Snickerdoodles - The Old Reliable of Cookies

Well, since Seeley decided to take a break from cookies the last few weeks, I thought it would be a good time for me to make some.  I’m not doing anything crazy, though.  Like with the chocolate chip cookies I made last, I’ll be going traditional.  If it ain’t broke and all that… right?  Besides, who doesn’t love snickerdoodles?  Anything named with the words snicker and doodle has to be good.  To make it even better, they’re quick and easy to make. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• ½ cup butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 ½ cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt

And to roll them in:

• ¼ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Cookies come together pretty quickly, so go ahead and preheat your oven to 350°.  As always with cookies, everything needs to be room temperature.  Drop your softened butter into a mixing bowl along with ¾ cup sugar. 

Mix those until they are light and fluffy, then add the egg and vanilla.

Scrape everything down and mix until thoroughly incorporated.

You can mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, but I was being lazy, so I just added the flour and sprinkled the soda, powder, and salt on top.  Mix until it all comes together.  The dough should be soft, but not really sticky. 

Now for what makes a snickerdoodle, a snickerdoodle.  In a small bowl, put ¼ cup sugar, ½ teaspoon cinnamon (make sure it’s fresh.  It should be really fragrant), and ¼ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg.  What?  Nutmeg?  Snickerdoodles don’t have nutmeg.  Well, they do when I make them.  It adds a little extra spice that perks them up just a bit. 

Stir or shake those together until you have a nice even mixture.  Now, prepare your assembly line.  Dough, spoon, cinnamon mixture, and parchment lined cookie sheet. 

As you’ve probably noticed by now, there is a much different backdrop in my pictures these days.  My move has been mentioned briefly, but I haven’t said much else.  Now is probably a perfect time for me to say how much I love my new kitchen.  I went from a big, but old kitchen with nowhere to put anything, to all of my gadgets and toys having practically a whole room to themselves. 

Except my Kitchenaid, which is used often enough that it gets to live in the main part of the kitchen.  We all win. 

Anyway, I could go on for hours about all the things I love in there, but I don’t want to bore you, so we’ll return to your regularly scheduled program.  Back to cookies.  Scoop a rounded tablespoon of dough and drop it into your sugar mixture.  Roll/toss your balls around until they are completely coated. 

Place them onto the prepared sheet pan, leaving plenty of space between them.  Apparently I forgot to take a picture of that part, probably because I was anxious to get them into the oven so I could eat them.  That being said, bake them for 10 – 12 minutes.  They’ll be just starting to brown round the edges. 

Allow them to cool on the pan for a minute or two and then move them to a rack.  Although, one of them will likely find its way into your mouth along the way.  Crispy edges, chewy in the middle, sweet and spicy, they are irresistible. 

What is your favorite part of your kitchen?

A Stirfry of Sorts

I love fast, one-pot meals.

In my travels through cookbooks and other recipe sites I've often come accross recipes for sausages and peppers. Now, I'm not a big fan of most Italian sausage (*Taneasha cringes*) because there's usually too much fennel for my taste. But there's a great Italian market on my way home from work that makes a spicy pork sausage with no fennel!

And spicy pork sausage can satisfy my cravings, fast! (*Taneasha rolls her eyes*)

Sausage Stir Fry

• 2 spicy Italian pork sausages
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1/2 zucchini
• 4 mushrooms
• 1 small onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 small tomatoes (2 Romas would also work)
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/4 c Italian flat leaf parsley

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Break the sausage up into the pan.

While the sausage browns, chop your veggies. Leave them a little chunky so they'll have some substance once they're cooked.

Add the onions, garlic, mushrooms, peppers, and zucchini. Shove this around in the pan for a few minutes.

Once the onion starts to look a bit transluscent, add the tomatoes and the vinegar. 

I hadn't been planning on the vinegar when I put together the ingredients pic, but I was feeling like this was going to need a bit more zip to it so I spalshed some in with the tomatoes. It worked. A bit of wine would work here too, but I'm kinda out of wine.

After a few minutes the tomatoes will be mostly obliterated.

Throw in the parsley.

There are a few different ways you can serve this. I had mine over a wild and brown rice mixture. Rice totally works. You could also toss some cooked pasta shapes, like farfalle or rotini, into the pan with the stir fry. This would make a great sub sammich filling as well, especially if you topped it with cheese and put it under the broiler. I'm also thinking it would be fun to put onto some pizza dough. Or into the dough! Calzone anyone??

Whatever you do though, make sure there's some cheese involved. On mine, I used some freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

Which makes me realize that a scoop or two of this stir fry on a plate next to Taneasha's Potato Parmesan Pie would be freaking tasty.

What do you like to top with cheese?