Bits and Bobs: ikea

 

Red cast iron enamel casserole dish.

Chocolate Chip Cookies! I’ll include a recipe below.

Instantaneous coffee.

I’ve always known about Le Creuset, but I never actually appreciated how beautiful their line is until I watched The Delicious Miss Dahl. When T.K. and I first started dating, this delightful show came out and we watched it religiously. I’ve always been a baker, but I daresay Sophie was the impetus that steered me into cooking. Watching her program is so indulging; from her quaint but technically fake English countryside kitchen to her rambling rants about her grandmothers.

So on my Christmas wish list, I didn’t hesitate to put down Le Creuset-inspired cookware. And my mom got me this awesome Martha Stewart cast iron casserole pot! You know what this means? French. Onion. Soup. On a related note, my sister bought me a red 10-piece KitchenAid cookware set (to match my red stand mixer and red food processor)! Am I mature now that I ask for practical things?

My family and I went to IKEA the other day to buy stools and bathroom chandeliers (you know, not strange at all), and I was a bit overzealous in the kitchen section. I bought a metal colander that I didn’t really need, but it looked so pretty that I couldn’t resist. I also got a quiche dish and an attachment to turn pots into double boilers.

I got loose tea because we had nothing other than jasmine at the house, due to the mass exodus of tea from my house to Skanky. I poured them into two strawberry jam jars that my mother cleaned out and put labels on the bottom to tell them apart. Oh, and the cookie tin? I bought it because I thought it was cute and the little people illustrations on the side reminded me of Eric Chase Anderson drawings. (I have Chuck Dugan is AWOL, if anyone wants to borrow it.)

The last picture is just a little cartridge that goes into the Keurig we bought for Papa Bear.

 

PERFECTLY PUFFY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
source: pennies on a platter, via: see creatures (I used to follow in the LJ days when her handle was nativegirl)

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup butter flavored Crisco stick
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 (3.4 oz) package vanilla instant pudding mix
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking soda
1 and 2 cups flour, divided
12 oz package semi-sweet miniature chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine sugars, butter and Crisco. Mix with the paddle attachment until thoroughly combined. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add pudding mix, stir until incorporated.
• In a small bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour with the baking soda and salt. Add dry mixture to the wet mixture.
• Add additional flour 1/2 to 1 cup at a time until reaching desired consistency.
• Stir in chocolate chips with a wooden spoon.
• Drop tablespoonfuls of dough on cookie sheet with parchment paper (or PAM if you so desire). Roll cookie dough into balls with your hands. Bake 8-10 minutes. Let cookies cool on the cookie sheet on top of cooling racks for 5 minutes. Remove from cookie sheets and cool completely on the cooling racks.

NOTES

• As you can probably tell from the measurements, this yields a lot of dough. I only made one batch, so I’m keeping the rest in the freezer until I want more.
• My cookies came out a bit burnt, so watch your oven carefully. Though the cookies might have been burnt because P.V. forgot to set a timer, so we had to resort to estimation. Welcome to baking with my sister, folks.
• ETA: Our second batch turned out heavenly. We took them out after 6 to 8 minutes of cook time and left them in a tin with bread. It has the perfect crumbly consistency and, I daresay, tastes just as good or better than Chips Ahoy.