Which level of hades is the grocery?

I hate going to the grocery store. I will do just about anything to avoid it. This includes sounding pathetic while talking to my husband to convince him to stop and pick up one or two items for me. I have most of my groceries delivered. Why yes, I am yuppy scum. Safeway delivers for $5. I'm a working mom, it's worth $5 to get back that time in my day. Plus it keeps me from doing impulse shopping.

This weekend I saw that we were out of mini-wheats. I also saw that the new Costco coupon book has mini-wheats. So I wanted to hold out until that coupons start. To ensure we had breakfast (Sean, Lucy & I eat mini-wheats), I needed to do a bit of cooking. Did I mention I hate going to the grocery? Times that by 100 and you have Costco. :) Don't get me wrong, I love Costco, I just need to be in the right frame of mind.
I took a look around my kitchen and I had stuff for Brinner (Breakfast for Dinner) Sunday night. I had the makings for pancakes (tried a new recipe, going to tinker with it, but it's a good base), sausage, bacon and hash browns. I decided to make enough for breakfast for most of the week. After the kids were in bed I realized that I didn't really want that for breakfast, I wanted coffee cake. I decided to look around for a new recipe. I was rewarded with this loveliness, Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake. Mmmm...

And all so I could avoid going to the grocery. And the kids still had pancakes for breakfast, I was the only one to snag coffee cake. Mwahaha...it's good to be the mom!


I admit that I enjoy poking around AllRecipes.com. I often find very interesting items to try. Sometimes I see something that makes me think, oh I could do this. Overall, it's a fun little site. Entering Coffee Cake in your search box returns a large number of results. But again, I was motivated to avoid going to the grocery. I looked at lovely sour cream coffee cake and toyed with it when I saw this. Chocolate chips. Oh yea, must try that.

It seems that I also was unable to read the original recipe. I saw 9 inch springform pan and my brain read 9 inch tube pan with removable base. So that's what I used. It turned out lovely. My friend made it the next day and had a lack of success with a regular springform pan. So I guess I got lucky. :) I also left out the pecans from the original recipe and used more chocolate chips intead. And as always I use Guittard chocolate chips for their nut free properties.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Chip-Coffee-Cake-3/Detail.aspx

Chocolate Chip Coffee


1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup turbinado sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions

1.In a mixing bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese and 1-1/4 cups of sugar. I beat them for 3-4 minutes until it was beautifully creamy and light. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into a greased 9-in. tube pan with removable base. Sprinkle the tubinado sugar over batter. Finally, sprinkle the chocolate chips on the top of the cake. Press them in slightly to they stay put.

2.Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes. Carefully run a knife around edge of pan to loosen. Remove sides of pan. Cool completely before cutting. Yea right! I had my first piece 15 minutes after it was out of the oven.