Baking Attempts

   I would never call myself a cook or a chef, but I think I can handle myself in the kitchen. I can follow a recipe. I can put a meal together. I'll probably never be a great cook, but I like to bake and relax by trying new recipes. Or sometimes just stick to favorite standbys like chocolate chip cookies. 
   After moving to a foreign country, it became apparent early on that there would be some challenges. First of all, finding ingredients. Sugar, flour, eggs, butter and vanilla are common and can be found in most every grocery store. Not so for baking soda, shortening, chocolate chips and brown sugar. I splurged for some baking soda at the english shop that will last me a while. They also had a little container of Crisco shortening, but at 6euro, it wasn't quite worth it. Luckily we had some "Trex" brought over from England. I've brought over chocolate chips or been sent some, but they don't last long, so I've tried chopping up dark chocolate bars which works pretty well. For brown sugar, one has to search out the bigger or pricier stores to find it, especially light brown sugar that I think works better. 
   Having assembled all my long-searched for ingredients, it was time to test out our microwave/oven. We've cooked pizzas and bread, but nothing else past basic muffins. The good news is, it works great, just like a normal oven. The not so good news-it's tiny, like everything here. A normal cookie sheet wouldn't fit, so I used a pie pan with some parchment paper. Only about 5 or 6 cookies will fit on it, so that means twice as many batches to make. 

   
   The space issue was helped out in large part to a gift of stacking cooling racks. Counter space is at a premium, since the only "counter" is also our table. I turned our burners into a cooling area by stacking the racks on top. 

   My quality control taster (Paul) confirms the cookies are "yummy" so new methods can't have changed too much. Special thanks goes out to Sally Picket for the stacking racks, and Joanie Butler for heavy duty metal measuring cups and spoons. Let the yumminess begin!