Confectious Concoctions

A co-worker of mine posted this recipe for Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies recently, and I knew it was right up my alley. Friends have called me out as not living up to my reputation or Twitter name (@chelseathebaker), so I am trying to right that wrong by bringing in baked treats once a week, or at least once every other.

I did change up the recipe a little – here’s my version: 

2 sticks butter, softened (I use unsalted)
3/4 c brown sugar
1 c white sugar (I used Splenda)
2 eggs
1 T vanilla
3 c flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
mini Oreos

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cream sugars and butter until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until well-blended.
4. Combine  flour, soda and salt, and add to sugar mixture gradually, mixing well.
5. Stir in chocolate chips.
6. Take each mini Oreo and enough cookie dough to encase the Oreo – you don’t have to roll it into a ball or anything, just make sure the Oreo is covered.
7. Bake for 8 minutes (I did not need to grease my cookie sheets).

Makes approx 3 doz.

I generally liked the dough (that’s how I predict the success), but I think I tend to like my chocolate chip cookies with more brown sugar flavor. That being said, everyone likes this cookie dough – it’s quite light and fluffy, and if I hadn’t recently had a dental implant put in, limiting my taste-testing ability, I probably would’ve devoured one already to give my full-fledged opinion. In any case, they were well-received, so I’ll likely put this in my arsenal to be brought out frequently.

Kyle and I went to Dog Nuvo for lunch one day, and their soup du jour was yellow pepper soup. I believe it was Roasted Curried Yellow Pepper Soup, but my memory fails me. A hot dog didn’t sound appealing then, so I thought I would get their soup. When it arrived at our table, it was glorious – beautiful and so delicious. It wasn’t pureed like most pepper soups. Instead, the peppers were diced into uniform square shapes, resting in a glorious, semi-opaque broth.  The skin was intact, and cooked to perfection – still slightly crisp, like pasta al dente. The golden color of the peppers really inspired me. There’s just something about a yellow pepper that says fresh and gourmet, and relevant in all seasons. It seemed so simple, I knew I had to figure out how to make it. I am a self-proclaimed Soup Maven.

So I did some research to see if I could find a similar recipe. But all of the recipes I found were a puree. Oh well. No problem. I’ll just make it up and here’s what I came up with:

Yellow Pepper Soup

5-6 yellow peppers

4-5 cups chicken broth or stock

1/2 sliced mushrooms

2 green onions

1 can Cream of Celery soup

1 tsp Curry powder

1 tbsp Tarragon

1 tsp Turmeric

Ground black pepper

I thought the soup at Dog Nuvo was roasted, but the skins were in tact still, so I went ahead and broiled 2 peppers all around enough so they were blacked and I could take the skin off. I just diced the remaining peppers. In retrospect, I don’t think roasting was necessary and I won’t do it next time to see if there’s any difference in flavor.

In a large pot, get broth boiling with the tarragon, curry and turmeric. Add diced, un-roasted peppers. When they are about half way cooked, add your sliced mushrooms (and diced roasted peppers if you chose to do that), green onions and cream of celery soup. Let it heat through, season to taste.

A couple things I might add in the future:

Chives (I didn’t have any on hand)

White or yellow onions

Garlic