Neiman Marcus Cookie Mix

These are my favorite chocolate-chip cookies of all time. As a kid, I didn't even like chocolate-chip cookies. I thought they weren't sweet enough. But I never had these.

This is a recipe that my sister got from somewhere, attached to a lovely, potential urban myth about a lady wanting to buy the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe. The waiter said it cost "two" and she said "Done." The recipe came, then the bill, with an actual price tag of $200.00 or $2000.00 depending on the telling. So revenge is sweet when you freely spread the recipe around.

Regardless, it's divine. My sister teaches in China and chocolate-chip cookies just aren't really part of the life there as they are here. Well, our lives anyway. So I decided to send a bag across the big wide ocean. The mix would work well as a gift, too, in a pretty jar. The baker just needs to add one egg, .5 cup butter, and .25 tsp vanilla to the dry mix.

Neiman Marcus Cookie Mix

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/4 cup oatmeal

6 oz chocolate chips

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup nuts (optional)

Whole Wheat Pancakes for One

I'm not a big pancake fan, but one morning I had a craving. There's a box of Aunt Jemima in the cabinet, but I wanted to try to make them somewhat 'healthy' (or "healthified" as an email I got said about some pumpkin cheesecake recipe - what a word). They were also quite tasty!

The recipe makes one serving of two large pancakes.

Whole Wheat Pancakes for One

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 Tbsp ground golden flax seed
2 pinches of salt
1/4 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 Tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/8 cup chopped walnuts
oil or butter for pan

1. Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl until well combined.
2. Add vanilla to milk and mix.
3. Add milk mixture to dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
4. Fold in nuts.
5. Cook over medium.

Enjoy!

twd: All in One Holiday Bundt Cake

I've been looking forward to this pick by The Nitty Britty for a whole month!

Once it came out of the oven, I couldn't wait anymore and I dumped the cake out too early.

It wasn't cool enough. It came out looking like Jekyll and Hyde - one side smooth and brown, the other a hot mess!

But it all tasted oh so good!

This is the perfect way to begin a Thanksgiving week.

Flu Soup

No, I don't have H1N1. No need to close your browser and disinfect your internet connection. I don't really have the flu at all, but a few weeks ago I felt a bit under the weather. Soup seemed the only thing I wanted, and this one left me feeling much better. It's made in the tradition of all great soups in our house - thrown together from the pantry.

FLU SOUP

1 can condensed tomato soup

2 cans of water

2 garlic cloves

1/2 inch fresh ginger, grated

1 red banana pepper

oregano, salt, and black pepper to taste

1/2 cup (dry) Ditalini pasta, or other small shape

1 can garbanzo beans/chickpeas

2 carrots, sliced

two handfuls of fresh spinach

1. Combine soup and water in a large pot. Add garlic, ginger, pepper, and seasonings. Boil.
2. Once it comes to a rolling boil, add pasta and cook until almost done. Add chickpeas.
3. Once pasta is al dente and the chickpeas are hot, add spinach and stir to incorporate. Cook another minute, remove from heat, and enjoy!

Burnt Sugar Cake :: Double Caramel Cake

Today is Tuesday and I was planning to bake the All-in-One-Holiday Bundt Cake for TWD. I figured if I got it posted by midnight that was better than nothin'. It's been a busy few days. But then I browsed the ingredients list and realized that I used the last of the pumpkin in the soup bubbling away on the stove for dinner. Bummer. I even went to the store today.

So instead I'm posting the Burnt Sugar Cake I made on Friday afternoon for my Granny's 83rd birthday. It traveled in the car, and sat out in the backseat while I made a shopping pit stop, and arrived after seven hours a little worse for the ride. It was still delicious, the icing was just a little...sparse on top and heavy at the bottom.

The Burnt Sugar Cake is from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott. When I told people what kind I was making, I added - it's a double caramel cake, caramel cake with caramel icing. The secret is in the caramel (water + sugar) that is made first and then goes into the cake batter and the icing. I'll have to make it again when it's not going moblie.

Using All the Pumpkin: Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

We started with pumpkins for Halloween, painted them into a witch and a cat, gutted them for Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds, then baked them into Pumpkin Bread. I suppose it would be called 'getting the most out of your pumpkins.'


There was no thinking about what to do with the seeds. While the orange pumpkin muck was still clinging to my fingers, I could almost taste Martha Stewart's Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds (found here). Just like the name, they are sweet, and spicy, but it's the cumin that really does it for me. The aroma and taste really add another dimension to the sweet/spicy combo that puts them in a league all their own. Definitely worth digging through the strings and fleshy bits to get to the seeds.

Pumpkin Bread - from fresh pumpkins!

Instead of carving this year, we painted our pumpkins for Halloween. So instead of having a decaying mound of orange flesh, we had two lovely, plump pumpkins. I'd never cooked with fresh pumpkin before so I called my Granny for tips. She's used pumpkins to make pumpkin pie by peeling and boiling the meat. She suggested baking the pumpkins, skin-side up, on a baking tray. That's just what I did, at 375. We had two sizes of pumpkins - the smaller took one hour, the larger (jack-o-lantern size) took 1.5 hours until soft. Beware though - a LOT of pumpkin juice came out of these, over the baking sheet and into the bottom of the oven. Ah, time to see if that self-cleaning thing actually works!

After the pumpkin cooled I mashed it up. There was a lot - about 4 cups. One cup went into the pumpkin bread using a recipe Fanny Farmer recipe. It is hands-down the BEST pumpkin bread I've even eaten. My sister found the recipe a few years ago and now it's a family favorite. It's moist and flavorful without being too sweet.

I made three small loaves from one recipe. It hasn't lasted long! I believe there is just one small slice left...which I will make disappear very shortly...

Pumpkin Bread (adapted from a Fannie Farmer recipe)

1.5 cup flour

.5 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup pumpkin puree

.5 cup olive oil

2 eggs, beaten

.25 cup water

.25 tsp. nutmeg

.25 tsp. cinnamon

.25 tsp. allspice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
2. Combine flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda. Whisk.
3. Mix pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, .25 cup of water, and spices in a separate bowl.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Fold in ingredients until just combined. Do not mix thoroughly.
5. Pour into a well-buttered 9x5x3 loaf pan.
6. Bake 50-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
7. Cool on a rack and enjoy!