Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Macaroons OR “My Not So Time-Sensitive Thoughts on a 1990s Super Couple”

I know I’m late to the party on this, but Ross and Rachel WERE on a break and he totally had every right to sleep with that copy girl!

And my Facebook friends support me… more or less.

Continue reading “Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Macaroons OR “My Not So Time-Sensitive Thoughts on a 1990s Super Couple”” »

Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Crackle Cookies OR “If You’re Wimpy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands”

Valentines’ Day Recipes: Cream Cheese Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

What do you make of this situation… perhaps you’ve experienced it?  You work up a cookie recipe.  You appraise the out-of-oven results as a bronze medal effort at best.  Yet all your co-workers go cuckoo for them like you’ve brought in a basket full of free iPads.

The eaters are satisfied, but the baker is not.  What do you do… continue to mess with the recipe, or let it stand as is?

I will admit that the flavor and richness of these particular cookies increased dramatically by the second day.  The addition of the cream cheese didn’t do as much to moisten them up the way I thought they might, but a glass of milk or a little bit of coffee was enough to overcome that.  And visually, they’re certainly on the high end of the enticement scale.  But to be honest, I have an even bigger issue I’d like to share with you.

Above is a picture of the desk just to the left of where I sit at my new job.  In the last two weeks, no less than three employees have been stationed there, and every single one of them has requested to be moved someplace else on the first day.   Don’t get me wrong… I’m the kind of guy who likes to stretch out when he’s hard at work.  Example: I always choose the handicapped stall whenever available.  But I have to tell you I’m starting to take this personally.  Additionally, I now have no one to throw crumpled up post-its at for late-afternoon jollies.  My aim isn’t nearly good enough to hit that girl way over there by the wall.  Maybe with a stapler, but a post-it note is just gonna veer to the side like a housefly with only one good wing. Besides, I’m sure she could beat me up.

I think I might be slowly turning into a social pariah.  I’d talk to my therapist about it, but he moved to a new office and forgot to tell me where.  I’d talk to my sister about it, but she charges more to listen than my therapist.  This puts me in mind of the time my mom drove to my elementary school to pick me up, and then inexplicably drove off again before I actually reached the car.  Some things… the hurt just never totally goes away.

As I see it I only have one recourse: flood the office with cookies until I win my co-workers over with refined sugar or until the next person who gets that desk becomes so fat so fast that the thought of re-locating their adding machine and “I Hate Mondays” mug just seems like more trouble than its worth.

Click here to get the recipe for Cream Cheese Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Season of the Cookie: Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies – VIDEO

Also known as “gobs,” “bobs” “black-and-whites” and “BFO’S” (Big Fat Oreos), the whoopie pie is the official “state treat” of Maine.  These cakey cookies exploding with buttercream have never had their origins fully explained, though most attribute it to Pennsylvania Dutch country.

My sister Jodi and I recently had an all-day marathon cookie making session that included carrot cake cookies (see them here), chocolate mint sandwich cookies (here), and these peanut butter whoopie pies.  Working side by side, we quickly reverted to the traditional roles we held growing up within the structure of the Green family.  She transformed into the bossy taskmaster who knows better than everyone else, while I became the whiney “mistake child” who resorts to raising his voice and cutting other people off in an effort to have his opinion respected.  If you don’t believe me, check out the VIDEO PROOF below.

The combination of my sister’s and my family-fostered dysfunction and rampant insecurities appears to have worked wonders!  By the end of the day we had something along the lines of 300 cookies cooling on dishes and parchment paper slices all over my home.  And they all turned out pretty spectacular, plus we were still speaking to one another. There was a brief “missing acrylic fingernail” panic, but what kitchen experience is complete without one of those? Continue reading “Season of the Cookie: Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies – VIDEO” »

Season of the Cookie: Chocolate Mint Sandwich Cookies

Thin Mints are now relics of your past. THIS is the cookie recipe girl scouts will kill to keep out of your hands!

Forget what The Bossa Nova favorite, “Once I Loved” tells you.  I am here to testify that love is in fact not the saddest thing when it goes away.  A plate of these chocolate mint sandwiches disappearing is far far worse.  It’s enough to send me to the bottom of the swimming pool in my apartment courtyard, sucking my thumb and desperately holding on to a lead teddy bear.

Think “chocolate covered mint Oreos” and you’re pretty much on board.

Here is that phenomenal cookie that will keep you up at night, as it quietly calls your name from that easily infiltrated plastic dessert container on your kitchen counter.  You know… the one you have every intention of taking with you to work the next day because you truly mean to share these sinfully rich cookies – gooey on the outside, crispy on the inside, and a rich chocolaty peppermint center – with your co-workers.

But really, is that actually going to happen?  What have your lousy co-workers really done for you?  A sheet cake with your name misspelled for your birthday and a Darth Vader Get Well card when you were sick (“I sense a disturbance in the force!”).

Fuck ‘em.

Share these with nobody.  And I guarantee that at least one of these cookies you end up eating while your pajamas are on.

Continue reading “Season of the Cookie: Chocolate Mint Sandwich Cookies” »