Oatmeal Raisin Cookies... From the Joy!

Philip came over last night for some dominoes and he arrived just in time. Turns out that I'd let myself run out of brown sugar. Not only that, but I never even had the coconut shavings that I hoped to add to the Joy Of Cooking's oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. Thankfully Phillip had both at his house and was willing to measure out and bring over the two ingredients. Meanwhile I walked to the Plaid Pantry for some beer.

I got home, Philip came over and we were ready to finish the dough. By now the butter had been sitting out for quite some time and gave no fight to the wooden spoon. We were ready before long. Then we opted to forgo dominoes for an introductory game of backgammon and moved on to a game of scrabble. Interspersed with our fierce competition were three batches of amazing oatmeal raisin cookies.

They were large enough that eating two was an unavoidable over-indulgence and their baking doubled as my heat for the evening. Like a lot of cookies, there is not that much work involved for what you get. Also, like many cookie recipes, you end up with more cookies than one person should eat within a couple of days. I cannot keep myself from eating cookies. Therefore I have resolved to halve the batch and bring them over to friends' houses tomorrow evening. Wednesday at the latest. I may wait to halve the batch until I'm ready to give them away.

Philip also brought me a great print he did! It just goes to show, you should always bake your friends cookie.

PIZZA NIGHT!

[ed. note: found this draft in the hidden archives. published in partial state. 1/1/10]

The other night I made pizza from the Joy of Cooking. Remembering that Becky posted about her pizza awhile back I thought it would be a good chance to compare Joy recipes.

First I called my sister and got her recommendation for toppings. She chose, no surprise, thinly sliced onions and green pepper. She also reminded me to account for rising time, perhaps knowing that I have a tendency to overlook such minor details.

Then I called Lindsay and asked her to bring over her digital camera. I should note that I often find recipes from the Joy of Cooking and follow them through to dinner (or breakfast, in the case of the cornmeal pancakes), however, it's rare that I have my camera's batteries charged. As soon as I realize that there will be no photo to accompany my post I give up on the idea altogether.

While I waited for Lindsay to bike down to my apartment I mixed up the dough and set it next to my heater to rise. It rose while I prepped the vegetables and made up a salad between sips of wine. When it was time to punch down the dough I was pleased to find it so elastic! It was so easy and fun to knead and then pull into a pie shape. Also: there was so much dough! I made two rather large pies and ate them for the next two days. Reading that back, it strikes me as kind of gross. In actuality, it was quite pleasant.

I rolled the first pie and covered it with the onions and peppers. I threw it in the oven and BAM! It became a real deep dish pie. I was totally surprised by how much it rose in the heat. I had brushed oil on the uncooked crust so that by the time it came out it was good brown, but not burnt.

In order to vary my style, I stretched the second pie so the crust was thinner... half-way hoping to come up with something akin to New York Pizza. Because of that, it became a much larger pie. Since I only have a cookie sheet to bake on, the pie became a rectangle. I topped this one with peppers, onions, pork sausage and greenchiles. There was enough

...here's where our prodigal son's account drops off. still, not bad.
also, appreciate: the lighter and hiking-knife on the counter. jack-of-all-trades.

Looks great, T.