Cake of the Week: S'mores Cookies

We’re long past s’mores season - camping and bar-b-q’s and bonfires will have to wait for the spring. But why is it acceptable to have chestnuts roasting on an open fire in December, while marshmallows have to wait for June?

Well, I can’t wait and you shouldn’t have to either. These cookies are s’mores, winter-style: they have a graham cracker base, chocolate chip cookie dough with mini marshmallows mixed in, and then a Hershey’s chocolate on top. 

No fire, no smoky-smelling clothes, and no bug repellent required. They travel really well, so they’re a good Cookie Exchange contribution. And most importantly, they taste awesome. 

S’Mores Cookies (adapted from Lovin' From the Oven)

Go here for a printable recipe. 

Ingredients:

• 9 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (The original recipe called for 11 tablespoons butter. If you want your cookies to be more bar-ish, then do that.)
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 ½ cups flour
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup mini marshmallows
• 3 regular sized Hershey’s bars, broken into pieces
• 1-2 packages graham crackers, broken into square

Directions:

1. Cream together the butter and both sugars. Add the eggs and vanilla.
2. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda,  salt and cinnamon.
3. Fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Chill dough in refrigerator for 1 hour.
4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line baking pans with parchment paper or tin foil. I used one 11x17 pan and one 9x13 pan but you can really use any sized pans you want.
5. Lay out graham crackers side by side on the pans as close as possible (they should be touching). For thicker cookies, use less graham crackers and more dough.

6. Place rounded tablespoons of dough on graham crackers about 1 – 1 ½ inches apart. Use your fingertips to slightly press down.

7. Bake for 5 minutes then remove from oven to press Hershey’s bar pieces on to the top. 

8. Bake for an additional 10 more minutes or until dough is beginning to turn golden brown at the edges. The foil should make it easy to lift the cookies out of the pan and break them apart. 

Go here for a printable recipe. 

Weekend Report: Eastern Market and Christmastime!

It could be the cold weather, or perhaps its all the decorations? But let's be real here, most likely it's the fact that about 90% of my weekend's food consumption consisted of cookies, cookie dough, cookie crumbs, and chocolate. 

This can only mean one thing - it's Christmastime!!! And after a Sunday of Eastern Market, Cookie Exchange, and a Christmas party, I am feeling the Christmas spirit. 

My ideal Sunday afternoon involves sitting on a bench in direct sunlight on a chilly-ish December day, sipping a cup of coffee and nibbling on a cookie while working my way through the crossword puzzle. And that is exactly what I did. Kitty-corner from my sunny bench at the entrance of Eastern Market a saxophonist played Christmas carols, and upwind a grove of Christmas trees smelled awesome. 

I know most people love Eastern Market in the summer, but I definitely prefer it in the winter. Instead of feeling trickles of sweat drip down my back and needing an iced coffee for both temperature control and hydration, I could calmly peruse the craft tables and actually enjoy the feeling of a hot coffee cup warming my hands when I eventually sat down.

From my extensive people-watching experience I can tell you that people at Eastern Market on a Sunday afternoon fall into 4 categories: 

1. Small groups of girlfriends meeting up to shop
2. Couples
3. Couples with dogs
4. Couples with children

And there isn’t much variation in clothing. Women wear coats, colorful scarves, and boots. Men are in jeans, fleeces, and hats. Everyone wears sunglasses, and most carry a paper cup from one of the many coffee shops in the area. 

I saw a surprising number of people with timing tags from the race I was supposed to run attached to their shoes. (I made the "smart" call Saturday night not to run…but I’m still a little bummed about this situation.) 

The crossword puzzle beat me at about the same time the sun left my bench. And the saxophonist had apparently come to the end of his repertoire – I’m pretty sure I heard "Away in a Manger" more than twice…so around 2:30 I finished the last of my coffee and headed home.

Retrospectively, I probably shouldn’t have eaten the cookie with my coffee, since my next Sunday activity was a Christmas Cookie Exchange with my three best friends. And we take our cookies seriously. 

We exchanged (and ate) chocolate crinkles, gingerbread with almond frosting and coconut, apricot walnut bars, s’mores chocolate chip cookies, mocha coconut fudge, and oatmeal lace cookies. (I'll post recipes over the next couple weeks.)

After that late-afternoon sugar coma, my Christmas celebrations continued. Four of my roommates are soon to move out, so we planned a house Christmas dinner party complete with a gift exchange, tree to trim, and sugar cookies to decorate. 

(I know, I should probably quit my day job and become a cookie artist...right???)

And here's an update from the Gchats this morning...no name attribution, but YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! 

8:46 AM 

I ate two gingerbread cookies last night when I got home.

I left all of the baked goods in my freezer, thank God, or else I'd have eaten them all!

At one point last night my internal dialogue went something like this-

"Well you could take the gingerbread out of the freezer but then it would be frozen and you don't have a microwave. but i guess you could put it in a saute pan, that might be weird, but it would work. Okay, put it in a saute pan. No, don't do it..."

And so on and so on.

I ended up not sauteing the cookie...and somehow, that is counted as a victory...NOT sauteeing a gingerbread cookie

This is what we've come to. 

Hope you had a happy holiday weekend!

Best of the Week #41

This week had its ups and downs…despite a minor hip flexor situation, I am still hoping to run the Jingle All the Way 8K this Sunday. In the past 5 days DC has given us a weird combination of disgustingly rainy and gorgeous weather, which I have not been able to take advantage of (refer back to aforementioned “situation”), so I’ve been a wee bit cranky-pants.

On the brighter side, the CAR holiday party was last night – love my teammates and coach! (Coach George in his new CAR bathrobe.)

My most popular post this week was the Weekend Report: Jersey Boys and Hot Chocolate 5K/15K. I imagine its popularity has something to do with all the controversy surrounding that ridiculous race. Because I wrote the WRR article I find myself peripherally involved in this controversy…major bummer. I do not like receiving hate mail, thank you very much!


Anywho, here are your weekly links:


I did Zumba once and did not particularly like it…this article is snarky and funny. 

“You could do it naked. You could do it half-naked. You could do it alone. You could do it with 65,000 other people.”

Zumba classes are populated by people who are either amazing dancers or believe themselves to be amazing dancers. Zumba is the kind of freeing experience that causes its attendees to fling themselves about in delirious passion, so moved that they do not even notice when they have Zumba’d their own bodies into unnatural and inadvisable contortions.

I love the muppets. Mrs. Piggy sings "Baby It's Cold Outside." (singing starts at 1:40)




A while ago I read Life With Picasso. This series of pictures is pretty cool and reminds me of that book.

If you happen to be an IR nerd, check out the debate on the International Criminal Court jurisdiction in Sudan.

A second argument, however, is much more interesting.  South Sudan could invoke the Eichmann “precedent” and argue that a state should have the right to give the Court retroactive jurisdiction over any and all crimes committed against its citizens, even if the state did not formally exist at the time of their commission.

China building new airport the size of Bermuda (source)

The Chinese are building a new airport just outside of Beijing, because the other two giant airports they have in the area just can't keep up with demand. When it's finished, it'll be the largest airport in the world by far, at approximately the same size as the entire island of Bermuda.

I find this deal on a trip to Turkey incredibly tempting…someone stop me? SpeedyKate just got back from Turkey and her pictures look fabulous!


I’m not usually into this sort of thing, but these engagement pictures on Tartlette are adorable.

LOTR-Emily told me about Coeur de Pirate, a French singer - great work listening!

I want to go to here. Who’s in DC? Who wants this pizza? "The Countryman pizza with black truffle, fontina cheese, and a soft egg. The yolky truffleness was ridiiiiiculous."

The title of this got me: Lost puffin found at Winchester hospital sex clinic. How can you not click on that????

Pretty bad-ass: I Believe I can Fly ( flight of the frenchies). Trailer





I Believe I can Fly ( flight of the frenchies). Trailer from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.


Have a great weekend!!!

Literary Bite: Bossypants

Tina Fey is funny, Saturday Night Live is funny, and 30 Rock is really really funny. Therefore, well duh I liked Bossypants, Tina Fey’s biography. This is definitely a 1 day read – the style is conversational and the chapters short and amusing (you’ve probably already read it…seems like I’m the last kid in the literary pool in this situation).

But for a book by a comedian, Bossypants isn’t just making jokes. I thought it was really interesting to read about Fey’s career path and how she fought against “women aren’t funny” sexism to rise to the top of her profession. 


The title comes from her role as boss of over 200 people on her show 30 Rock: “Because ever since I became an executive producer of ’30 Rock,’ people have asked me, ‘Is it hard for you, being the boss?’ and ‘Is it uncomfortable for you to be the person in charge?’ You know, in the same way they say, ‘Gosh, Mr. Trump, is it awkward for you to be the boss of all these people?’ I can’t answer for Mr. Trump, but in my case it is not.” 


She starts with her childhood in Pennsylvaina, then on to University of Virginia and working in improv until her start on SNL and later starting her own show. In case you have been living under a rock (no judgement here, that's where I usually reside), Tina Fey is the comedian who did the hilarious Sarah Palin impressions on SNL.  


Some great quotes from the book:

• "A development deal means they pay you while you’re thinking, which is a pretty great deal, unless you’re like me and you feel constant anxiety that you haven’t thought of anything yet. (My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.)"
• “By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life.” 
• “It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.” 
• “To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.” 
• “Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of.” 
• “A coworker at SNL dropped an angry c-bomb on me and i had the weirdest reaction. To my surprise, I blurted, "No. You don't get to call me that. My parents love mel I'm not some Adult Child of an Alcoholic that's going to take that shit.” 
• “I was a little excited but mostly blorft. "Blorft" is an adjective I just made up that means 'Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.' I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.” 
• “MAKE STATEMENTS also applies to us women: Speak in statements instead of apologetic questions. No one wants to go to a doctor who says, “I’m going to be your surgeon? I’m here to talk to you about your procedure? I was first in my class at Johns Hopkins, so?” Make statements, with your actions and your voice.” 

Ok, I just spent far too long reading Tina Fey quotes online…read the NYT review and also a great piece on Slate to learn more about the book. Which, in case you can’t tell, I enjoyed and you should read it!

Vacation Announcement

I'm sorry guys, but I am uncharacteristically uninspired in the blogging realm today. I could blame the weather (rain), but really it's probably just me....


So instead of writing something unamusing and uninteresting, I'm just going to take today to GET EXCITED about my upcoming vacation plans!


First, I'm going home for Christmas, which will involve some Lake Tahoe skiing time. 

And then, dun dun dunnnnnn, I'm heading to Costa Rica to re-create the most fabulous vacation ever! That's right, in a matter of weeks this infinity pool will again be mine...

Hope you're having an exciting and interesting Wednesday! 

Cake of the Week: Chocolate Crackle Cookies

People get really excited about cookies at Christmastime. I get excited about cookies all the time, but since it’s December, and I just made these, and I’m giving them away as a gift, let’s be festive and call them Christmas Chocolate Crackle Cookies!

The recipe comes from my good friend Mary at Bake Break!. She just started this fabulous blog from her home in Montana, and her pictures are gorgeous! Mary and I go way back to the days of summer camp in Colorado. We were cabin-mates one year (she did rafting and I did mountaineering), and then both worked at camp for a couple summers after that. 

When she started her blog, I was pretty psyched to see what would come out of her cookie-loving kitchen. And so far I have not been disappointed.

I made these cookies last night – be warned, you must refrigerate the dough for 2 hours! This minor but significant factor ensured that I was up until far-too-late-o’clock baking cookies…but I didn’t really mind, the dough was delicious! And the resulting cookies taste as good as they look – they’re dense and chewy, more like brownies in cookie shape than traditional cookies. 

My office “secret snowflake," will not know what hit her! 

(Go here for a printable recipe.)

Chocolate Crackle Cookies (adapted from Bake Break!)

• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons meringue powder + 2 tablespoons water (or you can just do another egg)
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup powdered sugar

1. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. 
2. In a stand mixer or large bowl, beat butter until smooth and fluffy. Add melted chocolate and sugar, mix until incorporated. (I mixed the sugar into the melted chocolate to cool it down because I was worried it would completely melt the butter.) 
3. Add vanilla, then eggs one at a time, mixing fully between additions. Mix in the meringue powder and water. Stir in flour mixture. 
4. Let the dough chill until firm, about two hours. 
5. When dough is cold, roll into small balls before coating in powdered sugar and baking on a greased cookie sheet at 350 F for 10-13 minutes.

Notes and Tips:

• Chilling this dough is absolutely essential – plan accordingly.
• If you have trouble with the dough sticking to your hands, try rolling the dough with wet hands. Don’t get the powdered sugar wet though…

Enjoy!!!


(Go here for a printable recipe.)

Weekend Report: Jersey Boys and Hot Chocolate 5K/15K

On Friday night I saw Jersey Boys, a musical full of music that I didn't know I knew so well! (How’s that for a confusing sentence to start your Monday morning?)

But really, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons are awesome. You probably know a lot of their songs – Big Girls Don’t Cry, Bye, Bye, Baby, December 1963 (Oh What A Night), Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – to name a few.



Before the show, SpeedyKate, Ex-Co-Worker-Rachel, and I met for dinner Ella’s Pizza. We split the special that had calamari, anchovies, and capers, the “Genovese” (pesto, parmesan, fingerling potatoes & prosciutto), and the “Pucillo” (tomato sauce, smoked mozzarella, prosciutto & fresh arugula). I think the Genovese was my favorite – potatoes on pizza are surprisingly delish!

And after the show, thanks to SpeedyKate’s awesome connections, we got a backstage tour! We walked through the dressing rooms, then onto the stage where we saw all the set pieces and quick-changing areas. They have all real instruments, which are pretty awesome, and “historically accurate” props.

On Saturday morning, I got up before the crack of dawn to cover the Hot Chocolate 5K/15K for the Washington Running Report (read my article here). 


It’s a good thing I wasn’t racing - the race was a logistical nightmare: traffic, cold, and an hour-late start. "I think the logistics were set in such a way to weed out the weak,” said my teammate Chris. (If I were racing, I definitely would have cried multiple times through the experience.)


But everyone I talked to did surprisingly well and enjoyed the course, so that was a win - congrats to all my CAR teammates!!!


I may not have run the race, but after a 5:30 wake-up and series of transportation shenanigans, I definitely deserved a good brunch! I met LLC, 6x6, and LOTR-Emily at Matchbox, a pizza place that also has amazing breakfast. I went for the lox and flatbread (cream cheese, capers, red onion, oven roasted eggs), and we split the cast iron skillet cinnamon rolls. Sooo basically brunch was huge and really good.

Then Saturday afternoon (the day just kept going and going and going), I stopped by the National Gallery for a brief visit to my favorite exhibit, then walked around the Sculpture Gardens and Capitol.

Sunday I really wanted to go see Zoo Lights and eat fro-yo, but unfortunately that was not to be...there's always next weekend! 

Best of the Week #40

Happy December!!! That means we’re getting into Christmas season, aka my favorite season! But before I get all cookies and carols and Christmas trees, it’s time for Best of the Week. And this is two weeks worth of links, thanks to Thanksgiving. Sooo here we go!


My most popular post this week was Thanksgiving Break in Pictures. I'm from a beautiful place, no?

Speaking of beautiful places, I also live in a beautiful place right now. I LOVE this. A lot. See an Amazing Stop-Motion Video of DC at Night:





District Nights from Drew Geraci on Vimeo.

This article is hilarious and true on all counts: “10 Things 90s Kids Will Have To Explain To Their Children.” 

Liking the Backstreet Boys gave you a bit more of a cultured palate, as there was no clear Diana in those Supremes. Nick was kind of the wholesome, if northern-Florida-redneck safe choice (save for his humiliating younger brother, Aaron). Brian was the shy, sensitive type. AJ was the hottt, dangerous meth addict. Kevin Richardson was mute with sexy, sculpted facial hair. No one liked Howie.
“I wanna really really really wanna zig a zig ahh,” has a meaning, and all true nineties kids know it, but we must never share it. Like the Illuminati, it must remain between us, the keyholders. With great power comes great responsibility.

A win for BU – go terriers! “Just today, Unigo ranked Boston University the best place to go to school in the United States.” (article here)


Amusing:

New Zealand is the least corrupt country in the world (it scored a 9.5 on a scale of 1-10), North Korea and Somalia tied for last place with scores of 1. Read the full results and enjoy the infographic.

Gum chewing makes us smarter! Now I feel totally justified…

Those randomly assigned to the gum-chewing condition significantly outperformed those in the control condition on five out of six tests… The sugar content of the gum had no effect on test performance.

This video is going viral, I’m really impressed with how well-spoken this guy is. Powerful stuff.





Congo Election in Pictures (look at images 19-30).

And speaking of the Congo (because I usually am), my post about Congo (A Brief History of Congo's Wars) was on the Christian Science Monitor this week. AND at work I finally launched the brand-spanking-new The Crisis and Our Programs sections on our Congo website. I can't take all of the credit, but I'm going to go ahead and take most of it...

I find octopi fascinating. Seriously, I could (and maybe have) watch the one at the zoo for hours. Read the article. 

Smithsonian's National Zoo has a feisty new grapefruit-sized octopus that is lacking only two things: its sexual identity and a name.

Running quote of the Week:

"Overtraining is the biggest problem incurred by runners who lack the experience or discipline to cope with their own enthusiasm." - Marty Liquori, former American record holder for 5,000m

I also like this quote. (Remember when I read Heart of Darkness?)

“Moulded in the template of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, an eighteenth century explorer novel, today’s Congo is often seen as a dysfunctional jungle state of horrific mass rape, endless conflict, incurable tropical diseases and blood coltan. These largely Western constructions rarely go beyond the singular, stigmatising tropes of Conrad’s savagery to understand the complexities of post-conflict nation building. As the Congolese prepare for another flawed, but necessary ballot, it’s clear the creation of alternate, multiple Congo narratives is possible.” Tendai Marima writes in Al Jazeera

I read a blog about writing blogs, called Will Write for Food. I thought this post offered some wise advice for any and all bloggers.

Comparing is evil. But it’s normal too. I try not to let it crush me. When it does I can’t write anything because I am too busy beating myself up…After falling apart for a while and questioning myself and all my abilities the one thing that brings sanity is to stay true to yourself and keep in mind why you are doing this in the first place. Many want to find fame and fortune through blogging and photography, and many do. Most don’t.

I want this gingerbread house!

There’s a sugar-cookie-shingled roof, Romanesque Smarties columns, and stained-glass windows (the sugar versions melted, so now they’re acetate sheets). Outside, marzipan children play amid gumdrop trees and Rice Krispie treat bushes on a layer of edible shimmer. Now, in the dining room, a candy-filled train acts like a (cute) moat around the castle to protect against kids with wandering fingers.

Hmm ok, I guess that's all. Is anyone running the Hot Chocolate 5K/15K this weekend? If so maybe I'll see you there! :)

Literary Bite: All the King's Men

I can't say that I loved All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, but I can see why it's considered an American political classic. The 1946 NYT review said, "Warren's "All the King's Men" is magnificently vital reading, a book so charged with dramatic tension it almost crackles with blue sparks, a book so drenched with fierce emotion, narrative pace and poetic imagery that its stature as a "readin' book," as some of its characters would call it, dwarfs that of most current publications."  


I do agree with that part...the part I can't get on board with is the statement, "Here, my lords and ladies, is no book to curl up with in a hammock, but a book to read until 3 o'clock in the morning, a book to read on trains and subways, while waiting for street cars and appointments, while riding elevators or elephants."


My problem with this book is that I had a hard time getting into it. I found myself daydreaming while reading All The King's Men...part of this could be that I've been distracted with many things recently...but part could be that there are boring segments that are totally skimmable.But I kept reading to though the end for two reasons: 1) it's a book club assignment and as a matter of pride I finish all book club books, and 2) The parts that were good were really good. Especially towards the end.


All the King's Men is the story of the rise and fall Willie Stark, of a political titan in the Deep South during the 1930s. "The Boss" rises from poverty to become a corrupt politician and presents the classic questions, does power always corrupt? And do good intentions justify questionable means? The book is about Willie Stark, but really it's the story of Jack Burden, Willie's right-hand man. Jack uses his historian skills to dig up dirt on the boss's enemies, but in the course of doing so uncovers uncomfortable secrets about his own life. At its core, the novel is much more philosophical than political.


I'm glad I read All the King's Men - it ended well, and as I said, I got into the story by the end. So this isn't an un-recommendation, just not a shining endorsement. Proceed at your own risk.