Good n' Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's a big day for the Cardboard Club, this is our first sweet tooth feature. What can I say? I was in the mood for some straight-up good ol' fashion chocolate cookies over the weekend. So I found a recipe on another one of my iPhone apps - big oven. It's perfect for when you know exactly what you're looking for, because you have to find recipes using a search field. There are tons of recipes, the but the reviews make it easier to figure out which one to use. So without further ado, here is the recipe I chose for chocolate chip cookies.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cookies sheets with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown and white sugars until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips. Chill the dough, then drop 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

Bake 15 to 17 (I had to bake more like 20) minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly browned. Check the cookies afer 7 or 8 minutes and rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completley. Store in an airtight container. And as always, enjoy.

Sausage and Summer Vegetable Saute

While I realize most of you are experiencing what we call "fall" at the moment, we San Franciscans are enjoying our indian summer. So, this is the recipe I tried last night from Epicurious via my iPhone app. I'm an idiot and forgot to take a picture, so here is what our plates looked like after dinner. It's a shame because this meal was quite lovely with the yellow corn and green dill. I'll take a photo next time I make it and update this post, but for now you'll just have to imagine it in your heads. It was a big hit in my house and incredibly easy to make.

Here's what you need:

4 fresh pork sausages (I used chicken sausage)
1/3 cup water
3/4 cup chopped sweet onion
1 medium fennel bulb, chopped
1 cup grape tomatoes (5oz)
2 ears corn (I used 2 cups of frozen corn)
1/4 cup coarsely chopped dill (don't cheat, has to be fresh)


Here's what you do:

Prick the sausages a few times then simmer in water in a 12-inch heavy skillet, covered, over medium heat 7 minutes. Uncover and cook, turning occasionally, until water has evaoprated and sausages are well bronwed and cooked through, 7 to 10 minutes more. Transfer the sausages to a plate and pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat from skillet if neccessary. (Since I used chicken sausages I really had no fat and had to add a little olive oil.)

In the same pan cook onion, fennel, and tomatoes with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper over medium heat, stirring and scraping up brown bits, until onion and fennel are crisp-tender and tomatoes are soft and beginning to burst, about 7-10 minutes. Add corn and dill and saute 2 minutes.

I served the sausages whole with the vegetables on top.

Epicurious

I downloaded this great iPhone app from Epicurious to help me out with my dinner nights. So far so good, last night was a big hit. On my way home from work I browsed through the "Weeknight Dinner" recipes until I found what I was looking for. Then I ran into the supermarket and about 45 minutes later - dinner. If you're someone like me who needs a recipe in order to cook anything resembling food, it's perfect.