Supathin Supachewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

So everybody has their preference on chocolate chip cookies..and everyone seems to have a recipe to swear by. Crispy, chewy, soft, crunchy, thick or thin are some of the words people might use to describe their favorites. Well I don't claim to understand people who like crunchy cookies, and to me a crunchy chocolate chip cookie would be a failure, but to each his own. My favorites are thin and chewy and if those are the two adjectives you'd use to describe your ideal CCC, then this recipe might become your favorite too.

Supathin Supachewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

makes 24 large thin cookies

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (bleached actually works better, but I know you probably only buy unbleached. It's ok..the ones in the picture were made with unbleached. Bleached results in a less oily cookie though.)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons Earth Balance margarine, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar (or more granulated sugar with a teeeeny bit of molasses)

3 tablespoons light corn syrup

2 tablespoons almond milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips (Mini ones work really well if you'd rather have chips that are proportional to the height of the cookies. I used regular for the ones in the picture. I can't decide which I like better.)

Preheat oven to 375F.   

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In a separate bowl, cream the Earth Balance and sugars together until light and fluffy.  

Beat in corn syrup, almond milk and vanilla.

On low speed, gradually add the reserved dry ingredients and mix on low until combined.  Add chocolate chips and mix on low for 5 seconds.  

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. (Greasing makes them excessively oily. They already have a very high fat content.) Drop slightly heaping tablespoons of batter about 2 inches apart onto cookie sheet (I can get 8 per sheet without them running together).  Bake for 7-8 minutes or until edges just begin to turn golden. They will look a little undercooked in the middle, but not totally raw. Remove cookie sheet from oven and wait 3 minutes before gently sliding the whole parchment sheet to a rack or counter to cool completely. You can reuse the parchment sheet for the next group, but wipe it off first. These cookies sweat out a lot of oil.

I love how big the chips are in relation to the cookie.
These cookies are very upfront about the number of chips they contain.

So thin you can see through!

And bend with your mind.

I also have some pie pictures to share..some Thanksgiving and after Thanksgiving pies. I also believe I have a new favorite.

In the front is the Pumpkin Cheesecake from Vegan Pie in the Sky and in the back, also from Vegan Pie in the Sky is my new favorite pie...banoffee! (Seriously, banoffee! requires an exclamation point following it.) Both were made with a gluten free crust to accommodate my celiac cousin. The crusts were a mix of pecans, sugar, brown rice flour and Earth Balance. I liked the crusts, but damn that many nuts is expensive.

The pumpkin cheesecake is one of those recipes that everyone talks so highly of, so I had to make it. I think I am the only one in the world that doesn't really care for it though. My family thought it was great. On the other hand, I am in love with banoffee!, where as it did not receive the rave reviews of the pumpkin. Maybe bananas were just not tradition-friendly for this occasion. It's ok, banoffee!, I will make and eat enough of you to make up for everyone who doesn't think bananas belong at a Thanksgiving table.

After Thanksgiving when the price of a 3 lb bag of cranberries went from $5.50 to $3 (Ah, the magic of supply and demand), I made the cranberry custard pie from Vegan Desserts.

I liked this one because I like pretty much everything with loads of cranberries. I find the whipped topping unnecessary, but interesting and I do recommend halving the topping recipe if you make it. I was lazy and just slapped it on top instead of piping it, so it wasn't pretty enough to be in the photo. I also used a premade graham crust. (Lay-zaaaay piemaker that I am.) I could totally eat the batter for this one with a spoon.. I almost posted a picture of the batter but it rather resembled a particular uniquely colored indigestion medicine. (As beautiful as that color may be..)

Thanksgiving eats, green beans, collards, cranberry and pumpkin!

So I've been making Thanksgiving dishes this week, trying to figure out which ones I want to do for Thursday.

It always bothers me that a lot of Thanksgiving plates consist only of brown blobs..I try not to make all my food brown and mushy.

First I made PPK Butternut Alfredo!, substituting canned pumpkin for butternut squash. This was excellent and superduper easy to make. Beside the soaking time for the cashews, the dish came together in less than 30 minutes. I also upped the sage and used fresh, since we have some in the garden. Try it with soba noodles if you have them. They are my favorite and take less time to cook.

I had also been wanting to try the Herbed Cream Collards from Vegnews. I've been getting ginormous bunches of collards at the farmer's market for $2 and while they usually go to a big pot of hoppin john, I thought these should be tried in something new. 

This recipe is pure fatty mcfatt goodness. These are incredibly rich with a can of coconut milk and a cup of almond meal (You don't need to buy almond meal..Just grind almonds in the food processor.) and a little goes a long way. When I tried them fresh out of the pan, I could taste the coconut, but when I heated some up the next day, I could not. So depending when you eat them, they're appropriate for coconut lovers and haters alike. (I used a whole can of coconut milk, but used olive oil instead of coconut oil, as called for.) Also got to use more fresh sage and some rosemary from the garden for this one. I think I will be doing these on Thursday.

They don't get creamier than this!

I wanted to try a quick green bean recipe last night and found Green Bean Shiraae which intrigued me based on it's uniqueness. It's basically green beans with a crumbled tofu/miso/sesame mixture. It's interesting, but not something I would recommend for a traditional Thanksgiving table. I left out the sugar and added a bit more soy sauce (I used Nama Shoyu, which isn't as salty as regular soy sauce. And speaking Nama Shoyu, I laugh every time I think of the name. An old coworker of mine, and my favorite person in the whole world used to say "NAMA SHO-YU!" in a sassy ghetto voice like it was supposed to be "Nah, I'm gonna show YOU!"..OK maybe you just had to be there...)

But I did discover a new favorite tofu while making this recipe. I used my first package of Wildwood Sproutofu with this recipe and found this tofu has this really creamy texture different from the Nasoya or 365 brands I usually get. The texture was great for sticking to the green beans and I can see using the Sproutofu in a future cheezecake (even though I don't think they make silken) for an extra creamy texture. 

sooooo creamy!

The cranberry blob on my plate is a prototype for a veganized version of my mom's jelloicious cranberry salad. I tried it with just homemade cranberry sauce as the gelling agent (since cranberries have a high amount of pectin-the compound in fruit that gels jellies) but it did not hold together as I would have hoped. I'm still working on it and will probably incorporate some agar.

Hopefully I can get the recipe right tomorrow and post it.

And of course for the dessert, I used more of my fresh cranberries to make an adaptation of Cranberry Streusel Bars from Vegan Desserts.

Cranberry Streusel Bars

3 - 3 1/2 cups fresh cranberries

1 cup granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups water

pinch of salt

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (or you can use all white flour)

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cup almond milk

1/2 cup canola oil

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup pecans, very finely diced or pulsed several times in food processor and toasted

(To toast diced pecans, lay them out on a sheet of aluminum foil and bake for 5 minutes at 375.)

Combine the cranberries, sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 10-15 minutes, until the berries pop and the sauce thickens. Remove from heat and stir in salt and cinnamon. Set aside. (Congratulations. You have just made homemade cranberry sauce.)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a 9x13 baking dish.

In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the soymilk and oil  and mix well with a fork. Add oats and pecans and mix well.

Press half of the mixture into the bottom of the greased baking dish. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately spread cranberry mixture over the bottom layer. Sprinkle the remaining streuel mixture over the cranberry layer. Bake for 24-26 more minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely and slice into bars.

Think about adopting a turkey for Thanksgiving from Farm Sanctuary.

Happy Thanksliving!