A day for cooking

Today in Kansas City, the temperature is mild, the sky is fairly bright, perhaps a bit hazy -- it's a nice spring day.

Yesterday and already today (11:00 AM as I write this) I have spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen.  I tested out a few tweaks to my recipes for deviled eggs and also oatmeal candy cookies, I made beef gyros, and I just now finished a batch of double chocolate cookie dough which will chill in the fridge for the next several hours.  Here's a photo of the dough below.

This is a new cookie that will be added to the Bruce Bakery and Bistro menu this week.  It has loads of chocolate, two different kinds, 15 ounces of chocolate in this batch of dough, and lots of eggs and not much flour.  These cookies come out with thin crispy crusts and a chewy inside, and the cookies themselves are actually rather thin.  I make them small so that they can be eaten quickly and easily in just a couple bites.

Later this week I will be making French vanilla ice cream with fresh vanilla beans that just arrived a few days ago, and from that I will be making a dessert from my childhood that includes crushed chocolate wafers and crushed buttermints.  I have so many things planned to make these next several days that I will not be wondering what to do with my time.

Cooking in the spring weather with the doors and windows open to let in fresh air which mingles with the aromas of these freshly baked cookies and bread and so on -- well, it's a nice way to spend a spring day before heading outside to enjoy the sun and the newly green plants and all the birds that now migrating north and are taking advantage of the bird feeder stations in the yard.  

So make some good food and go outside everyone.  Enjoy the spring!