My Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie

My husband is a self-proclaimed “cookie monster.” While I prefer a cake for my birthday (or more specifically the birthday cake from Milk Bar in New York, which I order and proceed to enjoy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner) he wants cookies. Last week he turned 30 and while celebrations have had to be more limited this year, I knew one thing for sure, I could not skimp on the cookies for my Cookie Monster. His favorite cookie? You guessed it, chocolate chip! While I woke him up with Ina Garten’s overnight Belgian waffles for his birthday breakfast, I made sure the cookie train started rolling for on-demand enjoyment throughout the day. If you too want to board the cookie train, grab some butter, and all aboard! These cookies are the perfect texture of soft but also crisp, and sweet, and salty! I guarantee you will not be able to eat just one; make them for yourself, or for the cookie monster in your life.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks of softened butter (1 cup)

  • I used European, salted butter. But I like a little salt with my chocolate, so if that does not fit your vision, use unsalted butter here instead.

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 1 cup of sugar

• 2 eggs

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 3 cups of all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 12 oz or 2 cups chocolate (dealer’s choice of wafers, chips, or chopped chunks!)

• Optional additions: 1/2 teaspoon espresso powder and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a stand mixer, cream together sugars and butter, on a medium speed. Add in eggs one at a time until well combined, and then add vanilla (and almond extract, if so desired!).

3. In a large bowl combine, flour. salt, baking powder and soda, and, if you feel the need, espresso powder, mix together.

4. Turn the stand mixer back on a gentle stir and slowly add in the dry ingredients. Once combined, add in the chocolate of your choice and mix in!

5. Shape into golf ball size dough balls and place them onto a baking sheet. I line my baking sheet with a Silpat.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until done to your liking. I found that the 17-18 minute mark ensures the gooey center and crunchy top—also known as the perfect cookie.

"Fake It Til You Make It" Cinni-minis

Christmas is the perfect blend of so many things: food and family, peppermint and chocolate, silver and gold, holly and ivy. The same thought applies to this recipe, imagine a croissant and cinnamon roll got married and had a baby—a dough baby! You can go from no cinnamon rolls to a plate full in a Designing Women episode! Hence the name “Fake It Til You Make It”! No proofing of dough, blooming your yeast, or taking hours to make, like a traditional cinnamon roll from scratch—no ma'am! Could you use a canned cinnamon roll? Yes. But do they have the flaky, tender texture of a croissant? No! Take the filling of the cinnamon roll and combine that with crescent roll dough, and voila you have a pan full of the cutest and sweetest mini cinnamon rolls, or “cinni-minis”.

**To fill a cake pan, this recipe is doubled, cut in half to only make 12 rolls

Makes 24 rolls

Ingredients:

-2 cans of crescent roll dough

-8 tablespoons (1 stick) of softened butter, split in half

-2 tablespoons of sugar

-1 tablespoon of cinnamon

-2 tsp of nutmeg

Icing:

-4 tablespoons of butter, melted

-a scant 1/2 cup powdered sugar

-you can add a splash of water or milk if you need to thin it out at bit!

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees and grease your preferred pan.

2. Combine sugar and spices into a bowl and mix—set to the side.

3. Take out the crescent roll dough and pinch the seams shut for each roll. Smooth out with a floured rolling pin or your hands.

4. On each rolled out dough, spread out 4 tablespoons of butter. Take care not to melt butter completely, as it will push out when rolled.

5. Sprinkle half of sugar/cinnamon/spice mixture on each.

6. Starting at the top, roll down tightly, and bottom pinch seams together for each dough.

7. Cut each dough rolls into 12 equal pieces, getting 24 rolls total.

8. Place in baking pan, touching each other.

9. Place in oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

10. While rolls have 5 minutes left baking, combine melted butter and powdered sugar. Whisk together until icing forms.

11. Frost rolls immediately, once out of the oven.

12. Enjoy!

Pre-frosting and still adorable!

Cowboy Cheddar Biscuits

Fact: I have always had a soft spot for the cowboy life. I often joke with my husband and that it is just a matter of time before I decide I want to move to a ranch and say enough with the city’s hustle and bustle. His response is always a sarcastic, “Well I will come visit you and your second husband and your new steers…”

The handsome hats, the horseback riding, and getting to spend all day with animals in the great outdoors… I will concede that I probably have a very romanticized view of “home on the range”. And while my grandfather would probably classify me as a city slicker, as I have seen cattle be branded, but have never done it myself, I still would like to (naively) believe that I could live and love that cowboy (ahem… cowgirl) life. Hey, my family operates a large cattle feedyard, I’d like to think I could make it more than a day “working” the cattle, with the real cowboys, as the farming and ranching life is in my blood. As opposed to my normal raiding of candy closet in my grandfather’s office and checking the water troughs in the old FJ Cruiser. Although I do not get to spend as much time as I would like exploring this side of my personality, I love reading and researching the old cowboy ways: from the old cattle drives to Kansas, what they used to eat while making camp, and what the various cowboy hat brims mean. I prefer the cattleman’s crease, how about you?

While researching traditional cowboy food when I was preparing for the non-traditional portion of the biscuit competition last year, I came up with this recipe while standing in the spice aisle. I wanted to pay homage to the foods that cowboys used to eat on cattle drives and work them into a biscuit. Here is what I came up with and affectionally named, “Cowboy Cheddar Biscuits.” Ironically, my husband loves them.

P.S. My favorite movie is Giant. Figures, right?

Ingredients:

Ranch Dressing Seasoning:                                                 

• 1 tablespoon chives

• 1 teaspoon onion powder

• 2 teaspoons dried parsley

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1 teaspoon dill

• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed

Biscuit Ingredients:

• 4 cups White Lily Self-Rising Flour

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup of butter flavored Crisco (1/2 a stick)

  • Plus additional 1 tablespoon for greasing baking surface

• 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk

• 3 tablespoons European butter melted, for brushing at the end

• 2 cups grated Habanero cheddar cheese (this recipe used Cabot)

• 1 cup chopped bacon

• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Yields:

 12 Biscuits

 Directions

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees

2. Mix together ranch dressing seasoning and set to the side.

3. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, cayenne, and ranch seasoning mixture. Once mixed together, take Crisco and break into smaller pieces and add to flour mixture. Using a pastry blender or your hands, cut Crisco into dough. Breaking up into pea size pieces and a crumbling texture. Add cheese and bacon to mixture and combine.

4. Make a well in the center for the flour mixture and pour in 1 cup of buttermilk. Add in the rest of the buttermilk, a tablespoon at a time, until a shaggy dough has formed. Once brought together, turn out onto a floured surface.

5. Knead gently, about 5-7 times, until dough has a smooth consistency.

6. Then begin the folding portion: flour your rolling pin, and then begin rolling our your dough into a rectangle about 6 in. wide and 9 in. long and about half an inch thick, take bottom side of dough, and fold the dough in half. The bottom edge and the top meet. Turn the dough, to the right once, then roll out again (to about half an inch), and then fold in half and turn back to the left. Complete this folding process 5 times—you are building layers into your biscuits.Then flour the top of dough and rolling pin, and roll out to ½ inch thick. Cut out 7-8 biscuits with 2¾ inch biscuit cutter (second to largest in set). Combine and roll out scraps and cut out remaining biscuits.

7. Place on a baking sheet or cast iron skillet, pre-greased with Crisco or butter, with sides almost touching.

8. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter.

Mimi's Biscuits

I’ve probably started and stopped this post five times. To be writing about and referencing my grandmother in the past tense is something that I always knew would be hard. My grandmother didn’t pass away young, so to speak, she had turned 81 just three days before she died, but her passing away was not something my family was expecting. Though she passed in February of 2018, the grief still stays just below the surface, ready to pop up when you least expect it. As a therapist when I work with clients experiencing grief, I have always explained using the image of the beach. Some days the waters are calm and you can enjoy the surf and the sand. Other days, find high ground because the waves might swallow you whole.

To make a long story short, my grandmother arrived in Houston on her birthday, which was a Thursday, and her bypass surgery was scheduled for bright and early Monday morning.

A hard-headed and feisty woman, my family has always remarked that, “Mimi always gets her way.” Her venture to Houston and last days proved to be no exception. In the middle of the night on Sunday, she went into cardiac arrest, the hospital’s chaplin appeared, and next thing we knew she was gone. Our family now listless without our anchor.

She kept remarking that she did not want to have the surgery and that she would be so appreciative if one of her grandchildren would sneak her out of the hospital for some iced tea and envueltos. To the air ambulance crew that flew her from McAllen to Houston, when they flew over her country club, she offered them to take a pit stop for some margaritas. She did not want to have the surgery, and true to form, she got her way.

Losing someone is always hard, but it’s initial shock that accompanies the unexpected grief that feels like the toughest hurdle. Each of member of my family has grieved differently; for some it’s a quiet, internal battle, others find comfort externalizing and talking it out, but it seems two things that has brought comfort to all: her stories and her food.

My grandmother loved life and lived (and dressed!) out loud, something that she has passed on to her daughter (my mother), her granddaughters, and great-granddaughters. While we are all trying to reconcile what it means for her to be gone, as a family and individually, she was far too big of a piece to not figure out how to carry her with us.

Enter: her stories and her recipes. Recently, my mom, sister and I have been cataloging and curating a cookbook with all of her recipes, which has ranged from “Jezebel Dip” to biscuits to the Waldorf’s Red Velvet Cake. When I found her biscuit recipe, I was amazed at the simplicity, and of course, they were delicious—as all simple recipes seem to be. I really should start another page on here with her sayings/expressions/quips of wisdom because these biscuits personified, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I shall call it “Mimi was right about everything…”

Recipe:

-2 cups of self rising flour

-2 sticks of cold butter

-8 oz sour cream

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, add in two cups of flour.

3. Cut each stick of butter in half, length-ways, and then each half into 1/2 in. pieces.

4. Add those sticks of butter to the flour, and cut in using a pastry blender, or your hands. Breaking butter into pea-size pieces. The flour will start to feel and look like wet sand.

5. Add in 8 oz of sour cream (remember you need an acid to activate the self rising part of the flour) and mix in with a spatula until flour as pulled away from the sides of the bowl and a shaggy dough has formed.

6. Turn out on to a lightly floured surface, and knead softly (about 3-4 times) until you have a smooth consistency.

7. Press out dough into rectangular shape (about 6-7 inches long and 4 inches wide), about an inch thick, and then fold the dough on to itself—folding it in half length-wise, and turn it a quarter to the right. Press it back out to the rectangular shape, folding left side to the right again, and turn a quarter again. Repeat this process 2-3 times, you are building layers into your biscuit dough.

8. Flour a two inch biscuit cutter and cut out as many biscuits as you can. Re-roll scraps and repeat until you get 12.

9. Place in greased muffin tins and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Peach Cobbler with Salted Vanilla Ice Cream

There are many things I love about the summertime: more daylight hours, blueberry picking, the smell of sunscreen, and peach season to name a few. Peach cobbler has always felt like summertime in a bowl to me. Maybe it’s the bright color or the mix of the jelly-like texture of the peaches, with the pillowy-bread top, or the fact that it tastes like sunshine personified? I always knew it was the start of summer when my mom made a peach cobbler on Memorial Day Weekend, and then through out each holiday in the summer, made from peaches that we usually pick up from a peach orchard not far from our family’s farm in East Texas. The cool thing about cobblers is that is feels like everyone’s family has their own recipe and I love seeing how everyone puts their own spin on things—keeping the family traditions alive. I love the fact that this is the recipe my grandmother made, my mother makes, and my sister and I will continue to make. Each adding our own touches to make it our own. My mom doubles the recipes to make it thicker and cooks it longer, my sister makes her gluten free, and I macerate my peaches (which means nothing more than letting sugar break down fruit) and added the ice cream touch to make it a little extra special!

This is our family’s peach cobbler recipe and it reads a little like Miss Truvy’s “Cuppa-Cuppa-Cuppa” recipe from Steel Magnolias. I added the Salted Vanilla Ice Cream because the salt brings out the natural sweetness from the peaches, as well as cuts through the syrup-y sweet taste.

Peach Cobbler Recipe

Ingredients:

-1 cup of flour

-1 1/2 cups of sugar

-1/4 tsp of cinnamon

-1 cup of milk

-2 tsp baking powder

-1 stick of butter

-12 overly ripe peaches (you can leave them in the window sill to help them ripen!)

Method

1. Peel peaches and cut into 1/2 in. size, sprinkle with half a cup of sugar and cinnamon. Set aside to macerate for 10-15 minutes.

2. Mix together flour, sugar, milk, and baking powder to make a paste.

3. Pour paste into a greased 9x13 baking dish.

4. Cube one stick of butter of the paste.

5. Pour peaches over the butter.

6. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes or until it bubbles all around sides and in the center and browned.

Salted Vanilla Ice Cream

Pre-freeze ice cream maker bowl at 0 degrees for 24 hours.

Ingredients:

-2 cups of whole milk

-2 1/2 cups of heavy cream

-1 cup of sugar

-1 tbs. of kosher salt (I use Diamond)

-2 tsp. of vanilla extract

Method:

1. In a large bowl, combine milk, sugar, salt. Stir (do not whisk) together until sugar and salt are dissolved.

2. Add in cream, vanilla extract, and combine. Cover and chill for 2 hours.

3. Pull out mix, and give it a final stir, taking care not to make it bubbles, as you do not want to add air.

4. Pour into ice cream bowl and make according to your machine’s settings.

5. Put in a freezing container and let harden for 3-4 hours or overnight.

6. Or enjoy immediately over your freshly made peach cobbler and sprinkle with a little extra cinnamon!

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits Part Two

Now that we have the story out of the way, let’s get down to business of biscuit making. Biscuits are the perfect test for any person who loves being covered in flour. Like a toddler, they cannot be rushed and like a teen, they can have a mind of their own. My friends, I give you my version of the perfect Buttermilk Biscuit:

Ingredients:

 - 4 cups White Lily Self-Rising Flour

- 1 teaspoon salt (I use Diamond Kosher)

-1 teaspoon of sugar

-1 teaspoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon baking soda (yes you’re using self rising but these give a little extra lift!)

-1/2 cup of butter flavored Crisco (1/2 a stick)

• Plus additional 1/8 of a cup for greasing baking surface

-1 1/2 cups of buttermilk (Don’t have buttermilk, don’t be sour ;) … you can make it as fast as you can say “I’m out of buttermilk”… measure out as much milk as you need and then add in one tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice per cup. Let sit for 10 minutes and you are good to go!)

-3 tablespoons European Butter melted, for brushing at the end

Yields:

 12 Biscuits

Method

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt. Once mixed together, take Crisco and break into smaller pieces and add to flour mixture.

2. Using a pastry blender or your hands, cut Crisco into dough. Breaking up into pea size pieces and a crumbling texture.

3.  Make a well in the center for the flour mixture and pour in buttermilk. I always add in my cup measurement first and then add in my last 1/4 as I need it. If mixture seems dry and does not pull away from sides of bowl, add a touch more of buttermilk, a tablespoon at a time.

4. Use a spatula to wipe down sides of bowl while working to combine. Once brought together, turn out onto a floured surface.

5. Knead gently, about 5-7 times, until dough has a smooth consistency.

6. Then begin the folding portion: flour your rolling pin, and then begin rolling our your dough into a rectangle about 6 in. wide and 9 in. long and about half an inch thick, take bottom side of dough, and fold the dough in half. The bottom edge and the top meet. Turn the dough, to the right once, then roll out again (to about half an inch), and then fold in half and turn back to the left. Complete this folding process 5 times—you are building layers into your biscuits.

7. Cut out 7-8 biscuits with 2¾ inch biscuit cutter (second to largest in set). Combine and roll scraps and cut out remaining biscuits. **Do not twist the cutter when you push down, this will pinch the seams shut that you just worked so hard to create. Keep the motion up and down, and flour your cutter between each.

8. Place on a baking sheet or cast iron skillet, pre-greased with Crisco or butter, with sides touching. **Remember, biscuits are friendly and LOVE neighbors!

9. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter immediately out of the oven.

Click through the pictures below for a step by step of how to make a biscuit