I’ve been a big lazy bum this weekend. Reason being—Broomball.

We played Broomball Friday night, and it did me in for the whole weekend. After all the years of playing competitive soccer, I don’t think my body has ever hurt this bad. Maybe I’m getting old. In hindsight, I should have come armed with knee pads, elbow pads, and a helmet. Speaking of helmets, I took a nasty spill about 10 minutes into playing, hitting my head on the ice. A goose egg bump ensued. Being the competitive kamikaze athlete that I am, if you can even still call me an athlete, I kept playing. But, oh, I payed for it the rest of the weekend.

You’re probably thinking—”Does she want some cheese, with that whine?” I’ll pass on the cheese, but I’ll take a cookie instead. And that’s exactly what I did yesterday. I soothed my soul with a healthy chocolate chip cookie. I wasn’t about to try making a new recipe to blog about with my head being a little more foggy than normal. There’s no telling how it would have turned out. So I stuck with what I knew—an oldie but a favorite.

This little gem of a cookie will delight your palette. It’s tiny. Cute. With hints of maple. Filled with dark chocolate. And hidden with healthy morsels of whole wheat flour, oats, walnuts, and honey. Even college students, known for their fast food pizza eating habits, love these cookies.

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Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies


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  • Yield: 3 dozen cookies 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 c. white whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp. aluminum-free baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. sea salt
  • 1 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 1/2 c. walnuts
  • 1 c. pure cane sugar
  • 1 tbsp. honey
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 2/3 c. dark chocolate chips
  • 1/4 c. turbinado (coarse sugar)
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. In a sauce pan, melt butter and allow to cool for about 15 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, Whisk together flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in bowl.
  4. In food processor or high-powered blender, finely grind oats, and add to flour mixture. Then finely grind walnuts. add to flour mixture.
  5. Into cooled butter mixture, whisk in sugar, honey, egg, and vanilla extract until sugar is dissolved and all ingredients are well combined.
  6. Pour butter mixture into flour mixture, and mix until just combined. (Dough will be somewhat dry.)
  7. Mix in chocolate chips.
  8. Scoop cookies with a spring release scoop or roll in ball by hand. Chocolate chips will have a nasty tendency to drop out of the cookies. Give them a little nudge to stay inside. Roll cookies in turbinado and cinnamon mixture and place on silpat or parchment paper lined pan. Do not flatten.
  9. Bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool on pan for 5 minutes.

Notes

You can also freeze these cookies before baking. Do everything up to step 9. Instead of placing the cookies in the cookies in the oven, place them in the freezer on the cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes. This process is called flash freezing. Once they are frozen or hard, you can put them in a freezer proof bag and store up to 2 months in freezer. When you are ready for a cookie or two, set the cookie(s) out on your pan while preheating the oven. Bake for the same amount of time. You may have to add 2 minutes or so. With this method, you can have a freshly baked cookie instead of eating a week old cookie.

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Go ahead and treat yourself to a cookie. A healthy(ish) one at that!

I love chili.

Maybe it’s because of all of the good memories surrounding it. My mom made chili a lot growing up. While she made the chili, I was in charge of adding the egg and milk to the Jiffy Cornbread mix. Without fail, every Halloween we’d have a bowl of it before going trick-or-treating. Those were good times.

When I make chili, it makes home feel a little closer. Two and a half years ago, I married my best friend and moved to Chicago. Here, winter lasts about 5 months out of the year, providing many opportunities to make chili. So, I set out to recreate my mom’s chili. After a couple attempts, “the chili” was concocted. A friend asked me for the recipe last year, only problem being that it was in my head. I guess that’s not the only problem—I rarely use measuring utensils. When I cook, I smell, dump, and taste. Kevin, my husband, alerted me to this the other day. I always open the spice jar and smell it before dumping in the guesstimated amount. I guess I cook with my nose just as much as I do my taste buds. This is no good for sharing recipes.

Today, though, I got out my measuring spoons.

Chili
serves 8

1 large sweet onion (make sure it’s sweet!)
4 garlic cloves
6 roma tomatoes
28 oz. crushed tomatoes
6 oz.  tomato paste
1 lb. lean ground beef
15 oz. can red kidney beans, drained
15 oz. can light red kidney beans, drained
15 oz. can black beans, drained
Hot Chili Sauce (we call this chinese ketchup)
2 tbsp. cumin
2 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. unsweetened chocolate powder
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
Salt
Olive oil

1. Dice onion and garlic. Don’t worry about chopping too finely. You’ll take care of that in a minute.
2. In a stock pot with olive oil and salt, sauté onion and garlic for about 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, dice tomatoes.
4. Add tomatoes into the stock pot, and allow to cook for another 10 minutes.
5. While the tomato mixture is sautéing, cook ground beef until browned.
6. Pour sautéed tomato mixture into a food processor, and pulse for 20 seconds. (This will help get rid of those pesky tomato skins that curl up and look unappetizing.)
7. Add mixture back into stock pot along with the browned meat, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, beans, and spices. Add hot chili sauce and salt to taste. Stir.
8. Simmer for an hour. (I recommend tasting 30 minutes in to make sure everything is on par. Go with your gut, or should I say your nose, and add extra spices if needed.)
9. Top with your favorite chili toppings. (We love to add brown rice or pita chips, hot sauce, cheese, and cilantro.) Serve.

For all the people out there like me, here is a visual recipe.

I hope this makes home feel a little closer for you too!

If you know anything about me, you know that I like to do everything myself. If I can make it, then there’s no need to buy the pre-made stuff. And the taste. Do I even need to go there? It’s always better homemade especially when you are whipping up salad dressing.

Salad dressing is very easy to make. And I have something that makes it even easier—a dressing emulsifier! For Christmas, my mother in law bought me one, and it works like a charm. She bought it at William Sonoma, but I have seen them at Crate and Barrel and Sur la Table.

Before I tell you all the perks of this product, lets talk emulsion. The definition of emulsion is “a fine dispersion of minute droplets of one liquid in another in which it is not soluble or miscible.” What in the heck does all that jibber jabber mean? Let’s break it down in layman’s terms. Picture this: oil and water. If you pour them into a glass bowl, they separate. However, if you whisk them vigorously for a length of time, they come together. This my friends is the process of emulsion, and this is how you make dressing.

Now for the perks. This dressing emulsifier emulsifies! Imagine that. According to the product description it has a corkscrew like stir stick which is in charge of emulsifying. This takes out the vigorous whisking you would normally have to do. Even better, this allows you to re-emulsify the dressing after it has been sitting in your fridge for a couple days. It’s also got a great little pouring spout with a cute lid. It’s made of a clear plastic allowing you to see inside the container. And, best of all, it has recipes right on the container with markers showing you how much of each ingredient you need. Are you still reading this, or are you at the store waiting in line to pay? In this case, I hope it’s the later. This is a kitchen must have.

In case you want to make this and you don’t yet have this gadget, here’s the recipe with a couple additions I make to the recipe on the bottle.

Balsamic Vinaigrette

1/2 c. olive oil
1/4 c. balsalmic vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
squirt of honey, if desired.
dash of oregano
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a bowl, add balsamic vinegar, minced garlic, honey, salt, and pepper.
2. Pour olive oil into the mixture slowly while whisking continuously. Whisk until the oil and mixture are combined.
3. Serve immediately. If making ahead, whisk again before serving.

Will keep in fridge for about a month.

This weekend I ventured into the world of homemade pasta. And I’m never turning back. Grocery store, packaged pasta has nothing on fresh pasta. Sure, I’ll still use the grocery store pasta for convenience during the week. But on the weekend, I’m pulling out the pasta maker.

You’re gonna need one of these, assuming you have a KitchenAid:

It’s a pasta press! You can purchase one at William Sonoma. (The link also has a video about the product if you want a sneak preview.) I am ashamed to say, I got this last Christmas. That is, Christmas of ’09. And I’m just now getting around to using it. Lame. I know. I have a couple excuses I could throw out, but honestly there’s no good excuse not to use this beautiful piece of machinery. Homemade pasta is the bomb.com.

Light Wheat Pasta
recipe from KitchenAid

2 1/2 c. sifted whole wheat flour
1 c. sifted bread or unbleached flour
4 large eggs
6 tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Place all ingredients in mixer bowl. Attach flat beater and turn to Speed 2. Mix 30 seconds.
2. Exchange flat beater for dough hook. Turn to Speed 2 and knead for 2 minutes. Remove dough from bowl and hand knead for 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Get out your pasta press. Use manufacturers instructions and make pasta!

TIPS
• Dough too dry? Add a tablespoon of water at a time.
• Dough too moist? Add a tablespoon of flour at a time.

Stay tuned to hear how I served the pasta.

Baked Oatmeal | @thefauxmartha

Post and recipe updated: 5.26.14

The temperature has turned to cold. Family and friends are gathered in droves. Thanksgiving is in a couple of days and you’re probably wondering what to serve all those people for breakfast. First thing that comes to everyone’s mind—breakfast casserole. Over done. High in calories (save those precious numbers for your turkey dinner). Heavy on the stomach. Try something new this year—Baked Oatmeal. If you have to, think of it as Oatmeal Casserole. Original. Low in calories. Light on the stomach. Best of all, it feeds lots of people! Read more

Dear Blog, Please excuse my absence. I had to get a ganglion cyst removed, was in a cast, and couldn’t really bake or type for that matter. But now I’m back! Yours Truly, Fauxmartha

It’s pumpkin time. Well, maybe it’s on the tail end of pumpkin time, but it’s not too late. Too late for what? Duh, roasting your own pumpkins. This year, try forgoing buying that canned pumpkin. Not that it’s bad, but this is so much better. I promise.

The best pumpkins for baking are known as cheese pumpkins or sugar pumpkins. You want to stay away from using the big carving pumpkins (pictured above in the middle). They make for a stringy and watery puree. Unknowingly, I did this last year. And it’s true—watery and stringy. This year, I went with sugar pumpkins. They are small. Decently smooth to the touch. Some may call them cute. And guess what, they’re orange. (Cheese pumpkins are not true orange. Read here to find out more about pumpkin varieties.) You can buy them at specialty grocery stores (Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, etc). I bought mine at the Farmer’s Market. The look tiny but produce plenty of pumpkin meat.

There are several ways to turn a pumpkin into pumpkin puree. Some people cut the pumpkin into chunks and steam them. Others do the same thing, but microwave instead of steam. I prefer the roasting method. In my opinion it’s the easiest and tastes the best, but others may disagree.

Roasting Sugar Pumpkins
adapted from MarthaStewart.com
1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. With a sharp knife, cut slits in the pumpkin so it can breathe while roasting.
3. Place pumpkin(s) in a baking dish with about 1″ of water.
4. Bake for about 1 1/2 hr, until skin is easily pierced.
5. Peel off skin of pumpkin. If needed, use a peeler.
6. Cut pumpkin in half and allow to cool for about 15 min.
7. Scoop out seeds. I used a melon baller to do this.
8. Throw the “meat” of the pumpkin into a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.
9. Allow to cool and add to your recipe in place of the canned stuff; or refrigerate for up to 2 days or freeze.

Stay tuned to hear where this puree made it’s debut. It’ll leave you saying Whoop-ee!

 
 
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