Cookies! (meh)

Okay, so I made these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies today.  The recipe's pretty simple, and we all know how to make cookies, so I won't spend much time on them.  Basically, it's a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe with some extra peanut butter. 

My only change from the recipe is that I didn't have any chocolate chips, so I chopped up some Green & Black's Dark Cooks' Chocolate and used that instead.  The chocolate itself is pretty good, probably too good for these cookies, in fact.  I'm going to have to buy some more for hot chocolate some day.

In the end, the cookies look like normal cookies, but in my opinion, they're not as good.  Maybe it was my peanut butter or something, but these were just a bit too dry.  Also, the chocolate was just a bit too dark for this recipe, maybe it'd be better with some milk chocolate or semi-sweet.  Oh well, next internet recipe is for Lemon Melting Moments--some kind of lemon-frosting cookies.

A Failed Attmept

Well, I finally got around to making the Roasted Garlic and Aubergine Custards with Red Pepper Dressing from the cookbook. This was a long and challenging recipe. I don't know why they'd put it in a book of appetizers and party recipes, because it's too complicate for a party. Basically, you have to roast the garlic, grill the peppers, fry the aubergine (eggplant), and finally mix it all together to make the custard. Then, to top it all off, you have to make the dressing, which isn't that hard, but it's still another thing to have to do. Frankly, I think it takes too long to make, and there are too many things that could go wrong. I don't mind making it for myself, or with a bit of help, but if I were having a party, this is not something I'd make for my guests. Also, it's got loads of garlic in it, so even though it tastes good, it'll make your breath reek for the rest of the night and into the morning.

First, here's a picture of the dish from the book:

Now, here's a picture of my completed dish:

Notice a difference?

There are two things that went wrong here. 

1) Too much cream and not enough egg.  I didn't want to make six custards, so I cut the recipe in half.  I made sure to cut everything in half, except maybe the amount of aubergine, but in the end, I don't think that mattered.  The recipe calls for 1/2 pint of cream and 2 large eggs.  I used 1/4 pint cream, and 1 medium egg.  Okay, so I used an egg that may be a couple ounces lighter, but I don't think that made a lot of difference.  I think I should have used two eggs, and probably a little less cream.  I mean, I cooked these things for 10 minutes longer than the recipe calls for, and they still didn't firm up.  I finally gave up because the top was looking all right:

but when I flipped it over, the bottom still needed cooking:

More egg and less cream would have fixed this problem.

2) Look at that picture at the top again.  See how it's all browned and crispy?  Do you know how you make custards?  Do you know what the recipe says?  The way you make custards, and the way the recipe says, is by baking them in a water bath.  This is to ensure that the custard doesn't dry out, and that the custard is cooked at a constant, low temperature.  Do you know what doesn't happen in a water bath?  Crispy, brown edges, that's what.  I don't know how they made what's in the picture, but it wasn't the way they said in the recipe. 

Anyway, I still ate it, and you can't go wrong with cream and garlic, so it was pretty tasty.  Actually, I quite liked the dressing.  It's just roasted pepper, tomato, red onion, roasted ground cumin, olive oil and vinegar.  So it's nothing surprising, but it's still pretty tasty.  I might make that again.

Next recipes: Number 189 from the book: Grilled Scallops with Brown Butter (Where am I going to get unshelled scallops?), and The Yummiest Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

French Bread Pizza

So, I've finally gotten a chance to cook again.  The computers are shut off at work for half the week, so I've got time at home.  Technically, I'm working on my thesis, but I can't spend all day doing that.  No, no, I need to do some cooking between pages or writing.

Anyway, I finally got to make some Chicken, Bacon, and Ranch French Bread Pizza.  That link has two recipes in it, actually, and I made both of them.  First, there's a recipe for French bread.  I made that on Sunday, and it looked like this:

Not terrible.  I think it could have used a little more sugar for the yeast and a little less kneading from me because it's pretty dense in there.  I followed the recipe to the letter, but in the end, it's not much like French bread at all.  Still, it's passable bread for general consumption.

Next, the pizza part.  I waited until Monday to make the pizza, but I marinated the chicken over night.  Toppings-wise, I went to three stores, and couldn't find any ranch dressing (What's your deal, Glasgow?), so I had to use some "garlic sauce".  It tastes like ranch dressing without any extra spices.  The rest of the ingredients were basically what it says on the recipe, except I through some mushrooms on that baby too.  Before cooking, it looked like this:

Baked, it looked like this:

Looks tasty.

But really, it only tastes kind of 'blah'.  I think all the flavors here are just kind of plain, and there are no sharp, interesting notes here to really enjoy.  It tastes like garlic, oil, and salt on a whole lot of bread.  Well, I guess that's what pizza generally tastes like, but I'm not into that.  My chicken was marinated with salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne, and hot sauce.  Maybe it should have been barbecue. I think instead of ranch, or 'garlic sauce', I should have used something like the white sauce at Pizza Hut.  Sure, it's more fat, but that stuff has flavor.  In the end, I'd say this pizza's a lot more work than it's worth.