I {heart} metal

I heart sheets of metal. Is that odd?

I have a lot. I use these a lot. I love them a lot.

Quite honestly, I don't remember where I bought them from. I think from an Arab grocery store in LA. I'm sure everyone has at least one in their house. Right? If you don't, don't fret. They're everywhere.

I use these for everything from cookies (duh!) to sweet potato fries. I feel like a gourmet chef when I pull them out. Not sure why though. It's not like it's a micro plane grater (do gourmet chefs use those a lot?) or something . Either way, they make me feel like I actually know how to cook.

I've been putting them to much use this past week. I made chocolate chip cookies 3 times in the last 2 weeks. But I've double the recipe each time, so technically I've made chocolate chip cookies 6 times in the last 2 weeks. That's a lot of chocolate chip cookies. Believe it or not, it hasn't been enough. I'm getting requests for more. And I am more than willing to oblige.

I have butchered every single chocolate chip recipe I have ever tried. I came across one on foodgawker (bet you didn't see that coming) and had to try it.

Tufaha came out to play too. I love any recipe that let's me use my mixer. She's such a middle child though. I hardly have any pictures of her. (If you're a middle child, don't take offense. I'm one too.)

Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookiesadapted from Allrecipes (I took this directly from The Repressed Pastry Chef)

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

• Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.
• Add the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk and mix until light and creamy.
• Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.
• Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon.
• Chill dough for at least two hours.
• Preheat the oven to 325° F and grease or line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
• Using a 1/4cup measuring cup, drop cookie dough onto the prepared cookie sheet ensuring the cookies are about 3″ apart.
• Bake for 17 to 18 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. (Mine baked for 21 minutes. My oven is weird.)
• Cool on cookie sheets for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

The first time I made them I followed the directions exactly. 1/4 cup drops of batter and all. They came out huge which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But I was using up the batter mighty quick and had a bunch of people to feed. So I started dropping half that size. I was able to fit a dozen per sheet. They came out so good and thick. I felt like it needed walnuts though. I'm a walnuts-in-my-chocolate-chip-cookies kind of girl.

The second time around I actually quadrupled the recipe. So I doubled two batches. Well, thinking I could save a couple of calories because I knew I wasn't going to be able to show any type of will power, I altered the recipe a bit. Note to self: You do not know what you are doing. Don't alter any recipes. So a double batch would require two eggs and two yolks. I used two eggs and one yolk. Wow, what a difference it made. The cookies came out much flatter than the first time around. I was disappointed. They tasted much better the second time around though. I guess cause I used fresher ingredients and walnuts.

There are a ton of chocolate chip cookie recipes out there, but this one suits me just fine.