
As predicted, yesterday was too, too crazy for a recipe thread. Trying tonight instead. It’s never too early to start thinking about holiday food trays, boxes, and bags. I have an entire section dedicated to making sweet and salty treats here.
I had to go to a funeral and wanted to take something sweet. I find chocolate helps. Lots of chocolate.
I don’t make these very often, because they are super rich and my Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies are usually enough.
They’re easy and just a touch above regular chocolate chip cookies. This is a full batch, makes about 4 dozen cookies. Great for your holiday cookie boxes.
Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp butter
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla
- dash of salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 cups flour
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds or peanuts), chopped
mixing bowl and cookie sheet
Preheat oven to 350 degrees (the lower temperature is because dark cookies can burn easily)
Cream together butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Sift together salt, soda, flour and cocoa, then add to butter mixture, blending well. Add nuts and chocolate chips. Spoon onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
Cool on the cooling rack.
What’s on your menu this weekend? Anyone have special requests for the Thanksgiving recipe exchange? Hit the comments to share your recipes, gift ideas, holiday requests or whatevah…
WereBear
So could there be Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip? She asked innocently.
TaMara (HFG)
@WereBear: Well, to be honest, I used special dark cocoa powder AND 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chips. So I guess the answer is a resounding…YES.
Yutsano
@WereBear: You could use bittersweet chocolate chips instead of the semi-sweet. Now that would be intense.
BRB plotting…
NotMax
Have been patiently waiting for a foodie thread in order to share this.
Outside the box or just plain weird?
;)
(Incidentally, this post’s title may have inadvertently uncovered a site anomaly – look how the text of said title appears in the right side tab on the thread prior to this one.)
Virginia
@TaMara (HFG): that special dark cocoa is the bomb!
chris
Damn, I think I gained a pound from reading the recipe. Yum!
mrmoshpotato
How is Shaggy so thin?
Pot roast on my future once I thaw my Target chuck steaks.
PVDMichael
That recipe needs some dried cherry pieces… perfection!
Amir Khalid
@TaMara (HFG):
In other words, these are Death-by-Chocolate chip cookies?
Villago Delenda Est
My mouth is watering.
I hate you.
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: Suffocated by Chocolate
NotMax
Not as toothsome as from scratch, but for any who don’t know about it –
OMG I Forgot I Promised To Make Cookies & I’m Missing Ingredients & The Car’s In The Shop Cookies
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix together 2 well beaten eggs, ½ cup cooking oil (not olive oil) and 1 box of any flavor of packaged cake mix you prefer.
Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto a greased or lined cookie sheet. (A little easier to do if the mixed dough is chilled for 15 or 20 minutes, but that’s strictly optional.) Yes, chips, nuts, etc. can be added if so desired.
Bake 10 – 12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes, then move cookies to cooling rack.
Makes around two dozen cookies.
debbie
Since we’re talking chocolate, my favorite is Maida Heatter’s Chocolate Macaroons from Monte Carlo.
You can skip the baking on brown paper and use parchment instead (much simpler, though they will spread a bit). They are the best cookie I’ve ever had, so good I ate them while I had strep throat. Painful, but mighty good.
zhena gogolia
I’m afraid you guys will sneer at me, but does anyone have a good recipe for turkey breast? Our friend who always invites us for Thanksgiving always makes goose, and I miss turkey, but I don’t want to make a whole turkey for just my husband and me. Yet I would like to make us a turkey-and-stuffing dinner for the weekend after Thanksgiving. We both only like white meat, so I thought turkey breast would be the answer.
chris
From Reddit
When you get your first kiss
laura
@zhena gogolia: make a stuffing/dressing – about 4 to 6 cups I’d reckon. Place in a mound in a greased roasting pan.
Place a turkey breast atop the pile and roast at 350 until the thickest part of the breast is 160° (it needs to get to 165° but will continues to cook when it comes out of the oven to rest). You may partially cover with a piece of foil to keep it from getting too dark.
I would prep the breast by rubbing with vegetable oil and the salt, pepper and a good sprinkling of poultry seasoning (the yellow box).
There’s so many stuffing recipes to even try and include one.
I just finished dinner – 2 sad chicken thighs transported! Fried chicken, milk gravy with fresh sage and thyme, homemade creamed corn, gingered carrots and mashers with chives. Spouse a’swoon, weiner dog waiting for a widgey bit and I’m savoring a BlackBerry cider.
I’m itching to bake a dank dried fruit and nut fruitcake. This may be the week. A nice cuppa tea and wee slice in the cold dark days of winter sounds really satisfying.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: You have someone who makes goose? I ask for it every year and am voted down. I also want mincemeat pie.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Yes. Are you doing it on the bone or boneless?
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, he makes goose and also potatoes roasted in the goose fat. It’s fine but I prefer turkey.
zhena gogolia
@laura:
Thanks!
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t know — which is better?
debbie
@laura:
Also to keep it from drying out. (A good reason to stick to dark meat.)
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: It is personal preference, but they require slightly different prep. Regardless of bone in or out, if at all possible make sure you get it with the skin on. That’ll help to keep it from getting dried out. My default for turkey, breast or whole, is to dry rub with kosher salt, freshly cracked black pepper, and poultry seasoning to taste. If a whole turkey I’ll spatchcock it, but for a breast, I’ll go low and slow so as not to dry it out. If you can get a turkey neck as well, then you can use that as the basis to make turkey gravy for your roasted turkey breast.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, I could if I had any idea how to make gravy!
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Take the neck, divide it with a sharp chef’s knife into several pieces. Salt and pepper them to taste. Chop up 1 to 2 carrots, 1/2 a medium onion, and 1 stick of celery. In a hot saute pan add your preferred cooking oil. Saute the pieces of neck and the veggies. Deglaze the sauted neck and vegies and pan with a 1/4 of white wine. Transfer to a sauce pot and add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of water. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid. When the liquid has reduced by half, remove the neck pieces and the veggies and thicken either with a traditional roux or with corn starch in cold chicken broth. Then taste, reseason as necessary, turn to low/warm, and serve when ready.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Thank you!
CapnMubbers
@Adam L Silverman: I love it when you break out the frilly apron and tiara!…trying to see if my nym will stick today.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: And with the turkey breast on low and slow. Basically you’re doing a reverse sear. So you want the breast to get to 150 degrees in the thickest part of the breast before you take it out to rest. So oven on 250, breast cooking until it hits 150 internal. Then remove from the oven, cover, and rest while you turn the oven up as high as it will go, which is usually 500 degrees. This should take about 20 to 30 minutes depending on your oven. Remove the cover for the breast (bodice rip it! what?), give it a baste with either your preferred oil, melted butter, or a combo, and put it back in the 500 degree oven so that the skin will crisp up. You’ll have to watch it, but it shouldn’t take more than about 15 minutes. Then remove, turn the oven off, carve/slice, and serve.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: This is another option:
https://www.seriouseats.com/2012/11/the-food-lab-roast-turkey-breast-for-a-small-gathering.html
You won’t go wrong following the Food Lab folks instructions.
Miss Bianca
Mmm, made soup by throwing in some potatoes and other things in to the beans I crockpotted yesterday. Those cookies look amazing.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
The breast meat is so bland it calls for some herbage as pizazz. For example, Roasted Turkey Breast with Garlic and Herbs.
Am a dark meat person myself. Will take a juicy turkey leg to gnaw on over breast meat any day.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
The Kitchn is another good source for recipes (and also techniques). Here’s a recipe for sheet pan roasted turkey breast and vegetables.
TaMara (HFG)
@Adam L Silverman:
@zhena gogolia:
No one makes fun in my posts, not on my watch. LOL. I’m with Adam, go with serious eats, I was just about to recommend Alton Brown’s recipes. They are great for turkey.
Also, while boneless is often preferred, you lose a lot of flavor and risk a dry bird. With the exception of a few recipes, I’ve now switched to almost all bone-in poultry. The bones/marrow adds an extra layer of flavor.
Hope that helps and you can email me if you run into more questions. Or probably Adam, since he’s got the apron and tiara out.
NotMax
@TaMara (HFG)
Another option is to cut the breast into medallions and pan fry quickly. For example, Turkey Medallions Piccata .
Ohio Mom
@zhena (I am pretending that I hit the reply button, it doesn’t work for me in the new system).
I’ve been averaging a half turkey breast a week for the last month
(Ohio Dad keeps kosher and the selection of kosher meats is limited around here. In the fall, our Trader Joe’s has turkey breasts. Almost makes up for them only having steaks in the summer).
I just smear on some olive oil, sprinkle on some seasonings — mostly paprika — add the meat thermometer set for 165, and put in a 350 oven.
There’s never enough pan juices for gravy, so I make a simple roux (three tablespoons melted margarine because butter would not be kosher, mix in two tablespoons flour and then add a cup or so of Imagine vegetable broth, which sorta tastes like chicken broth. Let it simmer and thicken.
My approach is not going to win any cooking awards (for one thing, the skin does not get crispy) but it is easy.
zhena gogolia
Wow, thanks, everyone.
Aardvark Cheeselog
Ok I made these tonight on impulse. I used Ghirardelli cocoa and semisweet chips. I was out of dark brown sugar so I used light brown and added a couple of tbsp of molasses with the eggs, and for some reason felt impelled to add a half tsp of cloves to the flour/cocoa mix. Oh and I had pecans so that was what I used for the nuts.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
4 decades ago I used to grill a turkey breast on our Farberware grill, which they don’t make any more but I still have my dads that’s only 30+ yrs old and works fine. There were 2 of us and we had the same problem, anything resembling a turkey and it would last till it spoiled.
I have no idea how long ago they stopped making the grills. Pain in the whatever to clean the thing though.
Brush on a bit of oil, I use sesame oil but whatever works, a bit of salt and pepper and grill till done. Very good.
Avalune
I make this Pear and Cranberry compote for Thanksgiving every year. It’s pretty amazing. I tried a different kind last year and was sent home from the hospital to make it right. ? And I was already informed the linked recipe is the only cranberry compote accepted.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll bet you were the toast of the Hester Prynne Fan Club in high school
Martin
These are probably wonderful, but my wifes are better because she made them.
ThresherK
The only things I could possibly add to that incredible recipe are:
Ghirardelli brown bag chips are better than the gold bag for my taste. The brown are bittersweet and the gold are semisweet (I think).
I have never worried about stocking Dutch process cocoa and natural cocoa, and nobody has said boo about any of my recipes or my cocoa. Am I missing something?
Martin
@zhena gogolia: There are many answers provided here that are probably good, but are all wrong.
There are two good ways to cook turkey – one is to deep fry it, the other is to rotisserie it. I would suggest you reconsider your white meat preference until you’ve tried one of them. Frying is moderately dangerous. Rotisserie just a bit of added work for an almost guaranteed good result.
Our thanksgiving dinner is always on the rotisserie grill. Takes 4-6 hours depending on how big it is. Can be a bit of a wrestle to get it trussed up properly so it doesn’t wobble off after that much turning, but my daughter won’t eat anything, but will eat my turkey. No part of it is tough, and with a little poultry rub and some smoke, it’s all tasty as hell.
The best part of cooking it on the grill – it frees up your oven for everything else. Been doing this for about 20 years.
Martin
@ThresherK: 2nd on the bittersweet Ghiradelli. That’s what my wife uses.
(heads over to eat another that she baked this morning)
geg6
Best cookies in the world, IMHO, are made using the Quaker Oats oatmeal cookie recipe and adding milk chocolate chunks and pecans. Total heaven! I am one of those people, few that there are, for whom there is definitely such a thing as too much chocolate.
And may I add how happy I am that my nym is still here a day later.
The Dangerman
Is it wrong to want to want to send a double batch of these cookies, along with an overflowing bucket of wings, to Trump if he Is still in the Hospital
ETA: Baylor?!! What ARE you doing?
Raven
Edwards back in the lead.
Raven
3780 of 3934 precincts reporting – 96%absentee reporting – 63 of 64 parishes
Votes
735,753
John Bel Edwards (DEM)
51%
716,441
“Eddie” Rispone (REP)
49%
Total: 1,452,194
Patricia Kayden
surfk9
@Martin: A third choice: Smoking a turkey can be sublime. I use apple wood for smoke. A smoked turkey done right looks perfect and when you cut into it is like a gusher of juice. I usually make a small savory and a small smoked turkey.
waratah
My son invited me for thanksgiving and he cooked a turkey breast he had buttered and seasoned under the skin with a chili mix he had bought in New Mexico. The best turkey breast I have eaten. The seasoning really added to the flavor of the breast. He is a big fan of Alton so probably used one of his recipes.
hotshoe
@NotMax:
I’d make it. A note on the recipe page suggests using plain salmon — to replace the lox — by cooking the fish in with the noodles — instead of adding lox, which should not actually be cooked, at serving time.
On the other hand, I’m not clear why I would want to cook noodles of any kind in an Instant Pot; have to worry about releasing the pressure soon enough that the noodles don’t turn to mush. How about boiling noodles on stovetop the old fashioned way and getting them perfectly al dente? Isn’t that better?
Then the sauce could be made separately in whichever method you wanted.
Anya
@Patricia Kayden: Maybe if the stable genius stayed home the republican might’ve won. He held three rallies and begged for votes.
donnah
TaMara, your cookies look divine! Thank you for sharing the recipe. I’m hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the umpteenth time (I’ve lost count) for fourteen or more this year. The more cookies, the better!
hotshoe
@Adam L Silverman:
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t know whether you mean 1/4cup or 1/4bottle of the wine.
Looks like it needs more liquid.
!/4bottle must be the right answer :)
Thor Heyerdahl
Cooked beef rendang this evening from scratch and served with coconut rice.
Martin
@surfk9: I smoke it while on the rotisserie.
If you ever plan to buy a Webber gas grill, upgrade to the rotisserie + smoker. Worth it.
surfk9
@Martin:I have a dedicated smoker. You are right about the rotisserie for poultry, it is wonderful
Adam L Silverman
@hotshoe: cup.
hotshoe
@Adam L Silverman:
:)
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Late to the thread, but Ina Garten has a good recipe for herb-roasted turkey breast. There’s a video to go with the recipe.
BlueNC
Really late to the thread (early?), but here’s the most evil chocolate cookie recipe ever:
Triple chocolate cookies
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/triple-chocolate-cookies-232391
I use bittersweet for both sets of chips. Or, 70% Valrhona for the melted chocolate and then proceed.
They are so rich you actually can’t eat more than one at a time. Basically biting into a bar of dark chocolate in cookie form.
CapnMubbers
@geg6: Another of the “too much chocolate” few. And still wondering why my nym doesn’t stick. What am I doing wrong? As another commenter noted, paragraphs disappear with attempt to edit.