Chocolate Chip Cookie

Although our apartment doesn't have the greatest view (McDonald's parking lot anyone?), we have a pretty great place in a nice building.

One the best parts? Our cadre of doormen - kindly folks who open doors when our arms are full of groceries, sign for our packages, give movie recommendations, discuss local sports, and know both my maiden and married names. I don't know who is in charge of hiring these people,  but seriously, they are awesome and deserving of the best cookies I know how to make - Ghirardelli chocolate chip.

Happy New Year! 

Because of the pre-holiday craziness and a lack of all-purpose flour, I didn't get a chance to make these in time for Christmas - so now they get to be surprise New Year's cookies.

This recipe comes from the back of the Ghirardelli chocolate chip bag and is good.

I grew up in the Bay Area so I have a special place in my taste buds for Ghirardelli chocolate, it's not the fanciest chocolate out there, but among the brands commonly found in grocery stores, I think it's the best - so take that Toll House!

Our Cast O' Characters 

Adapted from 

Ghirardelli Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Yield: 4 dozen 

• 1/2 bag Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
• 1/2 bag of 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
• 2 sticks butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup(s) sugar
• 3/4 cup(s) package brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoon(s) vanilla
• 2 1/4 cup(s) all purpose flour (I use wheat flour for the 1/4 cup - it makes me feel a teensy bit healthier about the whole 2 sticks of butter thing)
• 1 teaspoon(s) baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon(s) salt

Heat oven to 375ºF.

Cream together butter, sugar and brown sugar. Although the Kitchen Aid Mixer is the traditional wedding gift in our family, Mr. Cleaver and I opted out on that one. If I don't make butter cream by hand how would I work my biceps?

Baker's Workout - Butter Cream

Add vanilla and eggs to the butter cream. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt, mix well. Add the flour mixture to the butter cream. This cookie dough is VERY dry, so this also takes a little oomph - more calories burned for me! (See new year's working out is easy!).

After the dough is mixed well add in the chocolate chips. Jewel had a buy one-get-one-free offer of chocolate chips, so I used two different kind here: semi- and bittersweet, but it works fine with just one.

Maybe one the most wonderful sights in baking. 

The finished dough on the way to my mouth.  My mother always said that the sugar counteracts the egg, so you can't get salmonella, I chose to believe her.

Pretty Maids all in a row. 

I've found the cooking time on these varies wildly from oven to oven - until I moved into my current apartment it always took around 12, but now it takes eight.  So watch the first batch carefully.

I like my cookies on the larger side - who doesn't - but I usually end up with fewer than the four dozen the recipe indicates, in tonight's case - it was 39. 

Err, 38. Quality control. 

Peppermint Ice Cream

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is the advent of peppermint ice cream, but now since I own an

 ice cream maker

 - I thought I'd give a shot at making my own this year. I meant to post this recipe before Christmas, but I left for Maine and didn't bring the recipe with me. So now it can serve as a way to use all those leftover candy canes! 

Peppermint Ice Cream

4-6 candy canes depending on how minty you like it

slightly less than 1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon  lemon juice

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 cup milk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Crush candy canes until broken into fairly small bits (see photo). Combine half of the candy cane crumbles with the remainder of the ingredients and mix well.  Put the mixture in the the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours up to leaving it overnight - this will allow the candy cane to dissolve into the mixture and I've found that it gives the ice cream a better consistency when you churn it.

After chilling the mixture, stir well and pour mixture into ice cream maker, making sure to scrape all the sugar and remaining bits of candy cane out. After the machine has been churning for about 15 minutes, add the remaining half of the candy cane, which will end up as crunchy bits in the finished product - if you're not a fan of crunchy things in your cream,  add all the candy cane at the beginning. Churn the ice cream until desired consistency, mine ice cream maker usually takes a total of 45 minutes. Pour the ice cream into a container and put into the freezer until solid and enjoy - goes especially well with chocolate! 

Merry Christmas!

A Merry Christmas to all my friends, family and people in blog-land!

I'll send you off with my two favorite Christmas decorations to say Merry Christmas to both the religious out there (because nothing says "Happy Birthday Jesus" like Joseph Heller and the Phantom Tollbooth):

And the non (because nothing says "Merry Christmas" like Santa skiing on top of our TV)

Happy Holidays!

My Three Minutes and 16 seconds of Fame

The knitting video is up on metromix. Go to the video player on the side and scroll down to "Stitch & Bitch @ Kopi - a Traveler's Cafe." I do a lot of hand waving and get a few sounds bites in there too.

On a side note: is my voice really that low? It always surprises me to heard my voice on tape - egads!

Side note number two: I have tons of stuff to post, but I'll be leaving for Maine this afternoon, so it'll have to wait until after my 16 hour road trip!

I'm Ready For My Closeup Mr. DeVille

On a cold winter's Tuesday three weeks ago, my knitting circle was visited by a TV crew and so, unless left on the cutting room floor, I will be making my local TV debut this Monday! I'll post more about the experience after the video goes up and we'll see if I am horribly embarrassed or super famous! An email from the Metromix reporter, who was knitting a lovely scarf:

"From Jackie (the Metromix chick):

Hi!

Just wanted to let you know that the Stitch N' Bitch segment will be airing on Monday at 7, 8, 9 and midnight.  It gets posted online at cltv.com/metromix after about 9:00 the night it runs.  Please pass this info along to the gals and thank them for all their help!

Best, Jackie"

PS: I get a lot of search hits on the title of this post - it's a line from end of Sunset Boulevard, by the character Norma Desmond. A great film that I highly recommend you watch.

Blue-Rimmed Plate Special

Meatloaf has a bad rap.

It is, for sure, a loaf of meat - something that doesn't quite sit well with our well-intentioned ideas of better modern eating (any reality aside). And like cheese balls and Jell-O molds, meatloaf has that aura of 1950's food that's trying a little too hard.

Of course, this being the Ms. Cleaver Chronicles, I'd be somewhat amiss if I didn't proclaim love for the meatloaf. I like meatloaf so much, it's what I ate on my second-first date with Mr. Cleaver. I can only think of one other person who truly appreciates this dish as much as I do (hi Winnie!). But if you haven't eaten meatloaf recently, you really should because it is tasty. And with a few minor modifications, better for you than a hamburger.

A few years ago, I decided to jettison beef from my diet, except for "when it really mattered," meaning I like a good steak every now and again, but by and large ground beef almost never makes it into my kitchen. And really, I don't miss it - most of the things I formerly made with hamburger (or hamburg as Mr. Cleaver says) like tacos, chili and this dish, have enough seasoning that it doesn't make much difference when I use ground turkey meat instead and I feel a little better about eating it. I do what I can.

And so, like the Chili I posted earlier this week, I make my meatloaf with turkey, but feel free to use beef if you want.

Mmm-mm Meatloaf : (Serves 3)

1- 1½lbs ground turkey meat (or beef)

½ onion, finely diced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp thyme

½ sleeve of butter crackers (ie Townhouse or Ritz - not Saltines)

2/3 cup of ketchup

1 egg

Preheat oven to 350°F.  If desired, lightly grease a loaf pan.

Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl using a sturdy spoon or your hands. transfer to pan and make into a "loaf "shape.  [Note: To really make a good sized, loaf you'd probably need at least 2 lbs of meat, but I'm only cooking for two here.]

Put in oven and cook for 45 min-  1 hour or until internal temperature reaches 160°F on a meat thermometer.

Touristy Time at Home

In sticking with a long personal tradition of being attacked by dinosaur skeletons. Mr. Cleaver and I made a visit to Sue at Chicago's Field Museum on Saturday.

Sometime in the Early 90's

August, 2005

Saturday, 2007

Mr. Cleaver is more concerned really...

I have no shame, really, about being touristy in the place I live. Particularly when the library hands out free museum passes to those lucky enough to snag them (we've managed four: MCA, Art Institute, Adler and Field, in a little over a year). This might come from having lived predominately in touristy Meccas (Napa, Chicago, not to mention "Vacationland").  I also believe there is a reason people come to see these things.

Now I have no plans to go to the top of the Sears Tower, so I do have a little shame about these things, but what shame I had didn't stop me from also visiting the Billy Goat Tavern this weekend, which was totally worth it.

Waffling and Breakfast

When I was a kid, the number-one thing I remember most about cereal commericals isn't the cartoon characters or copious amount of sugar, but the phrase and image of "part of a complete breakfast."

As I recall, a complete breakfast included: a bowl of the advertised cereal, a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, a grapefruit, two eggs sunny side up, some sausage or bacon, toast, waffles, hashbrowns and the soles of old shoes. In all seriousness though, there was an awful lot of food in those shots and I don't know anybody outside of a Sunday brunch line who eats that much for breakfast.

Like most people, when I eat cereal, all I eat is cereal, maybe -maybe- with some juice. Unlike most people, I never put milk on my cereal unless it's grape nuts (because you have to) or rice krispies (because they snap, crackle, pop!). I hate soggy cereal, so I just drink my milk on the side. How very When Harry Met Sally of me.

All of this is so say, after much waffling (or not bothering) Kasey and I decided on the next selection for our two-person book club: Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. I know I said I wanted to do something wintery , but with all the Holiday hubbub something short and frothier seemed more appropo, so Mark Halprin's 768 page Winter's Tale will have to wait until January.We might finish before Christmas, we might not (we mightn't have bothered to picked a date yet), but you can bet when we finish we'll be meeting outside the local Tiffany's, Duncan Donuts in hand.

Chili Weather

When the weather is like this...

One can't help but make this...

This chili is adapted from the one my mother always made growing up, but I substitute ground turkey meat for my mother's ground beef, a move she says, "just sounds wrong." I assure you that is tastes great either way.

This recipe is really simple and can pretty much be expanded or added to indefinitely. Mr. Cleaver particularly enjoys it for the chili dogs that come the next day. Best of all, it can be made in one pot and would work great for crock-pot loving people (Ignore the skillet in the above photo, I normally don't use it for this, I just needed to thaw my meat quickly).

Simple Turkey Chili (serves 3-4)1 lb Ground turkey or beef1-2 cans red kidney beans, drained1 can tomato sauce2 Tbl Chili powder (or to taste)½ onion, diced (optional)bell pepper (optional)cheese (optional)If using onion, saute in pan with a small amount of butter in a large pot (3 qts or more). Add the meat, breaking it apart with a spoon and brown (Though I've always wondered why the phrase is "brown" since almost all meat turns more of a white or grey color).

Once the meat is browned, stir in the tomato sauce, drained kidney beans and chili powder. Two tablespoons makes for a fairly mild chili, so feel free to punch it up as desired at any point in the cooking process. As I recall, my brother always liked to add about half a bottle.

At this point, turn the heat down as low as possible, and cover. It can sit for hours like this, with only occasional stirring. I usually make corn muffins or bread at this point and serve dinner when the muffins come out of the oven.

Serve leftovers the next day as chili dogs. Or try my personal favorite, the "tail-wagger:" chili on top on Fritos - the brain child of the folks at Mutt's, the Chicago-style hot dog place across from old high school.

The Seven-Year Itchy Wool Dress

I bought my first sewing machine in May with some hard-earned stage management pay. I'm not super fancy when it comes to sewing, so I went for a basic machine, a Brother LS 2125i. I really enjoy this machine, but it's very intuitive and it works almost exactly like my mother's sewing machine that I learned to sew on. When it comes to choosing projects, I have, up to this point, almost entirely focused on sewing dresses.

I love vintage dresses, particularly from the 50s, but it's hard to find them in good condition (because really, it'd be fifty years old), and even harder to find them in my size. So I sew them! Having discovered the wonderful world of craft blogs, I have about a billion things I'd like to sew now, but for now I'm still working on a dress.

Several years ago, while driving from Napa to Salem, OR for my freshman year of college, my family stopped at the Pendleton factory store and picked up this amazingly beautiful wool fabric. The original intention was to make a skirt for the cold Oregon winters, which is a little funny now that I've lived in Maine and Chicago - no offense Oregon!

For whatever reason, the skirt never got made. So when I was visiting my mom this summer I dug out out the fabric and the old skirt pattern and snuck it into my suitcase. However, I was less enamored with skirt idea by this point, so I did some looking around found this McCall's pattern.

I have to admit, I was a tad terrified as I cut out the pieces, because I've never worked with plaid before, so I stared at it for about 15 minutes before I cut anything. Fingers crossed!

The cut pieces have been sitting in my sewing box for several weeks and I finally pulled them out tonight and did some sewing. Since space in my apartment is limited, I sew on the kitchen table, but since we use the table I have to set up my machine and put it away each time I want to sew, so its often easier to pull out the knitting (and I am working on sweater #2 - so that has a lot of work to do on it as well).

In any case, I finished the bodice tonight and I couldn't be starting this dress at a better time, since I'm seeing plaid everywhere these days from Domino Magazine to CBS Sunday Morning. Apparently the design world is mad about plaid!