Chewy Chocolate Cherry Cookies

Excellent cookies though they weren't chewy for me. Chocolate cookies with bursts of cherry flavor. I had used a tiny bit less butter than called for and made small tablespoons of dough for the cookies. Michael liked these a lot though he would’ve liked more cherries. Another friend thought the cherry flavors overwhelmed the chocolate. Next time I think I’ll chop up the cherries to spread the bits out more evenly throughout the dough and maybe add more chocolate chips. Also will try to cut back a little on the sugar, add more butter, and bake it a little less because these were more on the crunchy side than chewy (though that might also be because I made the cookies small). I used the electric mixer which made things so much easier. (thank you to everyone who helped me get over my fear of the mixer!) Finished in about 75 minutes and ended up with 43 cookies instead of the predicted 30. (Would bigger cookies have helped keep them chewier?)

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Pork Saltimbocca (with Polenta)

The Italian word saltimbocca literally translates to "jump in the mouth," presumably because this dish tastes so good it will hop right in. The classic Roman dish is Saltimbocca alla Romana, made with veal scaloppini topped with prosciutto and sage. The recipe for this pork version came from Cooking Light (Nov 2003) We’ve been making it with white rice instead of polenta since we always have white rice in the house. And sometimes we'll substitute pancetta instead of prosciutto. I have also seen recipes for chicken saltimbocca that use chicken with mozzarella cheese. This pork saltimbocca dish has served me well and only takes 25 minutes to prepare.

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