How to Swim (Or Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies)

From Dish Jodi:

It’s been hot here in LA. And though I love our hilltop house and big patio — a place to dip my feet regularly would sure be nice. It’s been a little bit of “Operation Find A Pool” and last weekend was no exception. Here’s a little technique I figured out.

1) Find a friend (or friend of a friend) with a pool.
2) Using sneaky undercover tactics, figure out that this person happens to love anything made with chocolate and coconut.
3) Make cookies (see below).
4) Send friend pictures of cookies, asking for a trade.
5) Realize friend is weak to idea of chocolate and coconut cookies and take advantage.
6) Dangle feet, float and splash away in friend’s pool while friend is distracted by cookies.

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE COCONUT COOKIES (Adapted from Martha Stewart)

1 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp coarse salt
2 cups white-chocolate chips or chunks
1 3/4 cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 3/4 cups coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Cream butter and sugars in an electric mixer. Mix in vanilla and then eggs, one at a time.


Meanwhile, sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt into another bowl. Mix slowly into butter mixture until combined. Fold in chocolate, coconut and walnuts until evenly distributed.

Put big scoops of dough on baking sheets leaving a couple inches between. Smush them down a little to shape. Bake 10-12 minutes or until set.


Let cook on the sheets for a couple of minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.

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Veggie “Lasagna”

From Dish Jodi:

The husband just spent a long weekend in New Orleans with a bunch of his college buddies. I spent the same weekend crying through the Olympic Opening Ceremonies and hosting some lovely ladies over for a farmstand fresh dinner. After four days of hearing about nothing but Beignets, Booze and Gumbo, I knew he’d need something filled with vitamins after landing back in LA Sunday night. So I threw this together out of the good stuff I had left over from Saturday’s meal. I call it “Lasagna” even though you’d probably call it more of a “bake” or “Casserole” but “Lasagna” is a much prettier word, right?

A couple Zucchini’s or squash
a small Eggplant
Mushrooms
…or whatever roastable veggies you have on hand
Parmesan and Mozzerella Cheese
Tomato Sauce

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 8×13 (or whatever) baking dish.

Slice all the veggies nice and thin. If you use squash or eggplant, salt them and leave them out on some papertowels to wick away some of the water. in about 15 minutes, start layering. After a couple layers, drizzle tomato sauce and sprinkle some cheese (I stuck a few slices of chicken in too, but you don’t have to) then do it again. You can really use whatever kind of veggies you like…as long as they have a pretty uniform size to cook at the same rate. When you’ve used up the veggies, top it all with big slices of Mozzerella that will get crispy on top.


Bake for about an hour at 350…then serve it up!

Simple, but good, and far heathier than some drink called a “Hand Grenade” that is apparently some sort of New Orleans specialty?

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Kitchenless Cobbler

From Dish Jodi:

While the main purpose of this blog is to share great recipes, it’s also, over the years become a place documenting amazing events in the lives of the Dishes. Babies, new jobs, a handful of weddings, I hope our readers feel like they are getting snippets of our lives as well as yummy tips for dinner.

This recipe isn’t necessarily one of those great recipes, in fact it didn’t even turn out. It should have but of course, those life events sometimes get in the way.

Here’s the story – My husband and I, in efforts to fully become adults, just bought a duplex in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. It’s been intense – first finding tenants to live in the rental half – then organizing the remodel of our half. Because of timing, money, etc, we had to move into our new house weeks before it was finished – new floors, paint, trim, lights, oh, and a totally new kitchen. (Starting to document it at soweboughtaduplex.blogspot.com). We lived like we were in a hotel – just out of our master bedroom and bathroom while the contractor and his team finished up the place. All the eating out was hard not only on our pocketbooks, but also our waistlines and so a lot of our meals were done camping style – on the grill outside, on paper plates, washing any dishes in the spigot outside. We decide to go a little fancy one night – we deserved some sort of dessert treat – so we devised this simple cobbler for the grill. Disposable pan, very little prep, no need for too many tools. However, moving, more grilling then usual, and forgetfulness got in the way. As I went to check the cobbler for its final stage, I found the grill cold and the cobbler un-cobbled.

We, of course, ate it anyway. You won’t have to. This is good for the grill, and probably could work over a campfire.

Stay tuned for next month, when you guys won’t have to stare at the top of my dryer or my green walls – THE NEW KITCHEN WILL BE DONE!

2 bags of frozen berries
1/2 Cup of Flour, divided
nutmeg, cinnamon or other spices if accessible.
Half a box of Graham Crackers
2/3 C Butter
a small foil baking pan
heavy duty grilling foil

Heat up your grill. Toss the berries with 1/4 cup of the flour and spices in the foil pan until coated. Cover tightly with heavy duty foil and put on the grill over indirect heat. I put it on the TOP rack of my gas grill while I cooked the rest of our dinner. Leave it there for half hour or so, let the berries get nice and stewed.



Meanwhile, crush up the graham crackers into crumbs and mash them in with the butter and 1/4 C of flour until you have a nice wet sand. After the berries are gooey, hot and bursting, remove the top foil, sprinkle the top of the cobbler with the graham cracker mixture and return to the grill, UNCOVERED.

If you aren’t like me, the top should get nice and crispy. Leave it there for about another half an hour, or until crispy enough, and enjoy!!

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