who's on first

Me again. Taneasha has a home, and some furniture, but no intrawebs. So, I'm back in my usual Tuesday spot, but I'm taking a break from cookies.

I am a total slave to cravings. I'll spend days trying to ignore the fact that I not only want, but apparently need, a certain type of food. They don't go away. Sometimes it's something nice and healthy like bananas. And when I finanlly find a bunch that is just the right ripeness, I'll eat the whole freaking bunch. Sometimes, it's fried chicken. Way too often it's fried chicken.

Lately though, it's been beans. And not just any beans. It has to be refried beans.

I freaking love refried beans.

Damn good thing too, because they're super cheap, unbelievably easy to make, and they're totally freezable, which means they're perfect for making into burritos to freeze and heat up in the (world's most disgustingly dirty) microwave at school. But we won't talk about that for now. I passed my exams. I've got 3.5 months of calculus-free bliss.

AKA: work.

Now I get to heat up my frozen burrito in a clean nuker.

But first, I had to make beans. Yes, I know, they come in a can. The ones in the can, more often than not, have sugar in them. Sugar. Why the hell do refried beans need sugar added to them? There are times when I'm glad I'm a compulsive label-reader. <<insert rant here about what's wrong with the food industry, and the apathy of consumers>>

Refried beans don't have sugar in them. At least these ones don't. So, as an alternative to the can in your cupboard I offer:

Refritos

What you need:

• 1 c dry pinto beans
• 1 small onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• pinch of cumin
• ~4 c water or broth or stock
• bacon fat
• salt

Yes, I realize I'm ranting about added sugar in a post that advocates the use of bacon fat. This is not a question of "is it healthier." The sugar is likely in there to make the beans taste better, just like the bacon fat is. But, the bacon fat is drippings from the bacon I bought at a local butcher; they make their own bacon from local pigs. I can trace the bacon fat to the farm. It's less than 100 miles away. I can't say the same about that sugar. I know that food tastes better when it has fat and sugar in it. But I'm actively making a choice as a consumer. That's the difference.

What you gotta do:

Dump it all in the crock pot.

Well, kinda. Works best if you rinse the beans first, and chop the onion and garlic.

I'd been planning on using water, but remembered that I had some chicken broth in the freezer.

So I thawed it and dumped it in.

And waited.

And waited.

I am not a patient person.

Particularly not when I have a craving.

Once the beans are soft, and you can mash one against the side of the crock pot (took mine about 4 hours on high), transfer the beans only to a bowl. I don't suggest draining the beans because some of that liquid is handy to have around when you're mashing. So, I fish mine out with the masher.

Mashing is a bit of a taste thing. Or, texture thing, I guess. Some people prefer the beans whole, some like them smashed to smithereens.

I a cake-and-eat-it-too kinda person, so I mash all but about a cup of beans and then just stir them in.

And then, I add the bacon fat. Feel free to leave this out if you'd like, but I don't recommend it.

Now, before you add the last ingredient, you need to taste them. Beans need salt. I like to add the bacon fat first because it is quite salty, and then add tiny amounts, stirring and tasting until they're just right.

Roll them up in a burrito with some guac (cover it with foil and it won't turn brown at all!)

or just dip your chips right in

What weird ingredient have you found by reading labels? Or, do you read labels?

Chocolate Chip Cookie Perfection

Is there anything better than a chocolate chip cookie?  Crispy, chewy, gooey, chocolaty.  It’s one of the few things that can embody all of those characteristics at the same time.  To make them even better, they’re easy to make and use ingredients you probably already have on hand. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Make sure your butter is very soft and put it into your mixing bowl with the sugar.  If you forgot to pull the butter out ahead of time, we have a trick for that here.  My recipe calls for sugar and molasses simply because I don’t keep brown sugar on hand.  I always have regular sugar, though, and if you just keep a bottle of molasses in the pantry, you’ll always have fresh brown sugar rather than gambling that when you pull out the bag, you might just have one big brown sugar rock.  That being said, if you have brown sugar on hand, feel free to substitute ¾ cup of it for the sugar and molasses. 

Cream together the butter and sugar until it becomes light and fluffy.  If you’re using a mixer that will probably take about 2 minutes. 

Add the vanilla and molasses.

Scrape everything down and mix until incorporated and add the egg.

Mix until thoroughly incorporated.  You can mix your dry ingredients in a separate bowl before adding them, but when I’m being lazy, I just add the flour and sprinkle the soda, powder, and salt over the top. 

Once the flour is in, you don’t want to over mix, so just enough to bring it together as a dough.  The perfect cookie dough will still be quite soft, but has just lost its stickiness.  

Add your chocolate chips.  I was on the baking aisle and these Ghirardelli mini chips caught my eye.  For some reason anything that’s miniature makes me happy.  I mean, what isn’t cuter when made small?  You can use whatever size chips you want, though. 

Stir them in so they’re fairly evening distributed.  I know it looks good enough to eat just as it is, but my mom always taught me to not eat things with raw eggs in them, and it stuck.  So I’ll pass, but help yourself if you want, but I promise it’ll be better once they’re baked anyway. 

Using a spoon, scoop the dough and scrape it off the spoon onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, leaving plenty of room for them to spread.

I wanted fairly large cookies, so I used a generous rounded tablespoon.  You can make them whatever size you like, you’ll just want to watch them and adjust the baking time. 

When they’re all scooped, pop the pan into the freezer for 15 minutes.  While they’re in there, preheat your oven to 375° At this point, if you don’t want to bake all of your cookies, simply scoop and freeze all of the dough.  (I did these ones smaller)

Then just pop the dough balls into a bag and back into the freezer.  That way you can have fresh cookies whenever the mood strikes.  Just pull out however many you want, preheat your oven, and bake them. 

After the cookies you’re going to bake have been in the freezer for 15 minutes, pull them out and bake them for 14 – 17 minutes if they’re this size.  If they’re smaller, decrease the time, and just watch them.  They should be just starting to brown around the edges and no longer look wet on top. 

This will create the perfect crispy exterior and chewy interior everyone loves about chocolate chip cookies.  They’ll be sort of puffy when you first pull them out of the oven, but will quickly settle. 

Leave them on the pan to cool for a few minutes, and then transfer them to a rack.  If you can get them there, anyway.  I’m pretty sure one will find its way into your mouth on the way. 

Definitely serve with a glass of milk, then just close your eyes and treat yourself to some chocolate chip cookie paradise. 

What cooking lesson did you learn from Mom when you were growing up?