It's Good For What Ails You

I call these the Good For What Ails You cookies.

To explain that, I need to find a way to word this- well - how can I put this delicately?

They have lots of oatmeal.
Oatmeal is full of fiber.
Fiber is good for...well, you know what.
Facilitating the intricate workings of a human's
physiological inner workings.
Am I being too obtuse?

After all, it happens to the best of us.
And you also have to admit: it's probably the strangest pitch
for a cookie recipe that you've ever come across.

But these cookies have so much going for them, even if you don't have
any trouble "that way".
Oatmeal, white chocolate slivers, and wholesome, energy-packed dried
Michigan cherries.*

It's a win-win situation!

White Chocolate Chip Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups quick or old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries*


Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in large bowl. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats, cranberries and white chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 1-2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Forgive this slightly out of focus picture. I wanted to show you all the
goodness up close and personal, but my own focus was a little off today, let alone
the camera's.

*I used closer to 2 cups of dried cranberries. You could also sub in dried cherries or blueberries.

In Which I Leave My Comfort Zone And Become Less Anal

If you remember from my last post, I have been in the habit of taking pics on my front porch to get better light than I have in my cave of a kitchen.

As a bonus, you also can enjoy the beautiful Michigan autumn leaves in the background.

I may be the only one around here that thinks they're beautiful, but then, I'm not the designated leaf-raker-upper. I'm pretty sure that if you ask my sons, (who are the designees appointed to get that gold carpet out to the curb before Leaf Pick Up Day) I'm pretty sure they would be hard-pressed to find beauty out there. Not even the grass shows through these pesky things, the leaves are that thick on the ground.

Here in the midst of The Mitten State, we're enjoying a very freakish Indian summer. We're back to temps in the upper 60's and 70's, which is certainly atypical for this time of year. This makes those of us born and raised here predict an unusually tough winter, to make up for such a balmy autumn.
The unofficial state motto is:
If you don't like the weather today, wait ten minutes; it'll change.
It may be the Lake Effect, but our weather is very changeable. (We blame everything unusual on being surrounded by The Great Lakes--saves time.
But enough of this. Back to food-related stuff.




Let me begin by saying that I am not what you or anyone else would deem an adventurous cook. The first time I make something, I religiously follow the recipe to the letter.

After I've made something once and seen the results, I feel freer to dink around with ingredients, amounts, substitutions.

But not very often.

Call me hide-bound, call me a stick in the mud, but I feel more secure knowing that I followed a recipe precisely; that way, if it crashes and burns, it's not my fault.

For this recipe, which I found at, and duly credit the Joy of Baking.com, I went wild.

For me, that is.

I turned a deaf ear to the cr-a-a-ack of the branch as I inched my way out on that limb to actually--wait for it--

substituted some stuff for other stuff, which is how Cranberry and White Chocolate Shortbread Cookies became--

Peanut Butter and Jelly Shortbreads

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp.
1/4 C. granulated white sugar
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla
3/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/4 C. fine yellow cornmeal
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt
1/3 C. dried cherries
1/4 C. peanut butter chips


Method:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. and place the oven rack in the center of the oven. Have ready a 6 inch tart pan.

In the bowl of your mixer, cream the butter and sugar until smooth (about 2 min.)
Beat in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, cornstarch and salt. Add this mixture to the butter/sugar mixture and beat just until incorporated.*

Fold in the dried cherries and peanut butter chips.

Press the shortbread dough evenly into the tart pan. Prick the surface of the shortbread with a fork to prevent the shortbread from puffing up. Using a sharp knife, score the top of the shortbread shallowly (is that a word?) into 8 even pieces. Sprinkle a little white sugar on the top of the shortbread.

Place in the preheated oven and bake until the shortbread has nicely browned (biscuit color), about 60-70 minutes. Transfer shortbread to a wire rack to cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from tart pan. Place the shortbread on a cutting board and cut along previously scored lines. Cool completely on wire rack.



*The dough will be coarse and crumbly (not exactly my definition of 'incorporated') and seem quite dry until you press it into the pan.


I liked the texture of this cookie: grainy but not dry. The peanut butter flavor really comes through, and the cherries are a nice touch, too.

You could also use dried blueberries or cranberries if you wanted.
The original recipe calls for white chocolate chunks, which you may want to try.
If you do, let me know how the cookies turn out.

Of course, I advocate using Michigan-grown cherries, the best in the country!

Hello again.

I'm back rather quickly, but I have a reasonable if pathetic reason: since I finally found the key to my universe last night around 11:00pm (said key being the simplest way to get pictures onto my posts) I really need to repeat the process quickly, before my Swiss cheese brain has time to forget it.

So here it is: one of my favorite recipes for chocolate chip scones. Most of my scone recipes call for heavy cream, but this one uses buttermillk, which I never have on hand. However, I substitute regular milk with 2 teasp. of vinegar added to make it go sour. This works like a charm every time.
Being the chocolate fiend that I am, if I omit the fruit pieces, I usually double the amount of chocolate chips to compensate. I have also used mini chocolate chips but found them too small for the big chocolate taste I was looking for. Nestle's chocolate chip chunks work even better.
It's a sickness. I should be pitied, not scorned.

Chocolate Chip Scones

2 C. flour
1/4 C. white sugar
1 1/4 teasp. baking powder
1/4 teasp. baking soda
1/4 teasp. salt
1/2 C. unsalted butter, cold and cut into slivers
1/2 C. milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 C. dried cherries or cranberries (opt)
1 teasp. vanilla
2/3 C. buttermilk


Egg mixture for brushing tops of scones before baking:

1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 Tablespoon milk

Cinnamon Sugar: (opt., I don't usually use this because I prefer the chocolate to be the primary taste focus)

2 T. sugar
1/4 teasp. cinnamon


Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. and place rack in middle of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, bakng powder, baking soda and salt. Cut the butter into slivers and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Stir in the chocolate chips and dried cherries (if using). In a small measuring cup whisk together the buttermilk and vanilla and then add to the flour mixture. Stir just until the dough comes together (add a bit more buttermilk if necessary). Do not over mix the dough.

Transfer to a ligihtly floured surface and knead dough gently four or five times and then pat the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches round. Cut this circle in half, then cut each half into 4 pie-shaped wedges. Place the scones on the baking sheet. Make an egg wash of 1 beaten egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk and brush over the tops of the scones. To make the cinnamon sugar, mix sugar and cinnamon together. Sprinkle the tops of the scones with a little of the
mixture.




Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire cooling rack.

Makes 8 scones.



(adapted from a recipe from The Joy of Cooking.com)