kind of chocolate chips she uses- maybe that's what makes a difference. I always buy the cheaper store brand chocolate chips and maybe I shouldn't. She uses Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips or the Ghiradelli chocolate chips in the silver or gold bag. She says she usually halves the recipe. She doesn't add nuts.

2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups brown sugar (from the notes Mary had on the side of the recipe - I don't think she halves this?)
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
5 cups old-fashioned oats, ground to flour in a food processor or blender
2 (11.5 oz) packages semi-sweet chocolate chips
8 oz milk chocolate Hershey bar crushed or 1 (11.5 oz) package milk chocolate chips (Mary says she just uses semi-sweet - not sure if she adds semi-sweet in place of these or skips it all together.)
2 cups chopped nuts, optional

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Mix in flour, salt, soda, baking powder and ground oats. Then gently stir in chocolate and nuts. Roll into balls with a cookie scoop (I don't even know what one is) and bake on a greased cookie sheet for 8 to 10 minutes at 375 degrees.

Update 4/10/2017 - I finally made these myself. We did a giant cookie for Myles to use to ask a girl to prom. I did half the entire recipe (including the brown sugar). I used 12 oz. of Semi-sweet Nestle Toll house chocolate chips and 4 oz of Kroger brand milk chocolate chips. To make the giant cookie, I pressed the dough into a quarter sheet cookie pan and baked at 350 for about 20 to 22 minutes.

Pumpkin Bread

I went to Kneaders last week for lunch with Mom, Grandma, Jessica and Olivia for Mom's birthday. We tried their pumpkin bread while we were there. It's delicious! I wanted to find a recipe to make it at home. I did find several that claimed to be the Kneader's recipe, but it had chocolate chips in it. The one we tried did have chocolate chips. Also they all had butter or oil in them with the pumpkin puree and I wondered why when you can use pumpkin instead of oil in recipes. So once again- I made up my own! The recipes I looked at had too much sugar, so I reduce it some. Some had baking powder, some didn't - I'm not sure why. I need to investigate that some more. I added it, but the main recipe I looked at didn't have any. Something to ponder for next time.  I think next time I need to add more spices too. I like spicy bread, and it wasn't very strong.

 1 (30 ounce) can pumpkin puree (or what ever is left after your hubby takes out 1/4 cup for a pumpkin pie protein shake)
4 eggs
2/3 cup water
2 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 TBSP pumpkin pie spice (I actually had it in the cupboard! or use a combo of ginger, cloves and nutmeg instead)

Mix the eggs, pumpkin and water until blended. Add the sugar, baking powder, salt, soda and spices. Stir in the flour until combined. Pour into greased and floured bread pans and bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 min for mini loaves and 55-60 min for regular loaves. Mine made 1 big loaf and 4 small loaves. The calories are a little hard to figure.... If it makes 30 servings they are about 120 calories each. or 100 calories for 36 servings.

Zucchini, Chive and Cheddar Cheese Bread

Today I am making salsa. YUM! For lunch I decided to eat salsa, but what to put it on? Yesterday I made this bread and thought I'd give that a try- a spoonful of salsa over the bread. Delicious!! Here is the bread recipe I found and made minimal changes. That blog has some other quick bread recipes that I think I should try sometime. But this one is a nice change from the usual sweet breads we make with zucchini.

4 cups flour
4 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 cup milk
2 egg
1/2 cup melted butter or 1/4 c greek yogurt
2 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
2 cup shredded zucchini, drained on a paper towel - use another paper towel on top to push out extra moisture

Put lemon juice in bottom of a 2 cup measure. Add enough milk to make 2 cups and set aside. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt. Add eggs to milk. Beat well. Slowly pour melted butter into the milk. Pour the milk mixture into the flour all at once and mix just until combined. Do not over mix. Stir in the chives, zucchini and cheese. Grease and flour 2 (5x9) bread pans. Pour batter evenly into pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes on a cooling rack. Then remove the bread from pans and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack before cutting. We couldn't wait that long. It was too yummy. I think next time I might skip the butter and see if that makes a difference. It will save on calories.

Homemade Salsa

I came up with this recipe last year, but I  never posted it. I took some pictures, but I'm feeling too lazy to add them so I will just do the recipe. This recipe is very easy and flexible. I vary the amount of onions and peppers every time I make it. The secret is roasting the tomatoes first. Today I roasted the peppers too. It is great! I did extra cilantro and only 2 large onions this time too. And a few hot peppers from our garden we grew this year called black Hungarian peppers.  I didn't have any limes so I just added an extra 1/4 c lime juice. The one thing you can't skimp on is the lime juice if you plan on bottling it. You have to make sure you have enough acid so that bacteria don't grow in the bottles on the shelves. You all know I like easy recipes so today I didn't even remove all the tomato skins - I didn't remove any of them the last time I made it and you can't tell the difference! Here's my recipe:

40 tomatoes 5-6 onions (2 and ½ pounds)
6 chili peppers 1 cup lime juice
4 limes 2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cumin 3 TBSP salt
½ TBSP pepper 1 bunch of cilantro
3-6 bell peppers – something I read said not to use green, that red or yellow taste better, but I’ve done both.

Cut the tomatoes in half and put on a baking sheet skin side up. Roast under the broiler in the oven until skins start to turn black. Remove the skins and puree or finely chop in a blender or food processor.  Roast the chili peppers until they start to blacken. Chop the onions and peppers, and add to the tomatoes.  Remove skins and seeds of chili peppers, puree and add. Finely chop cilantro add to tomatoes. Add all the spices and lime juice. Squeeze fresh limes into salsa too.This is best fresh, but it can be bottled too. Bring salsa to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. While cooking the salsa, heat sterilize the jars in 1 inch boiling water. Soften the lids in hot, but not boiling water. Hot Pack- Fill the hot jars with hot salsa to the bottom of the rim (about 1 inch from top). Clean the top of jar before placing the lid. Tighten a ring over the lid and then turn back ¼ turn (loosen them just a little). Put them in the hot water bath canner and make sure water covers the jars by 2 inches.  Bring to a rolling boil and allow to boil for 20-30 minutes. Remove from water bath and cool.