cookie nights: May 2010

27 May, 2010

HEY!

i finally caught up! here's the picture and e-mail invite for tonight, thursday may 27th! wow!!

love, colleen!
clicky "read more" to experience laura's witty genius...

take the mallow, put it on the chocolate...

...and then, you stuff.

as i said, in the post below, thursday may 20th was chocolate marshmallow nutty goodness bar night. mostly these pictures are just of the baking process...it was a busy night and i didn't really get a chance to photograph the lovely guests!
anyway, here is the recipe...i could NOT get it rotated right (or left?) to save my life. so...sorry :[

anyway...melting chocolate is really fun kinda.

and stirring it into cookie dough is even funner. (or more fun, for you grammar nazis out there)

it baked up REAL happily...i set the oven a tad below 325 instead of 350...that seemed to do it!

well, this time around, anyway. stupid oven.

now, to pour on the sugary mallowy awesomeness...

ready to roast

a few minutes later...

golden toasty perfection!!

and laura made peanut butter cookies again.

they were so. yummy.

and rich. lots of people went home with marshmallow fudge brownie-bars that night.

aaaand cassandra's amazing 3D photos.

i thought the results were excellent. so i'm proclaiming a victory. anyone want to argue? i THOUGHT not!!

attendees: 9...?

us, cassandra, chad, emily, zach, my parents, and 2 of laura's friends who i can't remember

love, colleen

click "read more", and see laura's e-mail that week!

may 20th post coming soon!

the cookies for thursday may 20th were fated to be "chocolate mallow bars"...and ended up boasting the greatest graphic yet...

within an hour upon its internet release, ian revealed his stunning re-interpretation...

fantastic.

love, colleen

click "read more" to read laura's e-mail!

may 13th

cookies can be good for you, too! but we did our best to make that not *quite* happen.

the graphic accompanying the weekly e-mail was pretty straightforward about what we would be attempting to make--that being--"wheat and fruit cookies"

the recipe called for dates...but they are out of season. so i thought some dried apples and mangoes would do splendidly. and i put brown sugar in them...even though it didn't tell me to.

the area is all prepped and ready.

but first...

a little REAL nutrition! laura arms us with forks...

and thus starts our new weekly tradition...eating roasted broccoli and brussel sprouts before we basically have cookies for dinner.

"still life with veggies and hands"

this was the third week, i believe, that we did this. and it's been pretty fantastic. only those who are there on the early side get to partake...laura, me, chad, and this time, by the skin of her teeth, cassandra!

i'll just let you come up with your own caption for this picture.

i think think photo of cassandra and my mom is super cute.

little man on an orange!

general frivolity...

pip, shelvy and his lovely lady lindsey

this picture just does my heart good. what a spread...

cassandra brought a savory apple and herb pie, laura made some of her famous peanut butter cookies, and there on the bottom right are the wheat and fruit cookies! which i loved...laura wasn't a huge fan. they seemed to win people over, i think, as there were only 2 left at the end of the night. and look at all they had to contend with!!

yay

attendees: 8

us, cassandra, chad, lindsey, pip, shannon, shelvy

love, colleen!

click "read more" to see laura's e-mail that week!

thursday may 6th

ice cream sandwich cookies OMG

i will be the first to say that i was super excited when we flipped to this recipe the previous week. with summer in the air, awesome people coming every week, i was ready for a real crowd-pleaser! and i think both of us were fine with another excuse to eat ice cream and nutella.

the glorious schmorgasbord of goodies. (i know i spelled shmorgispard wrong)

chad, shelvy and ian chat it up while we apply the finishing touches...

i promised one-who-shall-remain-nameless-but-you-know-who-you-are that i would put this on the internet in exchange for my taking a picture of him...er...them...

(once again, laura, i apologize you had to be caught in the crossfire)

WE LOVE ICE CREAM YEAAAAH

yum

this picture was a total accident and we couldn't stop laughing for about 3 minutes after i took it.

yikes

happiness is ice cream sandwich cookies :)

are those gorgeous or what??

trust me, they tasted as good as they look.

"sugar coma"

"still life with lights and beer glass"

"friends in the kitchen--and hi there ian!"

good night.

good cookies.

victory.

attendees: 7

us, cassandra, chad, ian, meghan, shelvy

love, colleen!

click "read more", and jump to laura's e-mail that week!

april 29th 2010

tollhouse "bars"

the first step in baking is organization and preparedness. i'm getting that DOWN.

kitchen, ingredients, everything: ready.

this week's recipe, as hinted in the genius graphic that week, was tollhouse cookie bars...

note my little scribble at the top: to "buy ice cream...just in case..."

and when saying "just in case" i was thinking of the last time we tried to make bars...that being, the infamous march 11th white chocolate fudge bars.

as we learned that night--vanilla ice cream is always an excellent back-up plan in this business.

dough happily baking...

as i hover over it praying for at least an inkling of success this time around...

RESULT:

basically, somewhere in between tollhouse bars, and a gooey mess. i hate our oven. they were starting to burn so i had to take them out!! and i had lowered the temperature and everything! oh well.

in spite of a 50% victory, it was a delicious cookie-crumbly-gooey feast.

good thing we had that ice cream. :)

in the midst of everything...

evan read books...amy tried to tickle me...