Food Week

This past week was Food Week over on Lifehacker. I recommend checking out almost all of Lifehacker's food related articles, but these are my favorite from this week. (I avoided the ones about fast food because I pretty much love anything about fast food.):

• Eating Ethically on a Food Stamp Budget
  
• Store Brand vs. Name Brand—When to Go Cheap
  
• Top 10 How-to Cooking Videos

Hot Places-I've-Never-Been Chocolate

Ingredients:

• 2.5 Tbls NESQUIK® Chocolate Powder
  
• 1 Cup Boiling Water
  
• 3 Tbls Condensed Milk
  
• 2 Tbls Triple Sec
  
• 1 Tsp Cinnamon
  
• .5 Tsp Paprika

Instructions:
Combine ingredients and drink. Feel free to make any substitutions and adjustments for taste.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies

In my never-ending quest for new cookie recipes and ideas, I came across a number of recipes that used cake mix to make quick, easy cookies. I decided to give it a try. (Note that I somehow think using a box mix to make something other than what it was intended for makes using box mix less like cheating. I would never use box cookie mix to make cookies. Haha.)

The base recipe I decided on was the Cake Mix Cookies VIII recipe from AllRecipes.com.

My modifications:

• I used Pillsbury® Devils Food Cake
  
• I added approximately two tablespoons of Peanut Butter
  
• I added around one teaspoon of imitation vanilla extract
  
• I also added a tablespoon of brown sugar

Since I started writing this post (a couple of weeks ago), I have actually used this basic Cake Mix Cookie recipe to make a variety of different cookies. I used the Pillsbury® Classic Yellow as a base for a delicious, thick chocolate chip cookie.

I've tried using brownie mix as a base, but I found the resulting textures to be less enjoyable. (I did, however, come up with a great taste combination when I added cinnamon and paprika to the brownie mix.)

Today, due to my lack of butter and my lack of funds, I attempted my original peanut butter chocolate cake mix cookies with a substitute of 7/16 cup of blended oil (canola + vegetable) for 1/2 cup of butter. I found that this gave the cookies a long-lingering bitter aftertaste and a less pleasant consistency. However, the cookies are still good. I've eaten more of them in one sitting than I did of the first batch (which I think has more to do with the less filling texture).