Food ramblings...or maybe tummy rumblings

Ever find yourself halfway through a recipe before you realize that you're not making what you thought you were?

That was me last night, assembling cookies for a potluck at work. I pulled out a bag of chocolate chips and was following the recipe on the side--nothing fancy. I don't really read the directions on cookies--you cream butter & sugar, add the egss, then add all of the dry ingredients. The only tricks usually involve refridgeration and roll vs drop. So, I had my creamed butter/sugar/egg, and was mixing together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder? Doh. It was a double-chocolate recipe. Ah well. I have plenty of cocoa powder on hand. I could probably have left it out, because its normally added in addition to flour and other ingredients, but I didn't have another recipe handy to verify (feeling lazy...my cookbook collection wasn't more than 10 feet away). I ended up swapping the straight chips for some white-chocoloate/semi swirl ones that were in the cannister. Et voila. Yummy cookies, a trifle fancier than I planned.

It's been an odd week, cooking-wise. On Sunday I made a dish that resembles more the style of food I ate as a kid: a hamburger pie/casserole. The base was ground beef, frozen mixed veggies, and canned tomatoes + tomato paste (which happened to be "italian style", so it ended with a sort of spaghetti-sauce flair), topped with mashed potatoes (powdered from a box) and baked. It tasted better than I actually expected.

Saturday night, I had made some yummy mocha & chocolate chip scones with a coffee glaze. Double and triple yum. I'm still trying to decide what kind of scone batter/dough works best. Some I've tasted remind me more of bisquick biscuits than scones. Most require heavy cream. This one called for milk instead of cream, but added eggs. They were good, but didn't last as well as some others I've made, tasting kind of stale after about 2 days. I'd love a dense scone, like St. Louis Bread Company serves (I dearly love their cinnamon scones), but I'm not sure what to add or subtract from any of my recipes to achieve their heft and crumble.

The rest of the week so far has consisted of frozen pizza, tacos, and Subway. Nothing inspired, not particularly gourmet, but generally well-recieved and moderately healthy. Ok, so the frozen pizza was questionable. But tacos aren't bad, when they're served on a huge bed of lettuce with salsa (and I don't do sour cream).

Now I'm hungry. Doh! And me with no snacks, except for my box of cookies for the lunch....