Cookie Swap: Red Velvet Cookie Sandwiches + White Chocolate Buttercream

Whew this week has been flying! I can't believe it's Thursday, but am so happy that its almost the weekend since that means Christmas tree time! And that's really one of the best days of the year.

Last night, I went to dinner with some of my girlfriends from Sesame Street, where I used to work before my current job. I love seeing these lovely ladies! I spent 4 years at Sesame Street working in Global Toys. It really was a fun job! I got to do things like this at our holiday party...

...and made some wonderful friends along the way!

Anyhow, today I'm so happy to share with you our first Virtual Cookie Swap recipe! Today's yum-inducing Red Velvet Cookie Sandwiches with White Chocolate Buttercream come from Lauren, who writes a delicious food blog (and who is a fellow New Yorker!) called Keep it Sweet and you can find her original post of this recipe here.

Is it me, or does this gorgeous creation just scream holiday goodness? From the moment I opened up the recipe, I haven't been able to stop thinking about 'em. These are sure to make an appearance this holiday in the Humiston house!

Red Velvet Cookie Sandwiches with White Chocolate Buttercream
*Cookie recipe adapted from How Sweet it Is
Makes 22 cookie sandwiches
Cookie Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons red food coloring
1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions for Cookies:
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
Whisk together dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt); set aside
Beat together butter and sugars until fluffy
Add eggs and vanilla and combine
Add red food coloring and beat until well mixed
Slowly add dry ingredients
Stir until well combined
Stir in chocolate chips
Drop even tablespoons of cookie dough on baking sheet lined with parchment paper about 2 inches apart
Bake for ~8 minutes or until slightly firm
Set your cookies aside on a wire rack to cool

Buttercream Ingredients:
4 ounces baking white chocolate
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup milk (any type is fine)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions for Buttercream:
Combine the white chocolate and whipping cream in a medium saucepan on low-medium heat, stirring continuously
Remove from heat and stir in milk
Refrigerate for mixture for half hour
When white chocolate mixture is cool, finish making the buttercream
Beat the butter until creamy
Beat in confectioners’ sugar until butter and sugar are light and fluffy
Now beat in the cooled white chocolate mixture until buttercream is creamy and light

Build Sandwiches
Spread 1-2 tablespoons of buttercream on the bottom half of a cookie (more or less icing depending on your taste)
Place second cookie on top and lightly push together

So what do you think? Didn't Lauren do an amazing job? I don't know about you, but I'm wishing I was eating these for a mid-morning snack today! And with this decadence in mind, what is your favorite holiday dessert?

Want to contribute your favorite cookie recipe to our  Virtual Cookie Swap? Email them on over (with photo, please!) to theavidappetite [at] gmail [dot] com, we'll start posting them as they roll in!

Stuffed

I don’t know about you, but my alarm went off way too soon this morning after a work dinner at Arturo’s last night (side note: it was deeeelicious!).

While mashed potatoes really have my heart for Thanksgiving, I do have a special love for stuffing - and all side dishes for that matter. And for my pre-Thanksgiving Dinner last weekend, it was my favorite dish on the table. Well, that and the gravy (oooooh the gravy). Part of my love for stuffing is that this is really the only time of the year when it’s eaten. It would never occur to me to eat stuffing in the spring or summer. No, only the Thanksgiving season will suffice. Not to mention that everything about stuffing just screams Thanksgiving. The moist yet toasted bread, the bits of celery (and in this case, apples), and the poultry seasoning all come together to make one delightful combination of stuffing yumminess. And don’t even get me started on the fragrance that permeates the kitchen while it’s cooking. Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is.

I changed it up a bit this year. While last year I made a giant batch of Paula Deen’s Country Stuffing, to try out something new and give all of you another stuffing option, I turned to my lady Ina Garten. Since everything she makes is done oh-so-deliciously, I felt confident that with a couple of my own alterations this stuffing would be tops. And it was.

With a base of soft white bread, onions and celery, this recipe also included chopped apples. Though I’m typically always a fan of apples - and any sweet & savory combination for that matter - I was a bit skeptical about this addition since at heart I’m a traditionalist (shocked?). I didn’t ever recal having apples in stuffing, but oh how happy I am that I gave it a try. I also traded traditional sausage for turkey breakfast sausage. The breakfast-style sausage is key here since it gave just the right amount of flavor without being overpoweringly sausagey. Follow me?

 Sausage & Herb Stuffing
*Adapted from Ina Garten
1 ½ loaves white bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 stick unsalted butter
2 onions, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
2 Granny Smith apples, unpeeled, cored and diced
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 lb breakfast sausage, casings removed (I used turkey sausage)
1 ½ C chicken stock

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Meanwhile, cut up the bread into cubes and place on a sheet pan. Cook in oven for 7 minutes until bread just starts to harden. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. Add onions, celery, apple, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. Cook for about 10 minutes until the veggies are soft and your entire kitchen is flooded with the delightful aroma of Thanksgiving yumminess. Don't be afraid to get right in there and waft that aroma into your face...Shaun and I may have done this multiple times during the process...

Pour over the bread cubes and mix. In the same pan, cook the sausage. Remove the sausage from their casings and saute until browned, breaking up the pieces as it cooks. Add to the bread mixture.

Next, add some chicken broth. While the original recipe only called for a cup, I used about a cup and a half since it seemed to be a bit dry (not to mention that you bake it off in the oven, so I was very weary of not letting it dry out while also not becoming too soggy - use your judgement here!). Place in a baking dish and cook for about 30 minutes. Serve with gravy and be prepared to be smitten with this unbelievably savory and easy stuffing!

Doesn't it look like the ultimate stuffing? Fluffy bread, poultry seasoning, tart apples...mmmm I'm dreaming about this as we speak and hoping that there's still some left for a little dinner appetizer tonight! So what do you think? Are you a stuffing fan? And bonus question: What's your favorite side dish on the big day?

Psst...for more Thanksgiving ideas, check out our Recipes page under the Thanksgiving header!

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Oh soup. That's really all I have to say.

But I guess you are looking for more than that, huh? Once the cool weather hits, it’s like a button is switched on and all I want is soup, soup and more soup. So comforting, so warming, it’s like a miracle cure for the blues, for a chill that you just can’t get rid of, or for an empty stomach just grumbling to be filled up. Suddenly my daily lunch of ham & cheese sandwich or homemade chef’s salad (complete with Shaun’s ham & cheese pinwheels that he often prepares for me...love ya honey!) just wasn’t cutting it. Soup it would need to be. So after a couple of weeks of picking up soup from local eateries, I realized that while it seemed like it was a small expense, it was adding up to around $5 per day (sometimes more like $7 at fancier places like Moomah). And since you know my feelings on spending mucho moola on food that I can easily DIY, I realized it was time to tackle the soup-for-lunch challenge. In the midst of post-dinner party clean up and game day relaxing, I got my soup on. And oh how happy I am that I did.

Since I had some nice tomatoes in the fridge and all of the other ingredients on hand, I decided that tomato soup it would be! And this version is low fat, filling and hearty to boot. Oh and did I mention that it gives my favorite tomato soup from ‘wichcraft a serious run for its money?

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup
3 lbs tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped
2 large onions, roughly chopped
1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
2 14.5 oz cans low sodium chicken broth
2 bay leaves
3 tbsp heavy cream
olive oil
kosher salt
fresh black pepper
1/2 C fresh basil leaves
parmesean cheese

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Roughly chop the tomatoes and onions. Spread out on a foil-covered sheet pan (this will make clean up a snap!), drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast (this is the key to flavorful, delicious soup since roasting softens the veggies and brings out the yummy, carmelized flavors!).

Roast for about 25 minutes or until tomatoes and onions are soft, carmelized and smelling like heaven. Add them to a big stock pot or dutch oven. 

Pour in the chicken broth, crushed tomatoes and whole peeled tomatoes (I always use Red Pack, unless grocer gives me another brand when I lazily order my groceries!). Stir in the bay leaves and butter. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20-30 minutes. 

Meanwhile, chop up the basil. I grabbed the last bit of leaves from our urban herb garden, which has recently been moved indoors. No word on how long that will last!

 

Add to the soup. After the 20-30 minutes has elapsed, it's time to blend the soup together. I use my handy immersion blender (a tool that I have come to obsess over) but using a blender or food processor to blend in batches should work as well.

Stir in the heavy cream (use as much as you'd like or omit altogether to keep it lower in fat). When serving, stir in a bit of parmesean cheese. Since I used up all of my basil, I garnished with a sprig of parsley that I had recently purchased for my upcoming Thanksgiving dinner (stay tuned for lots of Turkey Day recipes!)

So there you have it. A delicious and comforting bowl of soup. This recipe made a giant batch, which is perfect for a family, spreading over a week's time or even freezing to use throughout the winter! I also like my soup chunky so I didn't completely blend it through, though I'm sure it would be equally as delightful. Oh and to bring it to work, I simply load it up in an air tight container, keep it upright on my commute and heat in the microwave for lunch. Voila! Homemade, comforting soup! All that's missing is a giant, buttery grilled cheese sandwich...

So the question of the day is: What is your favorite food or beverage to warm you up on a cool day? Is it a bowl of soup? A hearty chili? A sweet mug of hot chocolate? Or maybe a simple chai tea?