Posts Tagged ‘strawberry’

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cookies

Posted: 28th March 2013 by doomthings in Dessert, The Foodening
Tags: , , , , ,
2

I’m apparently on a strawberry and pecan meal kick, as the last bunch of posts seem to have some version of one of those in them.  So now, I shall combine the two.

For years, my dad added pecan meal to his chocolate chip cookies instead of chopped up nuts.  When I made my own for the first time, I ignored the “chopped nuts” part of the recipe and they never tasted like his cookies.  Every time I’ve made them since, it’s been the same result and I could never figure out why.  Until now.  [The mini-egg chocolate cookies also calls for pecan meal.]  Now I’m hooked.  This recipe is based on the Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup + 2 tbsp bread flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 3/8 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup coursely chopped strawberries (or more if desired)
  • 1/2 cup pecan meal
  • 1/2 to 1 cup of chocolate chips (for melting)

Directions:

  1. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
  2. Beat sugar, butter, and vanilla until creamy.
  3. Add egg and mix well.
  4. Gradually add flour mixture.
  5. Stir in pecan meal and mix well.
  6. Coarsely chop strawberries and stir into mixture.
  7. Drop by teaspoonfulls onto baking sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes at 375 degrees F.
  8. Melt chocolate chips via your favorite chocolate-chip-melting method as the cookies cool.
  9. Once mostly cool, decorate the cookies with chocolate!  I dipped half of each cookie and let them dry on wax paper before packing them up.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cookies | doomthings

This recipe makes about 30 cookies, more if you make them smaller.  I was going to write a bunch of words that described how good they are, but I couldn’t find any.  Pictures are MUCH better.  Drool away, because they’re AWESOME.

Strawberry Mango Sangria

Posted: 25th March 2013 by doomthings in Drink, The Foodening
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

This started from a strong desire for spring to be here and winter to get lost.  I kept having daydreams of sometime last summer, sitting on my mother-in-law’s deck, drinking crisp white wine with a bunch of fruit I had unceremoniously dumped into it.  It was delicious.  That day we came up with a ton of “summer sangria” ideas with different types of wine and fruit combinations.  To be fair, they were probably all very similar, but it didn’t stop us from coming up with more ways to drink white wine.

I finally got sick of winter (which is still here as I type; dumb March) and grabbed the cheapest bottle of moscato I could find from my grocery store.  I wanted strawberries in my sangria after having re-introducing myself to them with the Turkey Strawberry Sandwich with Brie, plus there were plenty sitting in my refrigerator, so it was fortunate that the Arbor Mist Moscato I picked up was “strawberry-mango”.  This combination wouldhave made the sangria really sweet, so I toned down the sweetness by adding lemons and oranges.  A while back I had found a similar recipe that included a strawberry syrup from Serious Eats via Pinterest.

Ingredients (adapted from Serious Eats):

  • 2 bottles strawberry-mango moscato (anysparkling white wine, I just liked this combination)
  • 1 cup strawberries, sliced
  • 1 large orange, sliced
  • 1 lemon, sliced
  • 1 cup strawberry syrup (made from 1 cup sliced strawberries, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar)
  • 1/2 cup citrone (or any orange flavored liquor)

Directions:

  1. Make strawberry syrup (boil together 1 cup sliced strawberries, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar until sugar is dissolved and strawberries are near white, strain out solids, store in fridge for up to 1 week sealed).
  2. Place sliced fruits in pitcher.
  3. Add moscato.
  4. Add strawberry syrup and citrone.
  5. Refridgerate until chilled, or serve immediately if moscato is already chilled.

This sangria was to be used at a party the next day, so I chilled it overnight and used a torus-shaped jello mold to make an ice ring to help keep it chilled.  Contrary to popular belief, alcohol does freeze, although not as well as water, and lasted about halfway through the party, which kept the sangria cold the whole time.  I used some extra strawberry syrup and overflow sangria mix for the ice ring and added even more strawberries.

It was a little bit too sweet, so I think next time I will use a dryer sparkling wine.  Limes could also make this interesting.  Of course, so could a variety of other fruits.  Try out your own recipe and let me know how it goes!  Peaches, mangos, and pears, Oh My!  What a terrible attempt at a play on words.  -5 charisma.

Turkey Strawberry Sandwich with Brie

Posted: 20th March 2013 by doomthings in Lunch, The Foodening
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

I mostly wanted to make this sandwich because the picture I found on chindeep.com via Pinterest looked delicious.

Normally, I will try to adapt recipes from what I already have in my house, but all these ingredients sounded so essential that I made an unecessary detour to the grocery store on the way home from work to get them.  The only thing I didn’t have was raspberry jam and fresh jalapeno (see the original recipe).  Fortunately, I had a delicious hot pepper spread that worked nicely.

Turkey Strawberry Brie Sandwich | doomthings

Ingredients (adapted from chindeep.com):

  • Thinly sliced country style bread
  • brie
  • thinly sliced deli turkey
  • fresh basil
  • strawberries
  • hot pepper spread
  • fig and walnut spread (optional)

Directions:

Stack the sandwich parts in this order:

  1. Bottom piece of bread.
  2. Thin slices of brie.
  3. Turkey slices.
  4. Layer of basil.
  5. Sliced strawberries.
  6. Spread the spread(s) on the other slice of bread, and place on top of the strawberry layer of the sandwich.

From here you can do one of two things:  1) Grill the sandwich like a panini or grilled cheese (maybe pre-butter the outsides of the bread; 2) Heat the sandwich in a toaster oven (~350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 5 minutes or until cheese looks gooey).

I did the latter because I didn’t have access to a panini press or stovetop (I had this for lunch at work), but I did manage to find a toaster oven.  I’ve recently preferred to “grill/toast” my sandwiches, including grilled cheese, to reduce my delicious butter intake, and this sandwich did not disappoint.   The first time I made the sandwich, I only used hot pepper spread and not the fig/walnut spread (which we randomly had in our refridgerator).  My husband thought the strawberries made the sandwich a bit too sweet, and suggested a more tart fruit would compliment the turkey better.  That said, he did enjoy the sandwich almost as much as I did.

 

For my second try (this post), the fig and walnut spread added a nice tartness.  My husband liked this much better.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get a post-toasted picture because I didn’t have my camera handy.  -5 intelligence.