The Cookies you Make with the Stuff you've got left.

December 22, 2015 6:17 PM

Kitchen Sink Cookies. A note on amounts: You'll want to use about 1 cup for chocolatey things, 1 to 2 cups crunchy stuff like cereal and potato chips, 1 cup for nuts and dried fruit, 1 to 2 teaspoons for spices, 2 to 3 tablespoons for alcohol, and about 1 cup for most other things, like mini marshmallows and amaretto cookies.
posted by storybored (14 comments total)

Out here in the Old West we call 'em Cowboy Cookies, and they are the first ones out of the cookie jar.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:33 PM on December 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

> A note on amounts: You'll want to use about 1 cup for chocolatey things, 1 to 2 cups crunchy stuff like cereal and potato chips, 1 cup for nuts and dried fruit, 1 to 2 teaspoons for spices, 2 to 3 tablespoons for alcohol, and about 1 cup for most other things, like mini marshmallows and amaretto cookies.

I would love it if all recipes were written like that — I'm not very good at cooking and end up having to slavishly follow whatever recipe I'm using, because I don't understand why I'm putting in the things I'm putting in at the time I'm putting them in, or why I'm cutting them the way I'm cutting them, or whatever. My ideal cookbook would have ingredient lists like "1 cup of stuff with [features x, foo], a cup or two of stuff with [feature y and feature bar], and a dash of [very strong spice with aspect z]," and a big glossary at the back of what foods have what features, and what sorts of thing positively can't go together even if they've got all the right features. And an appendix on things like "here's what the maillard reaction is and here's why you care."

okay this seemed clever when I started typing it but then I realized that actually implementing that way would basically lead to a lot of terrible accidental fusion cuisine, and then I realized that a set of recipes with semi-random ingredients like that might make for a good web project. we could be eating some weird food. made with technology and chance. invent a whole new culinary movement, "aleatoric eating," something like that.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:49 PM on December 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

I've known them as Compost Cookies and they can definitely be awesome. My favourite add-in is definitely salt and vinegar potato chips combined with chocolate (will have to try the chopped up chocolate bars). Tea is another fun addition. Potato chips, tea, cornflakes.

What makes cornflakes really cool is if you do what Christina Tosi from Momofuku Milk Bar does. You toss them with butter, sugar, skim milk powder, salt, and toast them in the oven. Just, incredible. Also if you toast your oatmeal before you use it in the cookies it'll give it a richer taste. I'm going to go make some of these right now.
posted by Neronomius at 7:59 PM on December 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

My ideal cookbook would have ingredient lists like "1 cup of stuff with [features x, foo], a cup or two of stuff with [feature y and feature bar], and a dash of [very strong spice with aspect z]," and a big glossary at the back of what foods have what features, and what sorts of thing positively can't go together even if they've got all the right features. And an appendix on things like "here's what the maillard reaction is and here's why you care."

The NY Times routinely had pictorial versions of this, sometimes arrayed in a circle, which showed complementary ingredients and options. I'm not finding them on their website, so maybe they no longer do those? It's too bad, because they were a great way to show the multitude of different directions to go from one starting point.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:34 PM on December 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Although not exactly what you describe, You Can't Tip a Buick, The Flavour Thesaurus is very much along these lines. I strongly recommend it for a very interesting and thought-provoking look at flavour themes in food and ways of matching flavours together, some common (pork & apple), others trendy (chilli & chocolate), others rather, um, difficult to imagine (watermelon & oyster?).

Meanwhile, these biscuits sound awesome. If I were not extremely realistic about my ability to tolerate being in the kitchen long enough to make biscuits, I would totally give them a go. I am pretty sure I have lots of odds and sods that could go in them.
posted by Athanassiel at 10:27 PM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

oh, cool! thanks for the pointer to flavour thesaurus! I suppose I was pretty obviously trolling for cookbook recommendations with that comment...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:25 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Try Michael Ruhlman's 'Ratio', and 'Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix'.
posted by box at 4:19 AM on December 23, 2015 [5 favorites]

The illustration in the Bittman link is exactly what used to be run in the Times, probably as part of his column in the sunday magazine. It is an approach that fits the way I cook much better than the regular recipe layout, so I will be checking out the book version.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:40 AM on December 23, 2015

This is kind of a revelation for me. I've always believed that cooking is an art and baking is a SCIENCE. You're shaking up my worldview here.
posted by kamikazegopher at 8:44 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I would also like to recommend Ratio. It's very good at explaining the why of things.
posted by Harald74 at 9:58 AM on December 23, 2015

(If you like this way of looking at cooking, you'd probably enjoy J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's 'The Food Lab,' which is probably my favorite cookbook this year. Lopez-Alt builds on the work of people like Harold McGee and Shirley Corriher. You might also like the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen folks and, okay, Alton Brown.)

I'm off work today--if I get the chance to do some reader's advisory, I'm going to take it.
posted by box at 10:02 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

oh, cool! thanks for the pointer to flavour thesaurus! I suppose I was pretty obviously trolling for cookbook recommendations with that comment...

If you're looking for something along the lines of the Flavor Thesaurus, my hearty recommendation is the Flavor Bible! A classic for those who want to improve and improv their cooking.
posted by storybored at 1:23 PM on December 23, 2015

This is kind of a revelation for me. I've always believed that cooking is an art and baking is a SCIENCE. You're shaking up my worldview here.

I have been lucky to know quite a few people (including my mother while I was growing up) who baked intuitively or by proportions, rather than purely by recipes. I think people exagerate the scientific aspect of baking -- not only are there often some very basic proportions at the heart of many dishes, but I have been served amazing things by people baking in very primitive conditions, where it is not possible to control all the aspects that the purists would say are required.

I don't bake enough to be able to cook that way (except for pies, which are ridiculously easy), but if you have the chance to watch someone bake a cake or bread purely by touch you should take it.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:59 PM on December 23, 2015

Try Michael Ruhlman's 'Ratio', and 'Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix'.

Try also Shirley Corriher's CookWise and BakeWise.
posted by JawnBigboote at 11:37 AM on December 24, 2015