Recent culinary adventures

[almeda]

Both things mentioned in my Tweets of late, but I know some of you skim past those, and besides, there's more to say than can be encompassed in 140 characters.*

Savory Crunchy Cookies
I got a great recipe off Epicurious, and then modified it a bit by adding 1/2t of ginger, which makes it pretty much exactly what I want out of a gingersnap cookie

Comments

[jennlk]

Actually, they do make cookie size dough scoops. I have two small scoops (roughly 1/2 oz) that I got at the grocery store, and two larger ones (3/4 oz and 1 oz) that I got at GFS. The small ones make small cookies -- I'd probably use them to make these spice cookies. The 3/4 oz one is the one I use for "standard" cookies.

[almeda]

I was using a measuring teaspoon, which is what the recipe recommends -- this is NOT a spready or rise-y dough, so it mostly stays where you put it (and you push it down with a fork, like a peanut-butter cookie, to flatten before baking).

I'm not normally a fan of single-use kitchen items, but these cookies are so good they almost justify buying a gadget just to make making them easier. :->

[jennlk]

I use the smaller scoop for cookies (like the lemon cardamom ones I've posted before) that call for teaspoon scoops. By volume it's over a teaspoon, but cookie dough isn't water, and it works out just fine.

I don't much like single-use items either, but I put cookie scoops in the same category as potato mashers and pizza cutters. You don't -need- them, but they sure do make life easier.

[almeda]

I forgot about potato kugel! When I've had bread pudding that was called that, it was usually sweet, whereas the bready kugels I've had (usually including more non-bread ingredients than the recipe above does, like cooked meat bits or cut-up veggies) were savory.

[jerusha]

Sounds like you need a disher. They're made like ice-cream scoops, with the sweepy-arm to push the food out, but come in all sorts of sizes. The traditional sizes are number of scoops per quart (32 oz), so larger numbers make smaller portions.

And I wouldn't consider dishers uni-taskers - you can use them any time you're trying to separate something amorphous into exact portions. Cookie dough, bread dough for rolls, ice cream, mashed potatoes, muffin dough, etc...

And what you call bread-kugel, I'd probably call "savory bread pudding", but mostly I think I'd call it *yum*.

[orawnzva]

fiddledragon and I were talking about teriyaki-glazed chocolate pepper cookies (hypothetically) just the other night!

[whuffle]

Looking for an eject mechanism? See if you can use a melon baller for this or try buying a small appropriately sized ice cream scoop.