Chocolate Chip Cookies and Miami Burgers

Yesterday I talked about cookies curing the soul and I said I was going to test that theory. Well I did test that theory last night and I would say I was pretty successful:

Before

After (mmm, cookies!)

These have got to be the biggest cookies I've ever made! The recipe can be found here. Besides the strange measurements in ingredients (2 cups of brown sugar???), it was your basic chocolate chip cookie recipe. Another strange thing was having to make them in to 3 tablespoon sized rounds to flatten out. That is what made them so big! I used my large scoop, the one I use for muffins. It looks more like an ice cream scoop then a cookie scoop. The problem with them being so big was the fact that I could only fit 6 at a time on a cookie sheet. Add in the long cooking time and these took a while to finish.

It was hard to tell when they were done, the recipe says 15-17 minutes but at 17 minutes they still looked doughy. I cooked them for 23 minutes but I think I could have done less. I tend to forget that cookies like this set up pretty well. It just makes me nervous when they still look like dough.

Other then that they were really good! My husband seemed to like them and he especially liked how big they were. I think I'll definitely use this recipe again. I can't believe it made 25 cookies! I'd like to bring them in to work since they looked like cookies you'd buy at a bakery or something. I know they'd enjoy them.

On to dinner...we made Miami Burgers from Bobby Flay. My husband is Cuban and of course loves a good Cuban sandwich and these burgers are supposed to be a lot like that. A burger sandwiched between two slices of swiss with ham, dill pickles, dijon mustard and garlic mayonnaise.

We already had pre-made burgers in the freezer so we used those. My husband grilled them and sprinkled on the salt and pepper as they were cooking. While he was cooking the burgers I made the garlic mayonnaise which is just roasted garlic with a 1/2 cup of mayonnaise.

I didn't know how to roast garlic so I looked in my handy Better Homes and Garden cookbook. You need to cut off the top of the garlic to expose the cloves, drizzle with olive oil, wrap in foil and into a 425 degree oven for about half an hour. (This isn't the only way you can do this though. I searched the internet before going to BH&G and there were hundreds of ways) Since the cookies had taken over my oven I looked online for another way. Someone suggested the toaster oven. So I prepared the garlic exactly as stated in BH&G, set my toaster oven to 425 in the baking mode and put it going for half an hour. Worked like a charm! I don't know if it tasted exactly as it would if done in the oven because I've never had it that way before but it definitely softened them enough to mix with the mayonnaise.

On to burger assembly...so you take a hamburger roll (we purchased larger ones for this) and spread dijon mustard and the garlic mayo on both sides of the bun. Then a slice of swiss, burger, ham slice, another swiss slice, a few dill pickle slices and top with the bun. We used the Foreman to press the burgers. This kind of worked but the burgers slid around a lot when we put the top down. We have a fancy Foreman so we used the lever to have it flat and that seemed to help. It just took a lot of messing with. (I watched Bobby's video on these and you can press the finished burger on the grill. If you are interested you can view the video here.)

Finished product [Miami Burger with Rice and Beans (cheated and used a mix, but they were definitely delicious) and grilled summer squash and zucchini]