#30. Chocolate Coffee Pinwheel Icebox Cookies

This is the same recipe from Joy of Cooking on which I based my #20. Delicious Distraction Chocolate Chip Coffee Bread. This time I made the actual cookies. My original intention was to swirl vanilla, chocolate, and coffee flavored doughs to make a triple pinwheel, but I had to rush at the last minute and just mixed the coffee and chocolate doughs together.

Here's the basic dough recipe:

Mix:

10 tbsp softened butter
2/3 c sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla

Mix separately and add to the above:

1 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

If you just want to make vanilla icebox cookies, shape the dough into a log, refrigerate for an hour or two, then cut the log into slices and bake at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.

To make pinwheel cookies, roll out half the dough into a rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. Add 2 oz. melted chocolate to the other half of the dough, and roll it out and place it over the vanilla rectangle and roll them together.

To make chocolate coffee pinwheel icebox cookies, add both 2 oz chocolate and 1/8 c. very, very strong coffee to the other half of the dough and then spread it (the coffee makes it spreadable) over the vanilla dough and roll the dough layers together. (I was planning to make a vanilla layer, a chocolate layer, and a coffee layer, so I think only a third of my dough was vanilla, while the chocolate/coffee layer used 2/3 of the dough.)

Anyway, here's how the cookies turned out:

I didn't get the chocolate melted all the way (I was in a hurry), so I chopped up what didn't melt and ended up with chocolate chips in there too!

I liked how the swirl went all the way through the cookie, unlike a cookie that is merely decorated:

These were very good cookies. I didn't like them quite as much as the Delicious Distraction Chocolate Chip Coffee Bread (because it was so moist and perfect), but they had a similar flavor. 

A

Stuff

I have this weird fantasy. It's not what you think--it's way weirder. I lie on my back on the floor of my room and look around and imagine that I could inventory every single thing I own--each and every book, each and every knick-knack, each and every bit of junk--and then rank everything according to how much I want to keep that thing, and then get rid of the bottom third of things. This is a recurring fantasy, one that I've wasted so much time on I probably could have actually done it by now. Not that I would actively choose to waste time on it. But there I lie anyway, thinking... would I rather keep this wooden salad bowl that I never use or this postcard of a Monet painting?

Recently I read (goodness knows where... online? In a magazine? Did I see it on TV?) about "procrastination fantasies." A procrastination fantasy is when you imagine having achieved a goal in order to put off working toward that goal. I think the author(?) mentioned Walter Mitty as an example--he could be spending his time putting in the effort to become a fighter pilot for real, but instead he spends that time daydreaming about being one. A more recent procrastination fantasy trend that I've noticed is the rise of reality TV shows about making major changes in your life. Shows like "Hoarders" and "The Biggest Loser" and even makeover segments on daytime TV let people fantasize about what it would be like to make big changes--without actually having to make them.

It's easy and all too common for us to tell ourselves that if we can't do something perfectly, we shouldn't try to do it at all. One tenet of cognitive behavioral therapy is that one should recognize that any positive change, however far from perfection it lands us, is usually better than no change at all (and even the people who are best at things aren't perfect!). In this spirit, I started a list a few years ago entitled "Getting Rid of 1,000 Items That Have Been in My Apartment for at Least One Month." (If I couldn't inventory everything and lop off the bottom third, I would at least work at identifying and getting rid of that "bottom third.") One pair of old, no-longer-used socks counted as a single item. One piece of junk mail from that pile in the corner was one item. Anything I replaced immediately, like jars of spaghetti sauce or rolls of paper towels, didn't count. However, if I'd had an empty jar or paper towel tube sitting on a shelf somewhere for over a month because "it might be useful someday" and I put it in the recycling bin, I could write that item down on the list. It took me about a year to get rid of 1,000 items. I then started a new list, trying to get rid of 500 more items. Over a year later, I'm only on #323.

I still fantasize about inventorying everything, though. Would "table and chairs" be a single item, or would it be 5 items? Surely my chess set is a single item. What about things like shampoo, or my toothbrush? Would I rank those, too? Would I have to re-rank my shampoo if I started buying a better brand? Would the ranking illuminate anything I don't already know about my relationship with my possessions? How many possessions do I even have? If each book, each bill saved in a file, each penny in the piggy bank, each stamp in my stamp collection--if each is a single item, could I own as many as 30,000 things? Do I need or even want these things as much as my hanging on to them would suggest I do?

So I fantasize and fantasize. I'm the queen of mundane daydreaming. It would almost be worth it to make this inventory, just to get it out of my head. Or I could keep chipping away at the bottom third, getting rid of what I want least in my life, item by item.

#29. Herby Potato Rosti

This recipe comes from the Williams Sonoma book Easy Vegetarian (again). It is delicious and very simple (if you don't count grating the potatoes, which is difficult, but important to the texture and flavor of the dish). I tried this recipe once on a rainy morning when I didn't have any herbs (just potatoes, olive oil, salt, and pepper) and it was good. I tried it later on a rainy afternoon when I'd just bought some sage and thyme plants, and it was even better.

The amounts of the ingredients are adjustable--only make as much as you can eat, because I doubt these would refrigerate well (or that you will even have leftovers to refrigerate). I used a few small white potatoes, a couple of sage leaves, some thyme stems, just enough oil to fry the potatoes, and salt and pepper. (Buy little herb plants instead of cut fresh herbs, because you will only use a small amount, and they cost about the same.)

Grate the potatoes and set them to dry on paper towels (or simply squeeze out the extra moisture). It helps to cut the potatoes into sticks (1" X 1" or so) first so that there is less surface area scraping against the grater--potatoes are quite dense. It doesn't matter if the grated bits are kind of short--if they are at least an inch long, the grated potato will hold together.

Mix the herbs and salt and pepper into the grated potato (just tear the sage leaves into little bits and strip the thyme leaves from the stems). Shape the potato/herb mixture into balls (a little bit bigger than a ping pong ball). Heat some olive oil (about 2 tbsp) in a skillet and press the potato balls down into the oil with a spatula (the pan should be hot enough that they hiss and sputter, but not so hot that you get stung with hot oil). After about 5 minutes, flip the potato patties and turn the heat down. Allow them to cook for 5 to 10 minutes more.

Here they are before turning (the little chunks between the patties are the ends of the potato sticks that were left after grating--they cooked up just fine):

And the final product:

I probably could have cooked these a little longer for crispier patties, but I enjoyed the soft starchiness of the undercooked centers.

I give this dish a solid A. It's simple (other than the grating, as I said before), flavorful, fun and quick. It's hot comfort food for a cold day, or a rainy day, or a cold, rainy day. Imagine McDonald's hash browns, only good.

#28. Eggplant Steaks with Feta Salad

I've become ambivalent about my food blogging. On one hand, it's been fun working toward my goal of trying 100 new recipes this year, and I've been enjoying all the new meals and desserts. And I feel like the blogging propels me to stay on track. On the other hand, I'm a little embarrassed to link to these on Twitter, so aside from going back to check my spelling, these entries get hardly any hits at all. So for this recipe at least, I'm only going to hit the high points and record what I learned.

This recipe is another from the Williams Sonoma book Easy Vegetarian. I just weirdly happened to have all the ingredients on hand except the feta, so what I really made was a vegan version, which was okay (I tried adding mozzarella, but it didn't work with the other flavors, especially the lemon).

One good takeaway from this recipe is the idea of broiling eggplant steaks (just thick slices, really) after coating them in olive oil and lemon juice and sprinkling them with salt and pepper and fresh thyme. The "feta" salad was okay, but there was way too much parsley, raw onion, and garlic. Just some olives, cucumber, tomatoes, and lemon juice would have been enough, and since that's most of a Greek salad, I bet feta would have tasted good with that.

Here's the final product (shown with mozzarella instead of feta):

Vegan version: B, Mozzarella Version: B-

A few weeks later (I'm really far behind writing these up) I tried baking (as opposed to broiling) some 1/2" thick eggplant slices on a foil-lined baking sheet with just olive oil (I omitted the lemon juice). That worked well (400 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes, with the slices leaning on each other to let heat circulate underneath--I hated having to turn the slices when I was broiling them--so hot!). Then I tried olive oil, sage, thyme and oregano, and that was good enough to eat plain, although both times I topped the eggplant with warmed up tomato basil pasta sauce (from a jar) and slices of mozzarella. If you don't count salting the eggplant slices and letting them stand for 30 minutes before rinsing, coating and cooking, this is actually a surprisingly quick and easy meal.

Pasta sauce version: A-

The Puppies Are Seventeen Weeks Old Today!!

I've been enjoying the puppies so much more these last two weeks. I think it's due to the fact that their rate of change has leveled off enough for me to catch up to them and take a deep breath and really see how lucky I am to have these tiny rascals in my life. Also, I quit reading that awful puppy book that was making me feel like I was doing everything wrong, and decided to just have fun with the puppies. It's not like they need to be trained perfectly from the very start, no matter how appealing that sounds when you're not actually trying to do it.

They went to the vet a week and a half ago and got their last round of vaccines, including their rabies shots. They're good to go for walks in the neighborhood, but I haven't decided which harness to use yet, and I'm still a little uncomfortable with the idea of taking them out on a leash. Baby steps, I guess.

On to pictures! Here they are sharing a drink of water after playing outside (even though the water was available outside too--I guess they forget it's there?):

(As you can see, Max, who was born long and lean, is still long and lean (and quite muscular), while Joey (aka Spot, who was born fat) is somewhat tubbier. At the vet we found out they weigh almost the same: 5.6 and 5.5 pound respectively, even though Joey is closer in dimension to Lizzie (who weighed 4.9 pounds.)

Maxwell still gets really excited about being in pictures:

For a few days, I was having to keep the boys in the playpen...:

While I let Lizzie run around in a barricaded portion of the kitchen...:

...because the boys were being too aggressive with her. Lately, even though they still haven't been neutered (two more months!), they have been inexplicably nicer to her. But I still have to keep an eye out. They aren't sexually mature yet, but they can go from playful to rapey in a matter of seconds:

He's not actually hurting her here, but I still don't like to let this kind of thing go unchecked. I just say something like, "Please don't hump on your sister, Max, it's gross," and firmly but gently lift the puppy off her by the scruff of the neck and set him aside. The boy puppy then looks up at me with a perfectly innocent expression that appears to ask, "Was I doing something wrong? Ah, I see. Noted.":

See? Happy little camper:

(The mounting behavior is common among dogs who are sorting out their ranking--even female dogs will mount other dogs. It's the thrusting that's a bit much for me. Although occasionally the boy dogs will try to hump each others faces and I laugh so hard I can hardly do any scolding!)

Here's Lizzie (at the bottom edge) holding her own again a few minutes later:

Max considers himself the alpha dog and believes all the food belongs to him. Here he pushes Lizzie aside:

And then pushes Joey aside a few seconds later:

(He's since learned to share a little more, so I've stopped having to spread the food on the floor and/or take Max in another room so the others can eat.)

Bully:

Once the boys started being nicer to Lizzie, I started letting everybody play in the barricaded kitchen. They can mill about at my feet while I wash dishes or prepare meals. They seem relatively easy-going here:

But if I kneel down to interact, they go berserk fighting over me (and fighting, over me):

Teeth:

Crazy eyes:

Milling about:

The boys, sparring in the playpen:

Here, Max is guarding Yellow Ball, Swizzle, and all the tug-a-ropes (yes, the toys have names):

He still has his handsome, observant gaze:

I find this irresistibly cute:

Tug-a-ropes are still their favorite toys:

Spot was having big behavioral problems for a couple of weeks, but now he's a chubby little sweetie, and everybody loves him:

(I've been calling him Butter Butt lately because he's so soft and smooth and squishy! And he thinks he can leap up into your arms and hang on like lean, muscular Max does, but he's not strong enough, so it's like catching a furry, lopsided medicine ball that wiggles!!)

My precious Little Mouse:

Joey is a lazy fighter who often prefers a defensive position:

Even when given a chance to get up!:

I finally put the box the puppies were born in in the recycling bin. I had to take one last picture though. (It has obviously seen better days.):

Sparring:

One day when I woke the puppies up from naps, I found Lizzie using Red Bone as a pillow:

I'm intent on picking up the puppies' poops as soon as they hit the turf so that they don't get stepped in, but despite my best efforts, accidents happen. Joey stepped in his poo one evening, and while I was cleaning him up, he knocked over the water. Unfortunately, the water went right into a hole the puppies had recently dug in the lawn. I went inside to wash my hands and get more water, and came back to a mud puppy:

The puppies love lounging in the sun more than just about anything, so when the light shifted during this outing, I gave them a few minutes to enjoy it before moving the pen into the shade once more:

Loves the camera:

A photo essay I like to call "Investigations":

Sometimes they remind me of college students making out on the quad:

Happy trails!