Lauren: Summer Break is Over and We’re Officially One Year Old

Hello, and welcome back to Cooking with Copy. Our blog baby is celebrating its first birthday, so please help us blow out its imaginary birthday candle!

It has been a whirlwind/tornado of a summer and I’m glad to be back here with you. There were birthdays, and birthdays, and oh, did I mention birthdays? There were big family dinners upon big family dinners. There were holidays, anniversaries, baby showers, births, bridal showers, retirement concerts, parties, weddings, Blogshop, Ravinia concerts, trips to Portland, OR,  New York, NY, St. Louis, MO, Holland, MI, Madison, WI, and several trips to South Bend, IN, there were conventions (the National Stationery Show and the American Library Association Annual Conference), internships, and interviews, there were visits from friends and sisters and nephews and brothers-in-law, from my brother’s Argentine mothers-in-law and even from California cousins, and, most recently, there were weeks upon weeks (upon weeks, we’re still going) of packing and moving my grandparents into their new condo.

With only two weekends without plans, visitors, or travel from May until now, it’s no wonder my room looks like I’m the one moving. In between all of the plans this summer I found way too many pockets of time during which I made way too much food. This actually worked out for the best as there was almost always a guest, a workman, a party, or a special event that benefited from the food, but let’s just say I’ve met my butter/sugar/chocolate/carb quota for the year.

So, now that summer is coming to a close, are you ready to get this show back on the road with an epic 5-month-in-the-making recipe roundup? Great, let’s go!

Note: I didn’t take a photo of everything, but all of the recipes here link back to their original posts which do include beautiful photos.

Birthday baking:

• Confetti Waffles

Make the batter according to the directions on the box and throw sprinkles in right before pouring the batter into the iron.

• Cupcake Puppy Chow

Cupcake Puppy Chow (pre-powdered sugar coat) comes together in 10 minutes.

Notes: Omit butter, and add 1/4 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. vanilla extract to the melted almond bark/extract/heavy cream mixture

Grandma’s visits:

• Martha Stewart’s Crisp Coconut and Chocolate Pie

Notes: This is just an ENORMOUS chocolate bar and would be better with twice the coconut and 1/3 the chocolate.

Father’s Day:

• Martha Stewart’s Pigs in a Blanket (with poppy seeds) – also excellent for small children and were served at the baby shower as well

Baby shower:

• Smitten Kitchen Classic Sangria(s)

Things I learned this summer: Nothing makes women as thirsty as a baby shower. We had to refill the container twice.

Family dinners:

• Gourmet’s Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad with (Toasted) Fresh Walnuts and Pecorino Romano
• Red Kale and Pomegranate Seed Salad – self explanatory, just add an apple cider vinegar and olive oil dressing
• Sprouted Kitchen’s Citrus Polenta Cake with Stone Fruits (or in my case, peaches)
• Shutterbean’s Raspberry Peach Buckle

Make sure the buckle is THOROUGHLY cooked when you remove it from the oven. You may need to bake it longer than Tracy specifies. The first one had to be thrown out because it was totally raw, adding baking time saved the second one though.

• Golden Graham S’mores Bars via Celebrations at Home

I CANNOT STOP EATING THESE AND IT’S A PROBLEM BECAUSE THEY ONLY TAKE FIVE MINUTES TO MAKE

Note: Make sure to freeze the chips until the last possible second so they don’t melt. Major, major bonus points if you use Guittard Milk Chocolate Chips. Can’t say enough good things about Guittard, every chip I’ve tried has been fantastic. I am totally willing to be a brand ambassador. Guittard, get at me.

• Momofuku Milk Bar Confetti Cake

Momofuku Milk Bar’s birthday cake elevates the typical confetti cake to new heights with a richer and more complex flavor than boxed versions.

• Momofuku Milk Bar Confetti Cake Crumb

THIS IS CRACK. Consider yourself warned.

Notes: I bet a combo of confetti crumb and the confetti cake above would make kick-ass mix-ins in a homemade cake batter or vanilla ice cream…just saying.

• Thai Beef via Orangette via the book, Thai Street Food

Thai beef (here without the fried egg) has yet to meet a hater.

Notes: This recipe is easy, fast, and unique. It’s my fallback for nights when I don’t want to think about what to make.

• Two Peas and Their Pod Mini M&M’s Cookies

Let’s face it, these were just an excuse to ingest a LOT of mini M&Ms. Don’t look at me like that.

• Martha Stewart’s Peanut Butter and Marionberry Jelly Thumbprint Cookies

My sister brought us a jar of marionberry jam from Oregon which I was dying to use for these, but you can use any kind of jam/jelly you’d like.

• Quaker Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
• Smitten Kitchen Zucchini Parmesan Crisps – these turned two sworn zucchini haters into zucchini lovers, but then, what doesn’t Parmesan improve?
• Smitten Kitchen One-Pan Farro with Tomatoes
• Smitten Kitchen Kale Salad with Pecorino and Walnuts – which I made sans raisins or panko crumbs
• Alice Medrich’s Ultra-Thin Chocolate Chunk Cookies – crunchy, caramel-y, and full of 70% cacao Sirius Icelandic chocolate (my favorite bar chocolate), these guys are beloved. Leite’s Culinaria is also home to the entertaining podcast, Talking With My Mouth Full
• Kale and Cheese Scrambled Eggs

1. Sautee the kale until slightly soft and brighter green.
2. Finish cooking and scrambling your eggs (or in my case, egg whites) and put into a bowl.
3. Sprinkle cheese (I like mozzarella) on top.
4. Get Excited.
5. Eat.

• Smitten Kitchen Peach Shortbread

Butter with peaches, what’s not to like? Plus I’m a sucker for this red/orange/yellow color combo.

• The Barefoot Contessa’s Roasted Brussels Sprouts – Make sure there aren’t any wee worms hiding near the bottom of your sprouts, I encountered this problem frequently this summer, perhaps because the sprouts aren’t a summer vegetable. Either way, peel some of the layers away to ensure no accidental worm ingestion.
• Sprouted Kitchen Granola Protein Bars
• Rachel Ray’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Chewy Granola Bars

A little too sweet, but worth a try with brown rice syrup instead of butter. They’re also perfect for shipping across the country.

• Martha Stewart Living Blog: {Wild Maine} Blueberry Muffins – really, REALLY GOOD. I used dark brown sugar exclusively and they were excellent. Not the prettiest muffins on the block that way though.
• Edible Perspective’s Grilled Kale-and-Cheese-Stuffed Tortillas (quesadillas) – These guys need a lot more cheese, like maybe double the specified amount. Her measurements will give you a leather-like quesadilla where the crispy kale just falls out. I know, I know, cheese is mega-caloric/full of cholesterol and fat, but we used low-fat cheese, and if you’re going to have a quesadilla, you might as well have a GOOD one. I’m definitely willing to try these again with double the cheese because the flavor is fantastic and, well…
• Martha Stewart’s Chicken, Chickpea, and Pesto Salad with Celery and Cucumber
• Middlewest magazine’s Buttermilk-Cinnamon-Poppy seed Coffee Cake

Very poppy seed-y, kinda too sweet.

• Pumpkin Cookies via My Baking Addiction

It might be 93 degrees outside but I pretended it was fall with these frosted pumpkin cookies/cakes. They’re really just glorified muffies, not cookies, and the frosting is too sweet and doesn’t fully set, but they received recipe requests from people at my dad’s office so here you go.

Happy September and welcome back.

Caro: Open-Faced Peach Sliders with Goat Cheese and Basil

Confession: This is totally not what I wanted to make for peach week.

For a long, long time, the mere mention of peaches has been sending me into a dreamlike state, rendering me momentarily immobile as visions of peach and crème fraîche pie dance in my head. I have wanted to make that pie forever. But I never have an occasion for it. So you’d think, then, that when an opportunity like an obligation to write a post about any peach-related food came along, I’d jump at the chance to finally, finally make my dreams come true… to open my oven and slide out my very own rendition of that beautiful pie.

Alas. Not in the cards.

You see, through a blessed combination of qualifications and good timing, I have managed to land a seasonal job that’s taking me to Tampa until March! And you know what? Although I am so, SO excited about this whole deal, I am also kind of sad, because, dude, I am watching money FLY out of my bank account at a truly alarming rate.

Rent here, deposits there… plus unforeseen expenses coming at me left and right. And I haven’t even bought a bed yet.

And that pie, well, its crust needs a whole lot of butter, and I wouldn’t settle for anything other than organic (and thus especially FRAGRANT, as a walk through any produce section will tell you) peaches, and crème fraîche doesn’t exist in Miami anywhere other than at Whole Foods, and…

Butter? Expensive.
Organic peaches? Expensive.
Crème fraîche at Whole Foods (or anything at Whole Foods, for that matter)? Expensive.
Caro, preparing for a cross-state move? Not willing to part with the cash monies necessary to fund this indulgent pie.

So, the other day, when my tummy rumbled to signal the arrival of lunchtime, I ventured to Publix on a mission: lunch, under $5, incorporating a peach.

I took it as a sign of good things to come that upon entering the store, I saw, directly to the right of the door, a huge display of super-gorgeous organic peaches. I picked the prettiest one and went on my merry way.

I wandered up and down the aisles rather aimlessly, and I eventually made it to the dairy section. Where I found goat cheese… on sale! Snagged that. Then I ended up in the bakery section, where the just-baked baguettes made it pretty clear that some sort of sandwich was happening. I grabbed a warm baguette and decided to get some basil. Peach + basil = a really good thing.

Guys, guess what. My Publix doesn’t carry fresh basil. I mean, what?! Maybe it’s my neighborhood. I don’t know… do my fellow Hispanic people not consume basil? I was so confused. Whatever. To the checkout lane.

Total? $5.12. Close enough!

By the time I got home, I had a plan. I sliced/buttered/broiled some baguette and caramelized some peach slices (with dried basil, smh). I topped each toasty baguette slice with a bunch of the peach slices, and I sprinkled much goat cheese over top. Voila! Open-faced peach sliders with goat cheese and (kind of) basil.

Listen. I don’t even know what to say. These were incredible (to me). Well, they were kind of confusing at first. I mean, the crusty bread and the goat cheese made me feel like I was eating a legitimate, sandwich-like meal… but the peaches! The sweet, spicy, buttery, slightly brightened-by-the-basil peaches. Total dessert material. What exactly was I eating? All I know is that I ended up eating the first two I made before I could even turn on my camera. So I made two more and actually photographed them. And then I ate those, too. If lunch and dessert got married and had stunning little children, those children would be these sliders. Who doesn’t want dessert built into his/her meal?!

So let’s review what these have going for them: DELECTABLE, cheap, super easy to make, sophisticated enough to serve to others, and sweet as dessert while substantial as lunch. Perfect? Yeah, I thought so, too. Get to peachin’.

Lauren: Fresh-Peach Drop Cookies

Martha Stewart’s Cookies is my boyfriend replacement. Seriously (sorry Chris, this is what happens when you’re 300 miles away). I take this book to bed (where it is with me right now) to induce sweet dreams, I pull it out on rainy days for a little fun, and I spend quiet hours with it during long car rides. You’d think after years of perusal I’d have memorized all the recipes, but no! That’s the best part! Each flip through the book seems to result in a new craving for a new cookie, that somehow went unnoticed before. Last week I flipped through and was suddenly struck by a new desire, one for a cakey cookie.

I was on the tennis team during my freshman year of high school. Each member of the freshman team was matched with a “big sister” from the junior varsity or varsity teams with whom she would exchange snacks and little gifts prior to each tournament. I’m sorry to say that I don’t have the slightest clue as to the name of my big sister, but she did leave me with this lasting memory: her cakey chocolate chip cookies. The first time we exchanged she gave me these, and while I didn’t even like them, I ate every single one because they were cookies and they were there. I’m still angry about the waste of calories ingested and to this day hate cakey cookies because they remind me of this culinary travesty.

See, I like my cookies chewy or crunchy. I like cake when it’s not overly sweet, but not in my cookies. And do not even get me started on soft cookies. I hate them. So, it was out of character for me to decide on these last week. But, with all the talk of fresh peach ice cream and peach caprese salads and such, it seemed like a delicious and seasonal idea, and one my peach-loving parents might help me polish off. Bonus: plans to visit my grandma and cousins in Indiana materialized—yet another opportunity to share! Plus I just really like making food for my grandma.

The recipe was very straight-forward and easy. The finishing touch? The recipe calls for a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar atop the dough balls before popping in the oven. I baked them a little longer to ensure they were done, and the cookies became fluffy, muffin top-like clouds of deliciousness that I can’t stop eating. They are indeed cakey but not in an undercooked kind of way like those of my big sister. They’re quite peachy in flavor, and the cinnamon sugar sprinkling adds nice warmth. As predicted, I brought them to my cousins’ football game in Indiana where we munched on them throughout the entire 50-degree night game. They were a big hit despite the upsetting game score (my cousins’ team lost 41-0), and there was even talk of a second batch immediately following the first.

If you made it this far, you deserve a treat, courtesy of my friend, Eileen. I’m going to go have another cookie.