[mini] oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies

considering we are getting a puppy today that resembles an oreo (see a photo here!!), i thought i'd do an oreo-inclusive recipe for the week. this is a popular recipe from picky palate, so you might have seen it before. oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies! who would have thought, a cookie within a cookie. sheer genius, these clever bakers... i used mini oreos because i feared that the double-stuf oreo would be overwhelming, but i am regretting it. go big or go home... you can taste the oreo, but i think that it would have been better in the giant cookie to have a giant oreo. anyway, it is your choice what kind of oreo to use...i wonder how the golden ones would be?! AND i just saw the spring oreos at target...yum! tip: i stuck the cookies in the freezer between batches to keep the cookies tall. this way, the cookie didn't fall and expose the hidden oreo gem. enjoy!

oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies (from picky palate)
2 sticks softened butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla
3.5 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
10 oz bag chocolate chips (i used 12 oz)
1 bag oreo cookies (i used the minis!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a stand or electric mixer, cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.

2. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt and baking soda. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined. Using a cookie scoop (or ice cream scoop), take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of Oreo. Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until the Oreo is enclosed in the dough. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. Serve with tall glass of milk!

Makes 2 dozen very large cookies :)

massaman curry

This is a Kabeer post for the most part...he whipped up this delicious Massaman curry, one of our very favorites! We have a local Thai restaurant, The Dancing Noodle in Parker. While Nee makes the best Massaman Curry around, we wanted to try it out for ourselves!  If you are not really into curry, I think Massaman is nice because of its strong peanut flavor...and you can control that with how many peanuts you put in. We had some tamarind paste from Thailand, but you can substitute Worscestershire sauce if you can't find tamarind paste. Also, decreasing the fish sauce to 2.5 tbsp and using a Massaman Curry paste would likely make this dish taste best. We only had red curry paste at the time so we just used that. This curry has a definite kick,  so if you don't love spicy food, you can curb the spice with some plain yogurt or add less curry. Enjoy!

Massaman Curry (with chicken)
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3tbsp curry paste - Massaman if you can find it!
1 tbsp minced ginger
1.25 lbs chicken, cubed
3 tbsp brown sugar
2.5 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp tamarind paste
1/3 cup peanut butter, smooth
3 cups Potato peeled, cubed (we used Yukon Gold)
13.5 coconut milk
3 tbsp fresh lime juice
1/3 white or yellow onion, sliced
1 zucchini, sliced

Rice (optional)

1. Heat oil on medium, stir curry paste and ginger together for 2 minutes
2. Add chicken, cook until white on the edges
3. Add sugar, fish sauce, tamarind paste, peanut butter, potatoes, and coconut milk. Add vegetables. If eating with rice (which you should!), start cooking it now!
4. Boil, reduce heat to med/low and simmer until potatoes are cooked...around 20 minutes.
5. Add limes 5 minutes before service, and add peanuts here as well.

mini nutella cheesecakes

I love all things mini, probably because it makes it an easy license to eat 7 of whatever the mini food is. mini goldfish, mini teddy grahams, mini oreos...mini tacos...the list goes on!

Here is my experiment for the week, mini nutella cheesecakes. Now, I feel like these could have turned out better, but hey, I tried. For one, my little guys fell as soon as i took them out of the oven. You have that moment where you're watching the cakes fall and you're like NOOOOO stopppp falllinngggg!! but alas, these babies turned into pancakes faster than I could talk them out of it. So, I am thinking about how I could fill in my "cheesecake cups" as I am now calling them to make them look a little better! ideas, anyone? Now, I still ate one, and it's still super good, especially chilled.  If I were to do these again, i think I'd bake them at a higher temperature to try to stiffen them up before I took them out of the oven, and maybe fill them up even more beforehand. I also completely forgot to mix my Nilla wafers with butter, so they were soggy even though they kept their flavor! Sad! Oh the trials and tribulations of baking...

recipe adapted from barbara bakes

Mini Nutella Cheesecakes

2 8-oz. packages cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
5 tablespoons Nutella 
12 Chocolate Hazelnut Pirouette cookies, crushed and mixed with 2-3 tablespoons melted butter
-or - 12 Nilla Wafers

Line muffin pans with cupcake papers. Put Nilla Wafers or Crushed cookie mixture into bottoms of cups. If using cookie mixture, press flat.

On medium speed, blend cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs and mix well. Pour batter over crust, filling cups about 3/4 full. Stir Nutella into remaining cheesecake batter. Distribute Nutella batter evenly between cups and use a knife to marble mixture.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 20-25 minutes. Remove, cool, and chill. Serves 12.

cinnamon toast crunch treats

It's Friday night and I've had a long week...obviously in need of a good dessert! I had all this frozen cream cheese that I thought I couldn't use, but I discovered that you can bring frozen cream cheese back from the dead if you let the package sit in water and then microwave it to make it smooth again. Otherwise, you have this weird grainy cream cheese...icky. I was at the store and jumbo boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch were on sale. Score! I have been wanting to try to make something with this cereal for a while, and I had heard of people substituting Cinnamon Toast Crunch for Rice Krispies. Genius. So, to make these bars even more of a sugar bomb, I whipped up a cinnamon cream cheese glaze to go with them. Anything to make them seem more like a cinnamon roll, one of my all-time favorites. These are really yummy and a nice change from the standard (but yes, awesome) rice krispie treat. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Treats Cereal 

6 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch

4 cups marshmallows

3 TB butter

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For the cream cheese glaze

1 8oz package of cream cheese

1/4 cup butter

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

a few dashes of cinnamon

In a large saucepan (or even the microwave), melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until melted. Remove from heat, add to cereal. Mix completely and divide mixture into a 13x9 pan. Let cool. 

For the cream cheese glaze, combine softened cream cheese and butter with either a hand mixer or a stand mixer. Add confectioners sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Beat until smooth. Transfer cream cheese to a ziploc baggie. Cut off corner of baggie (1/4 inch) and use to decorate bars with icing. You could just spread the icing too if you don't want to add a step!

Happy Friday!

Julia

homemade samoas

It's Girl Scout Cookie season! Because I live in the suburbs, I know zero Girl Scouts.  Alas, I am left to make my own! Still, I am going to get my hands on some Caramel DeLites, or Samoas as these Colorado people call them, before the season is over. I'm thinking some sort of Thin Mint ice cream dessert...this recipe for homemade Samoas is from noshandtell, another fun food blog I have been following for some time. Check them out! 

You can find the recipe for these delicious bars here. However, I did not use any of the "healthy swaps" they offer, so I can't comment on how that recipe would taste! 

coconut curry chicken soup

I love the magazine Cooking Light because it allows me to cut some caloric corners, but if I want to ramp things up, there's some wiggle room. This recipe is in the archives of Cooking Light, so if you want to find it you'll have to go to the website or come borrow my old issue of the magazine! Thai food is one of my favorites, so it's nice to be able to make a healthy dish at home. We added lots of crushed red pepper to this soup and a little extra salt. 

Recipe from Cooking Light

Yield:  7 servings (serving size: 2 cups soup and 1 lime wedge)
4 cups water
3 cups fresh spinach leaves
1/2 pound snow peas, trimmed and cut in half crosswise
1 (5 3/4-ounce) package pad thai noodles (wide rice stick noodles)
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots
2 teaspoons red curry paste
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 (13.5-ounce) can light coconut milk
2 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast (about 1 pound)
1/2 cup chopped green onions
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 small hot red chiles, seeded and chopped, or 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
7 lime wedges

1. Bring 4 cups water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add spinach and peas to pan; cook for 30 seconds. Remove vegetables from pan with a slotted spoon; place in a large bowl. Add noodles to pan; cook 3 minutes. Drain; add noodles to spinach mixture in bowl.

2. Heat canola oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and the next 5 ingredients (through garlic) to pan; sauté 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add chicken broth to pan, and bring to a boil. Add coconut milk to pan; reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Add chicken, onions, sugar, and fish sauce to pan; cook for 2 minutes. Pour chicken mixture over noodle mixture in bowl. Stir in cilantro and chiles. Serve with lime wedges.

chocolate cake with espresso buttercream

So, one of my favorite websites is mybakingaddiction.com. Love her.  One of the best chocolate cake recipes she has found is chocolate cake with espresso buttercream. For the most part, I followed this recipe to a tee except for a few changes. First, I increased the espresso powder to 3 tbsp instead of two. I found my espresso powder at Whole Foods but most grocery stores should carry a version of it. Instant coffee would also work well. 

I can be impatient in the kitchen, so using a jelly roll pan and slicing the cake in equal thirds before stacking it did not seem like something i could do without the assistance of a small army. So, i simply divided the batter into two 9” round pans. I kept the cooking time the same, but because I am in the mountains I raised the oven to 390 and took the cakes out at 18 minutes. I used a buttercream frosting recipe that I found here. Actually, last time I made this cake, I had a lot of leftover buttercream, so I froze it. That was about 5 months ago and it still was delicious! So, if you have leftovers, freezing it is no problem. 

You may want a tall glass of milk with this one...it’s a rich cake!