We spent an afternoon at Lisa’s house because she has much better kitchen lighting than I do.

Here’s the dish in step by step pictures, and the full recipe is repeated at the end of the this post.

Heat 2T olive oil in a deep saute pan.  Add 2T minced garlic and cook over low heat.

Boil 1lb boneless skinless chicken breast until it is cooked. Remove from pot, let cool enough to chop.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta, and cook til it is al dente. (No picture needed because it’s boiling water for pasta.  You can do that.)

While the chicken is cooking, cut 3/4 pound of thick cut bacon into pieces and begin to render in the saute pan with the garlic.

Bacon!

Mmm. Bacon cooking!

Mmm. Bacon and bacon fat!

Shred chicken into smaller, coarse pieces. Add to the pan with the bacon and garlic; toss together. Remove from heat.

Everything is nicely incorporated. All the chicken tastes like garlic and bacon now. Yummmm.

While the pasta is cooking, prep the sauce!

In a large bowl, whisk together 8 egg yolks, 1 pint whipping cream,  1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese, and 1/2 c chopped basil.

Checking for doneness.  (No throwing against the wall!)

Add the cooked pasta to the bacon garlicky goodness in the saute pan and mix thoroughly. Turn on heat to low.

Pour in the cream sauce. Add fresh black pepper, and toss over medium-low heat until everything is mixed together and hot, about 5 minutes. (Make sure you keep the heat low so that you don’t end up with scrambled eggs)

This is where it gets messy!  You almost need an extra set of hands to mix everything together.

Top with lemon zest, and mix it in.  Don’t forget this ingredient, it’s the secret to the amazing flavor.

Chicken Carbonara ala Kelly

2 tsp olive oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3/4 lb. thick cut bacon
1 pint whipping cream
1 1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
8 egg yolks
1/2 c. chopped fresh basil leaves
1 lb. capellini or angel hair pasta
fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon zest

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the bacon and garlic, and saute until crisp.

Boil the chicken until it is cooked. Shred chicken into smaller, coarse pieces. Add to the pan with the bacon and garlic; toss together. Remove from heat.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta, and cook til it is al dente.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, whipping cream, parmesan cheese, and basil.

Add the cooked pasta and cream mixture to the frying pan. Turn heat to low. Add fresh black pepper, and toss over medium-low heat until everything is mixed together and hot, about 5 minutes. (Make sure you keep the heat low so that you don’t end up with scrambled eggs)

Top with lemon zest, and mix it in.

Enjoy!

The Hug – test batch #1

• 1 c unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 c granulated sugar
• 3/4 c packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1t vanilla
• zest AND juice of one orange
• 2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
• 1t baking soda
• 1t salt
• 1 Hershey’s Special Dark jumbo bar, chopped finely
• 1/2 c finely chopped pecans

1. Cream butter and sugars together.
2. Add eggs one at a time until fully incorporated
3. Mix in vanilla and orange zest.
4. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and add into the wet ingredients in small batches until well combined.
5. Stir in chocolate and pecan pieces.
6. Roll into balls and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Here’s a picture of the dough for this batch. You can see it has a lighter color and larger chocolate and pecan pieces plus all that yummy, fragrant, delicious orange zest.

Recipe notes – Test batch #2 -

These cookies had a delicate yet noticeable orange essence. The orange flavor hit after the first bite was chewed and then it just perfumed the whole cookie.  The dark chocolate chips and larger pieces of pecans packed a much bigger punch and the double zest easily replaced the juice of the orange in the first batch.  I may experiment with adding the zest of one more orange, but that will be the only change I make in this recipe.  This recipe already used more flour so the consistency is a puffier cookie.  The color of this cookie is definitely lighter because of the absence of brown sugar.  You have to check this cookie often when you pass the 11 minute mark because it won’t really turn brown.

I hope you enjoy it!

My new thing is to create cookies for people based on flavor profiles they like. There must be a million cookie recipes on the InterWebs, so I’m not saying that I am the first creator of any of  these cookies, but I don’t go looking for recipes to poach.  I think of ingredients and basic cookie doughs and figure out ratios (mostly due to trial and error and lots of taste testing – thanks family, friends and co-workers!)

Now that that business is taken care of, let’s get back to the story of The Juanifer. I asked my friend Jennifer what kind of flavors she would like in a cookie. She said, “I would like my cookie to have chocolate and peanut butter and no nuts. ”  Ok.  Game on.  Or would that be Cookie On?

This cookie idea was pretty straightforward. The easiest thing would have been to take a peanut butter cookie and add chocolate. I didn’t want to do that. I could have also made a basic chocolate chip cookie dough and included peanut butter in some form.  I didn’t want to do that either.  In the end I decided to make a chocolate oatmeal cookie with peanut butter chips.  I did make two variations which I’ll document here in this discussion. I was in the middle of massive baking the weekend I created this cookie so I didn’t take as many photos during the process.

The Juanifer – Test Batch #1
1 c butter – softened
1c sugar – *
1c brown sugar (I use 1 cup white sugar and 1 1/2T molasses)
1t vanilla
2 eggs
1/3 c cocoa mixed with 2T water to make a slurry *
3 c rolled oats *
2 c flour *
1t salt
1t baking soda
1t baking powder
2 c peanut butter chips (or one 12 oz bag)

Cream together the butter and sugars.
Add eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly.
Add vanilla.
Pour in chocolate slurry mixture. (see note below)
Combine dry ingredients and sift together, or mix with a wisk.
Add dry ingredients into the wet a little at a time.
Finally, stir in the peanut butter chips.
Roll dough into balls (or drop if you wish) and cook for 10-12 minutes.

Recipe Notes from batch one:
I added the water because the cocoa is an additional dry ingredient and I felt the dough would need more moisture. I didn’t do this for the second batch and felt it was needed, so I’m including it in the final recipe.  This resulted in a wetter dough and I had some difficulty rolling the dough balls cleanly.

The Juanifer – Test Batch #2: 

1 c butter – softened
3/4 c sugar
1c brown sugar (I use 1 cup white sugar and 1 1/2T molasses)
1t vanilla
2 eggs
1/3 c cocoa
2 1/2 c rolled oats
2 1/2 c flour
1t salt
1t baking soda
1t baking powder
2 c peanut butter chips (or one 12 oz bag)

Cream together the butter and sugars.
Add eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly.
Add vanilla.
Combine dry ingredients and sift together, or mix with a wisk.
Add dry ingredients into the wet a little at a time.
Finally, stir in the peanut butter chips.
Roll dough into balls (or drop if you wish) and cook for 10-12 minutes.

Recipe Notes from batch two:
This time, I added the cocoa to the dry ingredients and didn’t add the additional liquid.  I found that this dough was a little dry. I also put in equal amounts of oats and flour and found that the cookies had a better visual look and didn’t spread out as much while baking.

Mind you, there was no difference in the taste between the two cookies, so if you prefer batch one, woohoo!  But I’ll be using the ratios of batch two and adding the chocolate slurry from batch one.

Jennifer asked that her cookie be called The Juanifer, so please enjoy!

While we were at the store getting ingredients for the cookie making (and for my soup creation which was documented in another blog post) I thought about making a cookie for my brother.  He doesn’t eat many cookies, so I figured if I was going to make one, it better have all of his favorite things in it.  So I created a cookie called The Jason.  It is a chocolate cookie with chocolate chips, dried cherries and chopped (unsalted) pistachios.  I rinsed off salted pistachios and threw them in the oven to roast for a few minutes.  Depending on how much salty/sweet ratio you like, you could use salted ones.

The cookies also have a pinch of cinnamon in them. I don’t care for the combination of cinnamon and chocolate even though separately they are two of my favorite flavors, but Jason does, so I threw it in.

This is the first attempt at this cookie and I do think some adjustments needed to be made, but not many.  The recipe includes the adjustments, but I haven’t actually tested this a second time.  It mostly just needed more flour (I added 1/4 cup to the recipe) and maybe less choc chips.

I’m sure this particular cookie exists somewhere on the InterWebs, but I did not seek out a recipe. I like to gather ingredients and use what I know about other cookies to create things that taste good. I’m not claiming to be the first inventor of any of the cookies on this blog, but I don’t do a lot of research before I try them.  

Here’s the recipe with pictures and it will be repeated in full without interruptions at the end.

The Jason

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (you could just double the butter or use full margarine too)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar (I use regular sugar and a 1T of molassess)
• 1t vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1t baking soda
• 1t salt
• 1/4t cinnamon (you could add more if you really like cinnamon)
• 2 cups chocolate chips (we thought it may be too many chips, so feel free to decrease amount)
• 1 cup pistachios – chopped
• 1 package dried cherries, chopped (approx 1 to 1 1/4 cups, but I’m not positive) I let the cherries soak in hot water for about 2o minutes and then I added about 2T of the cherry water to the dough mixture as I was mixing in flour. I’m not sure it’s needed, tho.

1. Cream together butter and shortening, add sugars and beat until fluffy.
   
2. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each egg.
   
3. Add cocoa powder and mix completely.
4. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
5. Add in small batches to the wet ingredients mixing completely. (Add cherry water at this time if you wish)
6. Depending on the strength of your mixer, add in the chocolate chips, dried cherries and pistachios and mix (you may need to mix by hand, but good luck with that)
   
7. I put the dough in the fridge to firm up before I rolled it and I still needed to dust my hands with flour.
   
8. Bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes, watch carefully because you won’t see the cookies browning.  If you like them chewier, take them out sooner or leave them in longer for crunchy cookies.
   
   Here’s my brother enjoying his own personalized cookie.
   
   The Jason

Enjoy The Jason and if you try it, let me know what you think.

My mom is the BEST soup maker I know.  Her lentil soup with smoke sausage and spaetzle is one of my favorite foods. EVER. My sister also makes pretty great soups. I have not inherited the soup gene, but I did manage to create a soup from scratch today that in the words of my brother “Was AWESOME!”
Next time, I’ll make a few changes, which I’ll indicate in the recipe.

I package ground chicken (ground turkey will also work really well here)
1 packet taco seasoning (once I find a really good recipe, I’ll be making my own. I don’t care for all the salt and questionable items in this stuff, but for now, use it)
1T olive oil
1 vidalia onion – chopped
4 cloves garlic – chopped
8oz button mushrooms – chopped
1 jalapeno -chopped (ribs and seeds removed)
1 can Rotel (diced tomatoes and green chilies – I used original and almost burned my mouth to death, I’ll be using Mild from now on, but if you’re not a wimp, you can use the original)
1/2t salt
1/4t pepper
32 oz of reduced sodium chicken broth
1 can of black beans – drained and rinsed quickly
2 avocados
2 limes

First note:
I mixed half the seasoning packet into the chicken with about 3/4 c cilantro and made mini meatballs (roughly 24). Baked in the oven at 350 for 35 mins. Then I added them to the soup for the last 20 mins of cook time BUT the texture of the meatballs was off. Jason said they were “boingy” and I’ll try the next batch with browning the meat and mixing the packet in like regular tacos. (The key is to make sure you get equal amounts of meat in the servings.)

How To:

In your soup pot heat 1T olive oil over medium heat.
Brown meat with taco seasoning packet
Add onion, garlic, mushrooms, jalapenos and Rotel (diced tomatoes and green chilies) and salt and pepper
Cook a few minutes until all the veggies are soft.
Reduce heat to low.
Add chicken broth and bring to a simmer for 10-15 minutes.
Add the drained black beans and stir.
Cook for another 20-30 minutes.  (This is really a “simmer while you do other things recipe.” It can take as little as 30 minutes or you can drag it out for as long as 45ish)

Cilantro Lime Cream
1/2c greek plain yogurt
Lime -zest half, juice entire thing
a handful of chopped cilantro
Mix these ingredients together.

Heat oven to 350 – Spray 6 mini corn tortillas or  3 regular sized ones with cooking spray.  Cut into strips and lay on a tinfoil covered sheet pan. Bake for 10-15 minutes (WATCH THEM!).  Divide into 6 portions and top each bowl of soup with the baked chips. (You can do this ahead of time, possibly a day.)

To Serve:
Ladle soup evenly into 6 bowls
add chopped avocado
Sprinkle with chopped cilantro
Top with cilantro lime cream and baked tortilla strips
Squeeze fresh lime juice over the soup.

Eat! Yum!!

If my calculations are correct, each serving is 500 calories. That includes the baked chips AND the cilantro lime cream on top AND the chopped avocado.