The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie

It's my turn to bring snacks to choir Thursday night. I also have to help supervise at my school's fringe festival on tonight so I wouldn't have much time to make anything time consuming tonight. It sounds like the perfect opportunity to make aged chocolate chip cookies!

I've made these delicious cookies before. I read about the recipe ages ago in a New York Times article which featured pastry chef Jacques Torres's ultimate chocolate chip cookies.

The secret to his cookies, aside from the fact that he serves them warm, is that the batter is aged 24 to 36 hours in the fridge before baked. This really develops the flavour of the dough and the cookies end up being way more delicious than regular chocolate chip cookies.

So I made the dough using Jacques Torres' recipe on Tuesday night and will bake them up Wednesday night. With a sprinkle of sea salt, they will be heavenly.

Alternative to Hollandaise Sauce

This sauce is absolutely delicious. It reminds me a bit of the vegetable spread you see on Italian panini sometimes. It's easy!

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
1 4-ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained and finely chopped
3/4 cup reduced fat mayonnaise
1 ounce capers, drained
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped

Instructions: In a blender or food processor, combine the sauce ingredients and pulse until creamy.

The recipe is from the Cook Yourself Thin cookbook.

I spread it on toast and ate it with a poached egg. Yum.

Welcome to the Neighbourhood!

A couple of posts ago, I talked about how I want to put more effort into being generous and giving to others. Well, here's my first go at it!

My sister and I (who are roomates) have new next door neighbours. We're excited about this! Since we share a wall, it's important we get off on the right foot. I met the kids and mum yesterday. The kids are adorable, both girls, about 8 and 10, I'd say. I was outside yesterday with Trotsky and Oddly, who were both on their harnesses, and the girls came over to meet the cats.

By the way, Odd and Trot are best friends forever. Photographic evidence:

Trotsky with his arm around Oddly.

But anyway. I decided to make some raspberry-almond-dark chocolate muffins to welcome the family to the neighbourhood.

I've really been into sewing directly onto paper lately.

My sewing machine has lots of cool stiches like the squiggle stitch I used along the top and bottom.

I got the idea for the card's message from here.

After writing in the card, I hung it on their doorknob!

I hope they like it!

Mmmmm pizza

I've always wanted a wood oven. Basically, just to make pizza. We have this great pizzeria in Calgary called Pulcinella's Pizza, which makes Napoleon-style pizza. And they have this amazing open kitchen where you can watch them cook in the wood oven. The basic reason why a wood oven is good for pizza is because it can get really, really hot. Like 700 or 800 degrees hot.

Well guess what? So can your home oven! But only when you run the self-cleaning cycle. Kitchen Sidecar tells us how we can hack our own ovens to cook in the self-cleaning mode. And would you look at her pizza!!!

From KitchenSidecar.

Skirt skirt skirt!

It was a rainy day yesterday, so I made a skirt.

I am not confident enough in my sewing skills yet to actually use a pattern. I tend to get all confused by that type of precision work, though I think I'll challenge myself with one soon. Anyway, instead I used Freshly Picked's elastic waist skirt tutorial. I've made several skirts using this tutorial, and they're SO easy and SO cute. This time, I decided to add a little sash that can be tied in a bow!

So I followed Susan's pattern, except for one part.

I freehand cut these out of the leftover fabric. Four pieces total.

Then I pinned & sewed the ties with the wrong sides of the fabric facing outwards. I left the small end unsewed, and then flipped them right side out. I measured my waist, and cut a piece of elastic, then cut the elastic in two.

Next step was to sandwich the tie between the two pieces of elastic and pin.

And you have this silly looking thing.

Then all you do is sew the skirt as you would in the instructions. Take care to make sure the right side of the elastic is matched with the right side of the skirt fabric.

And you have a cute little bow! I need to practice tying it. It's a bit cockeyed there.

I like the Ikat-esque fabric I got in the bargain section at my local fabric store! I am all for prolonging summer as long as possible!

Tonight, my sister and I are having a friend over for dinner, and I am going to make a cozy roast beef. It's rainy again today and somehow called for that kind of meal. I'll make hericots verts and oven-roasted three potatoes (yellow, sweet, and yams) to go with it. Mmm.