Mama Makes: Bourbon Chicken and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this little gem on Pinterest a while ago and we here at OBW really like it. I like it because I pretty much always have all the ingredients on hand. No running to the store. The only thing I'm sometimes missing is apple juice and I'm pretty sure that as Pumpkin Pie gets older, that won't be a problem.

You start by cutting three chicken breasts into bite sized pieces. You're looking for a little over a pound of chicken bites.

You can decide what bite sized is. You might have a freakishly large mouth. I don't know your life.

Then lightly coat the chicken bites with cornstarch. If you get too crazy with the cornstarch your end product will be gloopy. You don't want gloopy. You want delicious. Not that they're mutually exclusive... just lightly ok? You'll thank me later.

Throw your lightly dusted chicken bites in a frying pan or wok with a couple tablespoons of oil. Vegetable, canola, whatever. I won't judge your oil choice if you don't judge me for eating half a dozen cookies for breakfast.  You're looking for lightly browned. You don't have to cook them completely because they'll get cooked more in a minute. Calm down!

Remove chicken from oil and drain on paper towels. Like this!

 



While your chicken is browning, mix up the following plethora of ingredients in a small bowl. But don't let your bites burn. Nobody likes burned bites.

1 garlic clove (minced)
1/4 teaspoon ginger (I use ground cuz it's on my spice rack. Fresh might be good too)
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (it's not spicy. If you like spicy add more)
1/4 cup apple juice
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup soy sauce

Pour this tasty juice into the hot skillet (with the oil from chicken frying) and bring to a boil.

Add the chicken back to the pan. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for 10 minutes. Don't stir, don't poke, don't bother it. Just let it luxuriate.

 

The sauce reduces and gets delicious. The chicken soaks up all the goodness. Magic happens. After 10 minutes dump the whole delicious brew over some rice or quinoa (snob :)) and chow down. I serve with green beans but do what you want. You're a grown up.

 

Here's a picture of the finished product!

 

 

Oh... uhm... Sorry about that. It was too good to wait for picture time.

 

And now, chocolate chip cookie time. This is like super top secret k? Don't go blabbing my secret recipe to just anybody. I'm telling you cuz we're friends. I hope I won't regret this later.

 

2 1/2 ish cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter and 1 stick margarine softened OR 2 sticks butter. Don't use 2 sticks margarine. Gross.
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs

1 bag chocolate chips

 

I know it's a whole lot like that super popular recipe EVERYBODY uses but there are a few tiny differences.

Mix together the butter, sugars, and vanilla in a large bowl. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition til they're all incorporated and your batter is fluffy. Next, add the baking soda and salt and give that a quick stir. I don't do that whole "mix the dry ingredients in a bowl then the wet ingredients in another bowl" thing.

Say no to extra dishes. That's my motto, yessirmaamsir!

Add the flour to your batter and combine thoroughly. That other recipe calls for 2 1/4 cups flour. I use a little more than 2 1/2. You're offsetting the extra egg and giving the dough a little more body so that your cookie stays a little thicker and has a little better chew.

Scoop onto ungreased cookie sheets using your favoritest scooping method. I have a handy little cookie scoop that makes me glad to be alive.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. Or if you want them to be perfect and you have way more time and patience than I do, preheat the oven to 375, put the cookies in, then turn it down to 350 and bake for 8 minutes. If your oven is like my oven, these will be perfect. If you don't want to do all that silliness. Leave it at 350 and  bake for like 8.5-9 minutes. They will be slightly less perfect but no one has to know but us. Leave on the cookie sheet for about two minutes, then transfer to cooling racks.

Try not to eat them all in one sitting.

Did you guys have a lovely labor day? We went to the Mesa flea market and wandered around for a couple hours then had lunch at Nielsen's Frozen Custard on Saturday. I have to admit, I'm not terribly impressed with Nielsen's food but man do I loves me some frozen custard, especially lemon. And they have fry sauce! Who doesn't love fry sauce? Only people who haven't tried fry sauce. And my husband. Weirdo. Monday we ran errands, visited some book stores, and came home to relax. Handsome played with his records, Pumpkin Pie slept from 4 pm to 6 am the next day, and I did some crapbooking. Yes you read that right. It's scrapbooking for people that suck at it. What'd you do?