I’m not much of a baker. I prefer cooking. My mom on the other hand, is a baker and a cook. Growing up with my family, processed foods and eating out in restaurants or fast food was NEVER an option. We never bought bread from the store. Every morning I would wake up and have 2 slices of home made bread, I’d have 2 cookies with my lunch baked by my mom, and come home to dinner made by the whole family. I know I was lucky. I also know it saved them a heck of a lot of money.

My parents are kind of crazy. They really like eating out of the garden, and they hate spending money on anything expensive. Especially when it comes to food. My mom even grinds her own flour weekly for her baking. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to that stage, but I sure have been getting into baking lately. The difference between my mom and I is that her baking is no-frills, whole goodness that is healthy for you. It tasted delicious, and she made sure her kids were healthy. My goal, on the other hand, in baking is to make everything with good quality ingredients, and make it so moist and delicious it will give you a heart attack. Haha.

Allan’s been asking me to bake cookies for a long time, but since we moved into our new apartment and sold off all our old stuff, we haven’t had any of the supplies we needed to bake. So now that we have them again, hopefully I’ll be baking a lot more in the future.

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So, here’s a recipe for the best chocolate chip cookie, in my opinion. It’s adapted from the New York Times, you can read more about their search for the best chocolate chip cookie here. I made mine a little less sweet, a little smaller, and a little more vanilla-y. The recipe for mine is below. I can honestly say this is the best cookie recipe I have found (in my limited experience), and so far everyone who has tried them agrees But you be the judge! Let me know what you think…

THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE, adapted from the New York Times

Note: I doubled the recipe below, so that we could have fresh baked cookies every night for a week. The single recipe below here makes about 20 small cookies or 16 large cookies. Another trick: Use thick-bottomed baking sheets so your cookies are crispy on the top but chewy and not burnt on the bottom

Ingredients:

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour (I used Italian Tipo ’00′ Cake Flour)
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract (I like Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract)
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet (dark) Belgium chocolate disks

How to Do It:

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them.

3. (Optional) Mix together different batches of cookies (but make sure you keep a batch of the chocolate chips ones in this recipe). Split up your dough into as many batches as you want, and knead in various ingredients.

I can’t speak highly enough about using chocolate disks. SO much better than chocolate chips. A dark Belgium chocolate is soooo good. I wanted to buy the Valrhona chocolate fèves but they were $21 a bag. Yes, seriously. How ridiculous. So I settled for some good Belgium ones instead… I don’t regret my decision

As per Allan’s request, I used butterscotch chips and rice crispies in this one.

I also tried ones by mixing in frozen homegrown raspberries and blueberries. SO GOOD. I highly recommend this if you don’t mind seeds in your cookies. I also made oatmeal raisin ones for Allan. I made Callebaut chocolate chips ones for me

4. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

6. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. I varied my baking time depending on the cookie… I like crispy cookies (see picture below) so I used 22 minutes for those. For soft chewy ones I baked them for 19 minutes (see first picture in this post). Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

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Let me know what you think of the recipe if you try it! What’s your favourite cookie recipe?

Tomorrow, I’m off to Tofino for some more surfing. SO exciting. I’m going to use my new flexible underwater housing and see if it is better than the other one I have. I’ll post a pic of the housing tomorrow! Can’t wait! Rain and surfing… it’s a beautiful combination out here on the West Wet Coast

When it comes to cooking, I have a few rules I try to adhere to as best I can. Cook with fresh, organic ingredients. Cook with high quality ingredients. Cook for small-portioned serving. And always have leftovers

If you cook with good ingredients, what you produce will almost infallibly be good as well.

Lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about how this applies to life.

As part of my growing up and maturing process, I’ve been starting to realize that using the good ingredients in my life and lifestyle as well are important to living a good life. I’m sure many of you have realized this a long, long time ago… but I’m still just learning

People. What’s life without the people we love and respect around us? I’ve been realizing more and more how important it is to surround ourselves with good people. People who are honest, full of life, kind, and who know how to smile and laugh. People who keep their word, people who say the same things to your face that they say behind your back, and people who you can just be yourself around.

One of my friends recently commented on how she is friends with all these people from elementary school and high school, even though they are very different people now than when they first met. Sometimes we have to learn to say “no” and say goodbye to “friends” who aren’t actually compatible with us anymore. Sometimes we have to reach out and become closer with the people who really understand us and who care about us. This is a good thing. We can’t be friends with everyone. We have to pick the people we keep close to us carefully. There’s only so much time and if you try to spend all your time with too many people, you’ll lose everyone.

I know myself really well, and I’m finally starting to see more clearly the people that I care about and am most compatible with. And I’m spending less of my time around people who detract from my life and bring me down, and more time with the people who make my life better and add something to my world.

Lifestyle. I think the best way to describe this is “opportunity cost”. Vancity Guy would understand this. There’s so many activities, hobbies, and things about life that I love. And I want to do everything. But I’m starting to realize I can’t do everything. Surfing, snowboarding and hockey are the good things in life, for me. These need to stay in my life. But I need to start saying “no” to other activities that just make me feel overwhelmed because I don’t have enough time. There’s not enough time or money for me to do it all, and I’m feeling stretched thin on both fronts.

Woodworking, yoga, decorating, sewing, cooking, photography, entrepreneurship, web design, graphics, swimming, ballroom dancing, singing, building computers, forums, blogging, hiking, biking, basketball…

This part of my life I need the most help with… how do I say “no” to all the activities and other things I want to do?

Money. Closely tied to lifestyle. It’s hard to ever be truly relaxed and happy with debt on our shoulders. And so, I’m making a big, bold push to get out of it. I’ve been tracking all my expenses over the past month, and will continue to do so. It’s interesting and not surprising at all that I’ve been spending a ton of money on snowboarding and surfing. I’ve got a budget for myself that’s reasonable and not too strict, that should help me pay down my student loans and my credit card fast. I’m incredibly ashamed to admit that I have debt on my blog, out in public… but maybe it will help me attack it faster. I know I’ll sleep better at night when I can start saving instead of paying interest.

Respect. I’ve been realizing that a huge piece of the puzzle for me is respect. I’ve been trying really hard to be competely honest and open with all my friends, coworkers, family etc about everything. I’m an extremely honest person, and I absolutely hate lying. But there’s a difference between being honest and keeping things from people. I’ve been trying hard to be upfront and honest with friends… telling them when I am upset right off the bat, instead of talking behind their backs. I’m always honest and blunt at work, even when I should probably just keep my mouth shut and be a “yes woman”. I think the highest form of respect you can show someone is being honest with them.

Respect also applies to other parts of life, like respecting the earth, etc. I won’t get into it too much because there are far more environmentally friendly people than myself… but I will say I try my best whenever possible to be as respectful as possible to the environment.

Health. This is the part of my life I’m making the most improvements on, and I hope to continue to do so. I’ve been going to the gym just about every day for the past 3 weeks and I’ve been feeling a lot better about myself. Getting in shape is going to improve many aspects of my life. I want my abs back too! I’ve also been cooking more, eating healthier, and getting more sleep. This has made a huge impact on my happiness. Now I just need to get a Reiki treatment from Miss Lindsay.

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This turned into a lot longer blog post than I had intended. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think it is important to keep in mind the good and important things in life and focus on what makes us and the people we love happy. And not worrying in situations when we can’t do anything to change the outcome.

I’d love it if you could share what makes YOU happy and how you keep yourself centered and happy.

In other news, the Canucks have a big game tonight and I could not be more excited. I hope they push the series up 3-1 tonight, even though I heard Sami Salo won’t be back. I think they shook off the cobwebs in the last game, and they could really take it to the Hawks tonight. I hope they show the 3 H’s… Hussle, Heart, and Hunger!

GO CANUCKS GO!