Various baked goods.....

Before we left for Cali, I baked 3 dutch desserts( Friesen thumbprints, tulband and an almond butter cookie) and some Magic cookie bars. I froze everything. On Thursday and Friday, I baked toll house cookies( with Raspberry swirl chips), peanut butter cookies, oatmeal scotchie bars, mollases cookies, white chocolate brownies, KA flour choc. brownies and banana bread. This was all for the wedding I on Saturday. While I was watching the Bridge and Groom say their vows, my friend Tom was downstairs making up the trays. He did a great job.

2 kinds of cookies......

On Thursday, I had a lunch catering job for 14 people. I don't know what I was thinking, but I decided to try two new recipes for cookies. The first is for Applesauce Currant cookies and the second was for a Choc. Chip cookie using a package of vanilla pudding mix. Our library had a book sale and I picked up a book called Big, Soft, Chewy Cookies for .25cents. How can you beat that price? The version I linked to is an updated version. My book is pretty old. Anyway, when I started making them, I noticed there were no eggs in the recipe and then I panicked because I wondered if that was a typo. I looked at a few more recipes in the book and decided it wasnt. The cookies were soft and very cake like. Robin said she liked them because they were different.

I found the next recipe from our very own fellow foodblogger Anna. However, I didnt find the recipe on her site( maybe its there though?), I found it over on Egullet in a thread about Choc. chip cookies. While I was making them, the doorbell rang. I went to get it and when I came back to the cookies, I accidentally put the pudding mix in the dry ingredients instead of the butter/sugar. They still came out great though. I did notice that when I didnt pat down the dough, they didnt spread out as much. I ended up with some flat cookies and some stocky cookies. I sent the flat ones to the job.

I really liked this cookie and will add it to my collection.

In other news. Did I mention we are renovating our kitchen and adding another room on to our house? Our kitchen designer came over yesterday for the last time. We made some revisions to the kitchen plans and we actually bought the plans (the price of the design fee is deducted from the total) so we can take them to the bank for financing. We need to get the cabinets ordered next week so installation can start by Oct 1st. My one nagging question is Quartz or Granite????

A Cook's Illustrated Dinner( almost).....

You know how sometimes there are just days where you shouldnt be cooking. Well, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were those days for me. Unfortunatly, I had a catering job that I could not cancel so I had to suck it up and do it even though I was so sick. I even called the client and told them I had a bad cold/cough but they were ok with it so cook I did.

We got back from Florida late Wednesday night. On Thursday, I made miniature lemon tartlets, mini vanilla bean cheesecakes and chocolate pot de cremes( CI). However, I read the recipe wrong( and left out 1 cup of heavy cream) so the pot de cremes, turned into bittersweet chocolate truffle ramekins with frangelico whipped cream.

On Friday I made the thai grilled shrimp w/ chili lime mayo( app) at home. At the event I made a warm spinach bacon salad( CI), pan roasted chicken breasts with sage/vermouth sauce, smashed red potatoes with garlic and rosemary and green beans with toasted pine nuts and browned butter. The original recipe called for toasted hazelnuts, but I burnt those at home so I subbed out Pine nuts. I told you, I shouldnt have been cooking. I had no sense of taste either ( due to the cold)so I brought an assistant with me to help with plating, serving and tasting. I'm happy to say that there wasnt one speck of food left on anyone's plate. Of course then I worried that I didnt buy enough food. I usually always have leftovers when I cook, but the one thing I learned working for Barb is that caterer's dont provide seconds. Everything is quoted as so many items per person.

Last year I made a soup/salad for this same client. Next week I'll be doing an office party for them however this one is thru Barb( the caterer).

I worked on Saturday and Sunday for Barb too and I definately should NOT have been cooking on those days either. Today is a day of rest, that is for sure!!

Glad that's over.....

Today, I catered an Open House for a local social service agency. I spent the majority of yesterday baking and cooking in preperation. I made Pumpkin Bread, cranberry bread, hello dollies, toll house cookies( with dark choc. rasberry swirl chips), ginger almond biscotti, Sourcream cranberry bars and triple choc. brownies. I made 3 dips. Giada's white bean dip, a leek/carrot veg dip and a ranch dip( using penzey's ranch mix). The dips will go great with the veggie trays. I also made assorted tea sandwiches( tuna, chicken and egg) and various cheese's with crackers. I provided a slush punch( good recipe if you need a punch) and some drinking chocolate( I used the dulce de leche choc mix I got in a blogging by mail exchange).

The sourcream bars were Anna's recipe. I was looking thru the betty crocker site and came across these. She won a prize in the mix it up with betty contest. The bars were easy and very yummy. Even though they start with a packaged cookie mix, the final product doesnt reflect that.

This was fun to do, but a lot of work. I woke up at 6:30am to do the final prep and Robin was an absolute gem. She cut all the crusts off the bread and help me assemble and wrap the trays with plastic. I could not have done all this without her.

Our plane leaves Friday night for Florida. We will leave here around 1pm to make the drive to detroit. I'm not looking forward to the traffic at the border or the snow that is predicted. My 40th bday is Saturday and my fingers are crossed that we will get there for my party. I just pray that the weather holds out.