Does not always share well with others.

So the brownies happened.  I feel ambivalent about them.  Probably because they are low-fat.  Also possibly because I put a little too much salt on them.  But I am thinking they might be salvageable if I drop a dollop of peanut butter on top of them.  I will test this theory out and let you know and then decide if the brownies are worth telling you about.  The best thing about them, thus far anyway, is that boyfriend totally ate one yesterday while I was at work.  I told him they were low-fat, but what I apparently neglected to tell him was that they were salty.  Teehee.  Boyfriend does NOT appreciate snacks that incorporate the salty-sweet dichotomy, like chocolate covered pretzels.  To me those are perfect and encompass everything I want in a snack food; satisfying all cravings in one shot.  So when I got home this is the exchange that happened:

Me: "Oh, so did you go and have dinner without me already tonight, or do you want me to cook?"
Boyfriend: "No, I just had one of those brownies you made the other day..." (frowns slightly)
Me: "Well, I told you they were low-fat, right?"
Boyfriend: "Yeeeeah..." (continues frowning)
Me: "Oh!  Did I tell you I made them salty?"
Boyfriend: "Nooooo....no wonder I thought they were gross"
Me: "And you ate it?  Bwhahahahahaha!"

Needless to say I have to make up for 'tricking' him into eating salted low-fat brownies with some cookie pie. This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  Now I, like most people, detest making pie crust, so I cheat and use store bought.  Why not?  It's perfectly good.  Unlike most people though, I can, if called up, make pie crust.  Because I conquered that beast years ago, I have given myself permission to cheat.  Plus store bought pie crust is fine and not totally disgusting, like buying frosting in a can at the store vs. making your own.

Also, I made a little mini apple crisp I wanted to share with you.  It was so mini that I pretty much ate the whole thing after my weekly long walk last week (I take several short hour long walks, and one almost three hour walk - at least that is the weekly goal these days).  It all started because I was asking boyfriend about fruit desserts (which are usually my fav) and he told me he had never had apple pie or crisp or anything.  I told him that was un-American.  More so, it is un-New England.  At least to the girl that grew up living within 15 minutes of 5 different apple orchards in the heart of Johnny Appleseed Country.  So seeing as how I avoid pie crust like the devil I was convinced I was going to get him to eat an apple crisp.  Except he won't eat anything with oats.  So then I was convinced I could make apple crisp sans oats.  It took a while and some serious thought.  But I settled on graham crackers.  And judging by the fact that I opted not to entice him to try any of it, and instead gorge myself and not share you could say it was pretty successful.

Mini Apple Crisp For Two (or one if you are me)
2 Apples (I used Granny Smith) peeled and thinly sliced
3 Tablespoons of water
4 grahams (from the Fresh Stacks packs) crushed
3 TBS sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 TBS cold butter

Place apples in greased 1/2 quart baking dish.  Place water over apples.  In a separate bowl combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and cinnamon and cut in butter.  Sprinkle over apples.  Bake roughly 30 minutes @ 350.  I think I let mine go another 5 minutes.

Back to Basics

Shhhhh....be vewy vewy quiet, I am being sneaky in the kitchen.  So I know I promised you something fun and exciting and sweet.  But, boyfriend, ever the traditionalist decided he had a cookie craving that only I could satisfy.  (That is probably not true, but we were out of E.L Fudge cookies and Oreos, so what could I do?)
So no cookie pie, no apple crisp (at least for the time being) because I can only deal with dirtying and then washing so many dishes per day.  The downside of not owning a dishwasher.  So I contended with good old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies.  I, like most experienced home cooks, have a go to recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  In fact, it's my go to cookie base in general.  I have tried others every so often, but I ALWAYS go back to the one I'm going to give you.  Now, when baking I don't normally mess around with the recipe because baking is like science you have to have things in the correct ratios otherwise things don't turn out; savory recipes I can't leave alone, but to me, they're like art - I always have to put my own touches on things and ultimately I can usually correct something like too much acid or salt, etc.  But I messed around with my go to cookie recipe today because it seems like boyfriend is having some inner turmoil.  Eating healthy vs. eating tasty.  So I wanted to help that out a little bit.  And I did that by subbing in whole wheat flour for half the flour - next time I'm betting I can get away with all whole wheat.

Basic Cookie Recipe
3 Cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 sticks butter melted and cooled
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 375.  Sift (I know, I know, honestly I pretty much NEVER do this) flour, baking soda and set aside.  Beat together both sugars and butter until smooth.  Add in eggs and vanilla.  Beat.  Beat in flour mixture.  Stir in chips.  I don't measure my chips - I use a bag and a half.  This time it was 1 bag of semi-sweet and half a bag of white chocolate chips.  Also, I didn't have large eggs; I had teeny little medium eggs, so I used four of them instead of three.  I won't say it was a mistake, everything turned out ok in the end, but I ended up adding a little extra flour and setting the dough in the fridge for 20 minutes because it was looser and stickier than I usually work with.  This particular recipe makes ALOT of cookies.  Here is my downfall, I get tired of putting out sheet after sheet of cookies so the cookies gradually get larger so I have to make fewer of them.  Ultimately I ended up with roughly 40 large-ish cookies.  Had I made them "normal" size I would probably have around 60.  That rarely happens.  I know boyfriend likes it better because he has "lots" of cookies, but in my opinion, 40 is still lots of cookies, they're just freakishly huge now.

I promise.  To both you and myself that there will be something more exciting happening tomorrow.
Oh, and the steak - it was totally bad assly awesome.

.i'm just so fresh and clean. and healthy.

I would feel redundant in saying delinquent...but, yeah, I kind of am.

So there has been some goodness happening in my kitchen as of late.  There were peppers stuffed with israeli couscous, tomato sauce, feta and roasted red peppers (so yummy) which allowed the vegetarian roommate to have her first stuffed pepper experience.  The other night in my hormonal upset there were chicken cutlets with picatta sauce.  I am pretty impressed what I can do on the fly while crying for no good reason.  It was buttery and lemony and everything a picatta sauce should be.  But tonight I kind of outdid myself on the vegetarian front.  The vegetarian roommate was home with me this evening, and as we're not often home together at the same time I thought I'd make her dinner.  I had also kind of been wanting to make this for a while, but it was one of those recipes that it would be really silly for me to make for just my self.  Also, it is pretty healthy (exciting bonus!).

Sweet Potato - Black Bean Burritos 

3 med. sweet potatoes (roughly 1.5 lbs)

1 15 oz can black beans

3/4 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp chili powder

salt to taste

2 tbs lime juice (2 limes)

toppings of your choice

oven to 400 F.  Prick sweet potatoes with fork and place on baking sheet into oven for 1 hour.  Remove sweet potatoes, cut down the middle and scoop out the insides to a secondary bowl.  Mash sweet potatoes and then mix with cumin, coriander, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, lime, and salt.  Fold in black beans.  Lower oven temp to 350.  Place tortillas in a shallow baking dish and fill each with the sweet potato/black bean mixture.  Then add toppings of your choice (in my case it was reduced fat cheddar and cilantro green olive salsa).  Fold up the tortillas with the filling and toppings and bake for 10 min at 350.

This recipe is definitely going into my regular rotation, maybe with a little more citrus or something to make it a little brighter.  Maybe I'll even convince the boyfriend that he likes sweet potatoes (oh, there is definitely one of those around these days - insert dopey grin here).  Having been a vegetarian for several years I recall how difficult it can be to find meals that are tasty and nutritious and don't rely mainly on pasta or cheese.  And not only is this roommate vegetarian but they also have and ulcer which mean the food can't be too crazy spicy.  This makes the outlook for their diet kind of boring.  But I was promised that tonight I totally came through with a tasty, and healthy (only like 550 cal and 5g fat for two burritos) meal.