In exactly two weeks I will be making the six-hour drive to New Jersey along with everything I own and hold dear (except, unfortunately, for the two things I hold most dear these days: my clever boyfriend and devious cat). The lease on Mike and I's current apartment is over at the the end of this month and although Mike has opted to stay put in his lovely hometown of Pittsburgh, I'm making the move back into my parents house until I figure out what I'm doing come autumn.
My current plan is to enroll in culinary school (CIA and ICE are at the top of my list) in September or October, but that's all dependent on where I decide to go and whether or not I even get accepted. I'm still in the process of figuring it all out, but the prospect is very exciting and my cheeks get flush just talking about it. It's a complete change of pace from what I was doing this time last year, but for once I finally feel like I'm headed in the right direction, and that's a relief.
The move across state lines, my prospective education, and my upcoming month-long trip to Europe... all of these things have been occupying my thoughts lately. I'll take the good with the bad though, and hopefully many good things will come out of it. I'm very excited about this next 'chapter' (I apologize for the cliche metaphor) in my life, and I'm determined to make the best of everything.

Hm... I didn't set out to write so much about un-food-related things, but I guess I got a little carried away. I wrote that first bit with the intention of leading into the fact that I've been trying to use up the last of my baking ingredients and in turn have been baking much more frequently - in fact, I'm a little behind on my posts!
These cookies are from a few days ago but they are long gone now because they're just too good to let sit around. Mike is constantly requesting that I add shredded coconut to every batch of chocolate chip cookies that I make, so when I came across this recipe for a cookie which already uses coconut as its main ingredient, I thought to myself "Why not switch things around for once and add chocolate chips to these coconut cookies?" What resulted was an inspiring blend of tastes and textures - infinitely better than my usual "coconut" cookies because these cookies were specifically made with coconut in mind. To give you an idea of how good these are, Mike devoured three of these fresh out of the oven in the span of maybe five minutes; if the man who asks for coconut with everything was satisfied, they must be good.

Chewy Coconut Cookie Crisps

1 c. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
½ c. softened butter
½ c. granulated sugar
½ c. brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1½ c. flaked coconut


Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and a pinch of salt.

In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg and vanilla.

Mix the flour mixture into butter/sugar mixture, then mix in the coconut.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes until cookies are light brown and edges are toasted.

Labels: coconut, cookies

First things first, for those of you reading from a feed reader, you probably haven't noticed but I updated the blog a bit. I changed the layout and added some new links; I also added a new section in the sidebar which links to my favorite recipes - I hope to expand this a bit over time! A few weeks ago I also added a search bar and a link to the blog's feed; I'm just trying to clean things up and make the blog as simple/easy to access as possible.

Moving on to the Zebra Cake!

This cake is something I baked while I was house-sitting with my siblings for my parents three weeks ago; I came across the recipe and easy to follow instructions weeks ago and jumped at the chance to make it.

Not only is this cake fun to look at, but it tastes good too! The tastes are very subtle (my mother says I should add more chocolate to the batter next time, and I may add more vanilla too) but I really like that the cake is not overly sweet. I've never been a big fan of frosting so it's a relief that this cake tastes good enough to be eaten on its own (although it sure is tasty with some Nutella spread on top!). It's also very rewarding because the outcome looks like so much work was put into making the cake, when in reality, it was not very difficult at all! I recommend following these amazing instructions, complete with step-by-step pictures.

More photos of zebra-goodness:
(Guest photo time! The first two photos were taken by my friend Alina and the last was taken by my sister!)

Labels: zebra cake

Should I apologize for my long absence? I know it has been almost two weeks since I posted last! In my defense, I have been keeping myself plenty busy. I was at my parents' house for a week keeping an eye on things while they were away, and I managed to spend the majority of my time away from the internet! (I'm excited because this has been a rather difficult task as-of-late.) Instead I spent plenty of time in the kitchen (oh-what a glorious space it is compared to my tiny excuse for a kitchen in Pittsburgh!), I caught up with a few people I hardly ever get to see anymore, became enamored with my mother's two Alaskan Malamutes, I spent a late afternoon in New Hope with my sister, and I got to spend a few hours catching up with my aunt who flew back with my mom.
As far as baking goes, my endeavors were not completely out of sight while I was away. Savory cooking is not my forte, but I made an effort to feed my siblings and myself food other than sweets. I made a pizza using Mike and I's favorite pizza dough recipe, only later realizing that the yeast I used from the pantry had expired years ago. Needless to say, I ended up with un-risen dough which made one pizza instead of two, and tons of left-over toppings (which I later used in an omelette). The pizza was delicious though - we topped it with onion, green pepper, red pepper, zucchini, pepperoni, ground beef, and bacon - my brother and I both had a friend over and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the meal (or so I am led to believe...).
I also made a pan of baked macaroni and cheese with amazing wild blossom smoked cheddar; it was a little dry but the cheese made up for it.
The first picture you see in this post was taken by my good friend Alina Chygyryk (she has a blog too!) and it is a picture of melt-in-your mouth, so decadently chocolate-y chocolate chunk cookies I also made, following this recipe. I used super dark cocoa powder and three different kinds of chocolate chips (milk, semi-sweet, and dark chocolate chunks). And, later in the week, at the subtle request of my aunt, I made ridiculously rich brownies following the recipe from the Tartine cookbook. These brownies should be bite-size, because that's about as much as you can handle all at once, but wow, they are delicious! I couldn't get a great picture of them but here they are in all their macro-glory.
In my next post I'll tell you all about the zebra cake... it deserves its own post!

Labels: brownies, cookies, pizza