Bits & Pieces; Peanut Butter Choc Chip Cookie Recipe
August 17, 2006 at 3:36 PM
by Ashleigh
Peanut Butter Choc Chip Cookies
While I'm still trying to string together coherent sentences which might make a decent blog entry, I do have lots of bits and pieces that don't fit in anywhere else. So here they are.
Books: I've just read Tim Winton's The Turning. Strangely enough, petite anglais just did a blog post about this today. I finished reading my copy yesterday. His writing is beautiful. Take this for example, from his story 'Small Mercies':
"What undid him was not the approaching anniversary of his wife's death but the onset of winter. He was, quite suddenly, overtaken by disgust.All it took was a change in the wind. He hated winter. The first major cold front of the season was heralded by the usual blustery nor'wester, a wind that always seemed used up and clammy, too eerily warm for what lay behind it, but this gusting breeze was especially dirty beacuse Dyson woke early to the terrible stink of sheep. Being a country boy, he wasn't particularly sensitive to the semll of livestock. But this was the concentrated urinal stench of thousands of merinos being stacked in a floating high-rise. Down on the docks they were loading live cargo for the Saudis. Rising to pull down the window sash he found that the odour was in the curtains already. Outside on the line, the damp washing was tainted. The whole town was overtaken."
Today I bought two Michel Faber books: The Fahrenheit Twins and The Apple. I haven't read 'The Crimson Petal and the White' but I read a short story, 'The Safehouse' written by Michel Faber in the BBC Radio 4 collection of short stories I mentioned a while back. I was so taken with the sparseness of his prose that I had to read more.
I love short fiction, and the best short stories leave you longing for more. The characters in Tim Winton's book have me wondering what became of them and how their lives evolved. If I were ever to write, I would write short fiction.
Food: I made the tortillas from Pocket Farm the other night. They were nice! I don't think I rolled them out thinly enough at the beginning, but by the time I got to the last one they were better. Definitely a keeper for our recipe collection and so easy. Because the kids will usually eat anything in a tortilla we filled them with chicken breasts sauted with chinese stir fry vegetables and bought black bean sauce. Joe loved them, Seb wanted the tortilla alone. Silly boy.
I also made the Fresh Peach and Creme Fraiche pie from Cream Puffs in Venice. This was fantastic. The pastry is gorgeous. I found it difficult to handle, even after chilling, but I rolled it between two sheets of clingfilm and that worked to keep it together. The pie itself - wow. It takes a while to make, but the results are so worth it. Unfortunately I ate most of it myself so I didn't lose weight last week ;)
A couple of days ago I made risotto with bacon and mushrooms. I hardly follow a recipe anymore, but the original one I had came from one of the Good Housekeeping books. I use arborio or carnaroli rice, chicken stock (from a cube), lemon zest, and white wine. It does involve twenty minutes of stirring, but the result is wonderful. You can change the contents to suit the season but we always seem to have bacon and mushrooms with parmesan cheese. I actually enjoy standing there stirring risotto. It gives me time to think.
Today I made peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies with the kids. They just came out the oven and now the apartment smells wonderfully of cookies. The recipe is from the Norene Gilletz book I've referred to before. I love this book. Here's the recipe:
Peanut Butter Cookies 1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips
- Preheat oven to 375F (180C). Process margarine/butter, peanut butter, sugars and egg until well creamed. Add flour, baking powder and baking soda. Pulse until just mixed. Add chocolate chips and pulse again. Don't overmix.
- Form into 1 inch balls and place about 3 inches apart on paper lined cookie sheets. Flatten with a fork.
- Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden. Cool slightly before removing from baking sheets. Cookies will spread during baking. Makes around 3.5 dozen.
Crafty Stuff: I'm still working on stuff, albeit slowly. I have an autumn exchange that I'm working on and then a couple more after that, the needlework accessories exchange on the SBEBB, an autumn tuck pillow exchange on Aion, a Halloween exchange on the SBEBB etc. I sent off a parcel to my Not-So-Secret-Stitcher. I hope it arrives soon.
Speaking of parcels, I was so disappointed recently - my Cooking with Kids exchange hasn't arrived at it's destination. I sent it on the 17th July and it's still not in the USA. If it hasn't arrived in a while I'll have to make everything again, which I so don't want to do.
I sent such a nice package too! I made two kid's aprons, included a book of favourite recipes from our own kitchen, some cookie cutters in a tin, a shape with a handle for making heart-shaped pancakes (you put the shape in the pan, pour the mix in and once the pancake has cooked slightly you lift it off with the handle) and a stencil for putting powdered sugar on pancakes. Oh well. It's been a month. I'll wait til its 6 weeks before sending again.
Tomorrow a very special little boy turns 4, and is very disappointed that he won't be turning 6 like his big brother. The party has been postponed until September as the entire world seems to be on vacation. Instead we'll take a trip somewhere nice as a special treat.
And now, I'm off to the first football training of the new season which will be a ghastly 1.5 hours long! At least I have my nice new books to read. Brad has an important phone call this evening, so supper is some of the chicken a la king from the freezer, when I get back from football at 18h30. It's strange to have our lives moving back to a routine again after three weeks of summer freedom.
Comments
yummy! i,m going to make some soon for my classmates
Those pictures look wonderful!!! I plan to make a batch soon.
August 17, 2006 3:52 PM