What’s Cooking in Your Kitchen? Adoptive Families Share

One of the greatest gifts you can give your family is cooking a meal for them. It’s an investment of time and love, but it’s all worth it once you sit down together to enjoy a delightful dinner or delicious dessert.
 
Good food has a way of bringing families together. Plus, you’re creating family history every day just by preparing food and eating it together. You’re creating a tradition that you’ll one share with the child you adopt.
 
You might remember that a few weeks ago, we shared adoptive mom Amanda’s delicious recipe for Upside-Down Hot Fudge Sundae Pie (see below). In today’s installment of Lifetime’s blog series “What’s Cooking in Your Kitchen?”, we share Mary’s wildly popular recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies.
 

Mary and her husband Stephen are one of Lifetime’s adoptive families. Mary is known for these cookies within her circle of friends and family, so we know you’ll definitely want to give this recipe a try! Her secret? It’s actually the result of a miscalculation in ingredient measuring.
 
Mary says, “I’m definitely known for these cookies, and they all came out okay because I had no idea one cup of butter is two sticks. Didn’t know for years. People always asked what the difference was…never knew! These yummy cookies are always soft because I use half the normal amount of butter.”
 

Mary’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 30 cookies
(can easily be adapted to be gluten-free)
 

Ingredients

• 1 stick (half a cup) of butter at room temp or melted
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon water
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 ¼ cup flour (this can be substituted with Cup4Cup or 1 to 1 Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flour and it works well!)
• 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

 

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375° F
2. Cream together butter, brown sugar, sugar, vanilla and water until well-blended.
3. Add eggs in and incorporate.
4. Add in salt, baking soda and flour until all well mixed together.
5. Add in chocolate chips (stir with a spoon or spatula, stop using mixer at this point)
6. Scoop 1 tablespoon (or a heaping teaspoon) of mixture for each cookie two inches apart on a baking sheet (non-stick or add parchment paper)
7. Bake in a preheated oven for 9-12 until lightly browned on top.

(Adapted from Nestle’s recipe)
 
 

Amanda from Alabama’s Upside-Down Hot Fudge Sundae Pie

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup Hershey’s cocoa
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust

 

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350° F
2. In medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Add cocoa; stir until smooth. Remove from heat.
3. In small bowl, stir together eggs, milk, and vanilla.
4. Add egg mixture to cocoa mixture; stir with whisk until smooth and slightly thickened.
5. Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, flour, and salt; stir with whisk until smooth.
6. Pour mixture into unbaked crust. Bake 30 -35 minutes until edge is set – center will be soft.
7. Cool about 2 hours before serving.
8. For even more goodness…add ice cream and/or cool whip to each serving.

 

Share Your Favorite Recipe

So now, we want to know — what’s cooking in your kitchen? It’s time to open up those family recipe boxes and dig out your favorite recipe. Anything goes; it could be your mom’s best pasta salad, Great Grandma’s sugar cookies, or the New York Cheesecake you make every year from The Joy of Cooking. The only rule is that it be a recipe that you love.
 
You can email your recipe to Lifetime Adoption. We’re interested in where the recipe came from, how long it’s been in your family, and any stories behind it. Please let us know if it’s from a cookbook, blog, or another source. Feel free to share a pic of your food if you have one!
 
We can’t wait to try your recipes – thanks for taking the time to send them in!