entering my low-effort/high-reward era

also, eating pumpkin spice until i'm sick of it

Sep 22, 2023

HFE (happy Friday everyone)!!!

I am:

not sure how it’s already Friday
not sure how it’s almost October (!!!!!!!)
sipping on my 5th iced coffee of the day
craving Thai food! (this is problematic because I was planning to make sloppy BBQ sandwiches tonight for dinner 🥴)

This week flew by in the blink of an eye. A little too fast, if I’m being honest. Like on a scale of “Oh my gosh how is it only Wednesday” (1) to “I just blinked and it’s Friday” (10), I’m definitely a 7.5-out-of-10 speed girly. And this week was a 9.2.

That said, I don’t have much to recap you all with, so we can just jump into the substance of Happy Hour pronto, my friends!

Aside from making this season feel as cozy as possible with the foods I create, I’m also making it my mission to go all in on trying to create the most low-effort, high-reward dishes to share with you all.

That said, this cookie recipe is one of those - it’s very low effort (you don’t even need measuring spoons/cups), and it’s absolutely high reward (they taste delicious). It’s a Fall spin-off of a cookie recipe I used to make (from Paula Deen) and it’s something you can whip up in one bowl in 30 minutes.

Pumpkin Spice Ooey Gooey Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, browned
8 oz. cream cheese
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 15.25 oz. box of moist spice cake mix
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin spice
powdered sugar

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350ºF. In a large bowl, whisk together brown butter and cream cheese until well combined (you can use a stand mixer, hand mixer, or whisk - just note that if you use a whisk, this process might take a bit longer).
Once the mixture is fully combined, whisk in egg and vanilla extract. Add cake mix, cinnamon, and pumpkin spice. Stir until a batter forms. Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 10 minutes.
Once the dough is firm and chilled, shape into 1.5” balls, roll in powdered sugar (this is optional), and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet at least 2 inches apart. Bake for 12-13 minutes.
Optional: Dust the cookies with more powdered sugar before serving

If you’re a visual learner, watch this.

This is actually from a few weeks ago, and I forgot to share, but I learned how to harvest basil!

Not much to elaborate on this, other than if you, too, have trouble keeping your basil plant alive and flourishing, this video is 11/10 helpful!!

In my own personal test kitchen this week, I experimented with adding red miso paste to my bechamel. Thinking this wouldn’t do anything other than add a delicious umami taste to the overall dish, I was wrong. Instead, it loosened my (previously thick) bechamel and turned it into the same consistency as milk.

I tried to research why this might have happened, and unfortunately, it was too nichey to find a specific answer. Shockingly we didn’t cover this in cooking school… 🥲

That said here are my two theories that I hope to prove right or wrong soon:

something scientific happens (due to the fermented properties of miso or the salinity of miso) when you combine miso with milk + flour and butter (the thickening agent, roux), which somehow weakens the roux

I should have mixed the miso paste with a smidge of warm milk to melt it before adding, rather than throwing the paste directly into the bechamel (this makes less sense to me because miso paste is not very hydrated, so why would it loosen a bechamel???)

Anyway, as they say, you can never learn if you don’t try!! If you have any tips, please let me know!

I returned to Petra Greek and got myself a Chicken Gyro. It was delicious.

Just food for thought here, I think the staple addition of 5-6 french fries in a gyro is something quite beautiful. We should add 5-6 french fries to more foods.