Peanutbutter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Found this amazing recipe at smittenkitchen.com/ and I knew I had to try it. I haven't had peanut butter cookies since I was a kid, and honestly I don't know what the heck I was waiting for because I have obviously been missing out. I made some minor adjustments to the recipe which I will explain further.

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened ( i didn't use a full stick of butter for this, and it didn't make a difference.)
1 cup peanut butter at room temperature (they recommended creamy, so i used 1/2 cup creamy and 1/2 cup crunchy)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut butter chips (i used 1 full bag)
1/2 cup chocolate chips(i also used a full bag of these. it may have been overkill, i ended up with extra chips laying in the bottom of my bowl, you can probably decide for yourself how much is too much)

For sprinkling: 1 tablespoon sugar, regular or superfine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Place sprinkling sugar — the remaining tablespoon — on a plate. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls into the sugar, then onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. Using a fork, lightly indent with a crisss-cross pattern (I used the back of a small offset spatula to keep it smooth on top), but do not overly flatten cookies. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not.

Cool the cookies on the sheets for 1 minute, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Piano keys

Chris and I have gotten into the habit of renting old seasons of House and watching them in an effort to satisfy our need for drama - or maybe that's just me.
Last night we watched an episode about an idiot savant who had a neurological problem that caused him to have extraordinary skills on the piano. I watched with fascination at first, until I couldn't bear to see his fingers cross the keys, I couldn't stand to hear the lyrical notes, I couldn't deal with the intensity of my emotions. I started wracking my brain for any possible way that I could find myself back on a piano bench, back with my fingers on the whites and blacks, back in the one place that has always brought me comfort and strength. It's been a good six months since I've had the opportunity to play, before that even longer. All together, I've been out of touch, musically, for three years, and the longer I go without it, the harder it is to sit back down and play again. The sheer disappointment that I feel when my fingers hit the keys, when the notes grace my ears, when the world around my falls away; it's enough to make me cry.
I miss the familiarity that playing the piano brings, the universal aspect of music. It gives me clarity, peace, centeredness.
In a time when I felt alone and overwhelmed by stress, the piano was there. When I needed to clear my mind, I would walk to the bench, sit down, begin playing, and it was like I had flipped a switch on my life - the room was gone, my problems were gone, the world was in order, and all that I needed to focus on was making sure that my fingers reached the notes on the page, that the music never stopped, that I was growing, stretching, building, learning, playing.
There's never been anything that brings calm to my life the way that playing did. Nothing has ever been able to replace that, nothing even comes close. When I close my eyes, I can imagine the feeling of being able to play a piece that I've worked hard on, knowing that I have learned something brand new - struggled over it, worked at it, shaped my hands around it, and conquered it. Now, when I play the piano, the satisfaction is gone. I know that I have not been able to play a new piece in over 4 years, the work I've done has been completed long ago, when I dreaded Friday afternoons, the daunting piano lesson ahead of me. I am disappointed in myself, in my receding skill, in my lazy fingers and the silent keys. I hate the sound of choppy waltzes, I hate the way I struggle over pieces that I learned when I was in middle school. I hate my fingers and my mind and my lack of talent.

I want that back, whatever it was. I want the feeling back, I want the peace back, I want the talent back. I want the naivety that came with it, the feeling that I would never be without the piano, the innocence that I had when I sat down at the keys.

Negative Calorie Foods

There has been some controversy as to the legitimacy of what are known as "negative calorie" foods, however I am a pretty big believer and supporter. Foods that are deemed "negative" perhaps are a little deceiving, as all food contains calories (with the exemption of fake sugar and, well, cardboard - but i guess neither of those count, right?), but the effect that eating this food has is best understood when given the title "negative". Believe it or not, there are certain foods you can eat that have the effect of not eating anything. Your body exerts effort when you chew, swallow, even digest your food, so it's not surprising that you don't retain every single stray calorie you ingest. On the contrary, your body burns off a percentage of the calories taken in at any given time, some foods requiring more effort than others. There are groups of food, primarily fruit and vegetables, that require so much effort for your body to digest, that you end up with a negative calorie effect when it boils down to pure numbers. You may have heard that chewing celery burns more calories than you gain from eating it - this is true. However, celery is not the only food that gives you this sweet grace, it's simply one of several (potentially more than twenty).
Many people have attempted to follow this list in a strict manner, cutting off all other foods in order to loose weight. This is not a smart idea, as these foods do not contain enough nutrients on their own to sustain your health for an extensive period of time. The controversy herein lies.

"Negative Calorie" Foods :
Asparagus
Beet Root
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrot
Cauliflower
Celery
Cucumber
Garlic
Green Beans
Lettuce
Onion
Radish
Spinach
Turnip
Zuchini

Apple
Blueberry
Cantaloupe
Cranberry
Grapefruit
Honeydew
Lemon
Lime
Mango
Orange
Papaya
Peach
Pineapple
Raspberry
Strawberry
Tomato
Tangerine
Turnip
Watermellon

On getting what you want

Sometimes I wonder if I've conditioned myself to want the things that I can't have. I don't mean a normal amount of want; I mean the intense longing that breeds infatuation. I mean wanting something so bad that your heart aches, your world falls apart, nothing is more satisfying than the pull it has. I wonder if I've become that girl. You know the one, we all know the one. Do I want what I can't have and hate what I can? Am I always going to find myself dissatisfied with the real thing? Or is it all just a mind game?
I think, sometimes, that what I've done is build a world around me, a perfect, idealized world, my own perception of reality, something that nothing can ever compare to. Do I spend my time pretending that the things I want are better than they really are? Does it affect how I view the world? My friends? The future? My faith?
Maybe the things I want aren't in the cards. Maybe I'm fooling myself into thinking that perfect is out there; Perfect classes, Perfect motivation, Perfect photography, Perfect love, Perfect life. I idealize Perfect. How did I end up like this?

Basic Vietnamese Chili Sauce

2 dried red chilies, stemmed, seeded, and soaked in hot water until soft
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Using a mortar and pestle, grind together the dried chilies and the garlic to form a rough paste. Stir in the sugar until well incorporated. Stir in the remaining ingredients.


This Vietnamese chili sauce differs from most Thai hot sauces with its use of dried chilies instead of fresh, yielding a smokier, somewhat softer flavor. Brown sugar also has a mellowing effect.

Taken from this book.
Served with chicken kabobs and grilled sweet potatoes.

On the future and other mindless things

For a while last semester, I got the crazy idea in my head that my true calling in life was to be a chef. I had spent a great deal of time at home in South Carolina over winter break, and during the course of my two week stay, I talked more about school and my future than I had in the past 2 months combined. When tufw announced the closing, I had my one solid day of complete panic and tears and the whole emotional breakdown, what am I going to do with my life, freak out. But that was it. After that one day, I shut that part of my mind down, i turned it off, flipped the switch, moved on, walked away. I told everyone that I just wasn't ready to talk about it yet, and so I didn't make plans for the future. Instead, I assumed that life would work itself out in the end, just like it always does. So when I got to South Carolina and endured the endless discussions, going around and around and around in circles, having the same pointless conversations with everyone that I encountered, I finally came to the conclusion that I HAD to find a degree that would get me out of school and done with this part of my life in 2 years or less.
The obvious choice was culinary arts. Of course.
If you were thinking something more like dog groomer, I'm sorry to disappoint.

During the brief period of time when I decided that my life was lacking in the cooking and eating department, I cooked a grand total of one time. A whopping one dinner was prepared, thought over, consumed, and then, for a lack of better words, revisited.
I made dinner, the best dinner (though, now I can't look back on it without feeling ill), a dinner that required so much time and effort that I spent the whole day making it. I ate dinner and drank a beer along with it, and the next day I came down with the stomach virus, and I will never be able to drink beer from a green glass again. The very sight of grits makes me queasy, and I haven't touched salmon since. It was not a very good time. But it was an excellent deterrent. I learned from this experience that cooking was NOT on the menu - laugh if you will - for my future. Professional cooking, that is.

Now, as the year draws to a close, the window of time is growing smaller, the light at the end more dim, I feel like I may have finally settled on something. Maybe, for once in my life, I have come to terms with my life, maybe I've finally evaluated the things that are important to me in a way that will satisfy my heart cry. Maybe, just maybe, this is where I'm supposed to be; heading down the road I'm supposed to be on. I believed for the longest time that I'd be heading south. South where? South anywhere, wherever the wind blew, just south. But now...somewhere else is calling my name, something else is drawing my attention away from the past year in youth ministry. Maybe now I can finally settle into school, into my passion, into my future and my career. Photography? San Fransisco? Missions? It calls to me.