Cooking Club: Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

A friend of mine started a Cooking Club and last night was our first meeting. Our Cooking Club is going to meet once a month and the basic premise is that each month we'll have a theme, selected by the person hosting. The host makes a main dish and everyone else has to make an appetizer, side, or dessert to go with the theme. Also, we each need to make something we've never made before. It can be a dish you've made before, but it at least needs to be a new recipe.

Last night's theme was Mexican, so I made the Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies found in the April 2010 Everyday Food Magazine. The picture is theirs, but mine looked pretty good! They were super easy to make and everyone seemed to love them.

I'm hosting next month - so we'll see what I come up with as far as a theme and a main dish!

Rhubarb Cake

Every spring, this giant plant of rhubarb springs up from besides the garage. This is the only plant that I can harvest from on our rental property, and it gives loads and loads of rhubarb.

I've made strawberry rhubarb jam and pie and crumble, but i wanted to try something new. So, here's the recipe for rhubarb cake. (Modified from this recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup milk
• 2-4 cups coarsely chopped fresh rhubarb (I used 4)
  
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation:

In a large mixing bowl with electric hand-held mixer, cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the brown sugar slowly, continuing to beat, until the mixture is well blended and fluffy. Beat the egg and vanilla into the creamed mixture until well-blended.

In a separate bowl sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Combine the lemon juice and milk; add it alternately with the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat after each addition, just enough to blend. Gently fold the chopped rhubarb into the batter; spoon into a greased 9x13x2-inch pan, spreading evenly.

Dash the cinnamon on top of the batter. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 50-60 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan at least 25 minutes, then cut into squares and serve.

Carrot Soup

I guess it was about time for me to get back to the original theme of this blog - this carrot soup was disastrous. I thought oh I'll just get some carrots and whip up this carrot soup in no time. That was my first mistake, because this recipe took a lot longer than I expected. I don't exactly know why because there aren't that many ingredients so maybe I was just slow. It was still going well though, up until the end. Second mistake - I put too much salt in. I usually put way too little and somehow this time I overcompensated. But I thought it would still be edible. Then my third and final mistake - the sesame oil. I either put way too much, or unbeknownst to me mine was the super strong kind she mentions in the article. Once that was in, the whole thing tasted like sesame which is kind of weird with carrots. Li wouldn't even eat it. I ate a little just because I'd put all this time into it, but it was terrible. Frustrating!!!! I definitely want to try it again though because I think it had potential - next time no sesame oil at all. In the comments they suggest curry powder which sounds like a good idea - as long as I go easy on it.

Chicken Patty Pockets

I haven't been cooking a lot the past month or two, and when I do I haven't been trying anything new. But I decided it was time to shake things up and I finally made something from my first issue of Everyday Food Magazine (just like Uma, yay!). I made these chicken patty pockets, which I think Uma made too. The recipe is from Emeril but I don't think they have it on the site. They came out pretty good, except I used ground white meat because it was on sale, and I think the dark meat would have more flavor. Also, the recipe said to broil them for 4 minutes on each side but when I did that they were nowhere near done. I had to bake them for at least 10 more minutes. They had this yogurt sauce on them, with mint and lime, which I really liked. So I think I'll be making them again!

Butternut Squash Crumble

I found this recipe on Boston.com, and decided yesterday's rainy, windy night would be the perfect time to try it. I am a squash fiend, so I was very excited to try this recipe. It's like an apple crumble you might make, except savory.

You can view the recipe here:

Yes, it does have a good deal of parmesan cheese and butter. The recipe came out great, although I would not call it light. It was very filling in the belly. I took a shortcut and used already cut up butternut squash. I found it well worth the extra money. My only other critique was that I didn't mix the crumb topping as well as I could have, so I ended up with some spots that had a sand-like consistency.

I am eating it now for lunch, and I can attest that it does well as leftovers!

Dried Fruit Pork Chops

A little late but I wanted to post this. We've been cooking a bunch lately but mainly just making the rounds through the recipes we already know and love. My recipe repertoire has expanded so much since we started GastroFabulous, it's really amazing!

Anyways, we had a nice Valentine's day with my mom and Oscar (the dog) and we made these pork chops with a nice red (seasonal) sauce of red wine with dried cherries, cranberries, plums, etc. It came out too salty though, I think the result of the chicken stock plus the added salt. Next time I wouldn't add any more. Other than that, it was pretty good, and easy.

Alfajores

Today I made these alfajores, apparently an Argentinian cookie. I had never heard of them but they have dulce de leche which I've always loved. I started yesterday, I made the dough and attempt #1 of the dulce de leche. The cookie dough seemed too crumbly so I added extra butter which helped only a little. The dulce de leche I completely botched - burned it and made a huge mess. So, day 1 was not a success.

But the next day I kept at it. I tried to roll out the dough like the instructions say but it was not happening - way too crumbly. Instead I just shaped it into patties by hand, and that actually worked fine. The baking instructions worked perfectly. I bought a new can of sweetened condensed milk and tried the dulce de leche again. This time I kept a close eye on it and it came out fine. Not great I think - I've had it darker and more flavorful - but still good. I made dulce de leche one other time but I can't remember how it was. So, day 2 - things are looking up!

Finally I paired up the same-sized cookies, spread the dulce de leche, and sandwiched them together. They are quite tasty! But, when they sit there the dulce de leche kind of oozes out and gets messy. I'm bringing them to a friend's house later and I think it'll be quite sticky by then. But, they taste good, so overall a success.