No, I’m not a foodie.  No, this isn’t a recipe/cooking/moral-support-in-the-kitchen blog.  Most likely you’ll think this is WAY off my beaten path and you are right.  For those of you who don’t normally visit here: welcome!  The normal fare is advice around your SOHO, coaching, speaking and training with an occasionally soap box thrown in for good measure.  Today is something special. Recipes!

First the history!  (Those of you who are SMCKCers can skip this part and go straight to the reason why I know you’re here-  located in the next paragraph.)

I’m a member of the Social Media Club of Kansas City.  We have a monthly breakfast meeting at the Kansas City Cafe (@KansasCityCafe if you’re on twitter).  (Montica, the owner, gets it so you should give them a try!  They open just special for us and cook some fantastic food up because they aren’t normally open in the mornings.  SMCKCers love bacon.  We talk about bacon – a lot!  A month ago I wondered out-loud on twitter if anyone had tried chocolate chip cookies with bacon in them.  Tweets were on fire with the debate about the sanity around such a combination.  Since I have a killer chocolate chip cookie recipe I decided to give it a whirl and share the results at the following SMCKC meeting.  I’m sharing the recipe here!

Chips N’ Bits

2 sticks unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup bacon, fried crisp and crumbled (about 10 slices – that would be the bits people!)

Heat oven to 375° F.  Melt butter. Sift together flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

Add sugars to butter and cream together.  Add egg, yolk, milk and vanilla.  Stir until well combined.  Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.  Using a #2 scoop portion out the cookie dough and chill – I usually chill overnight.  Bake for 14 minutes or until golden.  (Do I really need to say ovens vary?)

For future versions I think I might try using the bacon drippings as part of the butter and up the bits to 1 cup.  The original cookie recipe is from Alton Brown.

The next recipe is something my mom and I created when I was somewhere around high school age.  I’ve used the same recipe ever since.  Several of my Virtual Assistant friends DM me for it frequently.  So I decided since ’tis the season for cornbread I should share with everyone!

Sundi’s Cornbread

1 egg
1 cup milk
1 1/2 flour
1/2 cup corn meal
2/3 c sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup oil

Whip all those ingredients up.  Throw them in an 8×8 pan for 20 to 25 minutes on 400°F.  Serve it hot, cold or even a day old with ham ‘n beans.  It feeds my 6 but for a smaller group you can cut the recipe in half and put it in a pie plate instead.  Warning – for some reason the recipe does not double well.  Please don’t ask me why.  I just know it to be true because I found out the hard way.

NOW you may really be…

Nibbling away -

Sundi

UPDATE:

December 14, 2009:  So I tried the Chips N’ Bits recipe with one stick of butter and 1/2 a cup of bacon grease and drippings.  It tasted better.  It also changed the consistency of the dough and how it cooked.  Since I was very happy with the cookie recipe the way it was I don’t think the more bacony taste was a good trade off for the change in texture.  I’ll keep fiddling with it as time goes on.