Last week, before I got sick AGAIN, I was doing a fair amount of cooking and baking – largely due to my new kitchenaid mixer.  So instead of whining about my illness (fever that lasted all weekend but finally broke this morning, incredibly sore throat, headache, swollen glands – hush, it is my blog and I’ll whine if I want to…my husband quit listening around 4pm yesterday), I thought I would share a couple of the Other People’s Recipes that I tried out.

I linked up to the recipe for the pretzels in the comments of that post.

I’ve been trying to find the perfect Black Bean Soup recipe – one that starts with dried beans because I really like the finished product…all silky smooth in the back ground yet some texture from the beans still.  My most recent attempt was with this one from all recipes.  But of course I didn’t follow it precisely – who has 2/3 cup of dry sherry in the house?  So here is the recipe as I did it:

Black Bean Soup

• 2 cups dry black beans
• 8 cups water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 stalks celery, halved
• 2 onions, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 packet Goya ham flavoring (it is with the mexican foods usually…like chicken bullion but ham flavored)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 T lemon juice
• 2 or 3 dashes cayenne pepper or ground chipolte pepper
• 1 ham hock (it is cheap…you find it with the parts no one really eats – I have no idea what part of the animal this is but it grossed me out while providing  a nice smoky flavor to the soup)
• 1 or 2 T cream sherry

I soaked the beans overnight then drained them.  I chopped the onions fine.  I threw all of the ingredients in the pot except the cream sherry.  (I didn’t chop the celery to be part of the soup because I don’t like chunks of celery in this kind of soup. So I halved them and removed them with the bay leaves before pureeing.)  I cooked it for 6 1/2 hours on low on my stove – I’m sure the crock pot would serve the same purpose.  Add more water if it gets low during the cooking.  I fished out the bay leaves and celery and ham hock and then pureed it with my stick blender.  If it seems a bit thick, add some chicken broth while pureeing.  I threw in the sherry and let it cook for another 15 minutes and served with sour cream and shredded cheese.  It is missing something and the cream sherry is not the right flavor…I’m thinking about buying some dry sherry and seeing how it tastes or perhaps continuing to look around at other recipes because this soup just misses being spot on.  Worth trying though – low effort for a nice big pot of warm, filling soup.

The other recipe I tried last week was one someone linked to on Facebook during the holidays.  It was for the Best EVER Chocolate Chip Cookies.  That got my attention.  I’m not a baker but I’ve been known to make pretty darn good cookies with the help of Toll House.  With all of the butter and brown sugar, I figured these had to taste good.  And they did. I don’t know if they are the best I’ve ever eaten but they are the best I’ve ever baked.  (And I haven’t been able to eat any for 3 days because my throat hurts so bad – WAH!)  I made absolutely no changes so I won’t spell out the recipe – just click on the link.  I will say I got confused with the amount of chips because 2 cups = 12 ounce bag and the recipe called for 2 cups or 16oz (but 2 cups is 16 oz) so just use a bag and don’t hurt yourself pondering how a 12 oz bag is 2 cups but 2 cups = 16 oz.  The amount of brain power diverted to that conundrum might possibly have lowered my immune system thereby allowing this illness to overtake me.  So there you have it – the chocolate chip cookies are yummy but have been known to cause either strep throat or the swine flu depending on whether who you describe my symptoms to.  (And I still hear my 8th grade English teach telling me I should structure that sentence “to whom you describe my symptoms.” because of the whole not ending a sentence with a preposition but I hate sounding snooty just to be grammatically correct so I will continue to argue with Mr. Klink that informal situations allow ending a sentence with a preposition in this day and age.)