Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

 My friend's grandpa died this week, so I made a box of treats to help her feel better.

Fair warning, these fall apart like nothing else.

Mainly because they're pure butter.

"London Calling" The Clash

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 3/4 cups chocolate chips

Directions

 Preheat oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour and baking soda in small bowl. Beat butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in egg. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels.

DROP dough by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Press down slightly with bottom of glass dipped in granulated sugar.

BAKE for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are set but centers are still soft. Cool on baking sheets for 4 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Elvis Presley

Chocolatey peanut butter goodness. I found this while looking for smoothies on a baking site.

Yeah, I suppose this isn't really a health drink, but I can pretend, right?

 "Devil in Disguise" by Elvis Presley from Lilo and Stitch

(aka the film that makes me like Elvis Presley music)

The actual song

Ingredients:

• 1 medium banana
• 2 tbsp. creamy peanut butter (or to taste)
• 1 tbsp oats
• as much chocolate milk as needed to cover banana and peanut butter 

Directions:

Put peeled banana, peanut butter, oats, and chocolate milk in blender. Blend until smooth.

Simple Pesto

Easy dinner in under fifteen minutes? Look no further. 

Pesto with pasta is a three step meal:

1. Blend ingredients of pesto
2. Cook pasta
3. Mix

Even though it's easy, pesto- mainly because I despise basil and pine nuts make me sick- is not one of my favorite foods.

At least without loads of cheese and salt.

Luckily, however, it is a generally accepted practice to put cheese on pasta. Saved by the cheese.

Here's the super easy recipe from Food Network.
It makes about 1 cup.

"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"preformed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald

Ingredients

• 2 cups packed fresh basil leaves
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino cheese (Parmesan works as well)

Directions

Combine the basil, garlic, and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add 1/2 cup of the oil and process until fully incorporated and smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

If using immediately, add all the remaining oil and pulse until smooth. Transfer the pesto to a large serving bowl and mix in the cheese.

If freezing, transfer to an air-tight container and drizzle remaining oil over the top. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw and stir in cheese.

Corn Chowder

 I found this while looking for a mashed peas recipes. Kind of an odd combination, I know.

It's from Simply Recipes.

 

Since I had so many Cat Steven's songs in the recent posts, here's one of my favorites:

( if you really like Cat Stevens the next video link is a film trailer. The movie's soundtrack is all him)

 

 "Don't Be Shy" Cat Stevens

"Harold and Maude" a dark comedy

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 strip of bacon or 1 teaspoon of bacon fat (substitute 1/2 Tbsp of butter for vegetarian option)
• 1/2 large yellow onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/2 large carrot, chopped (about 1/3 cup)
• 1/2 celery stalk, chopped (about 1/3 cup)
• 3 ears of sweet corn, kernels removed from the cobs (about 2 cups), cobs reserved
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 1/2 cups milk, whole or low fat
• 1 medium Yukon Gold potato, or Russet, peeled and diced
• 1/4 red bell pepper, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
• Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

Directions

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the bacon strip (skip this step for vegetarian option, just add more butter) and fry until the bacon renders its fat, but doesn't begin to brown, 3 or 4 minutes. Add the onion and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes, until soft. Add the carrot and celery and cook for 4 or 5 more minutes.

Break the corn cobs in half and add them to the saucepan. Add the milk and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a bare simmer. Cover the pot and cook for 30 minutes. Make sure the heat is as low as can be and still maintain a gentle simmer (on our stove we had to use the "warm" setting) to prevent scalding the milk on the bottom of the pan.

Discard the cobs, the bacon strip, and the bay leaf. Raise the heat, add the potatoes, red pepper, 1 teaspoon of salt, fresh ground pepper to taste, bring to a simmer and reduce the heat to maintain a simmer for 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are almost fork tender.

Raise the heat, add the corn kernels and the thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Seared Salmon

 Looking for a fast and fantastic salmon recipe?

Look no further!

This takes eight minutes. Prep included. No lie.

 My brother told me about it, and I had to try it.

This recipe in two words: Simple and good.

"Can't Keep It In" Cat Stevens

I just realized this was by Cat Stevens! I found it in this trailer:

Ingredients:

• salmon
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper 

Directions:

Combine salt, pepper, and olive oil in a bowl. Take pieces of salmon and rub the top in the mixture, adding more salt and pepper for each piece as needed. Heat frying pan on stove set to high. When the pan is hot place pieces of fish on the pan. Cook for 3 minutes, or until top has a slightly browned finish. Flipover and cook for 5 minutes, or until cooked through.

 

Mashed Peas

When I went to London last year, this was the one food that I fell in love with.

I have yet to recreate the perfect texture with a potato masher as many sites suggest and I'm still not sure about the mint.  But when I get a hankering, there's not much else to do but make mashed peas.

"I Wish I Wish" Cat Stevens

(I wish I could make perfect Mashed Peas!)

 (I could listen to this all day)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 bunch spring onions, chopped
• 1 handful fresh mint, leaves picked
• 1 pound (500 grams) frozen peas
• 2 large knobs butter
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Heat the oil in a pan and add the chopped onions, mint, and peas. Cover and leave for a few minutes to steam. Mash with a potato masher. You can do this with a food processor as well, just pulse it until smooth. Whether mashing or pulsing, when it's done add the butter and season very carefully, to taste.

Sweet Tahini Spirals

It seems like I made these forever ago, but it was just last week. That's time in the summer for you,

 drudging by.

I made a pretty major mistake with these and split the dough into only six pieces instead of twelve.

Yeah, whoopsie-daisy.

 

But they still turned out. They were just giant, sugary-sweet swirls of bread, instead of normal sized sugary- sweet swirls.

I got this recipe from Turkey: More Than 1000 Recipes with Tales from the Road by Leanne Kitchen.

 "Goodbye" by Sasha

Ingredients

• 1 large pinch sugar
• 3 teaspoons dried yeast
• 2/3 cup lukewarm milk
• 3 egg; 2 lightly beaten, plus 1 egg yolk whisked with 1 1/2 tbsp water
• 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 cups flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 cup tahini
• 1 cup sugar
• sesame seeds, for sprinkling

Directions

Comine the sugar adn 1/2 cup lukewarm water in a small bowl, then sprinkle over the yeast. Set aside for about 8 minutes, or until foamy. Combine the lukewarm milk and beaten eggs, then add to the yeast mixture with another 2 tbsp lukewarm water adn olive oil, stirring well to combine.

Combine the flour and salt in a bowl, then add the yeast mixture and stir to form a coarse dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, or until hte dough is smooth and elastic. Roll the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl, turning to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm, draft-free place for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Meanwhile, put the tahini, superfine, sugar and whole egg in a bowl, mixing until well combined-- the mixture will become quite thick.

Punch the dough down and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and divide it into 12 even sized balls. Working with one ball at a time, roll each out into a circle with a 7-inch diameter using a rolling pin. Spread 1 tbsp of the tahini mixture on each round, leaving a 1/2 inch border around the edge. Roll up each to form a long sausage shape and continue ot roll until it's about 12 inches long. Use your hands to shape each sausage into a tight spiral -- each spiral should be about 4 inches in diameter -- then flatten slightly. Transfer to lightly greased baking sheets, cover loosely with a dish towel, and set aside for about 30 minutes or until puffy.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Brush the top of each spiral with the eff yolk mixture and sprinkle lightly with sesame seeds.Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Tahini spirals are best eaten on the day of making but will keep, frozen in an airtight container, for up to 1 month.