Carol made - Creamy Chicken Vegetable Potato and Orzo Soup... Bunny made - Big Fat Chewy Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies!

We're starting with Carol's yummy creamy soup!



Creamy Chicken, Vegetable, Orzo and Potato Soup

It's still soup weather here in Massachusetts...in fact, it's snowing as I type this...will spring EVER arrive????I could eat soup any time of year-I just love it...and you KNOW a soup recipe is a hit when your husband asks for it 2 weeks in a row! Yes, that's what Bob did with this soup-he loved it SO much when I made it last week, he asked me to make it again today.I found the recipe on Picky Palate...that Jenny is one smart cookie! I never would have thought of using parsnips in soup-BOY do they add a fantastic flavor. I've loved parsnips from the time I was a kid...my Dad always grew them in the huge vegetable garden he planted and in the fall, would cover the parsnip plants with mulch and let the parsnips stay in the ground all winter. As soon as the frost in the ground disappeared in the spring, he'd dig them up...they were SO sweet! Oh how I miss those homegrown beauties!So, a BIG thank you to Jenny for a fantastic recipe-and Bob says thank you too!!! I added a couple of ingredients which are noted in parentheses...other than that, I stuck right to her instructions . This is in my book of favorites to make again and again....





From Jenny @ Picky Palate

CREAMY CHICKEN, VEGETABLE, POTATO & ORZO SOUP

3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 c. diced parsnips
3 large carrots, peeled and diced
3 large stalks of celery, diced
1 onion, diced
1 large red bell pepper
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (my addition)
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. fresh cracked black pepper
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
3 (14 oz. each) cans chicken broth
1 c. orzo
4 c. diced potatoes (I cut down the amount of potatoes to about 2 cups-I used 4 small red potatoes)
2 dashes of Tabasco hot sauce (I used about 4 dashes-give or take)
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1 (14 oz.) can chicken broth
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked, then shredded (my addition)

Directions:

1. Heat oil into a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Saute parsnips, carrots, celery, onion and bell pepper (and the jalapeno, if using) for 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add garlic, salt and pepper. Cook for 1 minute. Sprinkle in flour; stir and cook for 1 more minute. Slowly stir in chicken broth. Increase heat to high, heat until soup starts to boil. Add orzo and potatoes, reduce heat to medium-high and let cook for 8-10 minutes or until orzo is al dente and potatoes are fork tender. Reduce heat to low. Stir in another can of chicken broth; season with Tabasco, Parmesan, additional salt and pepper to taste (this is when I added the cooked chicken). Simmer on low until ready to serve.



Max and Erma Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

Jumbo bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies with variations


I've made a lot of chocolate chip recipes trying to find "the one". You know the one that has everything you want, the texture and taste your craving, the perfect bakery style cookie you can make at home. This is that cookie recipe for me! I found this on Recipelink. It was posted by Rita Nader Haikenfield. Rita is a chef, syndicated columnist and author. Thank you Rita!!! Go visit Rita at about.eating and see all her free recipes! This is a recipe based on cookies from restaurants like Max and Erma or Panera's and other fine bakeries. The key to this recipe is melting the butter , not creaming it. Some time ago I did a search to find out how to make really good chocolate chip cookies and found this link, Secrets of really good chocolate chip cookies. One of the things this article says is to melt the butter and mix it with the sugars. I've been looking for a recipe that used melted butter ever since I found that link and I finally found one. These cookies are outrageously good!!




There are a few differences in this recipe than in others you'll see. This recipe uses 2 egg yolks along with 2 large eggs, adding more fat to the dough makes these cookies SOFT!! As I said , the butter is melted then added to the sugars and there is also 4 teaspoons of vanilla in the cookie dough. I baked these at the shorter baking time of 17 minutes , let them cool on the cookie sheet , then transferred to the cooling rack. I could only get 6 balls of dough on a sheet cause these babies need room to spread, they don't spread a lot, this isn't a flat cookie, it's nice and chunky. But they still need some room.




This 1/4 cup of cookie dough is going to make you the best bakery style cookie you ever tasted!





MAX AND ERMA'S STYLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

(Jumbo Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies with Variations)

Found on Recipelink

Posted by Rita Nader Haikenfield



3 1/3 cups all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 sticks butter, melted and cooled

1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar, light or dark

1/2 cup regular sugar

2 egg yolks, large, room temperature

2 large eggs, room temperature

4 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups semi sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate or peanut butter chips or chunksOptional but good: a handful of chopped nuts, coconut, dried cranberries, raisins, currants or cherries, etc.



Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.



In a big bowl, mix together the flour, soda and salt. Set aside. Beat both sugars and melted and cooled butter until combined well. Beat in the egg yolks, egg and vanilla just until mixed. Slowly add flour mixture and mix. Mix in chips and anything else you want.Take about 1/4 cup at a time and roll into nice balls. Lay on greased, sprayed or parchment lined cookie sheets and give them plenty of room, about 3-inches apart. Bake until edges look light gold but centers are puffy looking and still soft, about 17 to 20 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes on baking sheets and then put on rack to finish cooling.



Tips from Rita?s kitchen:? Normally, baking with butter instead of shortening will produce a crisp cookie but when the butter is melted this keeps the cookie chewy. The reader told me that the extra egg yolks help keep it tender, as well. This makes sense, since egg yolk is fat and fat makes a cookie tender.? All brown sugar starts out the same: it?s merely white sugar with molasses added. Light brown sugar has less molasses than dark.? If you leave the cookies on a hot baking sheet after removing from the oven, the residual heat in the pans allows the cookies to continue to bake, keeping the cookies chewy.

`Source: about.eating with Rita Nader Haikenfield