As much as the whole holiday season tends to annoy me to no end, I do enjoy the baking. I sat down with my cookbooks and picked out some interesting recipes which I promptly cooked up and turned out to be inedible. I’m not sure what went wrong. It may be that I like things with unexpected ingredients and those are notoriously iffy. It may be the touchy oven at the new house. It may be the alignment of the planets for all I know.
I decided to make a tried and true recipe – chocolate chili cookies. I told the SO that if these didn’t turn out that I wasn’t cooking anything ever again. There was that much pressure on these cookies. I may have been a bit on edge because the night before he had tried some god awful cookies and ever so gently suggested that maybe cookies just weren’t my thing. I did not injure him. I’m counting that as holiday spirit. (I went to the store yesterday and a ?@*!/ bell ringer was taking a break. When I came out he picked up his bell and shook it at me. I think I might have growled at him. It was involuntary. I spent too much time at work on top of cookie stress! That’s my defense and I’m sticking to it.)
The chocolate chili cookies came out great as always and saved the day. You can search for the recipe on the archives. I’m posting this on my blackberry and linking is not easy.
This morning I branched out again after that confidence booster and tried a new recipe. I have an older set of Pillsbury cookbooks that use their products to make stuff. It is sort of a semi-homemade thing. I am totally in love with this recipe.
Banana Brownies
1 box of brownie mix
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup oil (I used a bit less applesauce instead)
1 egg
1 mashed banana
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Mix the brownie mix, water, oil/applesauce, and egg by hand. Add in banana and chocolate chips. Spread in a greased pan and cook at 350 for 30 minutes.
This came out very gooey so I might decrease the wet ingredients (lose the egg?) to get it under control. But they are scrumptious! I mean eyes roll back in your head in ectasy good. I was making them as part of an assortment to ship and I’m sure that they will be smashed on arrival but they are still good if you have to eat them with a spoon!
