#2041 foodie Friday: fajitas and cookies

I have to tell you about a couple of recipes I tried this week that were total winners.

On Tuesday night I stayed home to watch the Jazz game. I decided since I was home that I should cook. I'd found a recipe for sheet pan fajitas on Pinterest, so I had all the ingredients and that's what I decided to make.

I've mentioned before that veggies are not really my thing but that maybe if they were roasted, they would be more palatable. This recipe calls for bell peppers and onions (duh, fajitas, of course there are peppers). I don't care for the flavor of green peppers so I used a yellow pepper and a red pepper and a big ol' Vidalia sweet onion. I had two chicken breasts that I cut into strips. I seasoned it all with some cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. I put all the veggies and chicken on the pan and sprinkled the seasoning over the whole thing. I drizzled about a tablespoon of canola oil over everything and tossed it all together to get the flavors all over everything. Then I popped the pan in the oven for 15 minutes, gave everything a shake and a stir and put it back in for about five more minutes.

Oh my goodness! The smell of everything was fantastic: kinda smoky from the cumin and paprika. The chili powder I used was mild, so there wasn't any heat and the flavor was delicious. I squirted some fresh lime juice on mine before I piled it onto a hot flour tortilla.

The other recipe I tried this week was for chocolate chip cookies. I LOVE chocolate chip cookies and I have been trying to find a great recipe for awhile now. The week before last I tried a recipe that seemed like it would be good, but the cookies, while tasty, were really flat.

such a sad flat cookie

I want a cookie with a little more heft, a little more "mouth-feel" as they say. After giving it some thought, I decided that the butter-to-flour ratio was off on the cookie shown above. I think it should be about a one-to-three ratio: one cup of butter to three cups of flour. Cornstarch is a good add also because it softens up the flour and makes the cookies a little more tender. With this hypothesis, I went back to Pinterest and found this recipe.

I'm going to just cut to the chase and let you know that this recipe is The One. I don't know if it was the cold butter or the increased amount of flour and the cornstarch but dang...spectacular. I have to confess that I did not follow the recipe exactly as written though. I only used light brown sugar. I didn't use cake flour; I just used regular all-purpose flour. I also sprinkled a little salt on top of the cookies when they came out of the oven.

The One

The cookies were thick in just the right way. There was a satisfying little crunch on the exterior bite that gave way to a tender interior. I made them pretty good sized. They were about the size of the palm of my hand when baked. When I put them on the cookie sheet, they were about the size of a raquetball, I'd say. They spread out a little, but made a good cookie shape and size. I got about a dozen cookies out of the recipe. I stored what wasn't eaten on the first day in a gallon-size Ziploc bag. The next day they were still tender and delectable.

I've got a lot of cookie recipe deleting to do on my Pinterest board.

Maybe I like to write about food on Friday because it is the day of the week that I don't eat as much usually because of WW on Saturday morning. lol

Have a great weekend!