Tag Archives: Bars

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

cookie bars
I don’t have to tell you guys how much I love dessert, and it’s never too late in the evening or early in the morning to retreat to the kitchen to create something sweet. Last night around 8:30PM I was dying (DYING) for a dessert and M&Ms just weren’t cutting it. So I turned to the amazing blog Dessert for Two where the blogger develops recipes specifically for small batches. Want two cupcakes? 8 cookies? Lasagna for you and your significant other with no leftovers? This girl has a recipe for it.

My dessert criteria were: something I could mix by hand, something I only had to dirty one bowl for, and something I had all the ingredients for in the fridge. BAM. Blondies. Only I don’t really like butterscotch chips and I didn’t have any anyway so I substituted regular chocolate chips. BEHOLD. The most delicious, insanely chewy, un-freakin-believably good cookie bars you have ever had. All I have to say is, it’s a good thing this only made 6 small bars because The BF and I ate. them. all. Maybe I even put the pan on the AC unit to speed up the cool down so we could eat them faster… I don’t know.

On the menu:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Makes 6 brownies
Adapted from Dessert for Two

3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 3 x 5 loaf pan with parchment paper*.

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar and melted butter with a wooden spoon. Add the egg yolk, vanilla, and salt and stir well to combine. Sprinkle the flour and baking powder over the brown sugar mixture and stir just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour batter into the loaf pan and spread until batter is about 3/4 of an inch thick. My batter did NOT cover the entire base of the pan which is fine because this doesn’t spread. Bake for around 20 – 25 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out with moist crumbs stuck to it.

Remove parchment paper and bars from pan and let bars cool on a wire rack for at least ten minutes before cutting into 6 evenly sized bars.

*Note: If you don’t have a loaf pan you can still make these. You can spread the batter out evenly on a cookie sheet since the batter doesn’t spread. And let’s face it… you aren’t making these to look pretty for company. You’re making them to stuff your face before bed.

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Filed under Cooking, Recipes

Hot Time, Summer in the City

As I mentioned, I am never one to be up on new hot spots in the city. If I’m raving to a friend about an amazing “new” place I stumbled upon, it’s usually followed by an eye roll and a, “Yeah, that opened three years ago.” But this time it’s different! A ha. I am finally in the know.

The bar at Reunion Surf Bar, complete with giant-sized bartender. Cowabunga, indeed.

Reunion Surf Bar 44th Street between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue, New York, NY. Reunion is an almost-hidden bar in Hell’s Kitchen (aka Culinary Wasteland) that is, for now, a spacious, dimly lit, surf-themed bar with potent cocktails and a creative bar menu that highlights the cuisine of Madagascar (Reunion island is off the coast of Madagascar). Videos of skaters and surfers play on the flat screen TVs as a “Gidget” vibe hangs heavy in the air. It isn’t fake or overtly kitschy – it’s just genuine and laid back and a welcomed oasis in the center of midtown Manhattan.

On the menu:
Hang Ten cocktail
Mai Thai
Le Americain sandwich

The Hang Ten and the Mai Thai

Verdict: YUMMM OH THANK YOU JESUS YUM! I can’t tell you what a relief it is to now have a delicious cocktail bar with incredible food situated a few short avenues from my office. Or maybe it’s not a relief to my ever shrinking bank account. Whatever.

The cocktails at Reunion are the perfect blend of potent and smooth. I hate when a bartender feels like they need to put enough alcohol in your drink to make you drunk after three sips. I’m not 19… I mean, 21 anymore, Bar Man. Make me a nice-tasting cocktail. Becca and I started out with $3 grapefruit/vanilla shots (yeah, Happy Hour til 8!) and swiftly moved on to cocktails: the Hang Ten was exceptionally delicious, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t traditionally enjoy a sweet drink.

The standout of the evening, however, was a sandwich called Le Americain: a baguette split open and stuffed with won ton meatballs, a sweet-mustard chutney, melted gruyere, and FRENCH FRIES. Did you hear me? I said a SANDWICH stuffed with FRENCH FRIES. The waitress told us it was “huge” and easily split between two people but truth be told… we could have each eaten our own. It’s just that delicious.

Or we’re just fat.

I can’t recommend this bar enough, so hit it before it fills up with suits and Bridge-and-Tunnelers. Because you know that it will.

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Filed under New York Restaurants