Monday, November 05, 2007
This past Friday night I had the awesome pleasure to attend a potluck for Philadelphia Food Bloggers. It was hosted by Marisa of Fork You! I'll get to the food in a second, but first I have to say, it was incredibly fun meeting in real life the personalities I already enjoy from behind this screen. About 20 bloggers showed their faces, drank a little wine, ate some delicious dishes, and got to know each other a little bit better. I already hear Taylor planning the next potluck at her house in January. I can't wait.
I didn't take a single picture of any of the wonderful food or drink I enjoyed that night. I have no good excuse, but I'll blame the wine. And Philafoodie for bringing all that wine. A few other bloggers did take pictures and you can check them out here:
Straight from the Farm
Apartment 2024
Messy & Picky
Mac & Cheese was also camera shy, but she wrote up a great post about the night.
I brought one of my favorite cookies of all time. I know I had inspiration from some cookie I saw someone make on TV years ago. 
It's evolved over time into a cookie that combines chewy, crunchy, sweet, salty, and buttery.
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 - 10oz bag toffee candy bits (see picture below)
1 cup oatmeal
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 1/3 cups sliced almonds
In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and eggs and mix until creamy. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, and baking soda. Add these dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture. I like to mix the toffee bits, oatmeal, coconut and almonds together in a bowl before adding them to the cookie dough and if you use the bowl you just mixed the dry ingredients in, you'll save yourself washing a dish. Add the toffee, oatmeal, coconut, almond mixture to the dough and mix by hand. The dough is very stiff, but you want to mix it well so the cookies stay together. 
I like a nice big cookie, so I drop about 2 tablespoons of dough about 2 inches apart on a parchment lined cookie sheets. Because of the sticky toffee involved in this cookie, you won't want to skip lining your cookies sheets with silicon mats or parchment paper.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool on wire racks and try not to eat all of them in one sitting. 
These are the kind of toffee bits you need to use for this cookie. HEATH brand makes one called "Bits o' Brickle" and looks like this. And, actually, if anyone knows where in the city of Philadelphia I can find these to purchase, please let me know. Right now I'm having them sent to me and would really like to be able to get them without paying shipping and handling.
See all of you bloggers soon, I hope. Enjoy the recipe!
this is my first time on your blog and was just reading your about section and Foodaphilia, I am defently suffernig from this condition, two of my friends were talking about mandible ossification yesterday over coffee and I said suddenly out of the blue "I made a great butternut squash curry last night" they looked at me like Im mad!i should explain to them about this condition, they may be a bit more gentle with me:-) great blog by the way.
X Matin
Just made these last night, and think they're brilliant. Thanks for sharing the recipe! :)
Thanks for sharing :)
http://Choose2BHappyNow.blogspot.com/