The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been working on perfecting my chocolate chip cookie recipe this year, and I think I've finally done it!  So, because I'm nice, I'm going to share the step by step pictorial recipe with you all.  :) These cookies are so good!  Warning:  If you're on a diet, these cookies are not for you, they're full of fat and sugary goodness.  :)   Click Here for a printable version of this recipe:  Printable Version 

For the Christmas season I've been making the peppermint white chocolate chip version of these cookies, but you'll see how easy it is to change up what you can put in these cookies.

First, Let's start with the ingredients:

I'll give you the exact ingredients and their measurements at the bottom of this post in the actual recipe. The only thing healthy about these ingredients is the organic brown sugar.  :)  Honestly I don't usually use organic baking ingredients because they are so expensive.  The only reason I used it this time is because I was out of regular brown sugar and the closest store to us is a little health food store called Rainbow Blossom.  

Okay, this step is really important, and you won't find it in many chocolate chip cookie recipes.  You must must must take your butter and eggs out of the fridge and let them come to room temperature.  This will help them cream together with the sugar much better and make for even more yummy chewy cookies.  I usually cube up my butter and let it sit on the counter for about 2 hours.  Don't skip this step, it's really important.  

For these particular cookies that I made tonight, I added 12 crushed candy canes.  I made a double batch of cookies so my husband could take them to work tomorrow.  It's pretty easy to crush the candy canes, but it can be a pain to unwrap them all.  :)  I just put the candy canes in a ziploc bag and crushed them with my meat mallet.  Make sure you don't crush them into powder, just small pieces like in this picture.  

Now that you've brought your butter and eggs up to room temperature, and crushed your candy canes, you can cream together your butter, butter-flavored Crisco, white sugar and brown sugar.  Okay, once again, this next part is not in most chocolate chip cookie recipes, but it is really important too.  Beat this butter/Crisco/Sugars mixture with your electric beater for 5 minutes.  Yes, I said 5 minutes.  I thought this was pretty crazy at first too.  But, this helps to break down all the sugars and really cream them together with the butter/Crisco.  Warning, your arm can get tired from this much beating with the mixer, so you may want to enlist your husband's help at this point.  He'll like his reward of getting to lick the beaters.  I know Matt loves that part.  :) 

Next your going to add your eggs and vanilla to the creamed mixture.  Beat once again with the electric mixer until the vanilla and eggs are fully incorporated.  The batter should be somewhat fluffy at this point and a little stiff.  

Now it's time to measure out our dry ingredients into a separate bowl.  

This is an important little side not about measuring flour and other dry ingredients.  When measuring flour be sure to scoop the flour with a spoon into a measuring cup.  You want to avoid packing flour into your measuring cup as this will make the actual measurements incorrect and greatly effect the taste of your cookie.  Remember baking is like Chemistry, we need to be as exact as possible.

Here is another important step for measuring flour.  Always level off the measuring cup.  I just use a butter knife to gently slide the excess flour back into the jar.  

I know that most flour now days comes pre-sifted, but I really like to sift my own flour after it's all been measured out into the sifter along with the other dry ingredients.  Think about it, your flour has been sitting in a container in your pantry, it needs some fluffing up right?  Also, it's really fun to use a sifter. (If you have young children, this is something they can do,)  I got this one from an antique store and I love it.  I remember that this was one of my favorite things to do when I was helping my mom make cookies when I was little.  So using a sifter now is kind of nostalgic for me, but I do think it definitely effects the texture of your cookies.  It makes them less tough.  

I now add the sifted dry ingredients to my creamed wet ingredients a little at a time and beat them together with my electric mixer.  I add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 3 different installments.  Hmm...installments sounds funny, but that's the best word I could think of to describe this process.  :)  Make sure that all the dry ingredients are mixed together with the wet ones.  Don't over mix at this point though.  Remember flour has gluten, and the more you mix gluten the tougher it gets making you have really tough cookies.  

This is the fun part, add in whatever your heart desires to your cookies.  For this batch I used white chocolate chips and crushed candy canes to make them nice and festive for the Christmas season. You can get really creative at this point.  Here are some ideas:

• Any kind of baking chips
• Any kind of nuts
• Dried fruits (I like craisins and dried apricots) 
• Crushed pretzels
• Crushed candy bars

For this part, mix the add ins by hand.  I use a big wooden spoon.  Once again, you may want to get your husband to help you with this part, because the dough will be very stiff at this point.  Don't worry, he won't mind, he can't wait to eat one of your cookies, so he will do anything to make the process go faster.

Now at this point, must recipes would tell you to get your baking sheets ready, but this isn't most recipes, so instead, you will be getting your Pyrex glass casserole dish ready. :)  This cookie dough is not headed to the oven, but to the freezer first.  So, line a large freezer proof dish with parchment paper.

Use your 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop out some of the cookie dough.  The dough should be very stiff and not sticky to the touch at all.  

Scoop the dough out of the measuring cup with your hand and lightly form it into a disc shape, not a ball.  

Place all the cookie dough disks into the parchment lined freezer safe dish.  

I double-stack my cookie dough discs in my Pyrex glass casserole dish and then I put the lid on them, or you could cover them with foil.  At this point it's into the freezer with these dough discs.  It's best to let them freeze over night, but if you need them sooner, let them freeze for at least 2 hours.  One of the reasons that I love this recipe so much is that all the dough goes into the freezer, and you can take out the dough discs when you feel like making cookies, you don't have to cook up all 24.  Which is good, because these cookies are huge, you wouldn't want to eat 24 in one sitting.  :)  The dough discs will keep for up to 3 months in your freezer.  So, if you have guests come over you can always just pop some of these dough discs into the oven and surprise your guests with fresh baked cookies.  

After the cookies have been frozen, you can take out however many you want to bake and place them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  I love using parchment paper, it helps your cookies not to darken or burn on the bottom and they cook much more evenly.  I usually cook just 4 at a time for Matt and I.  

After the cookies have been in a 350 degree oven for 9 minutes, I flip the sheet around to ensure that they cook evenly and bake them for another 9 minutes.  Remember that every oven cooks differently.  I'm cooking with an electric oven so a total of 18 minutes of baking time works perfect for me, but it may not for you.  So when you first make these cookies be sure to check your cookies often so that they don't burn or overcook.  Also, if you like really crispy cookies, you'll want to increase the time.  A baking time of 18 minutes creates cookies that are crispy on the edges and nice and chewy in the center. 

After your cookies are finished baking in the oven, immediately place them on a wooden cutting board and allow them to sit for 2 more minutes.  This allows the cookies to harden up a bit so that they will be easier to transfer to their cooling racks.  

This picture is just to show you the large size of these cookies compared to my Pampered Chef cookie spatula.  The large size of these cookies is what helps them to retain that nice chewy center and crispy edges that make them so amazing.  

Once the cookies have sat for 2 minutes on their cookie sheet, go ahead and transfer them to a cooling rack.  I like my cookies to not only taste amazing, but to look really good and uniform too.  With this recipe I have finally accomplished both.  You can eat these cookies warm with milk, or you can store them in an air-tight container for a couple of days if somehow they don't get eaten right away.  :) 

Here is the actual Recipe:  

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Yields:  24 Large Cookies Ingredients 1 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup butter flavored Crisco 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs 4 teaspoons vanilla extract (use the best brand you can afford) 4 1/3 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons cornstarch 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 bag baking chips of your choice Instructions Mix butter, butter-flavored Crisco and sugars with an electric mixer on medium for 5 minutes. Add egg and vanilla and mix with electric mixer on medium until completely combined.   Combine flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt and sift together. Mix dry ingredients slowly into wet ingredients and mix with the electric mixer on low.  The dough should be stiff and not sticky to the touch (Do not over mix the wet and dry ingredients this will cause your cookies to be tough.) Add in the baking chips and stir with a wooden spoon until thoroughly mixed together.  (Once again, be careful not to over mix.)  Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop out dough and from into a disc.  Place the dough discs into a parchment lined freezer safe container. Continue until all 24 cough discs are in the freezer safe container and then put them in the freezer. Place the dough discs in the freezer for at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight.  The dough can remain in the freezer for up to 3 months.   Place frozen dough discs onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in a  350 degree preheated oven for 8 minutes and then turn the baking sheet and cook for another 8 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes. Remove from the cookie sheet and place the cookies on a cooling rack. You can eat these cookies warm or allow them to cool and then place them in an air-tight container for a few days.  (If they last that long.)

Click Here for Printable Version.  

Breakfast Burritos

There are just some memories that stay with us for a long time.  One of those memories for me is making breakfast burritos with my family.  I can remember my parents going out and shopping for all the ingredients that they would need to make 100 breakfast burritos for their Sunday School class.  Once we had all the ingredients, we would all work together and assemble the breakfast burritos.  We really had a good time, well most of the time.  What can I say we're not perfect, and I'm sure there were times when me and my brother got on each others nerves while we were making the burritos. :)  But....for the most part the making of breakfast burritos always brings back great family memories.

Recently I have begun making freezer burritos for Matt and I.  We have such a busy life over here in Kentucky and with Matt working the night shift I had to find a way to make a nutritious meal that he could take with him to work.  So I thought, and thought and thought some more.  Than I remembered....BURRITOS!!! So, now I've been creating many different kinds of freezer burritos for Matt to take to work with him.  Then I was trying to figure out what to make for breakfast that was quick and nutritious and it dawned on me....duh....breakfast burritos!!!  So, I thought that I would share with y'all my recipe for breakfast burritos.  Hope you enjoy the pics and the recipe.  I'd love to hear back from any of you who make these.  Remember, burritos are very versatile, in other words you don't have to follow my recipe exactly.  Add items to them that your family likes. :)

Note:  for those of you who like knowing the individual cost of these homemade burritos, they end up costing $.65!!!

First,  The Ingredients for 32 breakfast burritos:

• 36 Eggs
• 1 Large Bag of Hash browns (I like the shredded kind, but you can use any kind you like.) 
• 36 Tortillas (I used 8 inch, but I would rather use 10 - 12 inch if I could find them for a good price here in KY.)
• 2 Rolls of Breakfast Sausage (You could also use bacon, ham, chorizo, etc...)
• 2 lbs of Mexican Style Cheese (Feel free to use your family's favorite type of cheese)
• Seasonings:  Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder, and Seasoning Salt

After gathering all your ingredients up, I start cooking my sausage first.

You can just follow the package instructions for cooking whatever meat you have chosen for your burrito, but I just cook the sausage until it's nice and brown.

Next I begin to cook my hash browns. Once again, just cook them according to the package directions.  

Once the hash browns are in the pan (I like to use my well-seasoned cast iron pan) I use seasoning salt, pepper and garlic powder to season them to taste.  Once again, you can use whatever seasonings your family likes on their potatoes.  

Once the hash browns have been seasoned I let them cook until they have been browned on both sides.  Like this:  

While your hash browns and sausage are cooking begin cracking your 36 eggs.  I know this is a lot of eggs, and it's kind of gross looking, but eggs are a really inexpensive filler for your burritos especially if you buy them at Costco.

Once you've cracked all your eggs, your bowl should look like this.  It looks pretty strange at this point.

Now, go ahead and season those eggs.  I just use salt and pepper, but once again, use whatever seasonings your family likes.

Once your eggs have been seasoned, go ahead and start whisking them until all the yolks and whites have been beat together.  

Now spray down your large pan with oil.

Pour in half the whisked eggs...

And cook those eggs until they're nice and fluffy.  I cook my eggs in two batches, but I guess you could try doing it in one if you want.

Now, your sausage, potatoes and eggs should all be cooked so it's almost time to start assembling, but first let's warm up our tortillas.  I found a really cool microwaveable tortilla warmer at Kroger's so I use this to warm my tortillas, but you could just wrap 6 of them at a time in a damp dishcloth and microwave on high for 2 minutes.  This step is just to get the tortillas pliable.  

Before I move on with this tutorial, I wanted to show you a picture of my small kitchen.  Believe it or not, this kitchen is much bigger than the last kitchen that we had here on campus.  Even though it is small it works just fine for assembling burritos.  So, the point is, you can make burritos in any size kitchen!!

Ok, now for assembling the burritos, there really is no special way to do it, you just put a little bit of each ingredient in the tortilla.  Well, here is a picture so you can see how I have my "assembly line" set up. 

And here is a picture of a burrito that is ready to be folded.

If you've never folded a burrito before, there are many tutorials on how to do it on You tube, but it is really easy once you get the hang of it. 

After rolling up your burrito, wrap it in foil and then it's ready for the freezer.  (I use pop up foil because it is so much easier than having to rip off a bunch of sheets of foil.  If you're in Kentucky you can buy pop up foil at Gordon Food Services, and if you're in California, you can buy it at Smart and Final.)

After you're finished stuffing, rolling, and wrapping all of your burritos, you'll have a burrito tower on your counter like this:  

Now it's time to transfer all those burritos to the freezer.

Once you're ready to eat one of your yummy burritos, simply wrap them in a damp cloth or paper towel and microwave on high for 2 min and 15 sec.  (You may need to adjust the time depending on your microwave.)  All the burritos on the right of this pic are the breakfast burritos that I just made, and the ones on the left are the dinner burritos that I made a few weeks ago.  Praise the Lord for burritos!! 

Theses burritos have been a life saver for our morning breakfasts and I hope they can help you all to have a great start to your morning as well.  

Thanksgiving in Kentucky

A lot has happened since I last blogged, but I'll try to keep it as brief as possible.  One thing that is simply beautiful about Kentucky is the way that the leaves change color.  It makes it feel like it's really time for Thanksgiving.

I took this picture at the Seminary.  Aren't the colors just breathtaking?  We really do live on a very beautiful campus.  

Thanksgiving day went really well for us.  We were able to go over to one of the church member's homes in Campbellsburg.  It was so nice to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with a family.  It would have been kind of depressing if just Matt and I had celebrated it on our own.  It was also special to see how this Southern family got along and some of their Thanksgiving traditions.  I will have to say that the food was wonderful, and honestly there wasn't anything different from any of the food that we have in California.  The turkey was great, but I sure did miss my dad's turkey, he cooks the best turkey in the whole world.  :)  We also played cornhole, which is a really fun Kentucky game that you play with bean bags filled with corn that you try to toss into a hole in a plywood platform.  They're pretty serious about the game here, and if you want to know more about it, just click on this link.  We also made a Christmas craft with the family and enjoyed talking with all of them.  It was really nice to make a Christmas craft because one of our Thanksgiving traditions when we lived in California was to make gingerbread houses with the family.  Making Christmas crafts really made us feel at home.  We had a great first Thanksgiving here in Kentucky, and we feel richly blessed to have such caring members in our church.  

Matt asked me a few weeks before Thanksgiving if I thought that I could make "Thanksgiving Burritos?"  Let me give you some background on where this question came from.  I've been making Matt homemade burritos to take with him to reheat at work.  He loves them; honestly, I would get kind of tired of eating the same thing every night for dinner, but he informed me that he could eat burritos for the rest of his time here at Seminary.  (I'm gonna have to hold him to that :)  Well, I've been trying to come up with unique burrito fillers to make his dinners a little more interesting, and that's why he suggested Thanksgiving burritos.  Well, that, and he got a free turkey from work that we needed to do something with.  So, I thought I would share with you all how I put these Thanksgiving burritos together.  I hope you enjoy.  Wait,  I have to share this blog with you where I got some inspiration for what to put into a Thanksgiving burrito.  Apparently Matt is not the only one to come up with the idea of a Thanksgiving burrito.  So, before you look at how I made these burritos, please visit the blog that inspired me first by clicking here.  

First I have to let you know that I used many different recipes, but they were mainly from the food network.  Now,  let me tell you everything that is in these burritos, then I will give you the links to the recipes if you are interested in making these burritos yourself.  

• Shredded Turkey
• Stuffing
• Black Bean and Corn Salsa
• Cranberry Sauce
• Cheese 

Now for the links to the recipes, and some pictures of the actual burrito fillers that I made.  

For the turkey I decided to use Alton Brown's recipe from the food network.  His turkey recipe is called Good Eats Roast Turkey.  The turkey turned out amazing, it was well worth the effort that went into making it.  I also didn't change a thing about the recipe, it was perfect as is.  I love this particular recipe because it also has a step be step video that you can watch before you attempt to cook your bird.  Click here to view this yummy turkey recipe.  

My turkey after Matt and I shredded it all up.  

For the stuffing, I used Paula Dean's recipe for Southern Cornbread Stuffing.  Once again this recipe produced some really good stuffing, and the only thing that I changed about the recipe is that I baked my own cornbread which is much sweeter than the one that her recipe baked.  Click here to view this yummy stuffing recipe.  

This stuffing was so easy to pack into the burritos. 

For the black bean and corn salsa I used Michael Chiarello's recipe for Grilled Corn Salsa (Also from food network.)  The only thing that I changed in this recipe is that I added two large cans of drained and rinsed black beans.  Click here to view this fresh salsa recipe.

You can also use this as a dip for tortilla chips, it's great! 

For the cranberry sauce recipe, I once again turned to The Food Network.  I used Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe for cranberry sauce.  This is a simple and sweet cranberry sauce; which is just the way that I like it.  I changed two things with this recipe though, first I doubled it, and second, I added two chopped apples while the sauce was simmering.  Click here to view this simple cranberry sauce recipe.  

This cranberry sauce really makes these burritos taste like Thanksgiving. :) 

Now for the assembly of the burritos. 

First, get all of your burrito fillers ready to fill the tortilla with.  Here's a little tip on warming the flour tortillas.  Get a clean kitchen towel wet and wrap it around five of the tortillas and microwave them for a minute and a half.  this will make the tortillas a lot more flexible.  Any of my Mexican family reading this right now is probably gasping.  It's kind of a cardinal sin to warm up tortillas in the microwave, but it really works well for making burritos that you just plan on freezing.  

Here's a picture of my burrito ready to roll.

After rolling them, you can either eat them right away (if you have enough people to eat 35 burritos) or you can wrap them in foil and freeze them.

Whenever our freezer is full of burritos like this, Matt says "We're rich."

To reheat your burrito, simply dampen a strong paper towel, wrap it around your frozen burrito and microwave on high for 3 minutes.  The time may vary according to your microwave, but it should be somewhere around 3 minutes.  The burritos still taste so fresh and amazing even after they have been frozen and microwaved.  Well, that was a lot that I just wrote.  I hope that if you try this recipe you will enjoy it as much as Matt and I have.  

In closing, Can you believe that Christmas is right around the corner?  Time sure is flying.  In order to get in the festive Christmas spirit, Matt and I cut and hung about 50 paper snowflakes from our ceiling in our apartment on campus.  This is a tradition for me that I started way back when I went to college for the first time.  In order to liven up our dorm room, I decided to hang a few hand cut snowflakes from the ceiling, well, that few soon turned into quite a few.  Ever since my Sophomore year in college I have hung up hand cut snowflakes every year.  Most of the time I have hung them up in my classroom, but this year, once again, they are hanging from our "dorm room" ceiling.  Wow, the tradition has come full circle.  I have also always used the same website to get my patterns for cutting out my snowflakes.  Dave's snowflakes are amazing, easy to cut out and free.  If you are interested in cutting out your own snowflakes, click here to visit Dave's site.  

For those of you who actually read this far in this blog,  Wow, you are amazing!  Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about our first Thanksgiving over here in Kentucky.  'Till next week, enjoy the beginning of this Christmas season.