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.

Season of the Cookie, 2011 is now officially open here at Tv Food and Drink!  Stop back now through the end of the year for lots and lots of new cookie suggestions, pics and recipes to enjoy!

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Season of the Cookie: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Through these cookies, you will come to understand why it is necessary for me to keep all my toilet paper in the trunk of my car.

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

That 72-ounce bag of Nestle chocolate morsels sounded like a great ingredient to have handy a month ago when I tossed it into my cart at Costco. But that’s back when I was still a producer at GSN Live.  I could have baked up a recipe that served the entire Salinas Valley State Prison and within an hour of busting the results out for the staff and crew, there wouldn’t have been a crumb left standing.

But GSN Live has gone to that great “interstitial-game-talk show heaven” in the sky along with… well, maybe it’s the first to qualify for that particular branch of heaven, but that’s not the point.  There’s just suddenly no need to be making recipes that large anymore, and the chocolate chips stuffed to the seams of that gargantuan bag have becomes less of a valuable component in my baking needs, and more of a nightly snack, gobbled down by the handful while I’m clearing out the 12 episodes of Charlie Rose that have accumulated on my DVR.

So whether or not I was going to be able to find enough people to help take these 24 sinfully satisfying muffins off my hands or not, they simply needed to be made.

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Lemon Cinnamon Icing… or “When I Confused the Salt and the Sugar”

I may be fast approaching middle-age, and on my way to senility, but I’m still entitled to make the mistakes of a rookie now and again.

I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later. Instead of one tablespoon of salt and two cups of sugar, I accidentally used one tablespoon of sugar and two cups of salt in the blackberry buttermilk cake batter I was making.

As you might have guessed, it did not taste delicious.

I suppose I’m no longer allowed to permit my “inside-head” voice to re-assure me I’m smart enough to tell the difference between salt and sugar based on looks alone.

I suppose I’m also no longer allowed to keep the two in identical canisters, sitting right next to one another, unmarked and usually filled to nearly the exact same levels.

I suppose I’ll have to buy one of those label-makers now… the ones that near-sighted great-gradmas have to use so they can tell the difference between the jar of gumdrops and the jar of buttons.

I suppose it could have been worse.  I could have posted it to Facebook.

See right in the middle of the comments, where Gloria says she has no comment?

I suppose that could have been worse too.

She could have decided she did, in fact, have a comment, and call me at home as I was dumping batter into the garbage can and weeping over my ineptitude.

Click on the link below to listen.

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Lemon Blueberry Muffins

The enchanted path of procrastination presents itself to us in many deceptive forms.

These lemon blueberry muffins turned out moist and sweet with just a tiny hint of lemon tanginess. They were a big win, and I’ve been wanting to give them props here for almost two weeks now.

But it just wasn’t meant to be.

I allowed myself to be distracted by many things… but three in particular.

Distraction Number One: I needed to watch Octopussy for what must have been at least the two hundredth time in my life.  Many consider it to be one of the sillier Roger Moore 007 outings, but I quite enjoy it.

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Cookie Dough Truffles

I don’t want to alarm you, but are you aware that Valentine’s Day is less than 48 hours from now?

If you’ve got a Valentine you’re looking to impress, might I suggest these sinfully rich chocolate-covered balls of cookie dough? They will scream your unending love and devotion with every bite and make this one of the most romantic and memorable Valentine’s Days you and your lovebird have ever had.

Or, you can just go with that Ziggy card you’ve got in the top drawer.  It’s your call.

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Blueberry Crumb Bars

Thursdays are, by far, my favorite day to go to work. And it’s not because spectacular things happen to me at work on Thursdays. Spectacular things never happen to me at work, and Thursdays are just like any other day.  9:30 to 11:15 in my office, 11:20 to 3:00 dividing time between the stage and the control room, and once the show ends at 3:00, I wind my way back to my office to prep for the next day, read food blogs and ponder whether or not my life would be any better if I’d actually gone to law school like my mother wanted, instead of going into television.

The reason Thursdays are my favorite day to go to work is because of Anna Maria.

Thursday is when Anna Maria comes and cleans the messes I make at home… the ones that aren’t emotional.

I wince at the thought of calling Anna Maria “my cleaning lady.”  I’m even more uncomfortable with how my building manager refers to her.  ”The water will be turned off this week ‘cuz we’re installing low-flow toilets,” she informed me, “so be sure and tell your maid.”

I haven’t yet found a title for Anna Maria I’m comfortable with.  So most often when I mention her in a conversation, I’ll go to awkward lengths to ensure the proper respect. “Sorry I’m late.  I forgot to leave the key for Anna Maria, the woman who comes to my place and handles the laundry, ensures order in the kitchen and oversees upkeep in the bathroom.”

Of course, Anna Maria has none of these same concerns. Like any good love story, we had a “cute meet,” finding ourselves together in my building’s elevator, practicing our best isolation techniques as strangers trapped together in a confined space often do.  The doors opened to the second floor, and Anna Maria stepped out, turned around and impulsively asked, “You need cleaning lady?” Did she somehow sense in that elevator car that I had wanted to find someone for months, but just didn’t know how to go about it?  ”Yes!”  I instantly said, relieved at the load she had taken off of me, “get back in here!”  And up we went to the fourth floor.  She toured my home, ran down her list of preferred cleaning products, and politely corrected me when I offered her the wrong amount of pay.

And since then, I’ve learned to no longer think about what my life was before her.  Anna Maria scrubs down my oven until it could be mistaken for the showroom model at an appliance store. She takes every item out of my refrigerator to clean the shelves and manages to put everything back exactly where it was before.  She finds space in my meager cabinets to store every dish, pan, glass, pot, and useless kitchen gadget I’ve acquired since I started this foodie quest 16 months ago. She waters my plants, vacuums, dusts, and re-orders all the items in my linen closet… by color.

And she leaves me notes. She leaves them for me in the mini orange spiral notebook I got for free when I signed up for At&T U-Verse and keep next to the telephone in case I need to jot down something important during a call, like it’s still 1978.

Anna Maria and I have cultivated a uniquely personal relationship via this notebook that is neither hampered by the fact that we speak different languages nor that we rarely actually see each other in person.  But it is most definitely a relationship.  If I were to come home on a Thursday night and find a clean house but no note, I know the air would be rife with not only disinfectant, but also betrayal.

As most relationships do, ours started with Anna Maria clearly outlining her needs to me, and showing that she was willing to bring down her guard with a personal touch at the end.

And from there, Anna Maria and I slowly took our relationship to a deeper, more meaningful level.

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