Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

Wow. I've eaten some cookie dough in my day, but the cookie dough I ate tonight may well go down in history as the best I've ever eaten.

I'd never heard of Nutella cookies before reading a post from Jene (at The Original Bean), and I'm very glad I did, because these cookies are delicious! (raw or cooked!)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature (I used salted.)
3/4 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of white sugar
1 cup of Nutella
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup of chocolate chips
1/2 cup of chopped hazelnuts (I added a whole cup because 1/2 cup didn't look like enough)

As you may have noticed, the recipe called for chocolate chips, of which I had none, so Mr.4444 kindly took out his trusty kitchen knife and wacked up some Bakers chocolate that I had.  Like Jene says, I finally found a use for the other end of my Pampered Chef measuring thingy...

First, cream the butter until its...well....creamy.

Then, add the vanilla, sugars, and Nutella. Mix well.

 

Add the vanilla and the eggs (one at a time, mixing 30 seconds between each egg).

 

Put the flour, baking soda, and cocoa....wait a minute! 

What flour?! Dang it--Sorry, I forgot to put the flour in the ingredient photo. Here you go!

The recipe said to sift the dry ingredients, so I did what any resourceful cook would do:

 

What?! Yes, it's time-consuming and a little annoying, but you can't argue with the results
(or the directions, which remind you that cocoa stays in chunks if you don't sift it):

 

Mix well.

 

Fold in the chocolate chips and the nuts.
The recipe calls for hazelnuts, but I made an executive decision on that one, too; 

since hazelnut coffee makes me gag, I went with walnuts.

Now here's where I muffed up the recipe and you should not. (Like my mom always said, "Do as I say, not as I do!"  Chill the dough for ten minutes or so. I didn't, and the result was kind of disasterous; so bad that I can't show you a pic (Just kidding--I did take a pic, but I lost it, so you'll have to use your imagination. Picture big, flat cookies all run into each other on the pan.)

If you haven't eaten all the dough yet, put it by rounded spoonsful (I used the big Pampered Chef cookie scoop) onto  parchment paper and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, allowing to cool a bit on the pan before transferring to a cooling rack.

While my cookies came out flat as pancakes and badly misshapen, I'm happy to report that they tasted fantastic and got rave reviews from Kendall and Mr.4444. They were all gone within two days.

I can't tell you how many this makes, since eating have the dough skewed my end result. (Jene said that they're too rich to eat too many, but you can see what a liar she is.) If you make them, let me know what you come up with, if you can resist...

Aunt Mary's Bailey's Irish Cream

3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 can Eagle Brand Milk
3 tbls Hershey's chocolate syrup
1 pint cream or half-and-half

1 cup whiskey (Irish, or whatever you have)

Blend all but the whiskey in a blender. Add the whiskey and mix again.  Pour into bottles and refrigerate.  Keeps a long time and is great in coffee with whipped cream on top! (Makes a nice Christmas gift!)

Homemade Hot Chocolate

"Oh, Mom--This is amazing," declared my college daughter just now as she sipped from a cup of this seasonal favorite. (And she doesn't even have marshmallows in it!)

This recipe is so simple! It makes a huge batch, and creatively wrapped, makes a perfect little Christmas gift.  Every year, I package it up for my Difference Makers kids. Since they absolutely LOVE when I serve it after "Ding-Dong-Decorate-and-Ditch," they are always tickled to receive some more to take home.

Four Simple Ingredients:

1 8-qt box of powdered milk (no, Matty, you cannot substitute the liquid variety, haha)
1 22-oz Cremora (some people say they use the flavored kind, but I just keep to the plain stuff)
1 box of confectioner's (powdered) sugar
1 2-lb box Nestle's Quick

Just dump it all in a BIG container and mix it up!  I'll warn you that it's not cheap to make, but it really does make a LOT. I couldn't even fit all of mine in my largest mixing bowl--I dumped it all into a huge stockpot to mix it. The powdered milk was $13.00, but it was twice what I actually needed, so I'll be making another batch, which Kendall plans to give to her friends as Christmas gifts.

Use 1/3 cup mix per cup of hot water or just mix it to-taste.

This is really a treat. For the adults on your list, you could also make my Aunt Mary's Homemade Bailey's Irish Cream.

Sweet Stuff! ($50 CSN Stores Giveaway!)

I recently received a copy of the book Nonna Tell Me a Story for review, and I'm happy to report that's it's lovely. Written by "one of the most-loved chefs on television, a best-selling cookbook author, and restaurateur," Lidia Bastianich, the book encourages families to share holiday memories of old and create new ones through baking and decorating together for the holidays.  Laura Logan did a wonderful job with the heart-warming illustration that accompany the sweet story of multi-generational holiday sharing in the first half of the book.  In the second half, Chef Bastianich shares her recipes for a number of favorite holiday cookies, from Almond Butter Cookies to these babies:

 Photo found at Palacinka.com

You can find this hardcover book many places on line, priced anywhere from $9.32 to $15.

If you buy this book, you might need cookware to bake all of the deliciousness. Want a little help? Enter to win a $50 CSN Stores gift code. Not a baker? You will be amazed at the incredible number of products offered  by CSN Stores' 200+ sites. Win this, and you could put a nice dent in your holiday shopping.

To Enter, visit this link and give me the link of something you'd love to own (money is no object)! [This is a required entry.]

For extra entries:
*Enter my $100 CSNStores giveaway on Half-Past Kissin' Time
*Tweet this giveaway and include the url for your tweet. (Worth 2 extra entries)
*Include a link to this giveaway in your December 10th Friday Fragments (or any post, I suppose) and let me know in a comment here. (Worth 2 extra entries)
*Share a link to any Mrs.4444 Cooks post on your Facebook page and let me know here (or email me a screenshot if we're not FB friends). (Worth 3 extra entries)

GIVEAWAY ENDS Sunday, December 12TH at 10pm and will be announced in my Friday Fragments post on December 17th.

[UPDATE: The winner of this giveaway was Dee! Thanks for entering, Everyone! :) ]

Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

Some day, I just might be brave enough to cook with yeast. Until that day comes, I'm gonna just put this recipe here for safe keeping; these rolls were a big hit at Thanksgiving this year :) (Thanks, Mary!!! And Thanks, Geri, for the recipe!)

Ingredients:

2 tsps active dry yeast
1 1/2 C warm water (110-115 degrees)
1 1/4 C canned pumpkin
1/2 C butter or margarine, softened
1/3 C sugar (or Splenda)
2 eggs
2 tsps salt
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
4 1/2 to 5 C all-purpose flour

These are delicious, a pretty color, and do not really taste much like pumpkin.

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water.  Add the pumpkin , butter, sugar, eggs, salt, and whole wheat flour; beat until smooth.  Stir in enough all-purpose flour to make a soft dough (I use 5 cups). Turn onto a lightly-floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.  Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top.  Cover and let rise in a warm place, until doubled (about 1 hour).

Punch dough down. Turn onto lightly-floured surface; divide into 3 portions.  Roll each portion into a 12" circle; cut each circle into 12 wedges.  Roll up wedges from the wide end and place, pointed-side down, 2 inches aprart, on greased baking sheets.  Curve ends to form crescents.

Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Move to wire racks. Yield 3 dozen

Nutritional Analysis: 1 roll = 134 calories, 3 g fat (2 saturated), 19 mg cholesterol, 161 mg. sodium, 23 g carbs, 2 g fiber, 4 g protein.  Diabetic exchanges: 1 1/2 starch, 1/2 fat. 3 Weight Watchers pts.

CSN Stores Giveaway!

Children's Luggage, pet products, cookware that would make Chef Ramsey kiss butt for; these are just a few of the many, many products you can find on the CSN Stores website. Seriously--The have 200+ stores!!  I'm excited to tell you that very soon, I will be offering you a chance to spend your very own CSN Stores gift certificate! Stay tuned for your chance to enter!

My Two New Favorite Kitchen Tools!

[note: Photos/Links originally included in this post have been removed by the CSNStores site, which was later purchased by WayFair]

Last summer, I bought a piece of crap B&D blender and have had to return it not once, but twice, because it can't handle the power demands required to blend a banana smoothie! It starts to blend and then has a cardiac arrest and cannot be revived. Very frustrating!!  It's back in it's box again, and I'm happy to say that I will be returning it permanently this time, because I have found a new friend in, surprisingly, my new Oster blender, which I got to pick as part of a CSNStores offer.

I don't really know why I've not bought the Oster brand before, but it was within the budget allowed to me by CSNStores, so I went for it, and I'm really happy I did--It's perfect! I especially noticed that the motor on my 12-speed Oster blender was relatively quiet; I made smoothie at 8am without waking Mr.4444, who slept peacefully just a room away. It effortlessly tore through frozen strawberries like a champ. The 5-cup pitcher  size is perfect for our smoothie making needs. For you gadget fans out there, this blender even has "clean" mode (which kind of cracked me up). I'm really happy with our new blender and look forward to using it often.

I also chose the West Bend Electronic Stopwatch for my holiday baking, and I'm thrilled with it.  Every year, I make Norwegian Krumkake (see my post, When Kaka Means Yummy!). When you make krumkake, you can only make two at a time, and they have to cook for about 80 seconds. As a multi-tasker, I often burn some, because I can't be bothered to stand there and watch them cook. My new timer is going to make burned krumkake a thing of the past :)

The timer is the perfect size (numbers show up nice and big) and it's a very basic, timer, which makes me very happy; I don't need all kinds of complicated buttons--just let me count up or down and I'm happy.  The West Bend timer that I got can be displayed three different ways--it's magnetized to put on your fridge, you can clip it to your belt, or stand it up with an easy flip of the stand on the back. It beeps loudly, which is perfect for me, because I can be doing things in the next room and still hear it.  I'm really looking forward to doing my holiday baking with my new timer.

My experience with CSN Stores has been wonderful. I've reviewed three of their products and very much look forward to having a CSN Store Giveaway very soon, so stay tuned!!