Squam is in under two weeks. For the past two years I have made cookies to share with the cabinmates and cookies to have out at registration. So, today I started out making cookies.
This will be the smallest batch of cookies, because they might be too traumatic for other more normal people.
I made olive oil chocolate chip cookies (the things I find when i decide I want to add more things to Pinterest).
My cookies are not the same even though almost everything matches. It is the additions that make them unique.
The nice thing about the olive oil cookies is that they do not contain butter and if you forgo the optional milk and use dairy free chocolate chips, then these cookies are dairy free. I, however, have plenty of milk to use up, so I used a tablespoon of milk. Low enough dairy that some of my lactose intolerant friends could eat it unmedicated, though admittedly not all of them.
My cookies?
Ghost chili infused olive oil.
My friends and I were going to do a hell night in March, which never panned out. However, to prep for my part, I started infusing the olive oil last year (July or August, though my memory is a bit rusty). I've got about half of the bottle left. I have used the oil in granola (I love it there), and I have used it in my favorite bread recipe, and I have given some of it away. It isn't hard to make.
Ghost Chili infused olive oil
Ingredients
1 750ml container of cold pressed virgin olive oil (I used Il Grezzo, because it has a relatively wide recappable mouth)
4-6 dried ghost chili peppers
Instructions
Yes, two ingredients. Most infused olive oils are labors of time not of ingredients.
Remove about 1/4 cup of olive oil from the container and set aside. Cut the ghost chilis into strips and put the strips into the olive oil. Top off with the remaining olive oil. It might not all fit depending on the available headspace. Store in a cool dry place for at least a month before using.
Now, it is better if you can swirl or mix it up every couple of weeks, but that isn't necessary. It is also unnecessary to remove the ghost chilis. I have been leaving mine in and it doesn't necessarily taste like ghost chilis, but it does taste like distilled spice. As such it can be added sparingly (if you have mostly normal spice tolerances) to anything you want to add heat to without interfering with the other spices.
For the olive oil chocolate chip cookies, I measured out a single tablespoon of the ghost chili olive oil and then topped up the rest to the 1/4 cup mark. The heat is not noticable at first, but is definitely present by the end of half a cookie. To round out the Mexican chocolate flavor, I added a teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the dry ingredients. I also used less chocolate chips, a scant cup rather than a heaping cup, but there is still chocolate in almost every bite (for smaller bites).
