Peanut Butter Cookies

     Recently, I've noticed that there are primarily two types of amateur bakers. First, there are those, like myself, who prefer large, whole baked goods meant to slice and share (i.e. cakes, cheesecakes, pies, tartes). Then, there are those who specialize in individual baked goods like cupcakes and cookies. As for cupcakes, I've always found them a little too trendy to be inspired to make many of them. The one time I tried, sure, I ended up with something yummy, but all day, I felt like I was on some obnoxious Food Network reality show. As for cookies, the reason I often shy away from them is that I usually end up liking the store-bought ones better. I usually over-bake mine because while they're good fresh from the oven, the concept of a soft, preservative-free leftover cookie kind of grosses me out. Still, most cookie recipes just aren't that good if they're too crunchy. Except these. These peanut butter cookies are just as delicious two days later as the minute they came out of the oven. Somehow, the crunch factor is just right. Even though I'm not the biggest peanut butter fan in the world, I get a craving for these cookies about twice a year, and since I'll be going to Europe soon, I figured I may as well get my fix now. Not that I'll miss it or anything when I'm in the land of Nutella.

INGREDIENTS: (makes 24-30)
1 stick of softened salted butter (The salt really works with peanut butter.)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup flour
a few tablespoons of extra granulated sugar for rolling

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a couple of cookie sheets, or be extra careful and line them with parchment paper.
2. Use an electric mixer to beat the butter, peanut butter, and both sugars. Once that's fluffy, add the egg and vanilla.

3. Add the baking soda and flour in batches and beat on medium speed until dough is completely smooth.
4. Form balls out of about 2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie. The dough shouldn't be too sticky to handle, but to make it even easier to work with, pop it in the fridge for a few minutes before this step.
5. Spoon a little bit of extra granulated sugar into a small bowl and roll each dough ball in it to coat all sides. Then place them on the cookie sheets with a few inches in between.

6. To get the typical peanut butter cookie crisscross top, grab a fork and gently press each cookie once in each direction, dipping the fork in water after each cookie to keep it from sticking. Don't press them out too much because they still will expand quite a bit while baking.

7. For the perfect crunch, bake at 350 for 16-18 minutes.

*Variation: if you want, you can skip the crisscross step and instead, bake them a little less and then stick a Hershey's kiss in the middle when you first take them out of the oven. Maybe it's a cliché Christmas cookie, but I like them.

     I'm really glad I finally found a classic cookie recipe that I honestly love. I'm still working on ones for chocolate chip, oatmeal, and others, but I know I'll get there someday. Enjoy, and keep checking back for more!

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

     Finally, I've come to the last of my Thanksgiving recipes just in time for Christmas. But really, aren't all Thanksgiving foods interchangeable with Christmas ones? Cranberry sauce is one thing I wish I could have year round, so I think it's definitely not too late to make some.  In the past, cranberry sauce was the only Thanksgiving food that I consistently hated, and that's because I just couldn't understand how a glob of jello from a can qualified as a sauce. It does not. Because I now know that homemade cranberry sauce is one of the simplest recipes ever, it's an even more confusing and upsetting experience for me when I find that most people still resort to the cans. Seriously people, it takes 10 minutes and essentially only 3 ingredients (although I add more for fun) to make something infinitely better. That's why every year, I make it my mission to convert as many people as possible to this delicious, fresh cranberry sauce that's actually a sauce.

INGREDIENTS:
12oz fresh cranberries
1 cup water
1 cup sugar---add more if desired
zest of 1 orange (optional)
3/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a medium-sized pot, stir 1 cup of sugar into the water and bring just to a boil to dissolve.
2. Add the cranberries to the pot and let them cook until they pop and the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes. It'll go through stages of getting pink and foamy, but in the end, it'll be beautiful.

3. When the berries pop and it gets to this stage, turn off the heat. Taste test it to see if it's sweet enough. If it's still to sour or bitter for your taste, add a little more sugar. If you're a minimalist, you can call it done now.
4. If you want to make it extra special, chop some walnuts, zest and orange, and mix that into the sauce while it's still warm.
5. Let the sauce cool, and then store it in the fridge. This is great to make a day or two in advance.

     I promise this actual sauce is worth the little bit of extra effort. Once you try it, you'll never go back to the canned version. Enjoy, and stay tuned for one more recipe later today. In the meantime, check out this soufflé. It's a challenge, but a skill for all to master.

Corn and Cheddar Soufflé

     This Thanksgiving, I knew I wanted to make some sort of cornbread-like dish as I usually do, but I wanted to step it up a notch from the usual cornbread casserole from a box mix, not that that's not good too. Ever since I made my first chocolate soufflé and discovered that although slightly tricky, soufflé isn't the impossible challenge everybody makes it out to be, I've also been wanting to try some savory versions of it. This corn variation is perfect for a fancy side dish to a holiday dinner, but still has just a little touch of sweetness. It involves only a few more steps than its chocolate cousin, and is a great next step in your (and my) journey to mastering soufflés.

INGREDIENTS: (makes 6 individual ramekins)
about 2 tablespoons each of grated parmesan and flour (for coating ramekins)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 stick of butter
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup flour
5 eggs, separated and at room temperature
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1 cup thawed frozen corn, divided

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 400. Then, right before you put the soufflé in to bake, lower it to 375. Butter the bottom and sides of the ramekins, mix a couple to tablespoons of flour with a couple of tablespoons of parmesan and use that to coat the ramekins as if you were flouring a cake pan.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Set aside.
3. Carefully separate the eggs into two bowls, and stick the metal bowl of an electric mixer in the freezer for a few minutes to prepare it for whipping the whites.
4. In a blender or food processor, puree the milk and 1/2 cup of the thawed corn until smooth.
5. Melt the butter in a medium-sized pot, and vigorously whisk in 1/4 cup of flour and cook for a couple of minutes until combined.
6. Take this pot off the heat for a minute and then slowly stream in the corn puree, whisking constantly. Once it's combined, return it to the heat, stir in the spice mixture, and continue to cook for a few minutes just until it thickens and the first few bubbles appear. Then immediately remove from heat.

7. Wait a moment for it to cool slightly, then whisk in the egg yolks one at a time. Be sure to whisk quickly and constantly so that the eggs don't get too hot and start to scramble. When combined, transfer the mixture to a large bowl.

8. Now it's time to transfer the egg whites along with 2 tablespoons of sugar to your pre-chilled bowl, crank the electric mixer to high and whip them up. For soufflé, you always want stiff peaks, which is a notch above the usual whipped cream-like consistency for cakes and the like. Some secrets to egg whites include flawless separation, room temperature eggs, a frozen metal bowl, a really good mixer with a whisk attachment, and sometimes a tiny splash of lemon juice.

9. Add about 1/3 of the egg whites to the yolk mixture and use a rubber spatula to gently fold them in. Once the mixture is lightened, fold in the shredded cheese and the rest of the egg whites. Mix it until it is just combined. Then, spoon it into the individual ramekins.

10. Now take the other 1/2 cup of thawed corn, divide it equally between the ramekins, and stir them into by hand. I do this last so that the corn kernels don't fall to the bottom.

11. Remember to lower the oven temperature to 375 and bake these for 25-30 minutes. Turn the oven light on to keep an eye on them because it's essential that you do not open the oven at any time during the baking process, or they could collapse. Now I've never been able to get soufflés that grow to be a whole lot taller than their containers, but I'd consider a nice puff on top to be a success.

12. Be very careful as you remove these from the oven, and be sure to serve (or in my case, photograph) them immediately because they will start to sink the longer you wait.

Soufflé is a rather mysterious but magical display of food chemistry at work, and although I don't yet fully understand it, I certainly can appreciate it, and you can too! Enjoy, and come back soon for more!

Apple-Cranberry Pie

      What do you know? It's Pie Monday again! I think this is my third variation on apple pie, but what can I say? It's an American classic! Today's version is a Thanksgiving/Christmas twist, which you'll love just as long as you like cranberries. Personally, I like them so much that I look for excuses to add them to all sorts of recipes. They are of course, very tart, so if that's not your thing, check out my more traditional go-to apple pie. This link also includes directions for making your own pie crust. (Double the quantities for a double-crust pie.) This time, I used a store-bought one because we just happened to have one in the fridge, so instead of making it from scratch, I decided to turn the pre-made one into a lattice and give detailed directions for that. In fact, my original plan was to cut out little leaf shapes from the dough and make a festive to crust out of those, but I apparently don't own a leaf-shaped cookie cutter. Despite that change of plans, I think this turned out to be one of my most carefully constructed, beautiful pies.

INGREDIENTS:
2 homemade or pre-made pie crusts
4 medium Granny Smith apples
1 12oz bag fresh cranberries
2/3 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

To finish the top:
about 2 teaspoons raw sugar
1 egg+splash of water

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 and grease a 9in. pie plate.
2. Make/prep your crust. Fit one into the pie rush and set aside.
3. Wash cranberries. Wash, peel, and slice the apples. If you have a handy dandy apple-peeler-corer-slicer, this step is really easy.

4. In a large bowl, toss the fruit with the granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, spices, and pecans.

5. Spoon the filling into the bottom crust. Use as much as possible, but it's better to have extra than to overfill it.

6. To make a lattice crust, roll out the other half of the dough in the same size circle and use a pizza cutter to cut equal strips. Logically, use the longest strips in the middle for the widest part of the pie. As few as 8 strips is enough, and an easy number to use to learn this technique.
7. Place four dough strips vertically across the pie. Then, fold back the second and fourth vertical strips far enough to place a horizontal strip across almost the center of the pie, but a little off-center. Once it's in place, fold back the vertical strips. Now it will look like the one horizontal strip weaves over vertical strips 1 and 3 and under vertical strips 2 and 4.

8. Now fold vertical strips 1 and 3 halfway back. Place another horizontal strip parallel to the first one, and unfold the vertical strips so that you have another horizontal strip that weaves under vertical strips 1 and 3 and over 2 and 4.

9. Continue this weaving pattern until the pie is covered.

10. Now it's time to finish the edge of the crust. If you made your own crust, you may have enough extra on the bottom to tuck in the lattice edges and pinch the edge just with that excess. That doesn't happen when I use a pre-made crust, so to add integrity to the edge, I gather the scraps of unused lattice pieces and roll that out into a thin snake, long enough to circle the whole pie and work all of that together until it looks like this:

11. To give the top crust a little extra pizzazz, brush it with egg wash and sprinkle some fancy sugar on it. Just beat an egg with a splash of water, and apply it over the crust with a pastry brush. Then take a couple packets of sugar in the raw and sprinkle it evenly.

12. Bake on a cookie sheet at 375 for about an hour. Keep an eye on the crust, and cover it with foil if it browns too soon. Try to be patient and let it cool before serving.

Enjoy, and come back throughout the week for more holiday recipes!

We're Capable of More Than We Think

      The day has finally come! I’m finally ready to start working on the other section of this blog, the much anticipated travel section! I leave for Germany on January 8th, so staring then, and maybe a little before then, I’m going to post about my adventures gallivanting around Europe. This page is meant for my friends and family to keep up with where I am and what I’m doing next semester, but also for anyone else interested in studying abroad. I’m not quite sure yet how much of it will be food-related, but that’s why I’ve created a second section of the site. Hopefully, I’ll have the time and resources to do both travel posts and more recipes. The following is my writing sample for my application to become a study abroad blogger for my university. If I get the job, I anticipate a lot of shameless copying and pasting from that blog to this one, but I don’t think there’s any law against plagiarizing from myself. Anyway, I’m excited about this new chapter, and I hope you enjoy reading about my experiences.

            As of today, I have about a month left before I leave to spend the spring semester in Reutlingen, Germany, and I couldn’t be more excited! Still, it goes without saying that I’m nervous too. Some of my biggest passions in life are travel, foreign languages, and foreign cultures, but even so, my decision to study abroad was not an easy one. I always knew I wanted to study in Germany at some point, but my fear of the unknown kept making me feel like I wasn’t ready yet. There were so many questions to answer, lists to make, and problems to solve, but if only I had just a few more months, maybe I would be ready by then. And then I realized something. I’m never going to feel ready, so I just have to get on the plane and figure it out as I go along. I’m never going to have all the answers or know exactly what to expect. There will be unforeseen challenges, and I have to make peace with the fact that not every decision I make will be the right one.  But learning to meet those challenges is how I’ll grow and learn to trust myself. I know I’ll be a different person when I come back, and I’m excited for that transformation.

            Luckily, underneath all my nervousness lies a stronger peace. I know that everything will be okay, because on a smaller scale, I’ve experienced this sort of transformation before. In high school, I studied German for four years, and for some strange reason, I really had a knack for it. During the summer before my senior year, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend a month living with a German host family and travelling around Germany with other students. On the first day, I was so terrified that I almost didn’t get on the plane, but by the last day, I would have given anything to stay just a little longer. On my last morning there, I sat down to breakfast, and my host dad told me something that I’ll never forget. Roughly translated, he said that we’re always capable of more than we think. I’ve decided, that’s going to be my mantra in Reutlingen. It sounds cliché, but that summer profoundly changed my entire way of thinking about myself and the world, and somehow, I felt more at home in Germany than I ever have anywhere else. So in a way, I’m thinking of my semester in Reutlingen as a homecoming of sorts. I’m going back to a place that I love, and I’ll get to rediscover all the things that I’ve missed about it.

Like the breathtaking landmarks:                                  

And 500-year-old buildings that look like this:

 And this:                                                                                              

And of course, the amazing food!