Apple Cake

It's officially fall now, and you know what that means?  Apples!  You know what else I love about fall?  Cakes!  Fall and winter are prime cake baking time because it's finally cool enough to actually enjoy having the oven on, and the cozy feeling that comes with it.  As opposed to summer when, unlike my parents, I will indeed turn my oven on, but when I do, I'm often chased into the basement to get some respite from the heat.  To recap, 2 great things about fall: apples and cake.  There is an obvious next step staring us in the face here, and it's called apple cake.

There must be some kind of apple cake high council that met long ago and ratified the master version of this recipe, because the many variations I encountered were all basically the same at their core.  The amount of oil, sugar, eggs and flour was very similar from one to another.  I saw one that called for half butter and half oil.  I saw a few that called for a bit more flour or a bit less apples than I used.  A few contained nutmeg in addition to or in place of cinnamon.  One more contemporary version called for serving a butterscotch sauce on top, which seemed cloyingly sweet and unnecessary to me.  I love butterscotch as much as the next girl, but do you want to taste the apples or not?  And there was one that called for canned apple pie filling, which is an absolute travesty any time of year, but especially now.  In the end, I went with a version that my mom has always made and has been in her recipe file for decades.  Since it is very similar to most of the recipes I found, and because it was always so good, I changed absolutely nothing.  Who am I to argue with the National Association for Apple Cake Integrity?

Apple Cake

As you can see, I used a 9 x 13 pan, but my sister-in-law makes a similar recipe and uses a Bundt pan.  I like to make a foil liner for the pan when I make a snack cake like this so I can lift the entire cake out of the pan to cut it.  That way I don't scratch up my bakeware with a knife.  I used Granny Smiths because their tartness complements the sweetness of the cake nicely, but the choice of apple is obviously up to you.  The batter will be very thick; it's almost more like a cookie dough than a cake batter.  You will need to smooth it out into an even layer before baking.  I served mine for dessert along with coffee or milk, as the diner preferred, but it was great the next morning for breakfast, too.  Also works well as just an anytime snack. 

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

3 cups apples, peeled and chopped (if using Granny Smiths, this is about 2 or 3 of the jumbo ones, or 4 to 5 smaller ones)

1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped (optional)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Prepare a 9 x 13 baking pan by lining with foil and spraying the foil with vegetable oil cooking spray, or leave out the foil and grease and flour the pan.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon and whisk until well mixed.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla.  Add the flour mixture and stir until just combined.  Add the chopped apples and nuts, if using, and fold into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, making sure to spread it out into an even layer and into the corners of the pan.  Bake for 1 hour at 300 degrees.  Allow to cool before slicing.

 

Tomato Sauce

I have a fleeting memory from my childhood that taunts me with its vagueness.  Like many beloved memories of those days, it centers around 2 of my favorite things: my grandparents, and food.  This memory is about tomato sauce.  Sweet, perfectly seasoned sauce from ripe, juicy, homegrown tomatoes from my grandparents' garden.  They had a huge yard (at least by St. Louis standards), and across the entire back of the yard was a massive garden with rows and rows of tomato plants.  I know they grew other things as well, but I can't remember what they were.  I only remember the tomatoes because they were transformed into the fabulous sauce coveted by my parents and my aunt and uncle.

But the details are sketchy.  I remember being at their house several times on sauce day--you do NOT forget a smell that wonderful--but I don't remember any of the particulars and it seems no one in the family really does.  The entire operation took place in their basement, from what I remember.  I think they even had a separate stove down there were they cooked it all up.  Then there was some kind of process where the cooked mixture was taken from spent chunks of tomato and onion to a smooth sauce, and it was processed and canned.  It was an Italian-ish sauce that I suspect had, at the very least, basil and oregano, from what I remember about the way it tasted.  But I don't know what else, if anything, was in there.  I so wish I had asked my grandma what was in it.  By the time I was old enough to appreciate it and ask, she was already suffering from dementia and there's no way she would have remembered.  During the later years in her life, my dad would often make her recipes when he would bring my grandparents to our house for dinner.  Then he'd say, "Remember when you used to make this, mom?"  And she would say, "I made that???" in total bewilderment.  As if to say, wow, I was a great cook!  Yes.  Yes you were, grandma. 

When my grandparents stopped making the sauce, my mom and dad basically had to learn how to cook all over again without it.  Suddenly tomato sauce wasn't magically pre-seasoned anymore, and some things really never tasted the same again.  Over the years I've wanted to try and give it back to them.  (And myself!)

So last year Marc and I tried our hand at re-creating it for the first time, and it didn't take us too long to get a good ratio of herbs, sugar, salt, etc. to tomatoes, but the step where it actually became sauce was a little more difficult.  We tried a food mill, which was slow and not very effective.  Next we decided to just take the entire mixture and blend it all up, skins and all.  It tasted great, but Otto and Marguerite's sauce did not have seeds in it, and I wanted to make their sauce.  Talking with my brother about it recently, he said he remembered an attachment that Grandma put on her standing mixer that strained the sauce, expelling all the solids.  Eureka!  I ordered this for my standing mixer and now I think I'm finally on my way to replicating it.  I will admit that even my memories of the taste are vague, though.  So I don't know if I have it just right, but I think my grandparents' version would have been very simple, just like mine is.  Dried basil and oregano, salt, sugar, garlic cloves and onion pretty much covers it.  I would imagine theirs was not any fancier than that. And it still brings back a great food memory, even if that memory is a little fuzzy.

Seasoned Tomato Sauce

If you don't have a standing mixer to buy the attachments for, or you don't want to spend the money on the attachments, feel free to just blend everything up after cooking.  I actually think I like it better with the seeds and skins in it because, while still saucy, it gives it a nice body.  If you go for the straining method as I did, it will be very nice and smooth, but a little thin.  In the end it's yummy either way, so it's really all about your texture preferences. The lemon juice is an added safety measure to keep the sauce acidic enough to ward off bacteria growth.  You don't want to be handing out jars of botulinum toxin.  So don't skip that step.  The sugar in the sauce should take care of whatever sourness the juice adds.

12 lbs tomatoes, cored and quartered
1 head garlic, peel the cloves and just leave them whole
2 Tablespoons salt
1 large onion, cut into chunks 
3 Tablespoons dried basil
1 1/2 Tablespoons dried oregano
about 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar
bottled lemon juice

Put all ingredients except the lemon juice in a large stock pot and bring to a simmer.  Simmer uncovered over a low heat until sauce is reduced by at least a third to as much as a half.  This will take quite a few hours.  Chill the sauce overnight and either blend in a food processor or blender, or use the above mentioned standing mixer attachments to strain out the solids.  If you just want to blend it you could also use a stick (immersion) blender and that way you will not need to chill the sauce first.  Bring the sauce back to a simmer and then fill clean, hot mason jars with hot tomato sauce and 1 Tbs. lemon juice per pint, leaving 1/2" of headspace.  Secure the lids and rings on the jars and process in a boiling water bath for at least 35 minutes.  Make sure all jars have sealed once they are cool.  Makes about 8 to 10 pints, depending on how much you cook it down.

Split Pea Soup

  

I'm back!  And I brought soup!  For those of you who've been asking when I was going to post again, thanks for your loyalty to the blog and I apologize for my absence.  For those who didn't notice I had been gone, some friend you are.  (Kidding.)

And so the inhibition-free smorgasbord of culinary delights that is the holiday season is long gone, and we've all had to find a way to be "good" again.  Towards the end of the holidays, I actually got to where I was tired of eating.  I know, I'm as surprised as you are.  Cookies, candy, big, guilt-laden breakfasts.... it all became too much after a while.  My family came here to my house for Christmas, and I made chicken parmigiano one night, chicken cordon bleu another night, we went out to eat a few times, and I made breakfasts consisting of things like an egg-bacon-potato casserole thing with a sausage gravy over the top, homemade doughnuts, french toast and so on and so on.  I feel like I'm getting fatter just reading about all the stuff I cooked.  I guess, other than it just being a new calendar year and time for a fresh start, that's probably why so many people start eating healthy right after New Year's.  If they're anything like me, they reach a point where they are actually craving things like a bowl of oatmeal, or some granola and yogurt instead of pancakes and bacon.

I've been sitting on this recipe for a while; it was actually one of the first things I made to get back in (relatively) healthy mode again once the holidays were over.  There is nothing better than a steaming bowl of hearty, stick-to-your-ribs comfort food, unless said comfort food is not just delicious, but healthy.  Good for you and good tasting almost never go together, so let this be one of those happy occasions.  

Fiber, veggies, lean protein - this soup has it all.  And it is infinitely adaptable. I made it with a good, lean ham here, but many of the times I've made it, I used turkey smoked sausage.  You could also use a ham bone if you had one, or, although I've never made it that way, I'm pretty sure it would be great with no meat at all, if you're going for an all-veggie version.  I've made it with green peas and a combination of yellow and green peas.  Both were great.  You can play with the ratios of vegetables endlessly.  Don't like celery?  Leave it out and just put in more carrots or whatever you do like.  Want to try some little cauliflower florets in there?  Yeah, sounds good to me.  Want to leave the skins on the taters?  Sure!  Don't have any chicken broth in your pantry?  Use water and maybe just a pinch more salt.  Trust me, it's still good.  Another added bonus, especially if you're cooking for only 2 people like I am - it freezes beautifully.  I put it into individual serving sizes and freeze it for Marc to take to work for lunch.  When you reheat it, just add a smidgen of water to thin it out a touch and it comes back to life as if you just made it.

It hasn't really felt much like winter yet in Kansas this year, but I don't care because I would eat this soup in the dog days of summer.  Enjoy!

Split Pea Soup

I call for red potatoes because they stand up nicely to the cooking and won't fall apart like russets might.  Yukon gold would also work great, or if you don't care if your potatoes fall apart, then by all means, use a russet if you like.  As I said above, infinitely adaptable.

1 lb. lean ham, cut into cubes

5 medium carrots, peeled and chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 large celery rib, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1 small or 1/2 a large onion, diced (about 1 cup)

2 small red potatoes, peeled and cubed (about 1 cup)

1 lb. split peas

4 c. low sodium chicken broth (32 oz. box)

3 c. water

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

Throw all the stuff into a pot and bring to a boil.  Turn heat down to low, cover and simmer gently for about an hour and a half or until the peas are cooked through and some are beginning to break down.  Remove bay leaves and serve.

It was really hard to get a good picture of this as a finished product.  To be honest, it's just not that pretty.  That's why I put the far more attractive image of the uncooked ingredients up at the top.  But just in case you still want to see it, here is a finished bowl.  But don't take my camera's word for it, make you own and just see how good it looks when it's sitting right in front of you.  :)

Peanut Brittle

Has it really been 3 weeks since my last post?  Wow.  Traveling out of town for Thanksgiving + being in charge of about half of the big meal + the school semester coming to a close = Insanity.  At least Thanksgiving was an enjoyable kind of insanity.  My niece, Celeste, took an instant liking to my brother Drew, and we all enjoyed hearing her call him "that guy" and "mister."  "Mommy, can I sit next to that guy at dinner?" she would ask.  Priceless.

So now it would seem the insanity of the Christmas season is upon us and, while crazy, this is my favorite time of year.  I'm a sucker for tradition, and developing new traditions as I get older.  When I was young, I remember wrapping presents one year while The Grinch was on tv (the good old animated version), so then the next year I played and replayed and replayed our video tape of it while I was wrapping.  Like, literally for hours.  It became my thing.  I could barely stand to wrap gifts without having The Grinch on in the background.  I still play it when I wrap, but at least now that I'm older I don't replay it over and over again.

One of my more recent holiday traditions is candy making.  I think this is my 5th year of doing it and every year I add to my repertoire.  It started as an attempt to do something other than Christmas cookies with a version or 2 of fudge and probably some buttercrunch, and has become a ridiculous, all-out affair that sucks up at least one entire weekend of December every year.  Of all the things I do in the kitchen all year long, candy making may just be my favorite.  I get so excited about it that pretty much by Thanksgiving, I already know which weekend is going to get sucked into the candy black hole and have a list of all the things I'm going to make.  After I hit the grocery store to buy all my supplies, I unload them right onto the counter and leave them there like a trophy, so I can watch the raw materials turn into something wonderful.  When I'm finished, I divide everything up so that Marc and I can each take a little of everything to work and I also give some to friends and family.  One year when I was still living in St. Louis, I took so much candy to work that the 40 some-odd people in my department plus the random passers-by from other departments could not finish everything I brought in even after a full day of grazing.  I was almost embarrassed by the amount of stuff, but in the end it kind of made me an office legend.  My boss even gave me a $50 gift card on behalf of the company to offset the cost of the ingredients.  HA!

I get a thrill out of candy making for 2 reasons: (1) usually the results taste awesome and (2) it is such a challenge.  Cookies taste great, and there is certainly some skill involved if you want to make really good ones, but candy is an art and a science where you live and die by the thermometer and your level of preparation.  The magical transformations that sugar undergoes at certain temperatures can be wielded in such a way that exactly the same ingredients can turn out totally different just depending on how hot you cook it.  How cool is that?

I have some regular items that I make every year.  I always make pralines for my mom, some chocolate covered coconut almond candies that kind of taste like an Almond Joy for my husband, and a 4 layered fudge that tastes like a Snickers bar for myself.  Another one of my usuals is peanut brittle.  I have faithfully made it every year that I've made candy, and over the years I've gotten better and better at it.

I want to just take a minute to be a lame-o and encourage you to practice good kitchen safety when making candy.  Boiling sugar is much, MUCH hotter than boiling water, and if you burn yourself on it, it will stick to your skin which means it's also in contact with your skin longer than boiling water would be.  Please do not make this recipe if there are little ones or furry kids under foot.  Get them out of the kitchen first.  Also, it's imperative to be prepared.  Prepare your pan and all your ingredients first.  Make sure you have a trivet or a potholder where you can set your hot pot, and a spoon rest where you can put your boiling hot candy covered spoon or scraper, should the need arise.  Know where your oven mitts are.  And for God's sake, wear shoes or at least socks.  One time I dropped a little drop of boiling sugar and it landed on my bare foot - you don't forget a thing like that, even if it is a tiny drop.

Also, if you're cooking on an electric stove like I am, first of all, my condolences.  Do you dream about this at night, too?  No?  Ok, maybe I need to get some help.  At any rate, if anything makes candy making even more of a challenge, it's an electric stove because it is so hard to control the heat.  Always make sure you have an unused burner or a cool place to set the pot so that when you hit the right temperature, you can immediately remove it from the heat.  Speaking of temperatures, unless you are well versed in the whole put-a-drop-of-candy-in-some-water-and-see-if-it-makes-a-hard-thread thing, you MUST have a thermometer to make candy.  My old faithful one recently crapped out and I replaced it with this one, which I really like had potential to be great but then broke after the first time I used it.  I didn't figure out that it wasn't working properly until I had already ruined a batch of brittle.  Screw.  That.

Now I'm off to put the last layer on my Snickers fudge.  And in Whoville they say that Sallie's stomach grew 3 sizes that day!

Peanut Brittle

Warming the sheet pan in the oven first is optional, but I think it provides a couple extra seconds to get the candy in an even layer before it hardens.

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup corn syrup

1 cup sugar

dash of salt

1 1/2 cups Spanish peanuts

2 Tbs. butter, cut into about 6 to 8 cubes

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. baking soda

Preheat the oven to about 200 and put in a sheet pan covered with parchment paper to warm up.  Measure out all ingredients first before cooking and have them sitting near the stove.  In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring water, corn syrup, salt and sugar to a boil, making sure all sugar dissolves.  When the mixture reaches 240 degrees, add the peanuts.  Continue to cook, stirring constantly until mixture reaches 300 degrees.  When the mixture is getting close to the right temperature, pull the warm pan out of the oven.  When the temperature reaches 310,  pull the saucepan off the heat and quickly add butter, vanilla and baking soda and stir to combine.  Immediately pour the mixture onto the warm pan and spread out.  Cool and break into pieces.

Cinnamon Sugar Cake Doughnuts

I started seeing an acupuncturist recently, which is a really interesting experience.  I don't know why it is that having needles shoved into your ears and forehead is relaxing, but trust me, it is.  Anyway, one of the first things she told me was to think about going gluten-free and dairy-free.  So what did I do?  I went home and thought about it while I made doughnuts.  After taking my first bite, I decided I had thought about it enough.  Honestly, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even know how to eat gluten-free, but I know for sure it means no doughnuts.  To which I say, no deal.

Our ancestors LOVED them some doughnuts.  Like, really loved them.  At least, I assume they did because almost every single old book in my collection has a minimum of one doughnut recipe.  Most have more than one including at least one cake doughnut recipe and one yeast.  (By the way, if you're wondering why I'm spelling it doughnuts as opposed to donuts, it's because all my old recipes spelled it that way, so it's my homage to those early 20th century cooks.  Ah, the good old days before laziness had even invaded the way we spell things.)  As visual proof of the plethora of doughnut recipes, here's a picture of all my books open to the doughnut page, and this doesn't even include the recipes on my computer from the books that I scanned before I returned them to their rightful owners.

This picture also gives you an idea of where I start with each recipe I work on.  (Recipes from my Grandma are the exception because I just take her original and go from there.)  But generally I get all my old books out and find as many versions as I can of what I want to work on and start cherry picking my favorite ideas from each one, and that was what I did here.  It's especially helpful with these old recipes to have lots to work with because so many of them are so vaguely worded that it really helps to be able to compare them against each other when one calls for "an amount of butter the size of an egg," or to "mix in enough flour to make a stiff dough."  I'm a scientist!  Give me measurements, dammit!  I'm still trying to figure out what it means when they say, "mix all ingredients as for a good cake."  I see that more often than you'd realize.  What do they mean?  Did they ever mix up bad cakes?

There's certainly no bad cake here.  Up to this point, the only doughnuts I had ever made on my own were baked in a doughnut pan with a Stonewall Kitchen mix.  While they are very good, I don't exactly consider them homemade.  They are homemade in the same way that Hamburger Helper is "making dinner."  (Marc can tell you that I laugh sarcastically every time we see that commercial and the people act like they are heroes for throwing some ground beef in a pan with a packet of powdered cheese.)  Stonewall Kitchen's tasty mix notwithstanding, I've now come to the realization that it's really hard to beat a light, cakey doughnut hot out of the oil with a little bit of a crusty exterior.  And given that they are so easy to throw together, why not make your own?

Homer Simpson once asked, "Doughnuts: is there anything they can't do?"  They sure can't make me want to give up gluten.

Cinnamon Sugar Cake Doughnuts

This recipe as written makes about 6 or 8 doughnuts.  I was afraid to make any more than that because I knew Marc and I would have eaten all of them, no matter how many there were.  It should be very easy to double if you want to make a full dozen.  Also, the dough keeps very well in the fridge.  Marc and I made 3 to split for breakfast one morning, then fried up the remaining dough the next day.  There was no difference in the ones that were made from fresh dough and the ones that were made after the dough had been refrigerated.


1 1/2 cups flour, plus a little extra as needed
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbs. melted butter, cooled
1/4 cup buttermilk

Topping

1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Set aside.  Mix the topping ingredients together in a wide, shallow bowl and set aside.  Begin heating about an inch of oil in a Dutch oven.  Put it on a low heat while you mix up the dough.

In a medium sized bowl, beat the egg.  Whisk in the sugar, melted butter and buttermilk in with the egg.  Stir in the flour mixture.  If the dough is very sticky, add more flour, 1 Tbs. at a time, and stir into the batter until it is not too sticky to roll out.  This amount will depend on how much moisture is in your flour and your kitchen in general.  It ended up being 2 Tbs. in my case.

Lightly flour a work surface and pat the dough out into a circle about 1/4" thick.  Remember to occasionally check to make sure it's not sticking to the work surface; add flour as necessary.  Use a doughnut cutter or a couple biscuit cutters to cut out doughnuts and holes.  I used a 3 1/2" biscuit cutter for my outer circle and about a 1 1/2" cutter for the hole.

Boost the heat up on the oil until it reaches 350 degrees.  Carefully pick up the cut out doughnuts with a spatula and slide into the oil.  Fry the doughnuts until golden brown on both sides, about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes per side.  Remove from the oil and drain on paper towels.  Immediately roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. 

Pumpkin Bread

If you took all the old cookbooks I have in my collection and vowed to make a different quick bread recipe from them every day until you ran out of variations, you'd be making nut bread until the day you dropped dead.  Banana bread, date bread, nut bread, muffins of every flavor you can imagine, and possibly some flavors you can't imagine (I saw one version that contained salt pork), there is virtually no end to the way our ancestors threw together flour, baking powder, sugar, etc.  I'll probably get around to trying some of the nut breads some day, but in honor of fall, this time I decided to try my hand at pumpkin bread.  I found two pretty old recipes from my collection and one from my mom's Betty Crocker cookbook circa early 70s that I used as my inspiration.  That said, I didn't really use any of them even close to as-is.  I took my favorite ideas from all of them and pulled some ideas out of my own strange little brain and out came this beauty.  Not that I want to be responsible for encouraging you to eat any raw egg at all, but I'm not gonna lie, I licked the hell out of this bowl and the batter was divine.

 

 Just as a side note, one of these days I'm going to have to post some of the recipes I just don't feel like I can "save," because some of them are hysterical.  In the course of paging through some of the old books while researching the next recipe I'm hoping to do (also known as doughnuts) I was reading some things out loud to Marc as we were alternately laughing and trying not to vomit.  Let me just say, people in 1909 ate some nasty sounding crap.  Think cold fish layered with sliced hard cooked eggs and thick white sauce (whatever THAT is) and served over lettuce.  Or watercress, depending on your taste.

But put that yucky stuff out of your mind right now.  There's pumpkin bread waiting....

Pumpkin Bread

This recipe makes 2 loaves but you could probably cut in half without much trouble.  I suspect you could substitute greek yogurt for the sour cream, but I haven't tried that yet, so it's just a hunch.  I put 1/3 cup of chopped, toasted pecans in one of the 2 loaves.  Two of my three inspiration recipes contained raisins but that didn't interest me one bit.  But if you want them, about 1/3 cup per loaf ought to do it for that, too.  Personally, I like it best plain with no nuts or anything extra in there.

3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
4 eggs
2/3 cup oil
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup sour cream
1 lb. canned pumpkin
nuts, 2/3 cup if you want nuts in both loaves, 1/3 cup for one loaf (optional)
raisins, 2/3 cup if you want raisins in both loaves, 1/3 cup for one loaf (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.  Whisk together the flour, salt, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger in a medium sized bowl.  Set aside.

Whisk sugar, eggs, syrup and oil in a large bowl until well combined.  Add pumpkin and sour cream and stir together.  Stir in dry ingredients until just combined.  Spray two 9" x 5" loaf pans with vegetable oil.  Or you can do like I did and make a parchment paper sling and line the pans that way.  Evenly divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the top with and offset spatula.  Bake for about 50 to 60 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through.  Cool in the pans for 10 minutes.  Remove from pans and place on  a wire rack to cool completely.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

If the forecast for this weekend holds, I think Marc and I are going to have to go hiking.  We haven't really been since we were in Maine back in June (which, by the way, is solidly in first place on my list of favorite places to hike, or do anything, really).  So maybe that's partly the reason we haven't gone lately is that I figure the first post-Maine hike is going to be a let down.  Or maybe because our summer got seriously disrupted by having to move 1,260 miles across the country.  Or partly because I have been forced to be low key a lot since we moved here due to medical treatment.  Or because we live in Kansas now, and where do you go to "hike" in Kansas?  If you know the answer to that question, please drop me a line because I'm not trying to be snarky, I just genuinely don't know.  At any rate, I think it's long overdue, and surely we can find a good trail somewhere, even in the flat lands of the Midwest.

In the past, I have found out the hard way that adequate snackage is vital on a hike.  A few times I have not done a good job of preparing for a hike or a lengthy paddle in the kayak and hit the proverbial wall with quite a thud.  One time, paddling on the Hudson River up in New York, I got so tired halfway through that Marc had to tie a rope from his boat to mine and drag me back up the river, against the current.  He's quite a guy, isn't he?  Without him I guess I would have just floated all the way down to Manhattan and on out to sea.

About a month after the incident where Marc towed me back up the river like a derelict tugboat, we went to Maine for the first time, and since the menu of activities consisted mainly of hiking and kayaking, I got smart and made some snacks ahead of time.  Enter this oatmeal cookie.  I've never been a big fan of oatmeal cookies in general, I think because they usually have raisins in them, which are not my favorite.  But I discovered this recipe, another gem from Grandma Marguerite, that she wrote out by hand into the aforementioned cookbook that she gave me for Christmas one year.  I am sure she just clipped it out of a newspaper or a magazine and I have no idea how old it is.  In contains instant vanilla pudding mix, which isn't usually something I would bake with, but the thing that really caught my eye about it was that the traditional raisins had been swapped out for chocolate chips.  SCORE.  Figuring that the sugar would give us quick energy, the oats a little bit longer lasting energy, and the chocolate would just be awesome, I decided these would be perfect for our outdoor activities.  It's gotten to the point now where they are nearly as quintessential of a hiking companion as our dog, Maggie.

Overall, this is a pretty traditional cookie recipe, what with the creaming of the butter and the sugars, etc.  As I said, I would not usually bake with instant pudding mix, but every time I try a new recipe, I pretty much make it the way it's written the first time and I don't tweak it until the next time, if I feel like it's got potential.  In this case, I loved the cookie so much as is that I made very minimal changes.  So, yes, I even left the pudding mix in.  The only things I did differently were that I upped the amount of brown sugar and decreased the white sugar, since brown sugar is more moist and therefore gives a more chewy texture.  Another improvement to the texture was my choice of rolled oats as opposed to quick cooking oats, which also have a more oaty flavor, in my opinion.  I also nixed the second egg white in favor of just a yolk, again hoping for more chewiness.  My last change was to increase the size of the cookie.  The original called for using 2 teaspoons of dough, which seemed utterly laughable to me.  I went for a hardy 2 Tablespoons.  At this size, you'll get about 30 big, fat, chewy cookies.  You could also throw in about a cup of nuts, if you like.  I have occasionally put in pecans for a bit of protein.  Go bake a batch and then take a hike.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I grew up in a house where you underbake cookies so that they stay soft as long as possible, so that's what I did here.  They will bake all the way through and be safe to eat, but they will be soft.  If you want them a little more done, have at it.

1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 pkg. (3.5 oz.) instant vanilla pudding mix
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium bowl, stir together oats, flour, dry pudding mix, baking soda and salt until well combined.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars together with a mixer until fluffy.  Beat in egg, egg yolk and vanilla.  Stir in dry ingredients with a sturdy wooden spoon.  This is a really stiff dough and it will take some muscle to get it all combined.  Stir in chocolate chips and nuts, if using.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Drop cookies onto the sheet using 2 Tablespoons of dough at a time and use your palm to flatten them out a little.  I only do 8 cookies at a time on a baking sheet because these are big cookies.  That said, they don't spread a whole lot so you could probably get away with a few more on a sheet if you want.  Eight is a safe number, though.

Bake one baking sheet at a time for 10 minutes.  Allow the cookies to sit on the pan for at least 5 minutes before removing and placing on a cooling rack.  Don't skip this step or they will be too soft to move and will fall apart.  Makes about 30 to 32 large cookies.