Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chips

April has been a slow month for me. The constantly-changing weather is making my head hurt, literally. Then I've been tired for days due to mental problems, and I have a funeral to go to, and my birthday's this month...

But, since no one cares about that, I'm still trying new recipes. I think I've succeeded with these cookies.

I didn't put in any white chips, and I might have used the 1/4 teaspoon instead of the 1/2 teaspoon for baking powder, because I was tired and my brain wasn't working properly. But these would be even better with them, so I'll put those in next time.

RECIPE:

- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup flour
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup white chips

Stir together the sugar, melted butter, and vanilla.

Add the eggs one at a time.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.

Mix the dry ingredients with the wet.

Stir in the chips.

Bake at 350 for 9 minutes, 8 if you want the center to be a little more like brownies.

For something that might have contained a few mistakes, these cookies are pretty good. Definitely better than the last chocolate cookies I made. I'll try to follow the recipe properly next time, because then they'll be even better.

Teriyaki Salmon

As a cook with a sweet tooth, I'm always looking for recipes for actual meals. As usual, the meals I find that I want to try involve rice and soy sauce. This time, it's not chicken, it's the Teriyaki Salmon recipe from wholeandheavenlyoven.

This is amazing. I didn't have much of it when I tried it the first time, but I put it in the book that night anyway, and had a much bigger piece when I made it again for my mom's birthday dinner.

I didn't make the gingered rice that the blog suggests, but it doesn't matter. I love this meal anyway, and I'll keep the recipe forever.

Banana Cream Cookies

I know it's only been a few days since my last Pinterest update, but I got bored. Boredom leads to baking, and baking leads to blogging, so here's another internet recipe with short commentary.

We always have bananas in the house. Sometimes the bananas are better for baking than eating, but there are so many banana bread recipes that I couldn't decide which one to try.

Then I found these cookies from butterwithasideofbread. They were something that wasn't banana bread, so I decided to try them out instead.

They turned out good, according to my mom. Not something that I would put in my personal cookbook, but if you like banana bread, they're good cookies. I do not like banana bread, but I still suggest that those who do try the cookies.

Irish Cream Brownies

The original blogger of the Irish Cream Brownies from wonkywonderful.com posted them for St. Patrick's Day. I decided to leave my own comments for that same day.

My family has four people over 21, meaning there's a lot of alcoholic drinks. None of us drink much, but we like to have our options for when we do. This means that halfway through March, we still had most of the Irish cream my dad got for Christmas. With my sister having a birthday right before St. Patrick's Day and coming home for spring break at the same time, I decided to give them a try.

I made them a little bit too thin, but my family still liked them, so I call it a success.

I don't like Irish cream myself. I like the sweet girly stuff. But I just thought I'd post this here for St. Patrick's Day, in case anyone decides to read this.

Lemon Basil Chicken Crescents

This was actually something that my mom came up with back in January, because it was so cold and no one wanted to go grocery shopping. She went with 'whatever looked right' for her measurements, and it turned out good.

Naturally, as an autistic person, I needed exact measurements. This is why I learned to cook from books and blogs instead of my parents. But Mom had a lot of lemon basil from her herb garden, and was willing to guess the right measurements to help me get it right.

RECIPE:
- 3 tubes crescent rolls
- 1 12.5-ounce can cooked chicken
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed sage
- 1/4 teaspoon lemon peel
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed basil (or use lemon basil and leave out the lemon peel)
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Mix chicken, herbs, sour cream, and mayonnaise in a bowl.

Spread 1/2 tablespoon in each crescent.

Fold up the crescent.

Bake as directed on the crescent package.

This is something that is now in my personal cookbook, so it's now another meal I can rely on for when I move out on my own. And it's low energy, so I can still do it after work.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

It's been cold out here again, and ovens are warm. So I've been looking for recipes that use things we already have in the house, and baking a lot more than usual. It drains a lot of energy, but it makes me happy, and it's more productive than internet shopping or shutting myself in my room to play video games.

This recipe was from another book that we've had since before I started baking, and it's another recipe that I call mine but is really just leaving things out. But I'll admit, it's a good thing I finally found a use for the pie crusts that have been sitting in the freezer for months.

RECIPE:

- 1/2 cup softened butter

- 3/4 cup brown sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 teaspoon vanilla

- 1/2 cup flour

- 1 cup chocolate chips

- Unbaked 9-inch pie crust

Preheat oven to 325.

Combine the butter and sugar.

Add the eggs and vanilla and mix.

Add the flour and mix again.

Stir in the chocolate chips with a spoon.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes.

My brother and I both liked the taste of this pie, which is really saying something, because we're the picky eaters of the house. The texture takes some getting used to, though.

This would be a good pie to take to a party. My sister and all of her friends love my raspberry pear pie, but maybe I'll just make them one of these instead. It's easier than cutting the pears.

Neapolitan Brownie Cookies

Cake mix cookies are pretty easy. Boxed brownies are pretty easy. And since I needed something stereotypical for February 14, I combined pink, white, and chocolate into a cookie.

As someone who has never had a date and stands on the spooky side all year, I sometimes think I should be annoyed by all the pink and romance and flowers and just use the day as an excuse to buy sale candy on February 15. Then the day comes, and I get really excited for absolutely no reason.

These were created as a reference to the Strawberry Milkshake Cookies I made back when this was just a recipe review blog. My mom found a recipe for cookies from brownie mix, and, with her help, this was one of the first recipes I took over.

RECIPE:

(Strawberry)
- 1 box strawberry cake mix
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup oil

(Chocolate)
- 1 box brownie mix
- 1/4 cup oil
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup flour
- 3 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 350.

Combine strawberry cookie ingredients in one bowl, and chocolate ingredients in another.

Take 2 big spoons and scoop out dough from each bowl, dropping one flavor partly on top of the other.

Bake for about 10 minutes.

When cookies are cool, melt vanilla chips or almond bark in a microwave. Spread on top.

As you can see, these cookies turned out very big. Bigger than the palm of my hand. So big, the spatula I used to remove them from the pan was too small to hold one of them, and it fell apart, and part of it went under one of the coils on the stove.

The cookies are a lot of work, but everyone liked them. Even me.