Bored on a Monday Night So Why Not a Quickie?! - The Gay Gourmet!™

So, what does one do on a Monday night when you come off a really long weekend of work, after a fantastic week in Provincetown, MA? Reorganize your kitchen and bake cookies to get rid of surplus!

Yes folks! You heard it hear first! Although I may need people like I need air my inner homebody/Donna Reed comes out every once in a while and I just get an itch to make a cookie...or a lamb chop... Boy am I gonna make some boy REAL happy one day!

So here is my recipe for Cherry Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies!


(Sorry for the lack of pictures but I've had no time to go out and buy film...yes film for my Pentax)

The List...

1 stick plus 6 TBS unsalted butter (softened)
3/8ths cup (6 TBS) firmly Packed Light Brown Sugar
3/8ths cup (6 TBS) Dark Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1 tsp good vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour 
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 TBS salt
3 cups Oats (I like Quaker® - it's yummy)
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup dark chocolate chunks

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. In a large bowl beat butter and sugar together till nice and creamy (feel free to use your Kitchen-Aid® but since I don't own one I use a fork and it works just fine!)

3. Add both eggs and vanilla. Beat well. (I switch to a whisk here for better and quicker incorporation)

4. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Mix well and using a strainer sift over wet ingredients in parts, mixing as you go!

5. Add oats, chocolate & cherries. Mix well (if you are doing this liek me, by had, switch to a rubber spatula for easy incorporation)

6. On ungreased cookie sheets drop small rounded tablespoonfuls and bake for 8 to 10 mins or until they star becoming light golden brown.

(Note: cookies keep cooking even after you take them out of the oven! So, better to be on the shy side of golden if you are unsure!)

7. Let cool on the pan for 5 mins before transferring to a rack to let cool completely!

These cookies would make awesome ice cream sandwiches!!!


Hope you like this quickie blog!

Deliciously Living,

Michael Muñoz
The Gay Gourmet!™

©2011 Michael Muñoz

Cabernet Goat Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookie -National Cookie Week! - The Gay Gourmet!™

YAY! Day 6 of National Cookie Week is here! I'm exhausted but National Cookie Week is still going strong!

I wanted this next cookie to be very adult. I mean it is the weekend after all! Actually this cookie was inspired by a really fantastic meal I recently had at a little restaurant in Brooklyn, named Stone Park. I took Momma Gladys there for her birthday and they no.1 treated us like royalty & no.2 served one of the most delicious tasting menus I've had in a long time! It was seven courses of fabulousness that I'll have to dedicate a whole other blog to.

That being said I wanted to create something that would remind me of this evening. But how?!?! Well, I started thinking about good wine and how that can really make an evening..so there! A WINE COOKIE...well that can't just be it.. okay...I thought to myself.. Wine & chocolate! Two things that always pair well together and remind me of decadent evenings. But it just wasn't enough for me...I needed that wow factor! Goat Cheese! There is nothing more I love than a good cheese plate! There it was folks! The idea had made it and here I went with it! I give you my...

Cabernet, Goat Cheese Dark Chocolate Chip Cookie!







* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup cocoa powder
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
* 1 large egg
* 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
* 3/4 cup Cabernet Sauvignon or dry red wine
* 1 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
* .40 lbs of Nice soft Goat Cheese (Something like a Coach Farms would work well)

Preheat oven 375 F

1. In bowl of an electric mixer, combine butter and sugars and beat until fluffy.

2. Add egg, vanilla and wine and beat until well mixed. (It's going to be very wet! That's okay! Don't you get any ideas!)

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda.

4. Slowly add to wet mixture in sections and fold in until just combined.

5. Fold in chocolate. Place heaping tablespoons of dough about 1.5 inches apart on greased cookie pans.

6. Take small marble sized chunks of Goat Cheese and place in the center of the cookies

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

They are really fabulous! I also tried something different with these and used a mini muffin pan to bake these into the cutest cookie cups! It's a new trend happening in the city that is being led by people like Schmackary's & Cups. For some reason I feel these cookies work really well like that! The flavors are really great consolidated into this tiny cookie cup! Either way they are great & very different! (Click the pink links..check those guys out!)









I'm actually getting a little sad that National Cookie Week is coming to an end..but we won't discuss it till tomorrow!! Till then may all your cookie dreams come true!

Deliciously Living,

Michael Muñoz

The Gay Gourmet!™

NCW image by Gerard Conte ©2011

Photo by John Dolan Photography ©2011

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©2011 Michael Muñoz