The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. I’ve been searching for YEARS for a recipe like this. YEARS, I tell you. They are perfect in every way. Flat and crispy on the outside and buttery and chewy on the inside.

However, I know everyone’s different…and some people like big, fluffy cookies. But not me. To me, these are perfection.

Matt even likes these cookies. So much, that when I told him yesterday that I was thinking of making them again, he came home from work all excited, only to give me the biggest, saddest face when he realized that I hadn’t gotten around to making them yet.

And he doesn’t even like dessert!

I made them today though…and he’s proceeded to eat close to half the batch. Yeah. They’re that good.

So, if you’re going to make anything on this blog, make these cookies. They are perfect. There is really nothing more to say.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Recipe from Iowa Girl Eats)

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1½ tsp salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 bag semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Cream butter and sugars until it’s the texture of cornmeal. Add eggs and vanilla and then mix until combined.


In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in three batches. Add chocolate chips last and mix briefly.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Comfort Food: Beef Stew & Biscuits

Today, it was just plain yucky outside. After I braved the roads first thing in the morning to hit the gym, I quickly decided to spend the rest of the day indoors. On cold, snowy days like today, all I want to do is curl up on my couch with a mug of tea and some good movies.

I was also craving comfort food. Mind you, I tend to crave comfort food on a regular basis. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I live in Alberta and we get snow for most of the year and therefore all I want is to hibernate and eat yummy and hearty meals year-round. Or it could also be due to the fact that I grew up eating the most delicious and comforting dishes as my mother is an insanely awesome cook.

Nevertheless, today I wanted stew. Beef stew. I had never made it before but I figured it couldn’t be that difficult.

Thankfully, it wasn’t. I also made biscuits. And they may just be the best biscuits I’ve ever made. AND they were super easy. I actually googled, “easy buttermilk biscuits” because I really didn’t feel like rolling out and cutting dough, and I stumbled upon a great recipe that’s quick and easy, and amazingly delicious.

Beef Stew
(Adapted from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry’s Stew-Pendous Beef Stew)
The longer you can cook this, the better. The meat really needs a good 2 hours to get fully tender and delicious. A slow cooker would make it even better. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for one…

Ingredients:

olive oil
1-1½ pounds beef (I used eye of round), cut into 1 to 1½ inch cubes
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/2 an onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons herbes de Provence (or any mix of herbs you’d like – I made up my own)
3 cups reduced-sodium beef broth
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon each salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into ¾-inch pieces
2 large carrots, diced
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup frozen green peas

Directions:

Pat beef dry with paper towels. Sprinkle beef lightly all over with seasoning salt. Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a large pot (preferably non-stick) over medium-high heat. Add half the beef cubes and cook, turning occasionally, until all sides are lightly browned. Remove from pot and keep warm. Repeat with another drizzle of olive oil and remaining beef cubes. Set browned beef aside.

Add onions, celery, and garlic to same pot (you may add a bit more olive oil or ¼ cup beef broth to pot if necessary to prevent sticking). Reduce heat to medium. Cook and stir until vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Return beef cubes to pot and stir in herbs de Provence (or your herbs of choice). Add beef broth, tomato paste, vinegar, bay leaves, sugar, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 1 hour, 15 minutes. (Make sure it is a low simmer and that mixture is not boiling or it will burn.)

Stir in potatoes and carrots. Cover and simmer for 30 more minutes. Mix cornstarch with 2 tbsp warm water until smooth. Add to stew. Mix well and continue to cook until stew is bubbly and has thickened. Stir in peas and cook just until they are heated through, about 2 minutes.


P.S. These are the biscuits I made. They’re seriously awesome. So awesome, in fact, that there were none left over – Matt made sure of that.

Chicken Soup

I love homemade soups. In fact, aside from desserts involving pumpkin, soup is kind of my culinary obsession right now. Making soup from scratch is much easier than people think and generally better for you – especially if you make your own stock – as you can control what goes into it (most importantly: the amount of salt). You just need the time…however, it’s a perfect way to make use of a lazy Sunday. Plus, your house will smell amazing.

I’m also a little obsessed with making my own stock. It’s so ridiculously simple and a great way to use up the parts of vegetables and meat that normally get thrown out. You can also make a whole bunch and freeze it, then just use it as you need it.

Today, I made chicken stock. I had roasted a chicken on the weekend and kept the bones and leftover meat in order to make a yummy chicken soup. My mom makes a mean turkey soup (usually after big family dinners) as a way to use up leftover meat and bones, and it’s one of my very favourite dishes she makes. It’s full of flavour and LOTS of dill.

What can I say? We’re Ukrainian.

Chicken Stock
I don’t really have a specific recipe for stock, as I kind of just like to throw in whatever I have, but here’s a basic guideline.

Ingredients:

bones/carcass of 1 roasted chicken, meat removed
2 unpeeled onions, coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks with leaves, coarsely chopped
2 unpeeled carrots, coarsely chopped
1 head of garlic (unpeeled), separated into cloves
6-8 sprigs of parsley
2 sprigs of thyme (or a tsp or so of dried thyme)
2 bay leaves
10-15 whole peppercorns

Directions:

In a stock pot, combine chicken, onions, celery, carrot, parsley, thyme, bay leaves and peppercorns. Pour in 14 cups of water; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, skimming occasionally, for about 3-4 hours.

Use a slotted spoon to discard the majority of the chicken & vegetables. Strain stock through cheesecloth-lined sieve (or just a regular old strainer) into large bowl, pressing remaining vegetables to extract liquid. Refrigerate until fat congeals on surface, about 8 hours. Lift off fat and discard. Use as needed.

The stock can also be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 1 month.

Dillicious Ukrainian Chicken Soup
My spin on my mother's great soup.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons canola oil
half a medium onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 medium carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 quarts chicken stock
1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken
LOTS of fresh dill

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Cooked egg noodles (optional)

Directions:

Coat a soup pot with oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, carrots, celery and a tbsp or 2 of dill. Cook and stir for about 6 minutes, until the vegetables are softened but not browned. Pour in the chicken stock (and more dill) and bring the liquid to a boil. Add the chicken (and more dill) and simmer for about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper (and any other spices you want – dill is nice).

Add noodles to serve (I don’t put the noodles to cook directly in the soup as they soak up a lot of the broth).

Enjoy!!


P.S. To accompany the soup, I also made these biscuits. They’re pretty much to die for. You should go make some. Now.