Taking Off For Two Weekends

It's been a crazy week - much drama at work (see my other blog about working in Paradise).  Although I often find baking/cooking to be relaxing, I decided not to try any new recipes this week.  I needed the time to relax.  I was able to finish the first book in a new culinary mystery, Cooking Up Murder (A Cooking Class Mystery).

It took me a while to get in to the book, but I think that has more to do with the fact that it's the first book in long time that I have not read on my Sony eReader.  It's hard going back to paper!  I loaned my reader to my father-in-law and just got it back.  Can't wait to jump in to another book.  I'll definitely add the Cooking Class Mysteries to my "To Read Book List".  I'm really enjoying the light-hearted mystery with the touch of romance.

I'm going to also take the following weekend off for a family vacation.  In the meantime, explore the books I've listed, try some of the recipes and feel free to share your experiences in the comments section.

Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies

Novel: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen, #1)

Author: Joanne Fluke
It's the recipe that started it all.  From the first book in the series, this is an unusual Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. It gets its "crunch" from crushed corn flakes.  I like my cookies soft and somewhat chewy.  These cookies are definitely crunchy and somewhat on the chewy side. My husband and his mother LOVE crunchy cookies and so I hope that they'll love these.

Here's what the batter looked like just before I mixed in the crushed corn flakes. 

Per Joanne's recipe, I only crushed the corn flakes by hand, just before adding them to the bowl. I wouldn't recommend pulverizing them or you'd lose the crunch factor.

Surprisingly, the corn flakes didn't make too much of a difference in the batter and didn't show up much as I placed the balls of batter on the cookie sheets.

I've tried one other cookie recipe from the Hannah Swensen series and it was an utter disaster. The cookies spread out way too much and didn't cook completely through. I was afraid of the same result with this recipe, so I followed Joanne's advice and reduced my oven's temperature to 350 degrees and did not flatten them. I baked the cookies for 10 minutes and took them out of the oven just as the bottom of the cookies were starting to brown.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product and will definitely add this recipe to my regular file.