Best Chocolate Chip Cookies...EVER!

I've made a lot of chocolate chip cookies since Libby first taught me how as a child.  Most turn out rather flat which I just dislike on an aesthetic factor.  Even if they taste good, which often they don't, I just can't get over them looking like wrinkled up, dirty pancakes.

This recipe from The New York Times is by far, hands down, the best recipe I've ever made.  And I have nothing else to say about that.

Bacon, Egg & Cheese Toast Cups

This morning I wanted something eggy, but special, but easy to make. I remembered these egg toast cups I recently found on Pinterest.  They lived up to their great expectations. Easy to make, Dave loved them and they felt special. Definitely not our usual scrambled eggs with toast.  


The recipe can be found here.  The only two differences I did was use larger "jumbo" muffin tins instead of regular sized ones. And I used one entire egg per cup.  The recipe calls for only part of the egg white but it's P's favorite part so I used all of it.


This is a recipe I'll use when we have company over for breakfast.  It's easy to have everyone's meal come out at once and I can feed 6 or more people at a time. I guess if I had 3-4 kids I would use more often as well.  Next time I might try a "Florentine" version with onions, spinach and cheese instead of bacon and cheese.  

Minestrone Soup on a sick day.

P was home from school with an on-going fever all day. I am also sick.  The only food I crave when I'm sick is homemade basic food and lots of fresh fruit and veggies.  I'm really not a fan of minestrone soup, but I had 2 heads of cabbage to use up.  Then when I read this recipe it sounded so soothing I had to try it.  It was wonderful and a baguette made it perfect.   

Easing My Guilt

 I've fallen into an after school routine with P for the last few weeks. She comes home from school, eats, naps, watches tv, eats, goes to bed.  It's so lame I can't stand it!  However, I'm giving myself a break because I'm at the end of my pregnancy and I'm exhausted and in pain.  

Today I hit 38 weeks and I seem to have gotten a second wind. I've been having contractions almost daily. In fact, this morning I woke up to them, but I've gotten myself to think of the pain as a good thing, and it is. It's better to feel the pain gradually and to open up slowly than to have it all happen at once.  I'm also hoping the longer the pain now the shorter it will be at time of delivery. I can only hope.

With my second wind I felt I should do more with P.  She's been talking about planting a garden for a while. Last week we bought seeds at Target.  I was amazed she understood I didn't want to buy their seeds because they weren't organic. She said "let's get flower seeds, we don't eat them".  She's getting so many concepts that aren't spelled out for her. She's having to connect the dots and I think she's doing it quite well.  

Then over the weekend I looked for DIY seedling cups to make. I made a few different varieties that I'll discuss and source later. So today we finally planted our seeds.

After that P wanted to paint so she painted outside. The weather was a bit chilly but it was sunny and beautiful and she wanted to be outside.  Her art classes at LACMA have changed the way she paints.  She is using different brush stroke techniques and the way she looks at her work is different. Things are changing in that head of hers.  

Doing all of this eased my guilt of letting her plop down on the couch and watch tv for the rest of the afternoon.  I can't do it all right now. I'm praying after the baby is born and I give it a few weeks I'll have my full energy again and be more available to P.  I miss our outings.  But on the other hand, my lack of energy and large body size is nature's way of easing me into the juggle of two. 

We did one last baking project before dinner. After, I should have known something was up when P wanted to go to bed instead of having dessert.  Turns out she has a fever. The end to our brilliant day. 

Breakfast Pizza

One of my favorite recipes to make is Breakfast Pizza from the Big Sur Bakery Cookbook.  Everyone in the family loves it. I tend to get into "recipe" routines. I  crank out the same thing for a couple weeks before I move on to the next best thing. Lately, the pizza has been it.

The dough recipe yields two pizzas. Over the weekend, when I made it, we were only three so there was a whole pie left over.  When D went to put it away I said "don't put it in the fridge. It'll get yucky." and he replied "what do you want me to do with it then?".   I blurted out the first thing that came to mind "I want you to put it on a pedestal under a soft heat lamp to keep it just perfect the way it is right now."  That's what came to mind and that's what I said.  One of the perks of being married is that you can often say whatever crazy thing comes to mind and your spouse knows better than to think you're crazy....or at least they are legally bound to not take off running.  

So, D started to draw a pedestal on our chalk wall!  See, he indulges my crazy. The perfect complement to me. 

I'm so proud of myself for making this recipe. I've finally got it down to a science and it's so good. I don't know, there is something about this recipe that makes the day start off just right.  You can find it here in the New York Times online.