The Best of Both Worlds

Two of my favorite sweets are chocolate chip cookies and brownies. Well, imagine the raptures of bliss that waved over me when I stumbled upon a recipe over at eggs on sunday that combines them both into one delicious-looking double decker bar. Heaven.

While it has occurred to me before to combine a chocolate chip cookie bar with a brownie, I've never gotten around to trying it out, but the food porn photos on Amy's blog were just the push I needed. Drool.

The recipe is pretty straight forward - you start off with the brownie layer and spread that out into the pan. Next you mix up the chocolate chip cookie dough and gently spread that on top. I found that a little difficult to do because the cookie dough is a bit stiffer than the brownie dough, but I managed.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Topped Brownies

I actually baked these back in July so it's hard for me to remember all the details. That will teach me to get so behind on my blogging! These were quite good but I do remember being struck by a couple of things. In my opinion, the cookie layer - being the stiffer dough - should go in the pan first - it would make for easier spreading. However, as the cookie layer is thinner, for this recipe it makes more sense to put it on top. Which leads me to my next point. As much as I love chocolate, I found myself wanting to taste more of the cookie layer. The subtle but lovely butterscotchy flavors of the cookie dough were overshadowed by the intense chocolate flavor from the brownie. Not necessarily a bad thing, but then you probably might as well just make a plain old brownie. To fix this "problem", I would make the cookie dough thicker and make it the bottom layer, topping it off with a thinner brownie layer.

So, it sounds like I have some research to do! Sometime this winter I'll try out my own twist on this recipe and get back to you. I'm sure the family will absolutely HATE having to sample my experiments, but we all do what we have to do.

Fresh Corn

Enough with the tomatoes for a moment, let's talk about corn.

We have been getting some excellent local corn this summer from Tebbs Farms. The corn was so sweet, it was almost like candy! I don't remember it being this good last year. Either this year's crop actually IS better or we just did a better job of eating it the same day. I've read that if you let corn sit around, the sugars turn to starch and it's just not as good. Maybe that has made all the difference.

We've been mostly eating it straight off the cob since summer is pretty much the only time you can do that, but I could not resist taking some off the cob for this recipe that Bob on the CLBB recently, and kindly, shared with us. Corn, bacon and chipotle - what's not to like?

Spicy Fried Corn with Bacon and Chipotle

It's a very simple dish to prepare and it's as good as it sounds. Although I have now come to appreciate cilantro, I still sub in parsley for my son, but I'll bet the cilantro makes this dish even better. Although great as is, a little voice in my head kept telling me that it would be really good with some onion too, so I'll add that next time.

Thanks to Tebbs, I have put some corn - off the cob - in the freezer for winter - 2 dozen ears worth. Next year I'll probably take it a little further and purchase their cheaper 5 dozen bag.

Random Notes

The boys are off at the high school football game tonight so it's just me and the dog. I had all kinds of plans to get a lot of things done today but I ended up in a bit of a mood and got very little done instead. Hmph.

What to do when you're in a bad mood? Bake cookies! I find that when I'm cranky, it's best to stick with something easy and/or tried and true so I chose the Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies that I've posted about before. Yum.

Mood Boosters!

I did manage to chop up some tomatoes so that I can crank out some more tomato soup tomorrow. I've come up with a decent system for using up the abundance of tomatoes. Anything that is cracked or too soft gets tossed in the fridge right away. Normally refrigerating tomatoes is a big no-no but if they are going to be cooked down for a soup or a marinara sauce, texture is not going to be an issue anyway and refrigerating them helps to keep them from rotting too fast and keeps the fruit flies from swarming them. I then chop them when I get time - sometimes making the soup right after chopping or else storing them for a few days longer until I have time. It's nice to be able to take a leisurely approach to using them up.

My last random note for the night is about basil. During one of my turns at manning the concession stand, I was talking with the other mom on duty and we started talking about gardening and cooking. She mentioned that she grows basil. Well, at a soccer game the other night she called me over and handed me a clump of basil she had cut out of her garden. It is called Pesto Perpetuo Basil and she said she got it from Burpee (check the Burpee link for a more detailed photo). It didn't even look like basil! With the variegated leaves, it looked like a shrub!

When I got home, I looked it up and found some interesting info. Turns out this type of basil does not flower and therefore will not bolt like the popular and widely available sweet basil that I normally grow. That could certainly be a big plus - a basil plant that you don't have to fuss over! I plan to purchase two plants next spring and give this variety a try (along with 2 of the regular sweet basil).

I turned her thoughtful offering into pesto yesterday. I did notice that the leaves were perhaps a bit tougher - not tough, just not as delicate as regular sweet basil and so I had a harder time getting them to puree in the food processor. The taste also seemed a bit sharper or more intense than regular basil but it was hard to tell because I had to augment what she gave me with a bit of basil from the garden in order to get a decent-sized batch of pesto. The leaves on the Pesto basil are much smaller and so even though the bunch she gave me looked quite sizable, it didn't amount to much once I sent it through the food processor.

In any case, I'm intrigued to try growing the Pesto basil next year. It's actually pretty enough to grow as an accent plant anywhere in your yard!

I'd better head off to bed if I plan to get up early for football practice and the farmer's market tomorrow.........

Tomatoes Continued.......

We've been on a quest since just before the 1st of September to keep on top of our tomatoes from the garden so we've been eating tomatoes in some form pretty much every single day, sometimes twice a day. So, my blog may be seeing red for a while longer. Here are two soups we've made with our tomato harvest - one cold and one hot.

I've already blogged about one tomato soup - it's a standby favorite, but I'm always up for trying something new. This soup, a Tyler Florence recipe, came to me via a recommendation on the CLBB. It was just enough different from the Jack Bishop recipe that I adore that I thought it was worth a try. I also like the way Tyler encourages the use of just about any kind of tomato.

The tomatoes, onion and garlic are ready to be roasted.

One thing I'd like to point out on this recipe is that it does not call for peeling the tomatoes. I tried it without peeling them and then I simply pureed the soup in a blender to see if I could get the skins to blend in. While the skins did blend in for the most part, there were enough left that I felt the need to strain the soup - something I am pretty loathe to do. I do not aspire to perfectly smooth soups - rustic is just fine with me - but I really don't care for things like tomato skins which tend to be hard to chew and are just generally not pleasing. Next time I would remove the skins before (or even after) roasting.

Roasted Tomato Soup

While the soup was very good, I still like the Jack Bishop recipe better. I wasn't thrilled with the addition of chicken stock - if I'm going to serve tomato soup, I'd prefer it to be vegetarian and there's just something not quite right about the thought of chicken flavor permeating a nice tomato soup - it's simply unnecessary. Of course it would be simple enough to sub in some vegetable stock, but I wanted to try the recipe as written to see if anything was gained by using chicken stock. I'll stick with Jack for now.

I've talked about this next recipe before. It's basically a run of the mill gazpacho but I like the added kick of a bit of hot sauce and sometimes even a dash of Worcestershire sauce. I think I made it for the wrong crowd though - I had to keep the onions and the peppers separate! Gazpacho is always a refreshing - and healthful - no-cook summer treat.

Gazpacho

The forecast is calling for patch frost tonight so I am off to pick as many tomatoes as are ready and to cover the rest. It looks like only one night of frosty temps, so I'm going to try to help my garden limp a long a little while longer..........

Treats for the Concession Stand

In addition to providing taxi service for my sons' various sports and band activities, there is also the dreaded concession stand duty - taking orders, preparing food and manning the cash register. I joked that working retail on Black Friday was less hectic than the concession stand at the high school football games! Oh, it's not really SO bad, but there are other ways I'd rather spend my time. One thing I did not mind volunteering for though is baking for the concession stand - now that's right up my alley.

While trying to make up my mind about what to make, I came upon this recipe over at Cookie Madness. The recipe is for Triple Decker Rice Krispie treats. These thick, chewy bars take the traditional marshmallow treats and bump them up a few notches with a chocolate layer, a peanut butter layer and the more traditional plain old marshmallow layer.

It does take some time to put these together but it's not at all hard and it doesn't require any baking. I used the same bowl over and over again to melt the marshmallows in the microwave - just rinsing and drying between uses. As I pressed the second layer into the pan, I was quite sure that these were not going to fit but I pressed each layer down as firmly as possible and I managed to squeeze them all in.

Triple Decker Rice Krispie Treats

While I loved the plain and peanut butter layers, I thought the chocolate layer had an off taste to it and I think it was the Coco Kripsies. If I made these again, I'd skip the Coco Krispies and use the chocolate chips with maybe a little cocoa powder or I'd just skip it altogether. Oooooh - I just had a rush of inspiration - how about some Nutella??? Now we're talking! Surely it's been done before...I'll have to search around.

Funky-tasting Coco Krispies aside, these are a fun and whimsical treat - great for wrapping up for a bake sale. Good thing I didn't keep any at home - I tend to not be able to keep my hands off of Krispie Treats..........