Author Archives: Jenna

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Guys, I absolutely have to share these. Normally, I share recipes that I make in my own lil’ Chicago kitchen. I cook, I photograph, I process pictures, I write the post–and all this can take a little time to pull together. So in this case, I’m making an exception and completely scrapping the process, because I can’t wait to share these until the baking impulse hits me. Because then you’d be without this recipe for another month. Or two . . . or three. And, considering the cookies at hand, that delay would be unpardonable.

Veronica (from Veronica’s Cornucopia) is a wonderful blogger who I’ve been following for a long time. I never knew when I started blogging that I would start to actually care for the people that I interact with online, but it’s happened! Even though we have never met face to face, Veronica has become very dear to my heart. She blogs about cooking (with fabulous blue-ribbon winning recipes), life, marriage, and funny childhood stories. In other words . . . everything! Right up my alley, in case you hadn’t noticed the, um, name of my blog.

Anyway, Veronica recently did a giveaway on her blog, with the prize of a dozen of her blue-ribbon winning chocolate chip cookies. Destiny acted, and I was picked as the winner.

Thank you Veronica, and thank you destiny.

I am here to say: please follow this link. Please visit Veronica’s blog. And please make these cookies.

The day I received the package, I tore it open with glee. I was starved at this point in the afternoon, and my coffee was mighty lonesome with no sweet treat standing by.

That all changed as I opened the ziploc bag and consumed the first cookie.

Crisp and chewy all at once. A gloriously perfect proportion of chocolate chips. They look a little dry/crumbly in these pictures, but that’s just an illusion. Once you take a bite, they are soft inside and absolutely divine in flavor.

The ingredients include vinegar, ground up oatmeal, and brown butter, and these unusual components come together to form my idea of chocolate chip perfection, which I had assumed would take decades to find.

Please make them, and if you have a few minutes, stop by to say hi to Veronica. I wish I could share a bite with you all . . .

. . . then again, I think I’ll keep these all to myself.

Though I have no step by step pictures this time ’round, I’m not completely neglecting my duties, so here’s the printer-friendly version for you:

Click here for printer-friendly version: Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Color-coordinating my closet

Hello, my name is Jenna. This is my closet.

Oh wait–that’s the futon covered in a mess of clothes.

Wait a sec . . .

. . . let’s see . . .

. . . okay, here’s my closet!

Yes. My achy-breaky closet. There is no rhyme or reason to it. When I first moved my apparel into it two years ago, I had a plan: skirts were on the left. Then came pants. Shirts and sweaters to the right, and dresses to the far right. But as time progressed, the organization became haphazard. One might say it came under the Rule of Misrule. Here’s the left side:

(love that grey sweater with the cable pattern down the sleeve, by the way–one of my finds at Plato’s last year that’s been a faithful staple)

And here’s the right side:

Skirt? Flowers? Stripes? Sweater? Orange! Electric blue! Whoop de doo!

Complete chaos, I’m telling you.

On a totally unrelated note, check out these shoes:

They’re from Target. They’re my favorite. After years pretending I hated pink, I finally matured and started admitting that I like pink. I’ve found new freedom in being a girl, and liking the things that sometimes girls like.

But shoes are not today’s topic!

So some things you may not know about me:

1) I really like clothes.

2) Clothes are pretty cool.

3) I like to wear them and not be naked.

4) I like to feel pretty when I’m wearing them and not being naked.

The problem is, if I happened to have a particular item in mind, I couldn’t aways find it in a timely fashion. So on one hapless Saturday when my husband was out of town, I decided to change my life. My sister Heidi had a lovely closet with all her clothes hung in an ordered rainbow of colors, which I had gazed up with wonder in Alaska–so why couldn’t I?

I started by flinging things around. That’s a good way to start any project. Hence the futon covered in stuff.

Yep, there it is again. Flinging things around makes one feel so dang productive, doesn’t it?

My next step was to start rehanging everything. I decided to start with black on the left, followed by grey and white, and kind of work my way into a spectrum of color.

This took about 2 1/2 hours. It would’ve taken much less, but I also used this time to purge (which requires trying something on 5 times before finally putting it in the discard pile), and to figure out how to combine my fall clothes. See, I forget how to layer in the June-September span and have to re-learn how to put everything together.

Down to the last few things . . .

It was fun. It was especially fun because no husband was around to enter the room and exclaim in horror “You have too many clothes! Burn the whole lot of ’em!” or something extreme like that.

We wouldn’t want that. Nope. Not that he would ever do or say that–but I don’t know if he realizes how much is actually in my closet.

Here’s the finished product!

A closer look at the black to white spectrum on the left side:

And a closer look at the more colorful spectrum on the right side:

Now when I open my closet I feel like I’m shopping in some kind of posh store. Opening the closet has become much more exciting. Finding that one dusty blue colored cardigan has become a cinch. I highly recommend this process.

Which brings me to this: what does your closet look like? If any of you are inspired to color-coordinate your closets and want to send me before and after pictures (or already have color-coordinated closets and want to share the beauty), I’ll put together a post with all the pics.

Hooray for organization! Hooray for clothes! Hooray for being a girl!