Lots of cooking this weekend. Bright and early Saturday morning I got up to start cooking Chicken stock. I knew it would take a while (6-8 hours) so I wanted to start early. The only problem I had was keeping the temperature right. It would either start boiling or stop bubbling at all. My directions came Good Eats episode True Brew: IV.

Once I got that going, I was ready for my other experiment. Friday night I bought a stand mixer and was itching to use it. I decided I was going to try all three recipes from the Good Eats Cookie episode Three Chips for Sister Marsha.

The Thin came out OK, though I found it a little sugary. That may have been because I didn’t do the mixing right since it was the first time I’d used the mixer.

The Puffy were the ones everyone liked the least. I followed the instructions that if they look done they are over done and probably took them out too soon, since they didn’t really get done in the middle.

The Chewy were the favorites. Very molassesy and chocolately.

The cookies were also very big. A good 4-5 inches across. One was plenty for a person.

On Sunday I decided to make pizza dough to use the mixer. Using the recipe from a Wolfgang Puck book I got at Half Price Books – its also on his website – it was pretty painless and tasted great. While Puck is famous for making interesting pizzas, we went traditional with tomato sauce and 4 cheese toping. Did make a little chili oil and tried it. The sesame version didn’t taste right. The olive oil version was alright, though if it was under the sauce you hardly tasted it.

The recipe says to cook the pizza for 10-12 minutes. My oven doesn’t have a window in it so I can’t see the pizza, and I worry about giving up heat every time I open the door. So I didn’t check the first pizza till 10 minutes. It was very over done, but it actually still tasted good and surprisingly the boys ate it. The next one I checked at 4 minutes and it was done. Cooked the third one for 4 minutes too.