The Chocolate Pudding Caper, part I

This week, I've been reading Ideas in Food. Finally, I've found people as crazy as me.

I've roasted pasta...I've pre-soaked it in tomato water...The book is gloriously experimental, with a ton of interesting ideas. This morning, I decided to make their Crispy Chocolate Mousse.

My mother has a recipe from the 1960s built on the idea of a meringue/cookie hybrid, and it makes the most fabulous cookies ever. However, she hates to cook, and periodically loses said recipe. I haven't seen it in fifteen years, so I decided to try baking these in the hopes they'd be similar. They actually take five hours to bake, so I'm not sure how they are yet. (And in the process of writing this, I've realized I forgot to add the vanilla) But if noshing the leftover pudding-like batter directly out of the bowl is any indication, they're kind of awesome.

That said, it's the first recipe I've made in months that makes me remember why people hate to cook. It's a meringue and not a meringue at the same time, so lots of finicky egg pampering is required. Because egg whites require an absolutely clean bowl for proper whipping, and because the yolks are mixed with something hot, a minimum of three large bowls are required. And that's all before you have to scoop the whole mess into a pastry bag/ziploc for piping. The process of transferring between bowls has left me with a variety of delicious leftover chocolate goos to surreptitiously sample, but there's a lot of waste. And I'm covered in chocolate byproducts and feel about five.

Cookie Wedge for Breakfast

For breakfast, I had a chocolate chip cookie wedge and some coffee.

The wedge is the last slice from the giant cookie I made last week.



Hi giant cookie. I made giant cookie because this recipe's dough spread a ridiculous amount while I was baking it last time, and I ended up with a blobby sheet of cookie amoebas. I figured same result, less work.

Sort of. I purposely made them more dense because I was going for a cookie cake sort of texture. It worked well, but the density obscured some of the more delicate butter/brown sugar flavors I liked.

The coffee is curious. I want to say horrendous, but I'm trying to stay open-minded until I try it a few more times. It's New Mexico Pinon Coffee from TJ's. Maybe I'm making it way too strong? If anything, it reminds me of Starbuck's (grammatical digression: if the coffee chain is named after Melville's character "Starbuck", the chain should be "Starbuck's Coffee", not "Starbucks Coffee", no? Am I missing something?) cold-brewed iced coffee- very strong, with blunt, bitter flavors.

Indian Food at Home

For dinner, I had awadhi aloo mutter with basmati rice and tofu. I also had some kale on the side and a walnut, chocolate, and butterscotch chip cookie for dessert.

Aloo mutter is potatoes and peas seasoned with turmeric, coriander, and chili powder. This particular one was vacuum-packed from Kohinoor. We've had them sitting around for years, and are trying desperately to eat them all before they expire. Unfortunately, the one I ate tonight expired in April. It was so spicy, I couldn't tell. The basmati (thank you, rice cooker) and soft tofu made it more interesting, and blunted the heat a little.

The kale was prepared using this recipe I couldn't wait to try. Baking the kale at such intense heat has the effect of oven-frying the leaves into delicious garlicky bar snacks. It's simple and awesome, but beware: it makes eating a pound of kale in one sitting very, very easy.

Finally, the cookies. After much internet soul-searching and cookbook-scouring, I decided to go retro and use the famous Toll House recipe printed on the bag of chocolate chips, which I hadn't made in perhaps fifteen years. I balked at the cup of butter and teaspoon of salt it contained, and compromised by baking only half a batch. A moment of weakness befell me at the grocery store, so I had a bag of butterscotch chips to contend with as well. Butterscotch chips are synthetic little blobs of vegetable fat (in this case, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil), but I have sick nostalgia for them. I ended up using this butter/oil blend instead of all butter, white whole wheat flour (my new favorite thing) instead of ordinary flour, and a blend of chocolate and butterscotch chips, along with walnut pieces. The cookies turned out perfectly, but I never realized quite how bad Toll House's recipe is for you.

Pursuant to my grocery store critiques: today I went to Schnucks (yes, Schnucks), the local grocery store. Their veggie selection was as good as, or better than, both Whole Foods AND Trader Joe's. Also cheaper. Also approximately the same amount of organics. I'd love to know why WF here can't seem to find decent produce in this town. From now on, I'll be making the trek to Schnucks for produce, at least until I find a good Mexican grocery store a la Avanza.

The bonus? When I was accosted by a woman in the checkout line about the squash I was buying- how much she loves it, asking me for cooking tips. She came across as sweet, if overly friendly and a little eccentric, until I looked into her shopping cart. 2pm, and her only purchase was a very large bottle of vodka. Interesting.