Chocolate Chip Treasure Cookies. The other day I had picked up a bunch of things at the shop to make Magic Cookie Bars. I then spied this easy recipe on The Eagle Brand Milk Site for Chocolate Chip Treasure Cookies.
Chocolate Chip Cookies using Eagle brand milk that are amazingly egg free. These would be the perfect cookies to bake for someone who has an egg allergy. I was intrigued. I just had to bake them!
I wanted to show you my sister's mother rabbit, sleeping bunny cookie jar. She bought it at a yard sale from a man who said it was his mother's. Its very similar to some other ones we have seen, except it doesn't have glass eyes. The ones with the glass eyes were produced in the 1970's.
This one is not as bright as those and is made from ceramic bisque. Its stamped Brazil on the bottom, but we have not been able to find another one like it online anywhere. I love vintage cookie jars, and have two pig ones.
In any case I decided to use her very pretty jar as a prop with my cookies today. Now back to the cookies.
My cookies didn't flatten out like the ones shown on the Eagle Brand Milk page, but I have to say they are incredibly, moreishly delicious! As well as being very quick and easy to make.
In case you don't know what sweetened condensed milk is I will explain. First of all it is NOT evaporated milk.
Evaporated milk is milk which has been heat treated to remove 60% of the water. It also comes in a can and has about the same density as cream. In fact I often use it in the place of cream, as it is lower in fat and calories, especially in sauces and stuff.
Sweetened Condensed milk is milk that has been treated in much the same way to remove roughly 60% of the water as well, but it has sugar added which makes it a lot thicker and of course much sweeter.
They are not the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably. You can however make your own sweetened condensed milk and I have done so in the past, using regular milk and sugar. You can find a good recipe to do that here.
I also used to make my own when my children were growing up using dry milk powder, butter, boiling water and sugar in a blender. You can find that recipe here.
I have made Magic Cookie Bars many times through the years, or Seven Layer Bars, etc. They have a whole bunch of names. Basically they are a cookie bar that is created by layering things in a baking tin.
Usually graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, sweetened condensed milk, coconut, chocolate chips, nuts, etc. You layer these things in the pan in order, and then bake them. Like magic they make a cookie bar. Easy to make and easy to eat!
These are just as easy to make. As easy as the bars really. You need to beat some softened butter and the sweetened condensed milk together first until smooth. I used my electric hand whisk to do this.
You whisk together a small amount of flour and graham cracker crumbs with some baking powder, which then gets stirred in.
In the UK there is no such thing as graham crackers, but don't despair, you can use an equivalent measure of Digestive biscuit crumbs. The plain ones, not the chocolate ones. Just blitz them in a food processor until they are the consistency of fine bread crumbs. Easy peasy.
Once you have done that it is only a matter of stirring in the remaining ingredients. Flaked coconut, chocolate chips and toasted chopped walnuts.
You don't really need to use toasted walnuts, but I always do. Toasting your nuts really enhances their nuttiness. I do them a bag at a time and keep them in the freezer.
Just spread them out on a large baking sheet in a single layer and pop them into a medium high oven (about 190*C/375*F) and toast them for about 8 to 10 minutes. They will start to smell really nutty when they are done.
DO let them cool before using them. And, as I said, you can keep them in the freezer ready to use whenever. No need to thaw.
I had to break one open to show you inside. They have a goodly amount of chocolate chips in them. Just look at that melted chocolate. Oh my goodness, so yummy!
As you can see they are also perfectly cooked inside. I am not sure why mine did not flatten out. I used a cookie scoop to scoop the batter onto the pans. Perhaps I should have flattened the balls out more?
I have seen other people's online and they look flatter also, so its a mystery to me. Nobody mentions flattening them before baking them.
In any case they taste gorgeous regardless of whether they are flat or puffed. Chewy and crisp at the same time.
They almost have the consistency of a coconut macaroon, but not quite. There are oodles of chocolate chips. It used a full bag of them. I think if I make them again, and I can't think of why I wouldn't, I will use less chocolate chips.
There is a goodly amount of nuts and coconut as well. These are stuffed full of yumminess. I have seen some people replacing the coconut with oatmeal. One recipe I saw replaced the coconut with 3/4 cup of old fashioned oats (3 ounces). Apparently the cookies are not quite as chewy when made with the oats.
So I guess it all depends on what you are looking for in a cookie. If you are wanting dense, chewy moreishness, use the coconut. If you are wanting flatter, dryer, crisper, use the oats.
One thing is for certain however, and that is that these are one very delicious cookie. Perfect to enjoy with an ice cold glass of milk, or a hot cuppa. Just plain perfect to enjoy all round!
Chocolate Chip Treasure Cookies
Yield: 3 dozen cookies
prep time: 10 Mincook time: 10 Mintotal time: 20 Min
Everything you love about magic cookie bars baked into a delicious cookie!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (135g)
- 1/2 cup all purpose, plain flour (70g)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 can (14oz/400g) sweetened condensed milk (Not evaporated milk)
- 1/2 cup butter, softened (120g)
- 1 1/3 cup flaked coconut (98g)
- 2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips (360g)
- 1 cup chopped toasted walnuts (115g)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Line a couple large baking trays with baking paper. Set aside.
- Whisk the graham cracker crumbs, flour, and baking powder together in a bowl.
- Beat together the sweetened condensed milk and butter until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture to combine.
- Stir in the coconut, chocolate chips and walnuts.
- Drop by rounded tablespoons onto the baking sheets, leaving 2 inches in between each.
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until golden brown. Scoop off onto wire racks to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
You just cannot beat the Classic Tuna Melt Sandwich for a quick and easy lunch option! I have been making tuna melts for as long as I have been making tuna salad, which is a very long time. Basically a tuna melt is a grilled cheese sandwich with tuna salad added!
I have been combing the two sandwiches before I knew it was an actual thing!
You can go as old school as you like or dress it up with a variety of things, but it doesn't get much better than this basic classic recipe which I am sharing here today.
Zucchini Casserole. This old fashioned zucchini casserole with stuffing mix is possibly one of my favourite things to make and to eat of all time. Not only is it very easy to make, but it is also incredibly delicious. Another thing which I really love about it is that it is a recipe shared to me by my sister way back when we were both young women with young families.
I am quite sure the original recipe came from the back of a box of stuffing mix or some such, but that doesn't really matter. It has been made in our family for so long that it is now considered a family recipe and nobody really cares about where it originally came from!
This is my sister Cindy and I standing at the end of the back yard of our home in Gimli, Manitoba about 1961. I would have been six years old and she would be three. I love this photograph because it perfectly illustrates our relationship with each other.
Side by side. Through thick and thin, this fabulous amazing woman has been making my life better for all of her life. She has been my best friend for 62 1/2 years. I am always telling my father she is one of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave to me, and I mean that sincerely.
This is a recipe she shared with me one time when I was visiting her when she was living in Windsor, Ontario. I was living in Alberta at the time and we had driven down to Ontario to visit family, specifically my sister and my ex's brother. She made this for us one night for supper and I, quite simply, fell in love with it.
I have always loved to watch my sister cooking. As with anything she does, she puts great care into it and I could stand and watch her for hours. She is very methodical about everything she creates, and everything always turns out beautifully. I just think she is the most amazing person and I hope she knows it.
I am a bit more slapdash when I do things and haphazard at best. How anything ever turns out is amazing to me. Oh, I do follow directions, but I am a lot faster when I do things, lacking the patience that she uses in whatever she is doing.
That lack of patience has gotten me into lots of trouble in my life. I can't believe it has taken me 65 years to realize that fact and I am now working hard at becoming a much more patient person in the hopes that my life will be a lot smoother and without too many bumps from now on.
But back to this wonderfully delicious zucchini casserole. It does make use of several convenience foods. In short, stuffing mix or crumbs and cream of chicken soup. Everything else is natural and not from a box.
Fresh zucchini. There was a time when we only had it available to us in the summer months, but these modern days mean that we can enjoy this garden delight all year round. For this casserole I prefer to use smaller zucchini. (Courgette in the UK)
They are much more tender and look nicer in this casserole and I personally think they are not as watery and have more flavour.
You will need roughly four of them, not more than about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. If they are larger then cut them into half moons rather than coins.
You will also need one medium onion and one medium carrot. Both peeled. The onion will be thinly sliced and the carrot grated. I like to cut the onion in half lengthwise and then cut it thinly into half moons.
I hand-grate the carrot on a box grater using the large holes. That gives you the best size I find. I think anything smaller would get lost.
The zucchini and onion are wilted in a saucepan and then drained. Make sure you drain it really well or it will add too much liquid to the sauce. Once you have it ready to go, then you just mix it with the carrot, the soup and some sour cream.
And some seasoning of course. We just use salt and pepper. This delicious mixture then gets layered in a baking dish between layers of buttered stuffing crumbs. You can use a stuffing mix like Stove top if you wish, or the Pepperidge Farm stuffing crumbs.
In the UK I used crushed herb and garlic croutons because we couldn't get stuffing mix there. At least not any that was an acceptable substitute for North American stuffing mix. The stuffing mix in the UK is made from crumbed rusks and not the same at all.
Once you have it all layered in the baking dish you just cover it with some aluminum foil and bake for about an hour, uncovering it for the last 10 minutes or so. That way the top gets all golden brown and crispy.
Oh my, just thinking about how delicious this is makes my taste buds tingle!! This is a beautiful side dish to serve with most things but also makes a delicious entrée for vegetarians. To be honest I could quite happily eat a plate of this and nothing else!
Of course if you are a vegetarian you will want to make a sauce instead of using the soup. Just make a cream sauce based on 2 cups of liquid (480ml), with 2 TBS butter, 2 TBS flour and 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of vegetable stock. Delicious!
You would be surprised at the number of people who think there is cheese in this, but there isn't. Just the carrot, although I am sure you could add some cheese if you really wanted to.
I really hope you will give this tasty zucchini dish a go, and that you will enjoy it as much as we do!
Zucchini Casserole
Yield: 4
prep time: 15 Mincook time: 1 Hourinactive time: 10 Mintotal time: 1 H & 25 M
This tasty casserole is one of our favourites
Ingredients
- 4 medium zucchini, washed, dried and sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 1 medium onion, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 medium carrot peeled and coarsely grated
- 1 tin (10 3/4 oz) of Campbell's cream of chicken soup, undiluted (305g)
- 1 cup of sour cream (120g)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 6 TBS melted butter
- 2 1/4 cups of bread stuffing cubes, or (In the UK) 2 1/4 cups of lightly crushed seasoned croutons (I like the herb and garlic ones)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Lightly butter a 1 litre baking dish and set aside.
- Heat a large skillet on top of the stove and add a few TBS of water. Add the zucchini and lightly sauté until crispy tender. Add the onion for the last five minutes of cooking so that it gets tender as well. Drain well in a colander.
- Put the drained vegetables into a large bowl and mix together with the grated carrot. Stir in the cream soup and the sour cream. Season with a bit of salt and pepper to taste.
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan or in the microwave. Toss with the bread stuffing cubes to coat.
- Layer half of the buttered crumbs in the bottom of the baking dish.
- Pour the zucchini mixture over top and then layer the rest of the buttered crumbs on top.
- Cover tightly with tinfoil and then bake it in the heated oven for approximately 45 to 50 minutes.
- Uncover and bake for another 10 minutes or until the zucchini is tender and the casserole is bubbly and nicely browned.
- Remove from the oven and let sit for about 10 minutes before serving. Delicious!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.
I really hope you enjoy this baked potato soup recipe I am sharing with you today. Baked potato soup is a delicious bowl filled with all the comfort food goodness of a loaded baked potato. Rich and belly warming, this is sure to become a favourite!
What's not to like about a rich and creamy soup that is loaded with cheddar cheese, crisp bacon, sour cream and spring onions?? Nothing that's what!
Add to that mix a crispy potato skin crouton topping and you have a comforting bowl of heavenly bliss! There really is only one word to describe this amazing combination and that is DELICIOUS!
I am a born and bred potato lover. I was actually born on Prince Edward Island, or Spud Island as it is also lovingly known. They are famous for their potatoes! Its all that rich red soul, which makes it the perfect place to grown them.
The potato is quite simply my favourite vegetable. I enjoy it in any way, shape or form. Mashed, fried, boiled, you name it and I love it. I especially adore BAKED potatoes however.
With their crisp skins and fluffy interiors there is no end to how you can enjoy them. Split open and fluffed with a dollop of butter melting on top. Some sour cream perhaps.
A bit of chopped spring onion, BACON bits! Maybe a sprinkle of cheese! What's not to fall in love with there!
The original recipe for this fabulous soup comes from a cookbook I have entitled, Seasons in Thyme. It is a Junior League cookbook put together by the Junior League of Birmingham, Michigan. I love LOVE Junior League cookbooks.
They are the greatest recipe books, filled with tried and trues and favourite recipes presented by various Junior League groups. The recipes in them are just the best. I used to have quite a few of them. This particular one was the very first one I ever received.
It was a Christmas gift from my ex boss at Brenchly Manor. She gave it to me the first Christmas I worked there. Its paged were filled with lots of delicious recipes which were not just dinner party fare, but also practical for every day daily use.
Not a lot of photographs, but the quality of the recipes inside more than make up for their lack. I had to leave my copy behind in the UK when I moved back to Canada, but I have slowly been replacing some of my books, or at least the ones I always enjoyed and used the most. This was one of the ones I have chosen to replace.
This deliciously rich soup plays on all the flavours of your favourite jacket potato with the exception of the crisp skin. Adding a potato skin crouton topping fixes that however. It was my own idea to add the croutons. I love soup with a tasty crouton floating on top.
The soup itself is nice and creamy. You will need to bake your potatoes ahead of time. You can very easily do this the day before, or earlier in the day. You will need two large ones.
I favour russets. Just preheat your oven to high (425*F/225*C/gas mark 7) and wash and prick your potatoes. Place them into the oven right on the oven racks and bake for about an hour until they yield when lightly pressed. Timings do depend on the size of your potatoes. If they are really large they will take longer to cook.
One reason I really love this recipe is that it doesn't use mashed potatoes like many others, mascarading them as baked potatoes. This recipe actually used baked potatoes. You end up with lovely chunks of baked potato in the soup, which I love.
To be honest, and I always try to be, a baked potato and mashed potato don't even taste the same! Baking the potatoes imparts quite a different flavour to them than simply boiling and mashing them does. To me, if you are going to make a baked potato soup, you best use baked potatoes to make it!
You know it makes sense!
Make sure you save the skins from the potatoes to make the potato skin croutons. In order to do that, once they were cooked and then cooled enough for me to handle, I cut them into quarters and trimmed the skins away from the flesh, leaving about a 1/4 inch layer of potato to help hold the skins together.
The remainder of the potato was cubed to use in the soup. The body of the soup is a basic thin cream sauce. Made from using butter and flour and milk. The potatoes and some spring onions/scallions are simmered in this mixture to impart their flavours into it.
You then add some crisp pieces of smoky bacon. What would a baked potato be without bacon? I adore bacon bits on my baked potatoes.
I also like cheese on my baked potatoes. I have used a strong cheddar here, but you can use whatever strength of cheddar you wish to use. I use the white cheddar in the soup itself and a dyed cheddar on the croutons for a better visual effect.
Once the cheese has melted into the soup, some sour cream and seasoning is added, the soup is heated through and it is ready to serve.
And it is delicious just like that, let me tell you. But add that potato skin crouton on top and it just gets immeasurably better!
Those croutons were a real inspiration. Crisp and cheesy, just like a potato skin appetiser should be. Of course some bacon bits and spring onions are added as well as a little dollop of sour cream.
Baked Potato Soup
Yield: 4
prep time: 10 Mincook time: 25 Mintotal time: 35 Min
One word. Delicious. What more can I say?
Ingredients
For the Soup:
- 1/3 cup (80g) butter
- 1/3 cup (45g) flour
- 3 1/2 cups (825ml) milk
- 2 large baking potatoes, baked, cooled, peeled and cubed (2 cups) (save the peels to make croutons)
- 2 spring onions, sliced
- 6 slices streaky bacon, crisp cooked and crumbled
- 3/4 cup (85g) grated cheddar cheese
- 1/2 cup (60g) sour cream
- salt and black pepper to taste
Potato Skin croutons: (optional)
- the potato skins from your baked potatoes, cut into quarters lengthwise
- low fat cooking spray
- garlic seasoning salt to sprinkle
- bacon bits
- a bit of cheese to sprinkle
- some finely chopped spring onions to sprinkle
- sour cream to dot
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Stir in the flour and whisk until smooth.
- Cook without colouring for about a minute or so.
- Slowly whisk in the milk, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens and bubbles.
- Add the potatoes and onions. Bring to the boil, stirring, but then reduce to a slow simmer and simmer for 10 minutes over very low heat.
- Stir in the bacon. Gradually whisk in the cheese, allowing each addition to melt before adding more.
- Stir in the sour cream and season to taste with salt and black pepper.
- Serve immediately, ladled into heated bowls.
- The potato skin croutons can be made ahead. Preheat the oven to 425*F/220*C/gas mark 7.
- Cut the potato skins into long wedges. Sprintz with some low fat cooking spray.
- Place onto a baking sheet. Sprinkle with some seasoning salt.
- Pop into the heated oven and bake for 10 minutes until crispy and golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the cheese and bacon bits. Return to the oven to melt the cheese.
- Spoon a dab of sour cream on top and sprinkle with the spring onions. Float on top of the hot soup.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.
I know I have shared many yummy biscuit recipes on here throughout the years, but do humor me and allow me to share just one more! This Stir 'N Roll Biscuit recipe has to be one of the quickest and easiest biscuit recipes I have ever baked!
We wanted biscuits to serve with the chicken we were having for supper today (Tuesday) and so I decided to try out this recipe I found in one of my favorite cookbooks. Literally every single recipe I have made from this book has been a real gem!
This is about the fourth or fifth recipe I have tried and each and every one has been a gem. Quick and easy, simple recipes that have all turned out perfectly.
This biscuit recipe appealed because it only used a very few ingredients and I was intrigued by the instructions. Stirred biscuits? No shortening or butter? Really? Read on!
Instead of butter or shortening, this simple recipe uses vegetable oil. I used light olive oil today. I tend to buy that when I get oil these days and so does my sister.
The recipe had an adaptation for using Buttermilk. We had buttermilk and so I used that adaptation with excellent results.
My dough was a bit on the dry side and in retrospect I should have added a bit more buttermilk to the mixture, but I always like to do things exactly as written the first time I do them. I was also afraid of overworking them.
I did take a bit of license and added a thin sliver of butter to the top of each one before I popped them into the oven. This added a bit of a lovely buttery golden brown crunch to the tops, so I highly recommend it!
Because my dough was a little bit shaggy and I added just that little sliver of butter to the tops I ended up with some crisp buttery bits that were incredibly moreish. We quite enjoyed them actually.
So I highly recommend you do the same! (add the butter that is)
To go along with a vintage recipe I thought I would share a vintage plate. This was my maternal Grandmother Nina's plate, given to her by her sister Addie and her husband Ralph Connell on the occasion of my grandparent's wedding in August of 1928. Addie (Adelaide) would pass away three short years later leaving Ralph a widower with young children.
It is a beautiful plate with a pearlescent almost opalescent finish. My sister surmises, and probably quite rightly so, that in those days people did not go out and buy people wedding gifts, instead gifting them with some special item from their own collections of pretties.
My sister specializes in antiquities. She has a page on Instagram. You can follow her here. Lost Lovelies Found.
There are a great many scratches on the surface of the plate. I would imagine many a cake was cut and served from it over the almost hundred years or more it has been in existence, or at least in our family. What a wonderful heirloom my sister has in this.
I love knowing that we can still use dishes and things that were bringing pleasure to people in our family so very long ago. There is a special continuity to that. This is a plate that only ever very rarely gets used today because it is precious to us!
It was obviously very precious to my mother as well. Precious enough that thankfully she left a note with it so that we would know its history and where it came from. I love that.
I also think it is pretty wonderful that my mother has two daughters who recognize the importance and value of these things. I hope that one day my sister's daughters will feel the same way about them. I suspect that they will. They are their mother's daughters.
Back to the recipe though. This recipe is very unusual in that there is no cutting in or even rubbing in of the fat needed to make these easy biscuits.
You simply mix together some oil and milk, or buttermilk and stir it into the dry ingredients with a spoon until the mixture begins to come away from the sides of the bowl. (if your dough seems a bit too dry, do add a bit more milk.)
Easy peasy lemon squeezy. As with any biscuit recipe a light hand is the secret to producing a perfect result. Do not overwork them.
It says to knead the dough lightly on a lightly floured surface ten times, but if your dough comes together nicely before that, then just stop and pat or gently roll them out. 1/2 inch thick will do.
I used a small drinking glass to cut them out, as most women probably would have done back in the day. A sharp metal cutter would have given a nicer finish I believe. I couldn't find one so I used the glass.
Its important when you are cutting out biscuits such as these that you use a sharp up and down cutting motion, never twisting the cutter. When you twist the cutter you seal the dough and you end up with lop sided biscuits.
In other words, they won't rise as well as they should.
All in all, these are beautiful, light and flaky biscuits. (As I hope you can see from the above photo.) I could not resist indulging in one fresh from the oven, hot and buttered and spread with a bit of raspberry jam.
These would go very well with soups, stews, or salads, breakfasts (For breakfast cut them a bit larger. I would use a 3 inch cutter. You will only get 8 or 9 in that case.) or even on their own with some butter and jam or peanut butter.
They went very well with the fried chicken also. Yum!! Quick, easy, no faffing about and delicious. In short, perfect!
Stir 'N Roll Biscuits
Yield: Makes 12
prep time: 8 Mincook time: 12 Mintotal time: 20 Min
A favourite recipe from the 1969 edition of the Betty Crocker Cookbook. Super easy and incredibly delicious! See notes for Buttermilk version.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (280g) all purpose/plain flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup (80ml) vegetable oil
- 2/3 cup (160ml) milk (or buttermilk, see note below)
- a tiny bit of cold butter
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Line a baking sheet with some baking paper. Set aside.
- Measure the flour into a bowl along with the baking powder and salt. Stir to combine.
- Whisk together the oil and milk. Add to the flour mixture and stir with a spoon until the mixture begins to leave the sides of the bowl.
- Tip out onto a floured surface. Knead lightly 10 times. Pat or roll out until 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 12 rounds using a sharp 1 inch round biscuit cutter. (Use a sharp tapping motion and try not to twist the cutter for a better rise.)
- Place 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Set a tiny flat sliver of cold butter on top of each.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until well risen and golden brown. Serve warm
notes:
For buttermilk biscuits, replace the milk with an equal amount of buttermilk, reduce the amount of baking powder to 2 tsp. Add 1/2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda/baking soda to the dry ingredients.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Social Icons