Chocolate Chip Cookies to DIE FOR!

You guys. I don't know if you know this (actually I don't know why you would  know this), but Mike makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the whole world. That's saying a LOT, since I'm not even a big cookie person (except Oreos, obviously).

The other night, we all spent some time together as a family making these delicious cookies. And by that, I mean Mike made the cookies while Elsie terrorized him, helping occasionally, and I documented the whole thing.

I convinced him that he needed to share his recipe with the world, so here it is.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World
1 stick butter (softened but not melted)
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 heaping cup of flour (anywhere from 1-1.5 cups is ideal)
1 teaspoon + pinch of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Chocolate chips, m&ms, and/or walnuts to taste

These cookies are baked at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

We like chewy cookies, so we usually pull them out a little bit under-cooked and let them finish cooking on the baking sheet on the counter. If you like crunchy cookies, don't do that. HA!

Anyway, be sure to mix the dry ingredients separately or at least distribute the salt and baking soda evenly throughout the dough. If you don't do that, you will end up with a bunch of puffy cookies and a bunch of flat, miserable cookies.

Don't soften the butter too much, or you will end up with dough that is too liquidy, and you'll want to use flour to compensate... BUT DO NOT DO THAT! If you accidentally soften your butter too much, refrigerate (or even freeze) the dough for a couple of hours to harden it a bit.

This recipe yields about 2 dozen delicious, chewy, amazing cookies. Try not to eat them all at once.

You're welcome. 

Sunday Confessions & the Best Peanut Butter Cookies You Will Ever Eat!

Hi lovelies!!! 

I know it's Sunday, but I only have one confession for you: 

1. I hate cooking and the kitchen. For some strange reason, though, I felt the need to bake today. I love  peanut butter cookies, and set out to find a good recipe. Nothing looked perfectly satisfying, though, so I sort of made up my own. It was an experiment, but I took pictures just in case these cookies turned out. They did! They were AMAZING. Now here is the recipe - go try it out and see for yourself! 

Since I made these, Hubby has eaten a total of nine cookies. They must be good!!

Happy Sunday, everyone! 

Mike's Famous Crepes

So after much deliberation, Hubby has finally given me permission to share our [read: his] delicious crepe recipe. That's good news for you, folks! Let me let you all in on a little something - since having to start living on a budget, crepes have become a staple of our diet. We eat those puppies at least 5 times a week, sometimes as many as 7 or 8. Example: the past couple of days we have not only had crepes for breakfast, but also as a little midnight snacky snack. Yum.
Suffice it to say, we eat these babies (eww... not real babies. Crepe babies.) A LOT. Because they're cheap. And delicious. And easy to make. I shall tell you how!

Ingredients (yields 7-8 medium sized crepes)
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1 3/4 cups milk*
2 Tbsp oil

* approximate amount. Really, you just add milk until the batter is the right consistency. So helpful, right? I know, you're welcome. :)

Recipe
1. Put a frying pan (round, obviously) on your stove and grease it. Turn the heat up to medium high.

2. Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl, and mix them together until the mixture looks like this:

3. Add your egg and milk to the mixture, and beat the heck out of it for a minute or so. This is where gauging the right consistency comes in... Your batter should be about as thick as heavy whipping cream or buttermilk. It should look like this now:

4. Add your oil.

5. Mix the oil into the batter, then get ready to make some crepes. All right, this next part is where "crepe lore" comes into play. If you're right handed, you put the pan in your right hand and the mixing bowl in your left. You slowly pour the batter into the pan from the bowl until you have about this much:

6. As soon as you have about that much, you start to swirl the pan so that the batter fills the bottom, creating a perfectly shaped crepe. Don't get it? Don't worry... I've got pictures!

 7. Once your crepe is the perfect shape, set the pan back on the burner. Watch for the edges start to bubble and brown.

8. Once they do, flip that puppy!

9. Let the crepe cook on that side for about 45 seconds to a minute. Once it's done, it should look like this (but hopefully a little more round):

10. Pile all your finished crepes on a plate to admire your handiwork (see how thin they are?):

11. Decorate with fruit, powdered sugar, whipped cream, whatever your little heart desires, and ENJOY!!

Simple White Bread

I got this recipe from my mother-in-law, and it's great! It makes 3 loaves of delicious white bread, and is easy peasy. The recipe originally calls for brown sugar, but since that stuff is ridiculously expensive over here in Germany, I use white, and it's just as good. This recipe doesn't require a bread machine, which makes it even better! So. If you want to know how to make this deliciousness, here is the recipe, complete with pictures.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (175 degrees C)

Ingredients
3 3/4 c warm water
   1/2 c sugar
   1/4 c oil
     1 T salt
     2 T yeast

Recipe

1. In a large mixing bowl, mix the warm water and yeast.
2. Let the yeast ferment.

3. Add oil, salt, and sugar.
4. Start adding flour until you can knead the dough.

5. Knead for 5 minutes, then flip over.

6. Let dough rise with a wet cloth on top.

7. When the dough is double in size, sprinkle the counter with flour, beat the dough down, and flatten it out.

8. Form the dough into 3 loaves of equal size and put each into a bread pan. (Note: If you're ghetto like me and only own one bread pan, leave the other two loaves on the counter while the first is baking. Make sure they're covered with a damp towel.
9. Bake the loaves at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the top of the loaf is golden brown.
10. Remove the loaves from the oven, let them cool, and enjoy your homemade bread!! :)

For some reason the dumb blog wouldn't let me format this the way I wanted with the pictures, but I'm sure you get the idea. Anyway... 

Like I said - EASY! Why in the world would you buy bread at $1.50 or more a loaf when you can have delicious homemade bread for a third of the price? Now, go to your kitchen and make the deliciousness happen.