From now on whenever I think of lemon bars I’ll be reminded of the time that I first met a group of cousins I never knew I had. We all convened at my parents’ house (it turns out they don’t live that far away) for dinner the day after Christmas, just ten days ago. Their great-great-great-grandfather was my great-great-grandfather. I did the calculation and determined that makes us 3rd cousins once removed. It’s a distant relation, but family is family.

One of my “new” cousins, about my same age, brought over lemon bars that day. I hadn’t had them in forever and hers were fantastic. I learned that both she and her sister love to cook and that her sister even has her own special occasion cake business. Even though we’re only 3rd cousins once removed I felt connected over this.

This little reunion prompted me to share a recipe for Creamy Lemon-Lime Bars today. The recipe, which I adapted from the side of a can of sweetened condensed milk, is more reminiscent of key lime pie than the traditional lemon bars my cousin made. They have a rich, creamy texture but are still very sweet, tart and refreshing. I brought limes into the mix to make things a little interesting (plus I love limes).

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© Cooking On the Side, 2012. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/creamy-lemon-lime-bars/

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As busy as the holiday season gets – and this one is proving to be one for the records – I make it a point to carve out time for the things that I enjoy most about the holidays, such as baking and exchanging cookies. This year’s Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, masterfully organized by Lindsay from Love & Olive Oil and Julie from The Little Kitchen, turned to be the mother of all cookie exchanges I’ve ever participated in, with more than 600 food bloggers sending 22,000 cookies around the world!

I took the opportunity to try out a Chocolate-Raspberry Thumbprint cookie recipe I found inside a box of Ziploc bags. What drew me most to these cookies (besides the obvious terrific combo of chocolate and raspberries) was the cream cheese in the dough. I hoped the cream cheese would give the cookies a soft, tender texture and that’s exactly what I got. I was happy to wrap them up and ship them off, a dozen at a time, to someone I’ve known since my early days of blogging, Shelby from The Life and Loves of Grumpy’s Honeybunch, as well as two folks I’m now “meeting” for the first time: Desiree from Gustatoria and Allison from Decadent Philistines Save the World.

And since this was exchange, that means I also received three dozen cookies in the mail as well! Read on to see the terrific cookies that arrived on my doorstep as well as the recipe for the Chocolate-Raspberry Thumbprint cookies that I sent.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/chocolate-raspberry-thumbprint-cookies-the-great-food-blogger-cookie-swap/

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I officially have a sweet tooth…or so the new diet and exercise app I recently downloaded to my iPhone tells me. Day after day for the past week, as I’ve logged everything I’ve been eating and drinking, MyFitnessPal has been telling me that I’ve consumed more than double my daily recommended volume of sugar. It gets worse…I’ve usually exceeded my recommended volume by the end of breakfast. Talk about eye-opening!

Just to be clear, it’s not like I’m eating Double Chocolate Cookies for breakfast or anything like that. My main culprit has been orange juice. As it turns out, a single 8-ounce glass of my favorite OJ that I’ve been drinking for years delivers 69% of the amount of sugar I’m supposed to have in a day. Add in a piece of fruit and – BAM – I’m over my sugar limit by 8:30 AM. Granted, I’m pretty sure that natural sugar from fruit isn’t as bad as refined sugar but still…I had no idea.

The good news is 1) I’m now much more aware of my sugar intake thanks to this app (and thanks to my friend Dara from Cookin’ Canuck for first introducing it to me through her recent post) and 2) with this awareness I can now make better eating decisions. I cannot bear to completely eliminate from my diet rich, gooey, brownie-like chocolate cookies like the ones I’m sharing today from Ghirardelli. But I’m now able to do a better job of determining what “moderation” looks like. If I indulge in one of these bad boys, that’s pretty much my treat for the day.

Have your cookie and eat it too! But if you need a little help with keeping your sweet tooth in balance, especially with Halloween and the holidays fast approaching, you might consider an app like MyFitnessPal (and no, I have no connection with this company whatsoever – I’m just a happy customer!).

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/double-chocolate-cookies/

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I have happy childhood memories of trips to the cookie shop that opened up in our mall at some point in the ’80s called Blue Chip Cookies. Does anyone remember them? Their storefront was set up just like Mrs. Fields, with a case of fresh baked cookies, but they claim to be the first to innovate with the white chocolate macadamia variety in the United States. These new cookies were a revelation, to me. They became my standard cookie order, while my old standby semi-sweet-without-nuts from Mrs. Fields took a backseat. I felt all grown up and fashion-forward for my taste in cookies.

Today, White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies are a little retro. You don’t see them quite as often as you used to. I haven’t seen Blue Chip stores in years (they’re now primarily a mail order business). But a great-tasting cookie never goes out of style. The cookies from this recipe, from the back of the Ghirardelli White Chips package, are just as yummy as my ten-year-old self remembers.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/white-chocolate-macadamia-cookies/

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I recognized that first time that I brought homemade cookies with me to the hair salon that I would be setting a precedent. None of the stylists ever come out and ask when I arrive for my appointment. They greet me with smiles and hugs as always. But I try to put their curiosity to rest early on – yes, she brought them!

The truth is I love to have an excuse to bake cookies. I am a bit of a cookieholic (they’re up there with french fries as my most significant vices), so the sooner I can get my fix and usher the rest out of the house the better. Luckily, it’s not too difficult at all to find people to help take cookies off your hands.

If you recall our lessons from my Anatomy of a Chocolate Chip Cookie post a few months back, this Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie recipe goes for the thick and chewy approach. They are fabulous. If you didn’t know the ingredients, you might be taken aback a little by the unusual yet highly appealing flavor of these cookies. A dose of cinnamon and ginger give a gentle hint of spice that works so phenomenally with the chocolate and the nutty oats. I will not forget the raisins again next time, as I’m sure they would be a perfect match for the spices as well. The staff at the salon loved them!

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies/

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These little five-ingredient Peanut Butter Crunch Shortbread elephants marched their way into my kitchen the other day. Even though they’re made with peanut butter (get it – elephants? peanuts? ha ha), the crunch doesn’t actually come from peanuts. Even better: it’s turbinado sugar.

Until now, I’d only ever used turbinado sugar – the kind with the large golden crystals – on two types of occasions: to stir into coffee when “regular” sugar wasn’t available or to sprinkle on top of muffins. It never occurred to me to bake with it. I’m glad that a shortbread recipe on the back of a turbinado sugar package enlightened me to its crunchy potential. What you get is a sandy-textured peanut butter shortbread (the peanut butter was my contribution to the recipe) with coarse sugar pebbles interspersed throughout. It’s fabulous!

It’s gotten me thinking about other baking situations where you might want an extra sugar crunch inside your dough or batter…like maybe pie crusts? Or biscotti? How about pancakes? Apparently you can substitute turbinado sugar one for one with refined sugar in recipes. I still have a few cups left in this bag…I’m ready to experiment!

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/peanut-butter-crunch-shortbread/

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What makes a chocolate chip cookie chewy? How can I make thicker cookies? Or thin and crisp cookies? I’m afraid I’ve gone and geeked out again (remember the last time?) and did a little chocolate chip cookie recipe analysis to get to the bottom of these questions.

Most chocolate chip cookie recipes call for exactly the same ingredients, but for a variety of reasons (i.e.,amounts, baking time and temperature) they might come out chewier, crispier, thinner, thicker or even with different flavor. Read on for my comparison of the Toll House, Barry Callebaut (see the recipe at the end of this post) and Land O Lakes on-the-package recipes as well as tips for tweaking your favorite recipe to match your preferred cookie style.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/anatomy-of-a-chocolate-chip-cookie/

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Last week’s visit to the Nestlé test kitchens definitely put me in the mood to bake cookies. I have been looking forward all week to share these with you, I was so pleased with how they came out. For these Brownie-Swirled Chocolate Chip Cookies, I combined two on-the-package Nestlé recipes – Mini Morsels Cookies and Dark Chocolate Brownies – to create one pretty cool-looking cookie that tastes, if I may say, even better than the sum of its parts.

If the idea of swirling brownie batter into cookie dough sounds to you like something Jenny from Picky Palate might have come up with, you’re right! My supremely creative friend Jenny is the reigning queen of combining treats to make exciting new ones (her Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies are all over the food blogs right now). When I got it in my head that I wanted to combine brownies and cookies I looked to the technique she shared several years ago that ensured big bold swirls without “muddying” the dough. It worked like an absolute charm.

Read on to learn the easy technique for swirling brownie batter into cookie dough…plus a fabulous baking giveaway from Nestlé!

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/brownie-swirled-chocolate-chip-cookies-baking-giveaway/

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After the Snoopy valentines and conversation hearts, what my sisters and I used to look forward to most about Valentine’s Day as kids was the big heart-shaped box of chocolates my dad would bring home for us my mom. It was a fun game to guess what was inside each piece (through extensive sampling, of course). But whatever you did, it was imperative to AVOID the cherry cordial one! Ewwwww!!

Fast forward twenty-five years and I find myself buying a bag full of only cherry cordial chocolates. Another sign that might be a grown up! I did have an alterior motive: I was intrigued by the cookie recipe on the back. It was a chocolate brownie-like thumbprint cookie rolled in chopped hazelnuts with a cherry cordial-filled Hershey’s kiss nestled in vanilla icing on top. It looked to me like a grown-up version of those peanut butter Hershey’s kiss thumbprint cookies my mom always made.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/cherry-cordial-chocolate-thumbprint-cookies/

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It’s a fuller house than normal at my local café this morning. The patio is empty, everyone has set up shop inside. Sixty-six degree overcast weather tends to send San Diegans to shelter. A mixed bag of flip flop- and Ugg-wearing patrons with their laptops open (or, in my case, iPad) tune out the whir of the espresso machine and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on the oldies radio station and tap into some free wi-fi.

I look forward to these two hours at the coffeehouse each week. My older child is playing at preschool, her baby brother is entertaining the babysitter. It’s my “me time”. I indulge in a hot beverage (come to think, my hazelnut latte could use a refill), send emails and draft blog posts. Next to a day at the spa this, to me, is bliss.

Especially on otherwise dreary days like this, crispy, chewy, cinnamon-sugar coated Snickerdoodles look like a spot of sunshine. I found this recipe on the back of a bag of flour, but they taste just like the ones my mom would make for us after school (for all I know, it could be the same recipe). They melt in your mouth, just like I remember.

I sometimes {heart} gray days.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2010. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/snickerdoodles/

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