Tag Archives: Cookies

Cookies, Yummmmm #MFRWAuthor

011I’ve been eating low carb for nearly three years. Although I don’t have the amazing results some people report, I’ve done well for myself, losing about a quarter of my weight initially and maintaining for a while. At first I missed some of those foods I was sure I could not live without: bread, rice, potatoes…COOKIES.

I just love those bits of crunchy yummies in so many flavors. Obviously, with sugar and flour off the menu I had to improvise. I have managed, with the help of some wonderful websites, such as http://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/, where I found this great recipe to take to a party: Chocolate Pinwheel Cookies. NOTE: I found they tasted even better when I left the roll of cookie dough in the refrigerator a day or two longer.

Not everyone wants to eat low carb, and I really wanted to take something different to a party. Some recipes I’d seen on FaceBook intrigued me, especially one using rolls in a tube. I figured if I didn’t have the raw cookie dough in front of me I’d be okay, right? What a test of my will power. It helped tremendously when fellow LERA authors took the rest home!

ready to go into the oven

ready to go into the oven

This recipe just looked like so much fun, and dead easy to make, and there were plenty of recipes to choose from. THIS ONE shows every step in pictures, if you want visual aids.  You use Crescent rolls, cream cheese, chocolate chips, and sugar. Sounds simple, and it really is.  I mixed one 8 ounce package of cream cheese with two teaspoons of vanilla extract (homemade!) and 1/4 cup of sugar (I have sugar in the house to feed hummingbirds in the summer) with a hand beater until it was creamy smooth. Then used parchment paper above and below to roll out the dough

All done! And I didn't eat one

All done! And I didn’t eat one

nice and flat. Spread the cream cheese mix on the flattened dough, sprinkle on chocolate chips. Here I deviated by using a full cup of mini chips.

Roll it all up, wrap in plastic wrap and stick in the refrigerator to set up. I found knives didn’t cut the roll smoothly so I pulled out some string. Much better!

 

 

I’ll be sharing more recipes in the new year, and welcome other writers who’d like to talk about their books, their lives, and their favorite foods.

Winter Sunset on the High Plains

Winter Sunset on the High Plains

 

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Chocolate Lump Cookies, Oh My

There are so many wonderful Christmas cookies, and I’ve made many of them.  But the one that says Holidays to my family is the Chocolate Lump Cookie.  Not to be confused with chocolate chip in its many fabulous forms.  Chocolate Lump, withe the chocolate part coming from thick bars of milk chocolate.  Even when we lived in Japan, we managed to find the right thickness and consistency of milk chocolate to make the perfect cookie.

I’m not sure where the recipe originated. Both my parents made the cookies, and neither one played around much with recipes.  Most likely my father’s Wisconsin family came up with the original, and my parents never changed it.  But why change what is darned near perfect?

The chocolate is of course the main component.  For a while I was buying those ten pound (yep, ten POUND) bars of Ghiradelli chocolate for myself and also for family members who did not have a Trader Joe’s nearby

Ten POUNDS of milk chocolate. Yummm

Ten POUNDS of milk chocolate. Yummm

Each of use would then chop the thick bar into chunks no bigger than half an inch. Considering the bar was more than an inch thick, that was a LOT of chopping.  But worth it since the flavor was really spectacular.  And it was just once a year.

Then came the year I went into TJs and they didn’t have the Ghiradelli.  Nor were they planning to carry it again. I shared this, sadly, with my family, sending them into a mad fury of hunting out the ultimate thick milk chocolate. Until my brother in Texas pointed us toward large bars from one of the standard US chocolate manufacturers…the one with a town named after it.  Yeah, them.  He said his cookies came out pretty darned good.

Hmmm

Trader Joe's Pound Plus

Trader Joe’s Pound Plus

Then a perusal of the TJs shelves netted me a new and wondrous discovery—the “Pound Plus,” a 17.6 ounce bar of yummy goodness.  Even better, it comes scored for easy breaking. How cool is that? Even better, by treating this bar as a regular pound of chocolate you automatically overload your cookie.  Ahhh, bliss.

I found chilling the bar a bit made it easy to bang on the counter prior to chopping into lumps, shortening the prep time even more. The shorter the prep time, the sooner you can indulge.

Mind you, I haven’t made these cookies since I went cold turkey low carb last year, and I don’t know that I have the will power necessary to bake them and not gorge myself.  Not yet anyway. But I can certainly share the recipe with you, even if I’m limiting myself to low carb shortbread.  Which, incidentally, is pretty darned good!

So, Chocolate Lump Cookies: Measure 3 cups flour, then sift.  Add 1 tsp each Baking Powder and Baking Soda, and 1/2 tsp salt.  Set aside. Cream 1 cup Shortening (not butter, you want a very mild batter so you can really promote the chocolate) with 3/4 cup White Sugar and 3/4 cup Light Brown Sugar.  Add in 1 tsp Vanilla and 3 Eggs.  Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients, and 3 Tbsp Hot Water. Then mix in 1.5 pounds Milk Chocolate, chunked, and 1 cup Pecans (you can add more pecans, I often do).  Bake at 325-350F for about 15 minutes.  The chocolate can burn if you’re not careful, which means you’ll have to keep those cookies at home, such a sacrifice.
These cookies freeze extremely well, and taste really good ice cold.  Enjoy!

And for even more exciting cookie recipes:
Autumn Jordon
Heather Hiestand
Jane Wakely
Karen McCullough
Laurie London
Lily Rede
Tawny Weber
Vanessa Kelly

I’m told some of the original links are incorrect, here are the correct ones. Abject apologies!

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