Saturday, January 29, 2011

Brownie Cookies


Recipe: Brownie Drop Cookies
Source: The Dinner Doctor
Ingredients: Easy
Party in the Tummy Scale: 8

A Brownie in a cookie?  How much better does it get than that?  DB and I whipped these up yesterday afternoon to take with us to our picnic in the park.  The picnic was just as good as the cookies!

These are so easy to whip up, and great to make with young children. These were a BIG hit with DB, not so much with Coop (he doesn't do chocolate.. I think something is wrong with him), and a HUGE hit with R.  R's words after eating a cookie: "These are good.  These are really good!  I want you to make these a lot... like every week".

I am not a huge brownie fan, but I did enjoy these.  If you love brownies, you will adore these cookies... crispy on the outside like the edge of a brownie, and chewy in the middle, and delicious right out of the oven!

Brownie Cookies

Ingredients:
1 box brownie mix, with fudge included
1 stick butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all ingredients except for chocolate chips in  large bowl.  Mix for about two minutes, until well combined.  Then pour chocolate chips into batter and stir.
Drop batter by heaping teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake for 8-10 minutes.  Cookies should rise, but should still be soft in the middle.  Remove from baking pans immediately and cool for 5 minutes.
Makes 50 cookies.

Note:  
I made larger cookies... mine batter was tablespoon full size.  This made about 24 cookies instead of the 50, and they also cooked longer... about 16 minutes.  You can also add nuts, and play around withe the flavor by adding cinnamon, or even a little cayenne pepper for a kick!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Somebody Call 911...


Cookbook: The Dinner Doctor
Availability: amazon.com, or your local bookstore
Shelf Factor: A keeper for me, for at least as long as I have two children under my roof!

I have had this book for quite a while.  I bought it shortly after R and I got married, in fact!  I didn't use it very often then, except for a recipe for Saturday Night Pasta that was so easy so perfect for the two of us.

Then, the heathens children came.  I no longer had the luxury of cooking complicated meals every night.  I had to get dinner on the table, and get it there fast.  And oh yeah... make sure it was deemed edible in the eyes of two picky heathens angels.

For example... see that little while speck of lint, or whatever it may be in the above photo, at the bottom left below the cookbook?  I no longer even have the luxury to make sure my house is clean all most of the time.  I thought about sweeping it aside, but that's not who I am, people!  Some nights my kids are lucky to get dinner at all and not have to eat that lint off of the table instead!

This book was made for me... and for anyone else who has young children, a hungry husband, and a busy schedule.  What I love about this book, is not that the recipes are easy (because they are... way easy), but that it is a perfect mix of little people and big people food.  It is picky palate friendly, but each recipe has just enough uniqueness and flair to it that it isn't plain or boring.  We have now enjoyed countless meals out of this book, and I have been asked for many of the recipes.

For some reason, I have never made anything from the small dessert section of this book.  So, on the plate for this weekend are brownie cookies and blackberry wine cake.  Yes, my friends... wine cake!