Almost free goodies from Cheryl’s!

Cheryl’s is a fun cookie company based in Columbus, Ohio and they’re currently offering a gourmet sampler of several of their delicious products for only the cost of shipping! The sampler includes:

  • The Popcorn Factory Cheese Popcorn, each fluffy, freshly popped kernel is covered in a flavorful cheddar-y cheese.
  • Cheryl’s FAMOUS hand-frosted vanilla butterceream cut-out cookie.
  • Fannie May Pixie made of fresh, crunchy pecans that are smothered in rich caramel and silky smooth real milk chocolate.
  • 1-800Baskets.com crisp Bavarian pretzel coated in milk chocolate and candy confetti.

 

Recipe: Baking Powder Biscuits

Several of my friends were discussing crackers, biscuits and scones today with a bit of debate as, depending where you are in the world, the words describe foods that are quite different. Trying to describe the texture of an American biscuit to someone in Europe is not quite as easy as it sounds! Rather than try to figure out how to ship a can of pre-made refrigerator biscuits across the pond without having them spoil or pop mid-transit, I figured a recipe might be a simpler way to go.

This is my mother Leah’s recipe for Baking Powder Biscuits. In all likelyhood, it was probably taught to her by my grandmother or great-grandmother. Growing up on a ranch as the eldest daughter, a lot of the cooking and baking for the family and farmhands fell to her. This is a quick recipe for a filling biscuit and the recipe can be doubled without too much trouble which is important when you’re trying to keep a bunch of hard-working and hungry cowboys fed! Don’t overbake these or they will start to dry out…take them out when they are a nice light brown. They are amazing with butter and honey, or some homemade strawberry jam and they also go great with a nice hearty beef stew.

Baking Powder Biscuits

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder (I prefer Clabber Girl or Calumet)
4 TBSP shortening
3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400F. Mix all ingredients thoroughly and knead lightly. Roll out dough to 1/2″ to 3/4″ thick. Cut into circles and bake 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

Yes, they’re still kosher!

Now, our household isn’t Jewish, so we don’t keep kosher, but I’m finding that I have more and more friends that are and that do follow dietary restrictions, so I’ve been trying to find out a little more about it and what it means.

In doing a little research today on Kosher foods, I ran across this article in the New York Times. It seems that the Girl Scouts seemed to have missed some important labeling on their boxes this year. They left off their kosher certification!

So if you do keep kosher and you do like to indulge in that box (or 5) of Thin Mints, feel free to dig in. According to the Orthodox Union everything is, well…kosher.

Also, if you are looking for Girl Scout cookies, they are being sold now, but only for a short time. If you don’t know of any scouts in your area, you should check out GirlScoutCookies.org for help in connecting with a local troop to buy. Girl Scouts are -not- allowed to sell over the internet, so I’d be suspicious of any to good to be true eBay sales and the like!

Kim’s No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

Last night I found myself craving the yummy goodness that is a chocolate crinkle cookie, so I decided to whip up a batch only to find that I was too low on flour to make them! Unbelievable. If you know anything about my kitchen, you would know that I’m usually overstocked on 6 things: sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, butter, coffee…and flour. I couldn’t believe that I was so low on flour!

Stumped and kicking myself over my purchasing snafu and a wee bit cranky that I hadn’t been able to satiate my chocolate craving, I returned to my computer to find a twitter message from my good friend Kim from ShoppingBookmarks.com about the No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies she had just made. I clicked on the link to her recipe and bingo! No flour necessary!

These cookies were easy to make, took very little time and only one saucepan to heat everything up. They are a little sticky, but other than that, they are incredibly rich and chewy and I would definitely recommend pairing them with a tall glass of milk!

Here’s Kim’s recipe:

Kim’s Incredible No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies
2 Cups white sugar
3 TBSP Unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli’s Unsweetened Cocoa. Yum!)
1/2 Cup butter (you could use margarine if you like that sort of thing)
1/2 Cup milk
1 pinch salt
3 Cups quick cooking oats
1/2 Cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
In a saucepan, bring sugar, cocoa, butter milk and salt to a rapid boil for 1 minute over medium high heat for 1 minute while stirring constantly. Remove from heat and working quickly add oats, peanut butter and vanilla. Stir with a spatula or spoon until well combined and drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper or parchment. Let cool and consume!

Ultimate Foodie Podcast #3 – Drew Koven of Geoff and Drew’s Cookies

Drew Koven and Carol Spickler of Geoff and Drew's CookiesLast week, Karen and I were joined on the Ultimate Foodie Podcast by Drew Koven – a founder of and a guy who wears many hats (COO/CMO/Chief of eCommerce and 100% Customer Satisfaction) at Geoff and Drew’s Cookies.

Geoff and Drew’s is a Boston based gourmet cookie and baked good baker and retailer that has earned some awesome reviews from a variety of media outlets including Gourmet Magazine, Inc. Magazine, The Today Show, Modern Bride, Rachel Ray Every Day and more. The bottom line is… they bake some damn fine cookies and brownies.

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We talked with Drew about a ton of different Geoff and Drew’s Cookie related topics including their roots as a late night cookie and milk delivery service catering to Boston area college students, the write up that propelled them into the corporate gifting space, some of their capabilities in terms of personalized corporate gifting, the variety of cookie and brownie flavors they produce. I raved on their Chocolate Chunk cookies (the sweet vanilla-iness was amazing) and Karen added some rave reviews of her own for their Butter Crunch.

We also talked about the Research and Development and product testing process that they use at Geoff and Drew’s and begged to be including on the testing list so we could try all of the experimental flavors as well. We spent some time talking about our favorite cookies, brownies and other confections from Geoff and Drew’s and we tried to pin Drew down on a favorite… he claimed (to his credit) that they all were his favorites and he couldn’t choose. That actually makes a lot of sense as Drew puts his name on each and every box of cookies and brownies that come out of their facility.

We had a great time as Drew is a guy who is passionate about his company and his products and we always love guests with a genuine passion for food here at Ultimate Foodie.

Enjoy the Podcast and if you would like, take $10 off your order of $50 or more from Geoff and Drew’s Cookies by ordering through a link on this page and entering the coupon code “SAVE10”

Geoff and Drews - the finest cookies, brownies and freshly baked gifts