Nestle's Chocolate Chip Cookies

So you might be thinking why am I posting about a recipe that is so wildly known. Well, my husband LOVES these cookies more than life itself. He said he married me partly because I make such awesome chocolate chip cookies. How romantic, right? Anytime I bring these along anywhere people rave on how good they are and want the recipe. I always tell them it's just the Nestle recipe that's found on the back of their chocolate chip bags and they never believe me. Yes, it's true! They ARE that good and the people at Nestle have some culinary geniuses.

This batch that I made tonight is for my husband's work since he bragged about them to his co-workers and they are wondering why they haven't gotten any yet. So here you go nurses! Hope you enjoy them. And of course I'm keeping some at home because you just can't make these and not keep just a few for yourself. Especially when you're 5 months pregnant. :)

Ingredients:

2 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1tsp. salt
1 Cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened (I don't always have mine softened and it works just fine cold. Maybe just a little hard to work with at first.)
3/4 Cup granulated sugar
3/4 Cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 Cups (12-oz pack) Semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 Cup chopped nuts (I never put nuts in mine, but I wanted to give you the option if you wanted it.)

Preheat oven to 375.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Then in a larger bowl, cream together the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Add your eggs (it says one at a time, but I always put both in and stir it really well). Gradually mix in your flour mixture, stirring well after each addition. I usually break it up in 3 portions. Stir in your chocolate chips.

This is THE most important part; how your bake them. Cover your baking sheets with parchment paper. They turn out soooo much nicer with parchment paper. Then drop about a rounded tablespoon spaced 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches apart. It says to bake for 9-11 minutes, but I have found that if you have parchment paper on your sheets the perfect baking time for me is 10 minutes. If you don't have any parchment paper only bake them 8-9 minutes. If they turned brown on the sides, they are over baked and won't be as delicious. They have to be undercooked just a tad to make them moist and super gooey delicious. After baking, I leave them on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then remove them to a spread of paper towels (you could also use some paper grocery bags. That's what my mom used to do) and cool them completely. Or go ahead and stuff one in your mouth. :)

When you store them, I find it best to place some wax paper in between each row of cookie or they will stick to each other and you'll end up with crumbs everywhere when you try to pry them apart.

Creamed butter and sugars

Flour mixture

So, I've got pregnancy brain like never before and I forgot the eggs before my 1st addition of flour. Oops! This is completely new to me, I was not this forgetful with my 1st child. This one is sucking every ounce of common sense I have.

But no big deal, I went ahead and stirred the flour in, then added my eggs. I had just put K to bed for the night so I didn't want to use my electric mixer. Good ol' fashion spoon does the trick too.

After, I added my 2 other portions of flour in, then my chocolate chips.

Try not to get too excited about your cookie size. If you make them too big they will run into one another as they bake and you'll have to cut them apart some. It happens to me every time. I just can't help myself.

That is the perfect cookie! Super chewy and super chocolaty. You can't just eat one. And even two is hard to stop. I made myself stop at two only because when I'm pregnant I tend to gain beaucoups of weight.

Mama's Meatloaf

I call this one Mama's Meatloaf because this is what we always referred to it as. This is my mother-in-law's recipe, but as my strong genetics shine through, I modified it a little bit. Nothing extreme but when I don't have a certain ingredient, I tend to replace it with whatever I have on hand. And I say my strong genetics shine through because my mother is notorious for doing this exact same thing. I remember as a child we would ask what was for dinner and she would reply "(insert dinner meal) a la Di". Which meant she had put her own twist on it. Her name is Diane, hence "a la Di". Sometimes it worked, sometimes...not so much. Hey, you live and learn.

So, I did the same thing with this recipe. I made some substitutions and some conversions for measuring and voila it became my husband's favorite dinner. Pair it with my southern mac and cheese and it's a definite winner. See here for that awesome recipe. So I will post the original recipe, and in parenthesis I will insert my substitutions. That way, if the meatloaf God moves you, you can try both and please feel free and let me know which one turned out best for you.

Ingredients:
2 lbs. Ground beef (or the 2.25 lbs. pre packaged ground beef)
1 5 oz. can of evaporated milk (2/3 C. of milk)
2 eggs, beaten
3 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1 C. Onions- or less (I just chop up half an onion)
5 Slices of bread, crumbled (1 heaping Cup of Italian bread crumbs)
1 C. Ketchup
Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350.

You might notice that instead of a white or yellow onion I have green onions. This is an example of "a la Di" that shined through. I had forgotten to get an onion and this is all I had, so I went with it. You could also omit the onions, but please, onions just add that "je ne sais quoi" and I had these on hand.

Here's my milk in the measuring cup, and I'm adding the Worcestershire Sauce.

I'm a big fan of combining, so in goes the eggs as well. Beat it all together.

Got my meat in the bowl and I'm adding the onions. I felt like 1 green onion wasn't enough and 2 might be too much. So I had some cut up green onions in my freezer and added some to it.

Next comes the bread crumbs...

And the ketchup...

Pour that nasty looking milk, sauce, egg mixture in, add salt and pepper if your heart desires, and go to town with your hands. It might be a good idea to remove any rings before digging in. Put them somewhere safe now. I don't want to be held responsible for any lost jewelry. Especially wedding rings.

I like to separate mine in 2 loaf pans. There's too much meat to put in just 1 but you could also use a square 8 X 8 pyrex. It might just take a little longer to cook all the way through. Cook on 350 for an hour.

These have a lot of grease in them so what I do is pour out as much grease as I can without dumping the loaves in the sink.

I always like to return them to the oven for 10-15 minutes more. I feel like the grease that accumulated keeps it from cooking all the way through. And there you have it, delicious meatloaf...a la My.

Homemade Southern Mac & Cheese

This is my absolute favorite mac & cheese recipe. It's really easy and it's been in the family for generations. Literally. This is the recipe my husband's grandma, Vernie Mae used (when she was still able to cook) and it came from her aunt. Grandma told us that people would always ask her aunt to bring a mac & cheese when they had get togethers or pot lucks. Her aunt would always reply "Y'all could make some good mac & cheese too if you weren't too cheap to put some cheese in it!"(Make sure you use your best southern accent when you read this) Gotta love the older generation, right?

So the recipe made it's way down to grandma, then down to my mother-in-law, Diane and when I married Curtis I inherited this awesome recipe and now I am in charge of bringing the mac & cheese at get togethers. I swear people will come up to me and ask "Now, which one did you bring?" before they get to the food table to make sure they get some of the goodness.

This recipe is easily doubled for bigger parties and it's so easy that I don't even need to look at the recipe anymore. It's all in the old noggin' and it's been engraved there forever. So now that I've talked this recipe up more than a Star Wars movie, are you ready for the ultimate mac & cheese recipe that will change your life forever? (I know, I just can't stop myself. It's that good.)

What you will need:

2 Cups of uncooked elbow macaroni
1 Tbsp. of salt
1-2 Tbsp. of butter or margarine
4 Cups of sharp cheddar cheese (This is very important, get the sharp, not mild)
2 eggs
2 Cups of milk (I use skim because that's what we drink, but the higher the fat content the better the end result is. Skim= awesome, Full fat Vitamin D= Dear Margaret, I'm going into food coma)

Set your oven at 350
In a large pot add water to boil the macaroni and add your salt. I just eye ball it and swirl my big salt dispenser quickly around once. Cover, set on high, and wait for the boiling to commence. Once boiling, add your macaroni and cook your macaroni according to package. Now I like to over cook just a little bit the macaroni. You want a nice soft noodle, not al dente.

When your macaroni is done, drain and rise, then add your butter. Stir it around until it's all melted. Then grab a 9X13 pyrex and layer about half of the macaroni on the bottom. Take 2 cups of cheese and layer that on top. Then repeat with the rest of macaroni and the rest of the cheese. In a 2 cup measuring cup beat the 2 eggs, then add the milk to it until it reads a little above the 2 cups mark. (Since the eggs are in it you have to over compensate a little.) You don't have to be exact, just a round about measuring is fine. Stir that together and pour all over the macaroni and cheese layers.

Now's the important part. Bake the mac & cheese for about 10 minutes and stir it around. The cheese is gonna be melted and the milk is still flopping around so the first stir is always the trickiest. Stir it around the best you can until all the cheese is mostly broken up. Return to the oven for 10 more minutes and stir that sucker again. Return to the oven for 10 more minutes and stir again. (Redundant, I know, but it's very important to stir, stir, stir if you want the right consistency) Usually a total of 30 minutes of baking time does the trick, but sometimes you have to return it to the oven for just 5-10 minutes more to get what you need. The consistency should still be gooey, but not too gooey. Does that make any sense? But you don't want to leave it in there too long and have it dried out either. It's a work of art really. Serve warm. MMMMMM! That right there, is the definition of smack your mama good.

Ok, so here what you need!

Salt that water! See the ring of salt that I poured in? Eye ball it, baby.

2 cups of macaroni ready to go in.

Boil them, boil them real good. Me and my husband have this expression is that we boil the snot out of them. I know it sounds gross, but he's a southern boy and he introduced me to it. Then somehow I started saying it too.

Add your butter after you quickly rinsed. You don't want to cool down your noodles too much or it'll take forever for the butter to melt. I just stir it around until the butter disappears.

Layer macaroni and the cheese with macaroni first and end with cheese.

That's my egg/milk mixture. I beat the eggs first and then added the milk. See how I went just above the 2 cup mark? That's how it should be.

Pour it ALL over the macaroni. I mean zig zag all over it. Up, down, left, right, whatever. Just make sure you pour all over.

After the 1st 10 minutes. Looks gross, right? Don't you worry, it'll get better.

Stir it. I know it doesn't look any better, but hold on a sec.

After the 2nd 10 minutes. Still...ewww. So Stir!

Better, but no dice. Return to the oven.

After the 3rd 10 minutes. Oh yea, now it's looking like something. Stir it!

And that my friends is perfection. The milky ooey gooey is gone and it has created some small curds. The texture is perfect! Resist all temptation to eat it right away because it is hot as lava. I would advise to wait about 5 minutes, if you can wait that long. I never can. :)