Mystery Cookies: Getting in on the fun!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love libraries? I've been incredibly fortunate to get to know a couple of local librarians who have hosted me for author dinner visits. I just love these because we get to enjoy some of Ollie's recipes and tea room offerings from Grace's beloved Marshfield (prepared by wonderful caterers) and talk about books.

Tuesday night I was very excited to return to the Tinley Park Public Library to talk to Partners In Crime - their mystery discussion group - and Fran, the incredibly energetic and bubbly librarian who organized everything. Fabulous people. So much fun. And great food.

One of the dessert options was Crisp Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies, from State of the Onion. Not to disappoint you, but this recipe doesn't call for anywhere near as much chocolate as Krista's Monday recipe does :::grin:::

Now, I'd made these cookies before, but they didn't taste like the ones I had Tuesday night. The cookies (as prepared by Caffe Milan) were fabulous. They were fatter, thicker, and just plain tastier than when I'd made them.

Hmm....

Couple this realization with all the crave-inducing cookie posts here on Mystery Lovers' Kitchen lately. Really, what's better than a cookie? Perfect for a quick, handy, delicious snack. Providing, of course, you have some in the house.

Which I didn't.

That was enough to convince me it was time to get in on the fun of baking some Mystery Cookies! What more did I need?

Well, as a starter, white chocolate chips. Milk chocolate chips. A dark chocolate bar.

Can you say "deprived"???

What I did have were semi-sweet chunks and a bag of dark Dove. I figured that was good enough and I decided to improvise.

What follows is the recipe as it appears in State of the Onion.

After that, I'll tell you how the improvisation turned out.

CRISP TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 egg, beaten until yellow

1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)

¾ cup white sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 six ounce package milk chocolate chips

1 3 ounce bar dark chocolate, diced into chunks

1 six ounce package of white chocolate chips

Parchment paper to cover cookie sheets

Preheat oven to 350° F

In a medium bowl sift together dry ingredients.

In a large bowl, cream softened butter and sugars. Stir in vanilla until smooth. Stir in egg until smooth. Add dry ingredients 1 cup at a time, stirring to incorporate. Dough will be soft and uniform. Stir in chocolates.

Shape into in quarter-sized balls. Place on parchment paper covered cookie sheets, in widely spaced rows of three—this batter will spread during cooking! Bake until cookies are browned and flat, roughly 15 minutes. Cool on cookie sheets. Remove cooled cookies from parchment paper and store in a tin.

(Hint—these are excellent crumbled and served over ice cream)

* * *

First of all, I must admit, I usually prefer my chocolate chip cookies thin, soft, gooey. These cookies are none of those things. They're thicker, substantive, and crisp.

I smashed the Dove Chocolates (10 of them, about 1/3 of the bag) into small pieces. I also skipped the white chocolate completely because I didn't feel like leaving the house. That meant these cookies were shorted 6 oz of chocolate. Personally, I don't think they suffered for the lack. I like white chocolate just fine, but I'm not crazy about it. Your mileage may vary.

In any case, I think the semi-sweet chunks were a good choice. I could barely taste the dark chocolate, but I believe its presence helped cut the sweetness a bit. I liked that.

The recipe also calls for rolling the dough into quarter sized balls. These turned out a little small, I thought. I preferred the cookies that came out thicker (rolled into half-dollar sized balls). But again, YMMV.

(Channeling my inner Cleo - trying to get cool close-ups!)

Have fun, happy cookie eating!

Happy reading, too!

Julie

Make someone happy with a book they'll love and help support independent booksellers at the same time. A two-fer!

IMBA - Independent Mystery Booksellers Association

* * * * * * * * *

Congrats to Krista on her new release this week!

THE DIVA COOKS A GOOSE

A holiday mystery!

And in honor of Krista Davis celebrating this upcoming release,

she's holding a delicious contest!

Send Krista your favorite cookie recipe
at Krista at KristaDavis dot com and you might win!
Find out more by clicking here

Ollie's Apple Tart... And Sheila's coming!

Before I get to Ollie's Apple Tart today, I want to share a bit of news. I *just* finished my copyedits for Buffalo West Wing (coming January 4th) and turned in my manuscript for Murder Most Civil (tentative title for the second book in the Manor House Mystery series). I'm ecstatic to have gotten these major things done and turned in on time.

As great as all that makes me feel, I can't relax yet. I have another very big deadline looming December 1st. I also have another possible project (shhh... can't say anything yet -- it's still very, very iffy) that I need to concentrate on. Because both of these projects are going to take up loads of time, I'm taking a short sabbatical from blogging. Starting tomorrow, September 1st, I'm going offline. For as long as I can.

But - here's the really exciting news: For the next six weeks, author Sheila Connolly (Orchard Mysteries, Museum Mysteries) will be taking my place here on Tuesdays. Please make her feel welcome. Sheila's doing me a huge favor by taking over here and I know she's got a lot of great recipes and stories to share.

In honor of Sheila and her Orchard books, this week I'm sharing an apple recipe from State of the Onion. It's a winner, for sure.

APPLE TART

1 pie crust (Marcel makes it from scratch at the White House, but when I make this at home, I cheat and buy the rolled, refrigerated ones)

Roughly 2 pounds of tart, sweet apples; Granny Smith or McIntosh, generally about 5 or 6, depending on size (I used 6 apples and it was far too many. I think 5 would be plenty.)

1/2 C. sugar

2 T. fresh lemon rind, grated

Juice of 1 lemon

3 T. sweet butter, cut into small pieces

1 t. cinnamon

1/2 C. clear apple jelly,br>

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place pie crust in a 10 inch pie or tart shell with a removable bottom.

Peel the apples and cut them into quarters. Cut away and discard the cores. Slice thinly.

Okay, now check out this photo to the left. Ages ago, I was a Pampered Chef home demonstrator and I got the "Apple Peeler Corer Slicer" in my starter kit. I thought it was a dumb and unnecessary piece of equipment. But I promised myself I'd keep an open mind the first time I used it. Fabulous. I love this thing. I only use it a couple of times a year but it's worth its weight in gold. I've had mine now for close to 20 years and I wouldn't part with it. Amazing how my opinion can be changed when I kept myself open. This is great. Fun too.

Place apple slices in a bowl, add lemon juice, toss until the apple slices are coated (this will keep them from browning).

Arrange the apple slices on the tart pan in a pattern like fish scales, in overlapping layers. Continue until all apples are used. ***Notice, I don't have a tart pan. I used a springform pan instead. More on this later***

Sprinkle the apple slices with the sugar and lemon rind. Dot with butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Place on a baking sheet in the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven heat to 375 degrees F. Bake 25 minutes longer. Keep an eye on the tart for the last fifteen minutes of baking. If necessary, cover with foil to keep from browning too much.

*** This part about the baking sheet is very important! Especially when using a springform pan. I put the pan in the oven - center rack - all by itself. I bet some of you bakers out there are already giggling. All those apples... in a springform pan...with no baking sheet beneath it. You know what I'm about to admit -- my tart leaked all over the place, dripping hot sticky apple juice all over the bottom of my oven.

What a great way to test our smoke detectors!

I remedied the situation quickly, placed the pan in a *lot* of foil and returned it to the oven on a baking sheet. No problem. From that point on everything was great.

While tart is finishing baking, melt the apple jelly over low heat, stirring until liquid.

Gently brush the top of the hot tart with the melted jelly.

Serve hot or cold, as preferred. It's delicious either way.

I know you'll all have fun over the next few weeks. I'll try to pop in, but I'm determined to stay as far away from the Internet as possible. At least until I can get my head above water. Wish me luck. Happy reading! Happy baking!

And, next week -- same bat time, same bat station:

Sheila Connolly!

:::applause:::

See you later, everyone!

Julie

www.juliehyzy.com

Sometimes You Just Need a Scone

Last week it was cold, rainy and just plain blechy outside and I wanted a scone. A good scone.

Now, Starbucks has great scones, but it was pretty late in the day and I didn't want to drive out with my mouth watering only to discover they'd run out. Or that they wouldn't have cinnamon (the one out here hasn't had cinnamon available the last few times I've been there).

Couple that "scone desire" with a friend's Facebook status announcing that she'd just made spice cake with cream cheese frosting to beat back the blues from the yucky, cold, rainy weather, and I was pushed to my limits. I needed a scone and I needed it now.

My first White House Chef book, State of the Onion, has a really fabulous recipe for Honey Almond Scones. I love that recipe so much and I've made it a bunch of times, always to great review (even from some in my family who don't even care for scones). But I didn't have everything I needed for that recipe, so I turned to my second favorite: an adaptation from The Joy of Cooking.

That recipe needed a little "oomph" I thought. And it needed less salt, so I omitted it. Below is the recipe I came up with after a little experimentation. I ate these straight, but I would bet that a little icing (powdered sugar and milk) would have been a wonderful addition and given them a teeny bit more sweet.

Oatmeal Raisin Scones

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 1/4 cups old-fashioned oatmeal

3/4 cup raisins

1 egg

1 1/2 sticks warm melted butter

1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients, then add the oatmeal and raisins. You may need to use your fingers to separate the raisins so they don't clump. In another bowl, mix the egg, melted butter and milk, then add the liquid mixture to the dry until it's all nice and moist.

Transfer the dough to a floured cutting board, and form it into a circle that's about 3/4 of an inch thick (give or take). Once it's set, slice into 8 or 12 wedges. The Joy of Cooking book suggests that if the dough is too sticky you wait a minute or two. This was great advice! Worked for me. I sliced my dough into 8ths. Should have done 12ths. My scones were huge! It didn't really matter because I wasn't making these for company, just for myself. But for future reference, smaller is better.

Carefully place wedges on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10 - 14 minutes. When they start to turn a little bit brown, they're done.

By the way, I took Cleo's suggestion from a couple of weeks back and invested in an oven thermometer. Turns out my oven is pretty accurate, although when I get the "beep, beep, beep" to tell me it's pre-heated, it's not. I need to wait a bit longer for my oven to get to the desired temperature, but once it's there, it's stable. Good to know.

In any case - if you ever just need to beat the bad-weather blues this is a nice, simple recipe and if you're like me, you have all these ingredients in your house all the time.

Scone, anyone?

And... future pics may feature other dishes. Because I had so much fun estate sale shopping this weekend, I want to share my "find" with you. Check out my personal blog - here - for my adventure with Rooster Dishes.

Julie

Don't forget GRACE UNDER PRESSURE comes out June 1st. I'm so excited!

Have you entered my May Contest?

Julie’s first book in the Manor of Murder Mystery series, Grace Under Pressure (starred review in Publishers Weekly!), debuts June 1st! To help launch the book and to celebrate its release, she's running a very special contest: Pre-order Grace Under Pressure any time before May 31, 2010, and you're eligible to win a $25 gift certificate from Mystery Lovers Bookshop! (and if you've already pre-ordered, you just need to let Julie know!) No receipts required. Just email Julie at JulieHyzy@gmail.com with thedate that you pre-ordered and thename of the bookstore you ordered it from, and your name goes in! (Please put "CONTEST" in the subject header. Thanks!)

Here are a few helpful links to get you started:

Independent Bookstore List: here

- Mystery Lovers Bookshop (free shipping on book orders over $10!) - Centuries & Sleuths (Julie's local mystery bookstore)

-Barnes & Noble

- Amazon.com

And while we're here...

Avery is offering FREE BOOKMARKS on her website. Click this FREE BOOKMARK link to send me your information.

Her "fan club" contest just ended on May 15 (winner to be announced on the website and in the newsletter soon). Learn about upcoming contests on the Avery Aames website and check out the "fun stuff."

Ollie's Green Beans

This recipe first appeared in my first White House Chef Mystery, State of the Onion. As I might've mentioned in the past, I have a ghost chef help me with the recipes for the books, and so I have no qualms whatsoever telling you how great they all are!

My family enjoys green beans, and I've always steamed them, then lightly sauteed in butter, served with a bit of salt and pepper. But Ollie's green beans are a bit healthier - prepared as they are with olive oil and garlic, and a bit less salt (tho, that's generally to taste).

When I made these at Easter, I wasn't sure how well they'd go over, but I probably got more compliments on these green beans (and the appetizers I shared last week) than on anything else. They were wonderful. Super easy, too.

It's getting to be time to plant green beans. With any luck I'll have a better crop this year. I think I came out with about five beans per week last summer. Nice snacking food, but not enough for dinner.

When you've got a taste for fresh green beans... here's your recipe:

Ollie’s Green Beans

2 pounds fresh green beans, rinsed and strings removed

3 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

2 T. olive oil

1 small onion, finely diced

Salt to taste

Place oil in large heavy skillet, over medium heat. Add garlic and onion, stirring until softened and onion turns clear.

Add green beans. Stir to coat. Continue cooking until beans are still bright green and slightly crunchy but cooked through.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy the fresh snap of delicious green beans! Mmm... wish I had some left over!

Best,

Julie

Coming soon, GRACE UNDER PRESSURE - June 1, 2010

www.juliehyzy.com

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Riley's April Contest

The first book in the Memphis Barbeque series, Delicious and Suspicious, will be released July 6. To celebrate its upcoming release, Riley is throwing a giveaway! :) Are you interested in winning Williams-Sonoma’s Ultimate Grilling Rub Collection? It’s easy to enter! Just send an email to MysteryLoversKitchen@gmail.com with “Contest” in the subject line.

Really, really want to up your chances?You’ll get one extra entry if you follow us on Twitter, one extra if you subscribe to our posts (in the right hand sidebar under “Subscribe”), and one extra for becoming a follower (by clicking the “follow” button in the right hand column under our book covers and blog roll.) Just send us an extra email at MysteryLoversKitchen@gmail.com and let us know what you’ve signed up for. If you’re already a follower or subscriber, let us know that, too!

Cucumber Slices Stuffed with Feta and Pine Nuts

I know I learned a lot during Egg Week and I hope you did too!

Very soon we'll be announcing our next winner in our Secret Ingredient contest. It's not too late to send us your ideas and you could win .... chocolate!

Send us your suggestions at MysteryLoversKitchen@gmail.com and sign up to follow our blog. It's that easy. We'll be choosing the next winner very soon!

In the meantime, I thought I would share this recipe with you. As I've mentioned before, I'm fortunate to have a "Ghost Chef" for the White House Chef novels. Thank goodness! She's great, and very creative. Still, when this recipe originally appeared in STATE OF THE ONION, I have to admit I never thought I'd like it.

The Tinley Park Public Library and Caffe Milan, however, changed my mind when they served these as part of the holiday book discussion dinner in December. The caterer followed this recipe and loved the outcome so much that she's added these slices to her regular menu. I can see why. They were an enormous hit at dinner. I can't even tell you how many people said, "And I thought I didn't like feta cheese!"

When I made these, they didn't "stick" together too well, so I added an extra dollop of mayonnaise. Problem solved. These make a great veggie appetizer... they're light and full of flavor. And they're pretty, too!

Cucumber Slices Stuffed with Feta and Pine Nuts

½ cup feta cheese, crumbled

2 tbsp. mayonnaise

3 drops Worcestershire sauce (I used vegetarian Worcestershire)

¼ cup toasted pine nuts, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed and finely chopped

½ tsp. dried dill weed.

Salt and cracked pepper to taste.

¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped

Three large chilled cucumbers, sliced thinly

Kosher salt

Combine cheese, mayo, Worcestershire sauce, pine nuts, garlic, dill, salt, and pepper. Spread filling between two slices of cucumber. Place on platter. Continue until filling and cucumber slices are gone. Garnish with chopped parsley and sprinkle with salt. Serve cold.

Maybe I'm just in a hurry for better weather, but don't these have a Spring-y look to them?

Enjoy!

Julie