Thomas Keller’s “Ad Hoc at Home” Chocolate Chip Cookies

Alex, Lingie, and I made the trek up to the Pacific Northwest back in December to visit our beloved Andrew. The four of us, being the laid back yet eccentric group that we are, decided that the first bullet point on our itinerary was for us all to cook a meal together. Nothing else was planned til less than week before our departure date.

Here’s what we came up with!

Andrew taught us how to do a pan-fried salmon, and Lingie helped prep.  We liked the recipe so much, we made it again the next night.

Andrew also made a linguini vongole with bacon lardons.

We all contributed to a salad consisting of julienne pink lady apples, grated pecorino, and candied walnuts all topped with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

At the request of our gracious host, I made a batch of Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc Chocolate Chip Cookies in Andrew’s oven, which had convection capabilities at the flip of a switch (which I used, obvi).  Alex helped me with the cookies.

I liked these cookies because they used two kinds of dark chocolate, so they weren’t too sweet (which is my issue with most chocolate chip cookies).

However, if I made these again, I would use the organic chocolate I’ve recently discovered at Trader Joe’s.  It’s deliciously 85% dark and cocoa buttery smooth.  It’s also quite bitter… like me!  You are what you eat, right?

We paired the cookies hot out of the oven with pints (yes, PINTS) of Ben and Jerry’s “Pistachio Pistachio” ice cream, and I used the dust remnants of the chocolate I chopped to sprinkle over the ice cream.

Not going to lie – pistachio and dark chocolate were made to be together.  The beauty of pistachio ice cream with any form of dark chocolate (bars, warm cake, cookies, anything!)  brings me tears of joy every time.

This recipe was also my inspiration for what I ended up baking yesterday in preparation for Valentine’s Day… which I probably won’t post about for another 3 months at this rate.  More to come on that front!