Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk cookies

Although you wouldn't know it by following this blog, there's actually been a lot of baking going on here lately. I've discovered some great new recipes that I promise to post soon, including a fabulous crusty bread that takes even less effort than the 5-minute breads I was so excited about last year.

Yesterday however, I just needed a cookie. These are modified from a Martha recipe, and have become my new favorite. I love the texture as well as the not-too-sweet flavor. Enjoy!

Oatmeal Chocolate-Chunk cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

3 cups oats (not quick oats)

1 cup flour (I use white wheat)

1/2 cup bran or wheat germ

1 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t sea salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

2/3 c granulated sugar

2/3 c light brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 t vanilla

1 c dark chocolate chunks or chips

Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla to butter mixture. Add dry ingredients and stir to combine. Add in chocolate chunks. Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes, depending on your over and your preference for chewy or crunchier cookies. Devour.

Double-chocolate gingersnaps

There's been a lot of baking going on here. A lot. In addition to the amazing cookies featured above, we've indulged in an outrageous chocolate mousse, a divine pumpkin-ginger cheesecake, and more cookies than I can possibly mention.

Here are some of the highlights, as well as the recipe for the double-chocolate gingersnaps, my personal favorite:

A tower of gingerbread.

The mound of 73% cacao that went into the mousse.

Baking, and decorating, with friends.

Sneaking sprinkles when she thinks Mama isn't looking!

My dessert plate a few nights ago, featuring pumpkin-ginger cheesecake, a chocolate gingersnap, and two kinds of Julie's frozen yogurt (I love that stuff!).

Chewy Chocolate-Gingerbread Cookies (adapted from a 1997 Martha Stewart Living recipe)

(makes about 2 dozen)

7 oz semisweet chocolate chips

1.5 cups flour

1.25 t. ground ginger

1 t. cinnamon

.25 t each cloves and nutmeg

1 T. cocoa powder

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 T freshly grated ginger (optional)

.5 c. dark brown sugar, packed

.25 c. unsulphered molasses

1 t. baking soda

1.5 t boiling water

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, spices, and cocoa.

Use an electric mixer to beat butter and grated ginger. Add brown sugar and molasses and beat until combined.

In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in boiling water.

Beat half the flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking soda mixture, then add remaining half of flour mixture.

Add in chocolate chips.

Roll dough into 1.5" balls and place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Bake 13-15 minutes. (13 will make a chewy cookie; 15 gets into crunch cookie territory).

Wilbur

There is very little stuff that remains from my childhood. This stems partly from my previously-mentioned tendency to purge when I feel overwhelmed by clutter, and partly because I've moved a lot. David and have moved 8 times (in 4 states) in the 16 (gasp!) years that we've lived together.

But lately I've become more sentimental. It's due in large part to the death of my dad, but I also think being a mom and hitting the 40-milestone both tie in as well.

When I was a kid, Wilbur sat on the passthrough between our postage-stamp-sized kitchen and our dining room, always there as a visible reminder that there just might be cookies to be had. Frankly, there usually weren't (a result of nonexistent baking skills and frequent calorie-counting on my mother's part).

On our most recent trip to Florida, I finally brought Wilbur home to Portland. Anna was so excited when the UPS truck arrived with the box he was in. As soon as I unpacked him, she was hugging and kissing him (despite the fact that he most certainly needed a bath!).

Wilbur was washed and filled the following day. For now, he's got some little, kid-friendly cookies from Trader Joe's in his belly, but soon he will be filled with yummy, homemade delights that Anna will grow up both loving and taking totally for granted. Wilbur and his belly of love and plenty will just be there throughout her childhood.

And many years from now, when Anna has a child of her own, I'll give her Wilbur and he will mean to her then what he means to me now. Home.

Christmas

Update: Click on the image above to link to David's Flickr set of all the Christmas pics.

We’re just settling back to our pre-visitor routine after about 10 days of various guests and an assortment of maladies. In the days leading up to Christmas, we were treated to many delicious dinners courtesy of Tasia’s friend David (from now on referred to as David A. to avoid confusion with my David). Our consumption of the trifecta of fat (croissants, fromage, and cookies) hit an all time high (really, I didn’t even know it could get any higher!), and we managed a few outings, including two that were child-free.

The pre-Christmas highlight for me was definitely getting a few girl-hours to shop for dresses in town with Tasia. She found 3 that are true Tas (short, tight, flirty as hell), and I found one that I love, love, love (not quite so short, but the other adjectives certainly apply :-).

Christmas Eve day Anna made cookies for Santa, which she later put out with vin chaud (what, you expected milk? Americans!). Going to sleep that night she kept saying “I’m so excited,” and it was just so sweet. (Side note: a few days before Christmas we saw “Santa” riding in a horse-drawn carriage around Rouen. Anna and I chased the carriage for a block or so with Anna beaming and yelling “I’m so happy!!!” the whole time. It was definitely one of my favorite moments of this trip.)

Christmas itself was lovely, filled with the enthusiasm that only a 3-year-old can manage, as well a champagne (the real kind), and the usual goodies. We had agreed to limit gift-giving to stocking stuffers, the sillier the better. There were a few exceptions, most notably the gorgeous necklace David bought me. I had spotted it one day racing through Printemps (sort of the French Macy’s) in search of gloves (I managed to lose one each of mine and Anna’s in the first week here). He remembered and has now created a big problem, as there are 4 showrooms for the jewelry line in Paris!

Christmas dinner was the brunch we never got around to earlier, followed by the first 3 episodes of Season 1 of Californication and the finalé of season 4 of Weeds (perhaps not the expected choice for Christmas—unless you know the crowd that was present!). This is actually one of the interesting things about this trip—the dichotomy between the very old architecture, roads, etc., and the technology we have access to. Because we brought a laptop and WiFi base station, we have access to the world. Pair that with the big screen and video projector in the house and we can download and watch most anything we want. The most surreal example of this has been sitting in this funky, old, French house projecting Barack Obama in HD and larger than life onto the screen to watch his podcasts. Surreal because of what I mentioned above, but also because we are so hopeful and encouraged by who he is and what he has to say. And we just can’t believe that this man is our President, that for the first time in 8 years, we are willing to call someone our President. (Sorry for the political tangent!)

As much as we loved having our friends here to help us celebrate, I am enjoying the quiet (ok, relative quiet) that comes from just being our little family. We have time for a few more adventures and then it’ll be time to head home. Nine more days left—hard to believe.

Rationalizations

Why is it that things that you would never do at home seem like such good ideas when you travel? David and I polished off a bottle of local cider with our lunch today (at a great "bio" [organic] restaurant). We then stopped at a marché where we bought 4 different kinds of cookies, dark chocolate pudding, and more cider. (Mind you, this is in addition to the vin chaud and chocolate cake we already have at home.) Then we stopped at the boulangerie, as we do roughly every other day, for our morning croissants (with chèvre and jam) and baguette (with cheese and butter). While I can justify this somewhat with the miles we walk every day, I am sure that there's a point at which the intake is exceeding the output. That point was probably somewhere around when the 4th box of cookies made it into the basket.