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Baking with Baby: Chocolate Chip Cookies

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This weather this week has been a bit of a shock to the system after the mild weather we had experienced the past few weeks.  Yesterday afternoon, Baby T and I had nowhere to go so I decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  The recipe I follow is nothing special- it’s pretty much from the back of the Nestle Toll-House chocolate chip bag.  It was my first time letting T stand up on a chair next to the counter to “help.”  I knew it wasn’t going to be incident-free (he may or may not be licking a stick of butter in the following picture), but we had a fun time:

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Chocolate Chip Cookies
Author: 
Recipe type: dessert
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 30
 
The classic recipe for chocolate chip cookies
Ingredients
  • 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • ¾ cup packed brown sugar (I used dark)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs (bring to room temperature)
  • 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375° F.
  2. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Use a spoon or melon scooper to form small balls of dough and place onto ungreased baking sheets (I use parchment paper on top of the baking sheets to help prevent sticking and assist with clean-up).
  3. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Serve to smiling baby boy with a washcloth nearby for instantaneous messy, chocolatey hands.
Notes
Source: Slightly adapted from Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe

Fresh Produce Tuesday- Week #1: Asparagus

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With all of the great spring produce starting to show up in stores, I wanted to add a new series to 2 Sisters 2 Cities called Fresh Produce Tuesday.  Each Tuesday, I will feature a new type of produce and highlight 10-15 recipes that incorporate this ingredient.  I will also post a linky tool so other bloggers can add their own post that includes this fruit or vegetable.  Whenever possible, I will try to feature in-season, organic, and local produce.  Even if you have never made one of these items, I encourage you to join in and perhaps use it as an opportunity to learn a new cooking skill!

I picked Tuesday to have this series as this day of the week has historically been a day I have associated with fresh produce. When I lived in the city, my Boston Organics delivery arrived every Tuesday. I also almost always used to visit the Copley Square Farmers Market (one of Boston’s largest farmer’s market) on Tuesdays and Fridays.

To give you a heads up on the produce I will be featuring, here is my editorial calendar for the following early spring crops:

Today (March 27th): Asparagus
April 3rd: Artichokes
April 10th: Spring Onions
April 17th: Peas
April 24th: Garlic Scapes

For our first Fresh Produce Tuesday, here are some great sounding recipes featuring asparagus:

Now it’s your turn to share a recipe that you have made which includes asparagus.  Please link up below- the post can be new or old.  It would be great if you could link back to 2 Sisters 2 Cities or add our button to your asparagus post (our button can be found on the top of the right-hand column), but it is not required.  Please link up even if your recipe is similar to one of the recipes posted above- it’s always great to see various pictures of a dish.  If you don’t have a blog, feel free to try out any of these recipes and/or click the “like” link on any that sounds particularly appetizing to you!

Menu Plan Monday- Taking a break from the 17 Day Diet!

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It’s been one of those days- I have been meaning to sit down all day and come up with our menu plan of the week, and now here it is- 9:02 pm.  I did get a lot accomplished today however, so at least I can be happy about that.  This week, we have decided to take a little break from the 17 Day Diet and just focus on eating healthy (but not diet-strict) meals.  This menu features a lot of recipes from Cooking Light’s April issue- as K mentioned in her Chili Mac and Cheese post, it’s a good one!

 

 

 

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Chocolate-Chip Skinny Scones

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I love to bake. It is a stress reliever for me to bake something up and to be able to share it with my friends, family and co-workers. There is only one problem to this though: I love desserts way too much. I was about to say I love dessert like a fat kid likes cake… but think about the end result of that saying! Don’t worry I am not calling myself fat, but I do have to control what I eat and how much dessert I make because it could easily lead to that. So you can see why I get excited to find desserts that are somewhat healthier.

I found this recipe on the blog Skinnytaste and was so excited to make them. Gina calls these “Skinny Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Scones,” but somewhere along the line my family and coworkers just starting calling them skinny scones. I have made them twice already, once for a meeting at work and then another time to bring with me when I visited my parents over the weekend. They are really easy to whip up so you have to try to make them.

Chocolate-Chip Skinny Scones
Chocolate-Chip “Skinny Scones”
Ingredients
3/4 cup reduced fat buttermilk
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup AP flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. chilled butter
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips
Cooking spray
1 egg white
1 tbsp. sugar

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine first four ingredients with a whisk in a medium-sized bowl. Set aside. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray or like a baking sheet with a silicone non-stick mat.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt with a whisk. Take cold butter and cut up into small pieces and put into flour mixture and cut into flour with pastry blender, until mixture resembles coarse meal. Fold in chocolate chips and then add in wet mixture. Stir gently until combined.

Place dough on a floured surface and knead lightly four times. Form the dough into a 9 inch circle that is 3/4” thick and place on baking sheet. Cut into 12 triangles all the way through. Take an egg white and whisk lightly. Brush the egg white on top of the dough and sprinkle with sugar. Place in the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden. Serve warm.

Source– Adapted slightly from Skinnytaste.

Weight Watchers PointsPlus- 5 pointsplus per scone.

Blog Better Boston Conference Recap

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I wanted to follow-up from my earlier post this morning with more details of the Blog Better Boston Conference that was held yesterday.  It was held at Boston’s Google headquarters, which was very exciting to check out!  The day was broken out into five panels/workshops with breaks in between to get an opportunity to meet with other bloggers and brands.

Here are my key takeaways I took away from each session I attended:

Monetize Your Blog

-This panel seemed more geared for fashion bloggers (and wow, there were a lot of fashion bloggers there yesterday.)  However, I did take some notes on a number of things.  One of the things Lea from Found with Love said was to set 3-4 goals every few months.  The goals you set should be ones you feel you can achieve so that you are actually able to carry them out.
-A few websites that were highlighted during the panel were:

  • ProBlogger–  This website provides tips to help you make money blogging.  I am actually in process of reading Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger book right now.
  • Crazy Egg Web Analytics– shows you a heatmap of your blog to show you were your readers are clicking
  • RescueTime– A time management tool that tracks your time.  May be a good place to see what aspect of your blog is eating away at your time and could be outsourced to someone else.
  • Blog with Integrity– Covers ethical issues faced by bloggers.

Food Photography

-This panel was hosted by food photographer Kristin Teig.  She provided a great handout with tons of helpful tips:

  • She provided several tips for shooting meals at night (which happens a lot to food bloggers because by the time you finish preparing the food you are about to shoot, it’s dark out!)  Consider investing in a Westcott Spiderlites or a Britek light with a fluorescent day light balance bulb. A detailed tutorial for shooting in articial light can be found at Wrightfood.
  • For natural light, you need to diffuse or reflect the light depending on lighting conditions.  You can diffuse light with vellum paper on your window or a wooden frame.  Sometimes you can even use a window shade.  To reflect light, Kristin showed how she had scored a piece of foam board in half…that’s a great photography trick for very little money!
  • For photo props, check out the Todd Farm Flea Market in Rowley, MA and the SOWA vintage market.
  • Kristen recommended checking out Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots by Nicole S. Young for a more detailed tutorial on food photography.

Google Analytics

-This workshop was hosted by Ramesh Kumar from The Papa Post.  He posted his whole presentation to his blog and I definitely recommend stopping over and checking it out!

  • Ramesh’s 5 takeaways were: creativity over keywords, content format matters, metadata (Did you know there is a Google recipe search?  If you have a food blog, you should think about installing a recipe SEO plugin), stickiness, and more content leads to more SEO.
  • Don’t just look at your top 10 keywords in Google Analytics…this rarely changes.  Instead, pick 2 date ranges and sort them by absolute change to see what keywords are rising and falling.
  • Check out blekko to compare your SEO to another site

Traffic & Community

-Lots of great tips at this session:

  • Engage in an off-line community and interact with other bloggers.
  • Don’t be afraid to self-promote.
  • Don’t react to negative comments.
  • Find the one thing you are passionate about and read everything you can about that specific topic.
  • Connect with other blogs- leave thoughtful comments, tweet, and be personal and authentic.

Photo Editing

–Kristyn Ulanday led this workshop.  She had lots of great editing tips

  • For composition, always remember the human eye likes three’s (ex: 3 people, 3 depths, rule of thirds, etc.)
  • To create collages or combine two pictures into one file, use Picasa.
  • Gimp is another great free photo editing tool.

I loved swapping business cards and finally getting a chance to meet some other bloggers in person.  Here are just a few of the bloggers I got a chance to meet:

-Sara from Forever and a Recipe– I have followed Sara’s blog for a while so it was great to meet her in person!
-Kristen from the imperfect home
-Lindsay from Lindsay’s Look
-Emily from What Emily Cooks
-Jen from Losing the Shadow Behind Me
-Emily from so anthro
-Erin from OneTwoSummer

There was also a DIY table to decorate the swag bags.  I had so much fun decorating mine with the DecoArt SoSoft fabric paint.  Up until this point in my life, I have really only attended Finance & Accounting-related conferences.  I touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate the point that this is not something that typically done at those types of conferences (although maybe they should!)  I’ll post more later this week on what was actually in those swag bags, as well as more on the rest of the conference sponsors!

Did you attend the conference?  What were some of your key takeaways?

 

My First Blogging Conference- Blog Better Boston

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Just wanted to post a quick blurb about what an amazing time I had yesterday at the Blog Better Boston conference yesterday.  It was so great to meet so many bloggers in person and to get so many fantastic blogging tips.  I also enjoyed all the sponsors and swag bag-  you definitely don’t get things like that at Finance conferences!  My head is still spinning from all the great information and I hope to write a much longer post summarizing it later today.

It was the longest I had ever been away from Baby T, but it sounds like he had a great day with his DaDa.  It was very cute to come home and see him get as excited about my return as he normally does for my husband’s arrival home.  There is nothing like coming home to a big hug and kiss from the little guy!

Chili Mac and Cheese

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Well hello, hello!  I feel like I have been MIA lately.  Do you want to know what is to blame this time?  The Hunger Games!  I got so wrapped up in these books during the last week that I feel like I got nothing done besides read those books.  You will be happy to know that I finished the series and I can now give you my full attention.  I am, however, going to see the movie this weekend which I am very excited about! Are any of you addicted to these books and plan on going to see the movie?  It seems like everyone I talked to was wrapped up in these books.

Well, besides my Hunger Games vacation, I also received my Cooking Light magazine over the weekend.  I am pretty excited because they have an entire section for 40 meals under 40 minutes.  I don’t know about you, but on the weeknight, I need a dinner that is easy and quick to pull together.

The first meal I picked from the magazine is a little unlike me because I am not a huge chili or mac and cheese person.  Don’t get me wrong about mac and cheese- I do love it, but I tend not to make it because it is not always healthy.  I picked a recipe for Chili Mac and Cheese and let me tell you… it was awesome!  My boyfriend also loved it- when I offered him one more scoop, he happily obliged which he hardly ever takes seconds of meals.  I loved this recipe because it was like a healthier homemade version of Hamburger Helper, which I use to love in college. Also this recipe is super easy and only uses two pots! Okay on with Chili Mac and Cheese.

IMG_0989

Chili Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
1 tsp. canola oil
1 lb. ground beef (95 % lean)
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. chili powder
2 cups fat-free, lower sodium beef broth
1 cup water
1  10 oz. can diced tomatoes and green chilies (I used hot but you can also use mild)
8 ounces uncooked elbow macaroni
1/2 cup fat-free milk
4 oz. of 1/3 less fat cream cheese
4 1/2 oz. of shredded reduced fat cheddar

Instructions
Heat a large Dutch oven or pot over medium-high heat . Add oil and allow to heat up.  Stir in ground beef and all 4 spices and cook for about 3-4 minutes. Next add broth, water, and tomatoes. Bring mixture to a boil and stir in elbows.  Cover with lid and let cook for 10 minutes or until the macaroni has been cooked and most of the liquid in the pot has been absorbed.

In a small sauce pan heat the milk and cream cheese over medium heat, stirring constantly until cream cheese has been melted and combined with milk.  Remove from heat and stir in cheddar cheese until melted.   Add cheese sauce to the macaroni and stir well. Serving size is about 1 cup.  Makes 6 servings.

Source– slightly adapted from Cooking Light,  April 2012

Recipe Ideas for Chives

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I took a look outside this morning and noticed the inevitable first sign of spring- my chives have returned!  I by no means would say I have a green thumb, but my chives return to this container every spring.  I planted these chives by seeds about five years and every spring they pop up in the same container.  I would definitely recommend them for a novice gardener- they require virtually no care and are a very versatile ingredient that can be used in a number of dishes.

Here are some 15 recipe ideas for chives:

-Pretty much any type of egg dish- scrambled, sunny-side up, omelettes, quiche, etc.
–Baked Potatoes
–Broiled Tilapia with Mustard Chive Sauce
–Buttermilk Chive Biscuits
–Chive Goat Cheese Spread
–Corn and Zucchini Salad with Chives
–Corn, Buttermilk and Chive Popovers
–Fresh Chive Vinaigrette
–Homemade Ranch Dressing
–Lobster Nachos
–Mascarpone Chive Mashed Potatoes
–Risotto
–Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Creamy Chive Sauce
–Teriyaki Salmon– I’m planning on making this dish on Friday!
–White Bean Dip with Garlic and Chives

You can also throw the purple flowers into a simple green salad for an added burst of color (they are edible!)  What are some of your favorite uses for chives?

Dealing with Overgrown Raised Garden Beds

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The weather in the Boston area (as well as most of the Northeast) has been unbelievable mild this winter.  It is still technically winter today and I am sitting here typing this in a sleeveless tank top with all the windows open.  Insane.  According to my Mac weather widget, it’s going to be 80 degrees on Thursday.  I’m not complaining a bit, but it is a bit bizarre.

With all this nice weather lately, I have spent some time gardening while baby boy naps.  When we moved to our new house last fall, we inherited three large raised garden beds in our backyard.  I was thrilled as one of our criteria in looking for a house was space in the yard to have a garden.  The only problem is that these raised beds had not been touched in years and were seriously overgrown with weeds and vines.  We were so busy with unpacking and planning baby T’s first birthday party, that we did not get a chance to tackle the raised beds last autumn.

That leads us to this spring where we have started to deal with some serious overgrowth.  The one thing that we have noticed about this area is that there are some serious vines everywhere.  These vines pretty much laugh at you when you try to pull them out of the ground.  They also have thorns everywhere which makes the removal process that much trickier.  To give you an idea, here’s what one of the boxes looked like:

Here is what all three raised beds look like together:

I’ve basically just been pulling a rake through and then throwing out the dried out weeds one plant at a time.  Some of the roots are really entrenched and are hard to pull out.  I got as much pulled out as possible and then covered each box with dampened newspapers.  I then laid out black pieces of cloth over the newspapers and staked them so they would remain secured down.

I’m not sure if it will help do anything, but I’ve read this can help kill any remaining weeds in the soil.  In a few weeks, I am going to take off the cover, do some more weeding/root removal, and lay down some more compost before I start planting.

If you have a garden, what kind of spring prep work do you do?

St. Patrick’s Day Treat- Chocolate Chip Soda Bread

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If you are looking for a fun treat to celebrate St. Patrick’s day this weekend, try making this Chocolate Chip Soda Bread.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a huge fan of corned beef and cabbage, but soda bread is an Irish tradition that I can stand by (as well as the occasional Guinness.)  If you are throwing a St. Patrick’s Day Parade Party, chocolate chip soda bread would be a great brunch addition.

I’m not sure if it’s the lack of carbs from being on the 17 Day Diet, but I thought this turned out fantastic!  I highly recommend making it this upcoming Saturday morning for a St. Patrick’s day tradition that’s sure to stick in your house.

Chocolate Chip Soda Bread

Ingredients:
-cooking spray
-6 tablespoons butter, chilled and cut into cubes
-3 cups all-purpose flour
-1/3 cup sugar
-1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
-1 teaspoon fine sea salt
-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
-1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
-1 cup Greek low-fat plain yogurt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prep a 9-inch round pan with cooking spray and set it aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Work 6 tablespoons chilled butter into flour mixture with your fingers.  Stir in chocolate chips. Stir in yogurt until just combined, and then knead in the bowl just until a dough forms.

Shape into a 6- or 7-inch loaf and transfer it to the prepared pan.  Bake until cooked through and golden brown, about 50 minutes. Set aside to let cool.

Source: Adapted from Whole Foods March 2012 Whole Deals

What St. Patrick’s Day tradition do you carry out in your house?

 

 

 

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Miz Helen’s Country Cottage

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