Another Look at Cookies

Again, let me apologize for not sharing a good recipe with you last week.  I have a better one this week – I promise. 

So toward the end of college I was working for a cookbook author, preparing to work again with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Foodways section, and waitressing in a bar.  That meant I was thinking about and dealing with food pretty much continually.  I didn’t eat too much food as I was incredibly busy, subsisting off of single pop tarts and hamburger halves through thesis writing and graduation.  (I realized this was a bad idea when I grabbed a hamburger from the bar I worked at, ran to pick up graduation tickets, said hello to a friend’s family, answered two telephone calls from my own family and began choking on said hamburger in front of my former advisor; I thought I should really move on to something that required less chewing.)

Anyways, around this time I started tinkering with my own recipes.  I made a pretty awesome strawberry rhubarb pie and some wonderful cookies.  I wrote down the recipe for the pie, but neglected to take my cookie recipe to paper.  Thus, I forgot the recipe.  But, I remember what those cookies tasted like. 

Have you ever eaten something but wanted it to be a little more spectacular?  Like, wow this chocolate chip cookie is good, but what if it had peanut butter in it too?  That’s the way I felt about the Archway chocolate cookies you find in the grocery store.  I had bought them for a project my step-sister was doing for her special-ed classroom – Ice Cream sandwiches.  The Archway cookies are big, flat and easy to handle.  They offer a large area for spreading ice cream which is always a big deciding factor in making ice cream sandwiches.  The chocolate cookies are good, but they were missing something – mint.  Now, if you are not a fan of chocolate and mint I am sorry, you are missing out.

These cookies are a little temperamental, they are superb when cooked exactly right and kind of duds when baked a little too long.  Although as long as you use a timer when baking, you should be fine.  (I don’t use a timer, and this comes back to bite me in the butt every so often).  These cookies store well in an air-tight container making them perfect for baking and sharing, but they also make a very handsome ice cream cookie sandwich.

Chocolate Mint Crinkles

as adapted from Bon Appétit Dec. 2000

2 sticks butter, softened

1 ¾ c sugar
2 eggs
¾ tsp peppermint extract
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 c cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
Large Granulated decorating sugar

Preheat oven to 350°.  Line 4 baking sheets with parchment paper.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs and peppermint extract and mix to combine.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until just combined.  Roll dough into 1 ½” balls and place on a cookie sheet spacing about 2” apart.  Press dough on the balls to flatten them to about ½” thickness. 

Sprinkle cookies with decorating sugar, and bake until the cookies are firm around the edges, but soft and crackled in the center – about 12 minutes.  Rotate pans if the cookies are baking unevenly.  Cool on trays for about 5 minutes and then move the parchment with cookies off of trays.  Allow to cool, and enjoy.

Fill Up A Cup

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it is HOT outside. The kind of hot where the breeze is warm and sticky and your plants wilt every evening, mimicking the sort of feeling you have. I broke a sweat last night trying to stir fry vegetables. That only takes a short amount of time at the stove, but even still it managed to produce a lingering heat that was stagnant in the kitchen for the entire night.

Heat on weeknights always seems oppressive and tiring, whereas heat on weekends makes it feel like the summer of childhood. You can get sweaty, go swimming, play a game and just relax. This is what I plan on trying to do this summer. Play like a child. Forget ‘chores’ and ‘responsibilities’ let’s go to the pool!

Maybe it’s the week or so spent in Hawaii that I am unwilling to get rid of, but I refuse to be a grown-up on weekends (and only when absolutely necessary on weekdays). Although, one perk to being a grown-up is the ability to eat whatever you want (double chocolate ice cream at 3pm, hello) and this can include drinks as well.

In fact a nice cool drink is a great way to cool down on sunny Saturday afternoons. Mint juleps or aqua frescas have been standbys for decades and I would like to add one more to that list. The No. 1 Pimm’s Cup. I know, I know, I am a bit behind the times on this one. Wimbledon and the Henley are over but it took me this long to procure Pimm’s here in Maine.

For those of you who are not initiated into the world of Pimm’s please allow me to be your guide. When Joe rowed at the Henley a few years back, he came back with a bottle of Pimm’s, knowing I would fall immediately in love with it. Since then, whenever I see it in a store I snap it up with all the fixins and settle in for a slow afternoon filled with ice cubes and carbonation. So on your next lazy, hot, weekend afternoon, make yourself a Pimm’s Cup and settle in for some cooling relaxation. Just make sure the condensation doesn’t interfere with your Scrabble tiles.

No. 1 Pimm’s Cup
There are several variations to this drink, but I like this one the best. I used an all-natural lemon lime soda, but ginger ale, conventional lemon lime sodas or even a lemon lime seltzer would work just as nicely.

1 part Pimm’s Cup (original)
3 parts soda
2 whole strawberries (sliced, or whole and frozen)
1 large sprig of mint
3 cucumber slices
Ice

Fill a tall glass with ice. Tear 4-5 mint leaves over the ice and add to glass. Add strawberries and cucumbers. Add one part Pimm’s and soda. Stir lightly to combine. Top with a few mint leaves. Enjoy.