Banana Bread +

As I'm typing this up, the banana bread is busy doing its thang in the oven, but I'm realizing that I plum forgot the 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt.  It isn't the end of the world, but let's give the type A control freak part of me a minute.  She'll be all right.


Ingredients
1/2 cup butter (that's 1 stick) at room temp
1 cup granulated white sugar
2 large eggs at room temp
1 1/4 cup (3 large bananas) mashed bananas at room temp
1/4 cup milk (I used 1%, but whole is best)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup golden raisins (optional)
1/4 cup dried cranberries (optional)
1/4 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

Word to the wise - room temp ingredients will prevent lumpy curdling weirdness when you mix your wet ingredients, but if what you use, with the exception of the butter, is cold, the bread will still turn out just fine.

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350° and grease an 8" x 8" pan, or line with parchment paper.  I do the parchment.  You may use whichever pan you'd like.  Muffins (yields 12-15), mini loaves (yields 4), whatever you have, it'll do.  

2. Cream butter and sugar with mixer. Combine first on low speed until combined and then increase for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

3. Add eggs to the mixture one at a time, incorporating after each addition.

4. Add bananas to the mixture and blend on low until combined. If your mixture looks less creamy than you'd like, like a globby mess of banana bits and fat that refuses to mix together into a decent-looking batter, that's all right.  Chances are, your bananas, eggs, and / or butter weren't at room temperature.  Not a big deal at all.

5. Add the milk and vanilla to the mixture and mix just until combined.

6. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt to the mixture. (I don't mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl before adding to the wet and it turns out just fine every single time.)  Mix on medium speed until just combined.  Please do not overmix.  That's asking for trouble.  You might want to take a spatula and check for any patches of flour that might be hiding.

7. Use your spatula to add dried fruit, chocolate chips, nuts, whatever your heart desires into the batter.  Or none, if that's what you prefer.  I put my fruit into the batter and saved my chips for the next step.

8. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth surface. I sprinkled chocolate chips atop half my pan, only because the chips were starting at me in the face and well, how could I ignore them?

9. Bake for 50-55 minutes, until a toothpick in the center of the pan comes out clean. No wet goop on that toothpick and you're good to go. If you use a muffin pan, you'll only need 22 - 30 minutes, so check the oven after minute 20.

10. Take your banana bread out of the oven and let it sit for 10-15 minutes.  After this initial settling period, if you greased your pan, wedge a butter knife around the edges to release the bread from the pan.  Move to cool on a wire rack.  If you used parchment paper, you can lift the bread out of the pan and set it to cool on the wire rack.

Serving
It's tasty served warm immediately, cooled and served later, or can even be frozen and brought back to room temp two weeks later.  I'd recommend bringing it to the office so that you don't eat the whole dang thing on your own.  I speak from experience.

Cucumbers Gone Korean

I realize that I haven't posted a recipe here in a while, so here's one for a ridiculously simple, common Korean banchan.  This photo is of nothing more than sliced cucumbers, not anywhere close to the final product, which is sparkling red from the hot pepper flakes, so please do not be misled.  There's a picture here {+}.

I've seen this dubbed as a Korean cucumber salad by American food writers, but it's not.  I swear, we Americans need to do something about our dearth of vocabulary.  How does one douse egg, macaroni, or tuna in mayonnaise and then use the same term to describe a bed of leafy spinach and vegetables?  If there ain't no leafy greens, it ain't no salad, ya' hear?

Oh-eeh moo-cheem translates into seasoned cucumbers: oh-eeh is cucumber and moo-cheem is seasoned.  As strange and awkward as these foreign sounds may be received by an American ear, I'm gonna stick with the Korean.  At least it's accurate.  Also, please don't ever let me catch you calling this a Korean cucumber salad.  Because it ain't.

Oh-eeh Moo-cheem or Oi Muchim (transliteration sure is tricky)
오이 무침

Ingredients
6 Persian cucumbers
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons Korean hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)
2 tablespoons scallion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons brown rice (white is fine, too) vinegar
½ teaspoon sugar (sometimes I omit)
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons sesame oil

Directions
Thinly slice cucumbers (1/8 to 1/4-inch thick). Toss gently with salt and set aside for 15 - 20 minutes. Gently drain excess liquid. Mix well with all remaining ingredients.

Serving
Can be served immediately.  Can also be chilled for as long as you want before serving (a few hours, overnight, whatever).

Let Them Eat Cake

I work with a small non-profit.  All of us involved with the organization have full-time jobs in addition to our responsibilities there, so that means that we meet during the off-hours, in the evenings.  It's become a tradition that we hold these meetings over dinner at my place.  I prepare a homemade meal for everyone and we blow through our agenda as fast as possible, even if that means four hours.  Or longer.  It's been known to happen.  That after a full day at the office is brutal.  Last night, I was pleased that we were able to keep the meeting to just over a tidy two hours.  And because I love this group so much, I went to the trouble of making the cutest cake in the whole wide world for dessert.  An icebox cake is the way to go if you're looking for simple.  Try it with different cookies and flavors.  It's the most forgiving cake you'll ever make and it requires no oven time!

An Icebox Cake: Ginger Cookies / Pumpkin Spice / Praline Pecans

Ingredients
8 oz. mascarpone (cold, not room temp)
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups cold heavy cream
48 2-inch, round, thin ginger cookies
1 teaspoon of pumpkin spice
small handful of chopped praline pecans

Directions
With an electric hand mixer on low speed, mix the mascarpone, sugar, and vanilla about a minute.  Add the cream and mix on high speed until stiff peaks form.  On whatever plate you'd like to present your cake, lay your cookies in a 2x4 array, sides slightly overlapping.  (The cookie layout will determine the shape and size of your cake.  Make a circle, rectangle, star, whatever.  Just make it a complete layer of cookie all the way across.)  Cover cookies completely with the cream mixture and spread evenly across cookie layer.  Repeat layers of cookies and cream mixture ending with a layer of the cream mixture on top.  (I used 6 layers of each.)  Cover carefully with plastic wrap and let sit overnight in the fridge, minimum of 8 hours.  Before serving, dust with pumpkin spice and sprinkle with chopped pecans on top.  

Serving
This might be obvious, but serve this straight out of the fridge.  If you let it sit out for a while before serving, it will still be edible, but as pudding instead of cake.  

Lemon Yogurt Cake

I finally shrugged off enough of the lazy tonight to make these lemon yogurt cake loaves because I LOVE ME some moist lemon cake.  Ina Garten's recipe {+} worked just fine again. I used nonfat plain yogurt because that's what I had on hand.  Also, as I often do with baked goods, I cut down the sugar by 1/8 of a cup and still, no surprise here, the revised recipe yielded a delicious cake.

All this time, I've gone without a standard loaf pan. I'm too cheap to get one from Williams Sonoma or Sur la Table that would probably last a lifetime, which means that I'll probably cave and get a glass Pyrex loaf pan at some point.  Goodness do I have a crush on American Pyrex glass bakeware.  Anyway, until I do, I'm sure these cute mini loaf pans will do a pretty good job.  I used them for the first time tonight and they're clearly the best thing on the kitchen counter this evening.

I'm For Serious

Please, won't someone pay me to bake and assemble sweet goody bags all the live long day?

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

(supposed to yield 2 dozen, but time and again, this recipe yields closer to 30-35 for me)

1 tablespoon of earl grey tea (4 bags)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup AP flour

*****************

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon water

Blend dry ingredients together in a food processor.  Add the remaining 3 wet ingredients to the dry mixture and mix until combined.  Roll dough into log, maybe around 1 1/2 inch diameter, wrap with wax or parchment paper.  Chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes.  While it's chilling, preheat oven to 375F.  Remove chilled dough from the fridge and slice into 1/4 inch rounds.  Place onto cookie sheet and bake for 11-12 minutes, just until they're brown on the bottom.  Move to cooling rack immediately - if you keep them on the pan, they'll get too toasty brown fast.

Lunch Yesterday

It's certainly all about food around here lately, isn't it?  Extra bonus that there was a little natural light coming in through the window yesterday afternoon.  We don't get much around this here parts of Manhattan, what with being wedged in between tall buildings and such.  It really does make a difference in your photos.  Yay.

This sassy Hurricane Irene lady better make her appearance brief and uneventful.  Everyone's kind of freaking about it and I'm all, well, can it really be that bad?  I'm not feeling an ounce of the panic I felt when my mom left me alone with Hurricane Hugo {+}.  But that might be because I'm thirty and not eight anymore.  Let's look on the bright side: all the rain and flooding Irene will bring through town will clean up dirty Manhattan.  We might even be able to wear flip-flops without our feet getting covered in black soot for like, an entire day!

Sharp Wisconsin cheddar, sundried tomatoes packed in olive oil, fresh heirloom tomatoes, all slapped and pressed between Trader Joe's tuscan wheat bread

Giada's Double Chocolate And Espresso Cookies

It turns out that Dutch processed cocoa powder and unsweetened cocoa powder are quite different.  Unsweetened (or natural) reacts with baking powder, a critical component to the success of what comes out of your oven.  I needed Dutch (or processed), but my cupboard only had natural.  So out went my weekend plans for an icebox cake with homemade cookies and in came my first batch of Giada's double chocolate and espresso cookies {+}.  You should know that this dough is a little on the watery side.  I think this might be why these cookies are puffier, softer, and chewier than your typical cookie.

A few adjustments that I made:
   (1) Passed on the hot water bath.  My microwave's defrost feature worked just fine.
   (2) Cut down the sugar to 2/3 cup instead of 3/4.  After tasting, 1/2 cup would have been plenty.
   (3) Scooped heaping single tablespoonfuls of cookie dough.  1/4 cupfuls would have been too big.

(Note: This recipe creates a bajillion dirty dishes.)

Now that I've spent my Sunday baking, it's time to make the most out of these last few hours of the weekend...watching my shows.  Oh, look.  It just started pouring outside!  Makes me feel better about spending my day indoors.  

Rain Sends Me Straight To The Kitchen

Seattle. I find the whole rainy city thing to be a touch magical...Peaceful and calming, a steady rainfall is really something.

With nothing more than a window separating me from the sweltering heat outside, in a brief moment of whimsy earlier this summer, I had written the above in an e-mail.  My mind was wandering to cooler, more peaceful locales.  Today, my mind had no need to wander because it's been raining.  All day.  Exclamation point to the infinity power, guys.

Some people find summer intoxicating.  I love it for about two whole weeks and then I impatiently wait it out until the leaves start changing colors.  The cool rain that's still gloriously coming down outside is a welcome reminder that Labor Day is only a few weeks away.  Pretty soon, scarves will come out as well as shoes that cover my toes.  My work week will once again extend from five days to six -the mere thought makes me a little sad already- but in the evenings, there can be warm hearty soups followed by cozy nights under puffy comforters.  I cannot wait.  It's gonna be grand.

Today's cooling rain inspired me to throw something in the oven.  As the oven worked its way up to four hundred, I took some cornbread mix and tossed in some extras.  I diced up two jalapenos, some green onion, and even pulled down the cheese grater from the very top shelf.  Shredding a block of cheddar into small sprinkle-able ribbons is very satisfying work.  With the delicious smell of these muffins floating from the oven (eighteen minutes for standard-sized muffins), when Soeur shared the happy news that she successfully got a reservation at the esteemed French Laundry {+}, not a single iota of jealousy fluttered through my body.

Summer Fridays + Trader Joe's

Summer Fridays are a Manhattan thing, I think.  Details vary by employer, but generally, if you work in the city, between Memorial Day and Labor Day you can work a little longer Mondays through Thursdays and finish early on Fridays.  Those who have the means, or the connections, will head out to the Hamptons, or the Berkshires, or Nantucket, or one of the dozens of places around that offer a break from the heat and rank of an urban summer.  The rest of us, well, we do what we can.

The highlight of my summer Friday schedule has been my crowd-free afternoon grocery shopping excursions at the Trader Joe's in Chelsea.  Don't let the exhilaration kill you, but listen, IT'S AWESOME.

Because of my schedule, I usually go at peak times on weeknight evenings or weekends.  It's murderous how many people ram themselves in there.  I liken the shopping experience to what I hear about L.A. traffic, only instead of being stuck bumper-to-bumper on a freeway with cars honking all around, you're stuck standing in the frozen food aisle wedged between thousand-dollar strollers, red carts, jarred sauces, yuppies, and their babies screaming bloody murder.  Now that I've taken the time to write out that metaphor, I think it's fair to say that it's probably worse than L.A. traffic.

So, yeah.  Trader Joe's Chelsea at 1:30 on Friday afternoons TOTALLY RULES because nobody's there!  I know many of you can't relate to this, but just trust me.  After living as a commoner in this city for long enough, mark my words: there will come a time when there will be no greater high to experience than cruising through an aisle without getting nicked by carts and strollers; no jumbles of arms to wiggle through to grab hummus; no pleading with the guy behind you to pretty please save your spot in the long line fifty people deep because you forgot your tofu...and oh, did I forget the cheddar Soeur likes, too?  I'll be right back, I promise!  This is the stuff of living in NOO YAWK, people.  

From every Trader Joe's run, I'll return with a bag of brussel sprouts.  I thought I'd be over this infatuation since I had these buggers all winter long, but no.  I'm still game.  Rinse them, add a drizzle of olive oil, a dash of cracked pepper, and a whole lot of sea salt and roast until their edges turn black and crispy.  It'll make your place smell peculiar at first, but you won't mind once you take your first bite.  This is a shot from a batch I made in April, before roasting.

Still Smiling I Am

Wee!!!  Two glorious casserole dishes of my first homemade batch of Magnolia Bakery's banana pudding are currently nestling side-by-side on the bottom shelf of my icebox.  Nilla wafers, pudding, and bananas are gettin' busy in the fridge.  They best be gettin' their lovin' on because I will be impossibly broken if this turns out tasting like bunk.

Soeur brought home Magnolia's largest container of this magical stuff last year {+}.  It was with much merriment that I snarfed down the rest of what our guests didn't finish in the span of just a few days after the dinner party.  You have to take my word for it: This stuff is crack in dairy form.  It's terrible for you, but it makes you feel so damned good, you just can't stop.

Today was a big day.  I bit a bullet that should take off some of the weight on my back.  It felt good.  And now?  It's puddin' time!  It's setting overnight so I need to exercise some patience, but in the meantime, I'm still smiling.  I wish I could send all you non-locals a tupperware of the goodness.  Because the pudding alone is celebration-worthy.

Magnolia Bakery's Banana Pudding Recipe

1 14-oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups ice cold water
1 3.4-oz. package of instant Jell-O vanilla pudding mix
3 cups heavy cream
1 12-oz. box Nabisco Nilla Wafers
6 ripe bananas, sliced

Beat together the condensed milk and water until well combined, about one minute. Add the pudding mix and beat well, about 2 minutes more. Cover and refrigerate for 3-4 hours or overnight, to let pudding set.

Whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Gently fold the pudding mixture into the whipped cream until well blended and no streaks of pudding remain.

Time to assemble. There will be three layers. Arrange a third of the wafers to cover the bottom of the bowl, then a third of the bananas, and a third of the pudding. Repeat twice. If you have leftover wafers, crumble and sprinkle on top of top layer. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in fridge for 4 hours (up to 8 hours, but no longer). Serve.

Please Help Yourself To Some Cookies

Recipe here

I was committed to making chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches this afternoon.  Ok, technically it was yesterday afternoon because I see that's it's nearly six in the morning and I just haven't gone to bed yet but that's neither here nor there.  My plan was to bake, assemble, freeze, and wrap each sandwich individually in wax paper.  How cute would that have been?  Totally cute.  Except:

(1) There was no more Edy's Slow Churned vanilla at the store.  It's the only reduced calorie ice cream I like.  For those skeptics out there, I will have you know that a Wisconsonian (that is, "one who hails from Wisconsin," the state where they do frozen dairy RIGHT) turned me onto it so you know it's good.

(2) The cookies turned out humongous.  The first batch came out of the oven resembling Levain {+} cookies a little too much so I flattened out my scoops in the batches thereafter.  Better, but still too thick for my ice cream sandwich vision.  By the way, Levain raised their prices to $4 per cookie last summer.  Thank you, Oprah.  I haven't been since but they may have gone up even more.

So no chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches this round.  Instead, I have huge honking cookies made from a batter I lovingly and tirelessly hand-mixed with a whisk for nine minutes instead of an electric blender for five minutes as the recipe called for.  Because that's what you do when you don't own a Kitchen Aid.

Maybe my brother will let me drop off a few cookies later today at his office.  He's only ten blocks away from here.  Maybe I can sneak some banana bread in the container, too, because I sorta made that right before the cookies.  I know: I'm crazy.

100% Banana Nana Fo Fana

Have I ever mentioned that Haagen-Dazs is doing the world a great disservice by not selling banana ice cream?  Well, they are.

Drool-worthy endorsements of this all natural banana ice cream took over the blogosphere this past summer.  I bravely tried my hand at making some yesterday (this was about as exciting as my lone Lunar New Year celebration got).  It's nothing more than pureed frozen bananas.  Really.  All I added were a few drops of water to help the blending action along.  It turned out very smooth; creamier than sorbet, but not even close to the creaminess of the real stuff.  Next time, I'm going to add a couple tablespoons of heavy cream to get it closer to ice cream status.

Haagen-Dazs: Call me when you get your act together and add a proper banana ice cream to your line.  By the way, if you add walnuts or chocolate, I will call you Ben (or Jerry) and will be forced to put our relationship on hold until further notice.

Korean Soup For The Soul

I whipped up soup for dinner last night. Look, I know I don't live in South Dakota where it gets crazy cold (have I ever told you that I have a college friend who grew up on a cattle ranch? I know all about South Dakotans feasting on testicles...but that's a story for another day), but Manhattan has hit the "feels like" single digits even though the temperature is technically in the teens and twenties. We're expecting our first snowstorm tonight, about six to twelve inches, and the city is in a tizzy. That means that I'll be getting my soup on!

The soup recipe:

2 teaspoons soy bean paste (available at Korean market, very similar to miso paste, just chunkier)
1/2 teaspoon red pepper paste (available at Korean market)
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup daikon radish, sliced in squares 1/8-inch think
5 oz. soft or firm tofu (about 1/4 of a 19-oz standard package) sliced thickly
3-4 Shanghai cabbage leaves (you can cut them up into bite-size pieces if you wish)
1 handful of bean sprouts
1 Korean long hot pepper sliced in 1/2-inch pieces (few slices of jalepeno will do, too)
1 scallion sliced in 1-inch pieces

Folks, it doesn't get any easier than this: add pastes to water over heat. When water comes to a boil, toss in daikon. Simmer for 5-7 minutes. Add tofu. Simmer for 1 minute. Add cabbage, bean sprouts, pepper, and scallion. When radish is translucent and very soft to the bite, about 5-7 more minutes, it's ready.

Serve with steaming bowl of rice.

Hallelujah and Please Hold The Cumin

Friends, I am up and at it.

BOO-YA.

It must have something to do with your kind wishes. And also maybe the fact that it's been five whole days since the day that went down in history as the day when THE ANESTHESIA DID NOT WORK. Time really is the best healer. And childbirth? Yeah, I'll be begging the docs to knock me out and wake me when the kid is out and everything's healed. I know: I'm totally mom of the year material.

As it turns out, it IS a blessing that there is all of six square feet of walkable space in our kitchen. It means that I can shuffle two feet there, two feet back, two feet to the left, and back, and whip up a batch of cookies without the possibility of overexerting myself.

If only I could report that the process of getting the ingredients down from the cupboards was as easy. I mean, you can't make cookies without brown sugar, the brown sugar sitting on the highest shelf...

But not higher than the panini press which I absolutely HAD to get down because how else would I make my lunch quesadilla? It was totally worth the twenty minutes to get up and down from that wooden chair. Thank you, IKEA.

Between batches of dough going in and out of the oven, I just may have been grilling some red onions (that panini press is a renaissance machine) and handling some cumin which is quite delicioso with black beans and corn, but maybe not so much with David Liebovitz chocolate chip cookies. I baked these sans walnuts (yuck) as a thank-you, but I may have to present them tomorrow as Mexican chocolate chip cookies.

Apple Muffins With Buttermilk

There are only so many things to do with leftover buttermilk, but cake is a good way to go. Can somebody please tell the dairy association of America to package the stuff in pint size containers??? None of us ever use an entire quart and it drives me crazy how this promotes wasteful habits.

//End tangent.//

I had been itching to make an apple cake with the granny smith apples we've accumulated in our fridge (yeah, we Koreans like our fruit chilled) so I found Smitten Kitchen's recipe for apple muffins. Despite my not having any whole wheat flour and neglecting to set aside a 1/4 cup of the sugar for sprinkling on top (oops), they turned out really well. Soeur and her friend weren't blown away, but I could have cared less.

Here is evidence of my shameless appetite: this recipe yielded 16 muffins on Friday. I gave 6 away. By Monday night, there were no more. That means that in four days, I had 10 muffins. Without. Any. Help. Wow...makes me wish my friend hadn't cancelled dinner on Friday. I was planning on unloading a half dozen of these bad boys on her and her husband. I'm not blaming them, just pondering what could have been.

Nancy's 28th: Dinner No. 2

And her birthday isn't even until tomorrow...

Garlic Mashed Potatoes With Corn

Adapted from Bon Appétit

(original recipe calls for olive oil/fresh corn/whipping cream/saffron vs. canola oil/frozen corn/half and half/no saffron)

Ingredients
1 3/4 pounds russet potatoes (about 6) peeled and cut into small pieces for quick boiling

1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 cup frozen sweet corn
3 garlic cloves, minced (2 if you'd prefer less garlickiness)
3/4 cup half and half
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter

Directions
Cook potatoes in boiling water until tender. While you wait for the potatoes...

In a separate pot or pan, heat oil. Sauté onion until soft. Add corn and garlic. Lower heat until onion is slightly browned and corn is tender. Add half and half and butter to mixture. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for a few minutes. Turn off heat. Cover and let stand until potatoes are whipped in separate pot. Speaking of...

Check on your potatoes. Are they done? Probably not yet. Be patient. When they're tender, drain well. Mash 'em up until they're as smooth as you wish.

Add warm corn/cream mixture to mashed potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve warm. (Be warned that when this dish gets cold, you'll taste the garlic more!)

We had a fierce crustless quiche with these potatoes and a light salad.

Snowy Lime Cookies

I renamed these gems from "Lime Meltaways" to "Snowy Lime Cookies" because they don't really melt away in your mouth. Melting would require that you savor each delicate cookie by letting it gently rest on your tongue between bites. If you're anything like me, you're not that patient and when something tastes good, you chew as fast as you can, swallow, and reach for another. No time for melting. Do you see what I mean?

(Adapted from Martha Stewart's recipe for Lime Meltaways)

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar (1 cup total, see below)

Grated zest of 3 limes
4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice (2 limes produced this much)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups, plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar

1. Cream butter and 1/3 cup of sugar together until fluffy using electric blender.

2. Add lime zest, lime juice, and vanilla to butter mixture and whip until fluffy.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients: the flour, cornstarch, and salt. Add this to the butter mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Now you have your dough.

4. Roll the dough into two 1 1/4-inch-diameter logs. I didn't have parchment paper which makes it easier to form into logs, so I just carefully used two pieces of plastic wrap.

5. Wrap logs in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

6. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

7. Slice chilled logs into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheet.

8. Bake until just barely golden. My oven takes 10 minutes. Yours could take shorter or longer, but I wouldn't recommend more than 15 minutes.*

9. Place on cooling rack.

10. While still warm, roll each cookie in remaining 2/3 cup of confectioners' sugar. You can also gently toss and coat the cookies with the sugar in a plastic ziploc bag, but I feel so terrible about using plastic bags and discarding them when I can just as easily use a bowl, that I prefer my non-wasteful method.

The baked cookies will store for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container. Mine didn't last for more than 4 days, but that's because I'm a piggy. You can freeze a log for up to two months according to Martha Stewart, but I haven't tried that yet so heed at your own risk.

*I baked my first batch for a full 15 minutes and they were way too brown on the bottom. Everybody's ovens differ so keep an eye on them from around the 8-minute mark to make sure you pull them before they get too golden.

Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats AVEC Chocolate

Pumped from a successful trip to my all-time favorite store of all time

- all time as in the history of the world as we know it -

WILLIAMS-SONOMA,

I, Julia, rocked out some Rice Krispie treats this morning.

Only this time, I added

- wait for it -

PEANUT BUTTER (it was worth the wait, right?)

to the marshmallow mix.

And then I dipped the little rolled balls of cereal in melted chocolate.

Goodness plus goodness plus goodness equals goodness.

But not so much when you eat too many in one sitting.

You have been warned.

Ingredients

1/3 stick of butter

10 oz. marshmallows (typically 1 bag)

1/3 cup of peanut butter

6 cups of Rice Krispies cereal

6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips (12 oz. is usually 1 bag)

1 tsp. vegetable oil for coating (the sprayable stuff in a can works best)

Directions

>Melt butter in pan.

>Keep pan on heat and add marshmallows, stirring until there are no more lumps of marshmallow.

>Remove pan from heat.

>Stir in peanut butter.

>In separate bowl, measure 6 cups of Rice Krispies.

>(Work super quickly from this point forward.)

>Pour marshmallow peanut butter mix on top of cereal while simultaneously mixing with a wooden or plastic spoon that has been lightly sprayed with oil until well incorporated.

>Spray hands lightly with vegetable oil cooking spray.

>With your hands, roll mixture into little balls. (Batter will be warm.)

>In separate sauce pan, melt semi-sweet chocolate chips over super low heat. Keep stirring to avoid burning. Once the chips melt to half their size, remove pan from heat and continue to stir. The heat of the pan will melt the chocolate without burning it.

>Dip balls as much or as little as your heart desires.

>Set to cool on flat surface. You can pop into fridge for 5 minutes to speed things up.

Blueberry Muffins Are Magical

The blueberry soup didn't happen, but that was no surprise given the massive amount of work involved in producing a single batch of the heavenly stuff. To cheer myself up, I made sure fresh muffins made an appearance. I used one of Martha Stewart's recipes and I'm very pleased that my first batch of blueberry muffins - from scratch! - turned out so well.

Unfortunately for me, I have to find some folks who'll take them off my hands because they'll just sit around otherwise. Maybe I can freeze a couple, but that still leaves more than half a dozen. Where does one find friends who will eat baked goods without immediately wallowing in their own guilt? Because I don't have any of them and would like one with whom to eat yummy treats all day.

So there you have it: if you won't launch into a soliloquy on the extra calories you'll have to burn on your half marathon run tomorrow to compensate for the muffin, you are welcome to come on over for a berry tasty muffin...or two or three or four.

Super Soft Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Anything looks pretty with a heap of powdered sugar on top, but don't let that fool you. Because these were subpar.

I found identical recipes (instructions practically matched word for word, too...hmm...) at www.joythebaker.com and www.larissamarks.com and figured I couldn't go wrong, but the cookies weren't pumpkiny or spicy enough. The one thing they were for sure: soft. Almost like cake. Just not nearly as tasty as I had hoped.