We entertained a few nights ago. I made my easy cassoulet, spinach hummus, a new sweet onion and thyme dip (it will be posted here next week), and one of my favorite sides, baked onions with thyme. Other guests brought a salmon dip (that I loved, and hope to give you a link to Kim’s blog once she posts it) and a delicious sugar-free apple strudel. Another guest helped me by making a cocktail – a clove-scented sidecar. That recipe will be up in another week or so too. I had fun setting the table. Over the years I’ve collected a bunch of Fall and/or pumpkin-oriented stuff that I use on our kitchen island or on the dining room table. Just thought I’d share with you. I don’t know that rattan chargers are “in” any more, but I like them. I’ve had the decorated balls for several years. The ceramic pumpkins I bought a few years ago, along with the rings that go on the candle bases. The big twig pumpkins I bought last year on sale.

Do you suppose anybody noticed that one candle was a little Leaning Tower of Pisa? Hope not! The brownish thing lying on the runner (just above the silver wine holder) that s-curves is a 5-foot long garland, of sorts, of sewn-together cut twigs and red chiles (dark red, so you can hardly see that they’re red, as they’re almost brown). I bought it years and years ago – every time I touch it, almost, a red chile (very dried out, obviously) breaks open and a dozen seeds fall. But I like the texture of it. I store it in a plastic sealing bag the other 11 months of the year!

Tweet

If you’re new to my blog (I have a lot more readers these days – maybe because I’m posting some of my food pictures on Pinterest), you don’t know that over the course of my life I’ve collected thousands of recipes. Oh my goodness, have I! It’s almost a sickness, and yet I can’t seem to stop! My mother, back in 1997, when she was within a few months of passing away (and in really good health at that moment) actually handed me a recipe she’d clipped out of a magazine – she said she couldn’t seem to help herself. She didn’t cook at all then (she was 89 and lived in a retirement home), but she thought I might like it. I put it in my purse and it went into the trash later. It didn’t appeal to me at all. I feel guilty about that now! I wish I had that recipe – I’d make it just because it was something she gave me so near to the end of her life. Anyway, on to this recipe.

What I have in a hallway in our house (about 15 steps from the kitchen) is a 3-tier storage container (rattan baskets in a stand) that contain the recipes I collected from about 1965-2003. There you can see it at left. In our former house I had a huge – HUGE – set of drawers that housed Pentaflex racks and my recipe files lived there, right in the kitchen. In the house we’re in now, I didn’t have the space for such a thing in the kitchen (prior to the remodeling we did), so I bought this contraption and jamb-packed it with file folders by recipe type. When we did remodel, these just stayed where they are, sitting in a little alcove, out of the way, but there if I need them!

In the ensuing years I’ve really tried to limit the recipes I clip out of magazines and newspapers. I say to myself “Am I really going to make this? Really?” I try to not clip more than 1-3 in any one magazine. Those that make the cut go into 3-ring binders. So yes, I’m still collecting recipes. Occasionally I go to the archives (the baskets) to find something. Some years ago I actually went through the entire thing and got rid of about half of the recipes in there – things I knew I wouldn’t make – like home made phyllo dough, or real croissants, pickling my own sauerkraut, and lots of canning recipes. You know, those kinds of things.

So anyway, I was scouring the files for some old recipe; can’t even remember what it was now, but it was something in the cookie folder. And out flitted a recipe onto the floor. I reached for it. Yes, a cookie recipe. But hmmm, this looked good. Not what I needed that day, but I took it out and put it on my to-make-soon cookbook stand I have right next to this computer. It’s sat there for several weeks, then one day it just said “make me.”

Where this recipe clipping came from, I’m not sure, but when I went searching online for this recipe (only a couple of sources had it, and only one person had written a story about it) someone wrote that it was in the brochure for Jessica’s Biscuit, then a place to order cookbooks (and I did at one time). Nancy Silverton’s book Desserts is called a classic, and it’s popular enough that it’s been reprinted. Anyway, the recipe clip said it’s Nancy Silverton’s recipe – and her comment was that if she ever had to be limited to one slice and bake cookie, this would be it. That’s good enough testimony for me.

The cookie is easy to mix up. My only difficulty was that I thought I had pecans. I didn’t. So I used walnuts instead. I think pecans would have a bit more flavor, but walnuts were great, don’t get me wrong here! It’s a kind of very tender shortbread cookie and not overly sweet. Love the maple syrup in it, and just one egg yolk. But half a pound of butter. No, not low fat! Ha! The dough is chilled, then formed into cylinders and frozen solid. The next day I baked them, and found that if the rolls sat out for about 10 minutes they were a lot easier to slice. With large walnut pieces in the dough, if my knife hit the nut just so, it broke the slice altogether. But I was able to piece them back together mostly. The recipe said it made 72 – obviously I sliced the cookies a little thicker than 3/8”, so I got about 42 or so. The cookies don’t spread at all (there’s no leavening in the cookie, remember) so you can pack the cookie sheet well. The only caution in the recipe is that the cookie must be baked completely to be tender. If you under bake them, they’re tough, apparently. I didn’t have that difficulty, but I did have to bake my cookies (possibly thicker ones) for 18 minutes to get them just barely golden brown around the edges. I cooled them – promptly ate two (yum) with a cup of tea – and put the remainder in the freezer.

What I liked: the batter was easy-peasy to mix up and chill. Really easy to roll into cylinders too. And relatively easy to slice and bake. Taste: yum. Tender, buttery, and absolutely perfect with a cup of tea I made this afternoon! And these would be wonderful for Christmas. Make them up ahead and keep on hand to bake when needed. Or they’d work great for a cookie exchange too.
What I didn’t like: absolutely nothing. The frozen dough was a little finicky to slice, but not a deterrent to making them!

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

No, I’m not joshing you. And no, these aren’t made of cardboard, either. Cardboard would have carbs perhaps? From tree bark and fiber? Nope, these are made from tofu and some kind of
Asian yam. I’m sure I have some readers who, after just seeing that word tofu – will not even read further. I might have been one of those some years ago. I don’t eat tofu, as tofu, but if it’s in other things, well, yes I do. These noodles have almost zero calories, nearly zero carbs, zero fat in a single serving.

It’s not news on this blog that we are a family of two try to limit carbs, what with my Type 1 diabetic husband. And certainly I can cut down on them myself. But I’ll tell you true – I miss pasta. Once in awhile – a big splurge for us – I make a huge batch of spaghetti sauce from one of my numerous recipes (my favorite one this year is Ina Garten’s Weeknight Bolognese Sauce). I freeze some of it for other dinner splurges months hence. Well, we’re now going to be able to have all we want because of these fantastic new products.

I’d heard about them several months ago when I got an email from one of the daily deal emails I subscribe to, offering me “Miracle Noodles” for some unbelievably low cost. I knew nothing whatsoever about them. I talked to a friend of mine, a recent Type 2 diabetic, who is struggling with her revised diet, to ask if she’d like to share the box with me. It was 29 packages or some odd number. She said no. Knowing so little, I opted not to buy it, either. Then I visited a local Asian market, thinking that surely they would have them – indeed they did, although it wasn’t the “Miracle” noodle, but Tofu Shirataki (the fettucine and angel hair varieties shown here), and it took the store manager’s involvement to find them in the store. Aha! In the refrigerated area – not really near anything in particular – and they were lying flat, so you couldn’t see the package front very well. FYI: a 4-ounce serving (half of the above package) contains 20 calories, .5 grams of fat, 15 mg of sodium and 3 g of carbs. And 1 g of fiber. As I’m writing this, I haven’t had the Miracle Noodle yet – I’ll probably write up another post after that with more info.

Each package holds about 8 ounces including the fluid – and about 4 ounces of net wet noodles – enough for 2 side servings. And just maybe enough for a small serving of a pasta main dish. These packages need to be refrigerated and they’ll keep for about 6 months. They don’t ever spoil, really, but eventually, the noodle may dissolve into its primary form of glucomannen (that’s the tofu and yam product).

I threw together a side dish to serve them the first time. I had no recipe, but wanted to make it a little special for the first time we’d eat them since I wasn’t certain my DH would eat them – he did and he liked them. He loves pasta too, and encourages me to NOT make it very often since it wreaks havoc with his blood sugar. The thing you need to remember is that these noodles, like most tofu products, don’t have much taste straight out of the package, so you must add flavorful ingredients to them, so they’ll soak up the flavor. Don’t just heat them with a little oil or butter and expect them to have great flavor. They won’t.

The other thing about these noodles is that they’re packed in a rather unappetizing fluid (that you drain off). It smells something like Asian fish sauce. In case you haven’t ever taken a sniff of Asian fish sauce, well, it’s not pleasant – kind of like rotten fish, actually. Tastes great, but doesn’t smell all that nice. So, there is a process of getting the noodles ready to eat. First, drain them, then rinse well under running water. According to the package instructions, I put them on a plate and microwaved them for 60 seconds. You can also “cook” them in a nonstick pan until they make a kind of squeaky sound in the pan, but microwaving is almost easier. I rinsed them again, drained again, then they went into the skillet. They’re already cooked, you see, so they don’t really need further cooking – just heating – but they need to absorb flavor. So I stirred them around, added the dairy stuff, some herbs and cayenne, and let them sit in the pan just barely simmering. I had to add a little water as the creamy ingredients boiled away, tasted it for salt and pepper, added the grated cheese and served it piping hot.

What I liked: the fact that they’re very similar – not identical – to a wheat noodle, but have so few calories and carbs. That’s the logical answer, of course. Why would we bother to eat these unless they were giving us some kind of nutritional boon. Or if I needed to restrict gluten. Obviously these are GF also.
What I didn’t like: if you forced me to say something negative (I’m trying to be at least neutral or unbiased), the texture of these noodles aren’t the same as a wheat pasta fettuccine noodle. It doesn’t have the same kind of “chew” as a wheat noodle – more like a rice noodle to me. But if you know going into it that you’re wanting a vehicle for the SAUCE – it’s the sauce we love, right? – then these noodles absolutely work. All in all, this is a great alternative to a much higher calorie wheat noodle.

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

You may have read before – brown food is hard to photograph. So I put this on a bright green plate, then added the white goat cheese as contrast. How’d I do?  This is a fabulous make-ahead appetizer. It’s worth the effort to make it – do try it. And by the way, those are not Ritz crackers – they’re Trader Joe’s version of them. They’re quite good!

I almost forgot to post this recipe – it was from a cooking class a couple of months ago. I was doing some background admin stuff on my blog  and ran across it – then realized I hadn’t written a story about it or shared the recipe. Every few months I have to transfer all the images from the posts to a CD for long-term safekeeping. So, I go through each image folder (I put all the photos into folders by recipe title, then they go onto a vaguely chronological ordered CD) and delete the extra photos that I chose not to use – wrong angle, bad light, parsley isn’t perky, shadows wrong, too far away – you know, those kinds of things. I had a photo of this from the class, but it was terrible. All brown everywhere. So I needed to make it in order to take a better picture! First I had to buy all the ingredients (didn’t have the pears or five spice powder). Then I had to wait 3 days for the Bartlett pears to ripen. Finally, then, got it made! I didn’t need an appetizer, but I decided to make this now, knowing I’ll be needing some for holiday entertaining. Here at right are the ingredients before I started cooking them. Just chopped,  raw pears, water, orange zest and juice, ginger I whizzed up in the food processor, five spice powder, brown sugar and cinnamon sticks. Oh, and vanilla.

What’s great about this appetizer is that you can make the marmalade several weeks ahead. With all the sugar in the pear mixture, it should keep for awhile. My thought was to make it for sometime over Thanksgiving weekend. I made a double batch, so actually I will freeze half for using in December. The mixture doesn’t have enough sugar that it’s truly a “marmalade” by jam-making standards. So it won’t keep for months on the shelf in the refrigerator. Use this within a week, and freeze what you haven’t eaten. Just don’t invite the same people over more than once! On second thought, I think you’ll like this enough you won’t be concerned to serve this twice, even if it was the same group of friends. Or family.

There’s a photo of the finished marmalade – I left the cinnamon sticks in the picture just for more brown-on-brown contrast. The pears have a lovely, warming bite from the fresh ginger in it. The orange zest and juice add some nice sweet notes. Then it’s also got vanilla, cinnamon (stick) and five-spice powder. The five-spice gives it a real interesting depth. It’s kind of elusive – you might not know what it is unless someone told you. Makes it different. Really different. The pear marmalade needs something to cut the richness (although there’s not a bit of butter or fat in it – I mean the intense flavors), so the goat cheese is the perfect choice.  With a bit of the left overs, I paired it with grilled pork chops. It was lover-ly.

What I liked: the sweet, the bite from the ginger. Loved the Chinese five-spice powder in it. It’s a sweet appetizer – just know that. With some goat cheese to spread on a cracker and the marmalade piled on top? Yummy. This would also make a delightful hostess gift if you’re into making these kinds of things to give to friends. If you wanted to make it complete, give the hostess a log of goat cheese and a tube of crackers.
What I didn’t like: absolutely nothing. It’s a keeper.

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

If you’re the kind of person who really avoids chiles, in any way, shape or form, this heat-less beef and pinto bean soup/chili may be just up your alley. But even for people who like spicy foods (me), this mixture is full of flavor. It has one different ingredient in it too – something I’ve never used before. Intrigued? Read on.

When I read this recipe over at Kalyn’s Kitchen, it just looked and sounded so good. Maybe it was merely because it’s late summer here in Southern California and I haven’t had chili for many, many months. In fact, Kalyn doesn’t even call this chili, but pinto bean and beef soup. In her photo, it looked like chili and my brain and taste buds looked at it and said chili! Maybe the last time I made something similar it was turkey chili last Thanksgiving.

We were still in summer doldrums when I read the recipe, but I went about gathering all the ingredients. I’d intended to try Kalyn’s pressure-cooker method of cooking beans. But we ended up going to our Palm Desert house, and I don’t have a pressure cooker there (I’d intended to take along the one I have, but forgot). So, I made it the old fashioned way by soaking the beans for about 6 hours and slowly simmering them until they were “just right.” And then making the chili and simmering it on the stove for 45 minutes.

The soup/chili mixture is standard – onions, garlic, ground beef, beans and (typical chili) seasonings. What’s different about this one is: (1) there is no heat in it – no chiles of any kind, not even black pepper, so this mixture is not hot – at all; and (2) it uses dried cilantro. I’ve never owned dried cilantro. Why should I, when we can buy fresh cilantro year ‘round at our local markets? But Kalyn mentions in the recipe that using the dried cilantro is highly recommended. I trusted Kalyn’s judgment here, so I went out and bought dried cilantro. Imagine my surprise when, after simmering the chili (with the dried cilantro in it) for the requisite 45 minutes, I tasted it. Wow. Citrus. Lemon or lime juice to be exact – yet there was no citrus in the chili up to that point. It’s the cilantro that gives it that citrusy taste – probably from the cilantro stems. To me, there was no typical cilantro taste – what I know of as cilantro taste from the fresh herbs – just the citrus. I need to remember this for use in other dishes. At the very end you add in freshly squeezed lime juice, then for garnish some freshly chopped green onions and chopped cilantro. No cheese needed at all. Thank you, Kalyn.

What I liked: the fresh taste of it all – this is not a complex-flavored chili (which is probably why Kalyn called it a soup!) but a quick-cooking type (and you can use canned beans if you don’t want to take the time to cook the beans). And that’s a big compliment. Usually I like as much complex flavors as I can get in a soup mixture, but in this one I really liked the simple-ness of it. The chicken broth adds lots of flavor too (usually I would use beef or pork broth, but this one particularly calls for chicken broth). All in all, this one’s a winner.
What I didn’t like: not a thing, really. Just know this is a “lighter” version of traditional chili – not lighter in calories so much as lighter in flavor and complexity. It’s a delicious soup/chili – don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I liked it a lot, no matter what it’s called!

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

I’m remiss in not posting this recipe a couple of months ago. I got permission to post it here on my blog, but then we went away on vacation and I forgot to post this last recipe. Not a good thing since this cake is such a winner.

For whatever reason, I don’t think much about making desserts with blueberries. Usually I’m not so fond of them in cooked form – I prefer them raw on my morning Greek yogurt. But then I was served this cake and I fell in love with blueberry cake. Ah, but it has to have the nutmeg in it. It would be nowhere near as interesting without the freshly grated nutmeg!

You may recall that some months ago (last May, actually) we attended a dinner in the backyard of some (now) friends who live a mile or so away from us. We met Cheryl Sternman Rule, a professional food writer and developer from the Bay Area (who writes her own blog, 5 Second Rule) and we and 20+ other people had a delicious 5-course meal from Cheryl’s new cookbook called Ripe: A Fresh, Colorful Approach to Fruits and Vegetables. This was the finale of the dinner and I was all over it. So soft and tender a cake and the subtle flavors. If you like blueberries – and nutmeg – you’ll like it too. Easy to make for sure. The blueberries kind of sink down into the batter during the baking process – it’s not frosting or an icing there – but it makes for a really pretty appearance, I think.

Recipe reprinted with permission from RIPE © 2012 by Cheryl Sternman Rule, Running Press, a member of the Perseus Book Group. Cookbook photography © 2012 by Paulette Phlipot.

What I liked: the almost sponge-cake texture – soft and luscious. Easy to make too. The blueberries stand out for sure – and oh, the nutmeg. Of course I love nutmeg, so naturally I’d like this.
What I didn’t like: nothing whatsoever. A definite make again cake.

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Most often I buy the 2-lb. packages of haricot verts (those little thin ones) from Costco. I cook them all and store in a ziploc bag. Then I do something different with them as I parcel them out over 2-3 meals, my favorite being the Garlic Green Beans. This was a really quick throw-together one.

Back about 5 years ago I went to a cooking class and had a magnificent version of this – a more complicated preparation for sure, and it was delicious. It’s here on my blog – Green Beans with Roasted Shallots and Balsamic Glaze. This time, though, I wanted something much simpler – no time for roasting shallots or making a glaze. I had shallots, so I just sautéed them in some olive oil and a bit of butter until they were golden. I did this part ahead a couple of hours. The green beans were already cooked (barely). I wanted them under cooked when I first simmer them, knowing I’m going to cook them some more in the frying pan.

Just before serving, then, I poured the green beans into the pan with the shallots and gently tossed them around so they were all covered in the oil and shallots. Once I was sure they were completely heated through, I drizzled on about 2 teaspoons of Trader Joe’s Balsamic Glaze and I carefully stirred that around the beans and poured them out on a serving bowl/plate . Just before serving I sprinkled on some flake salt and freshly ground black pepper. Done. Easy. Tasty.

What I liked: mostly that they came together quickly. I almost always have shallots in my kitchen for just this kind of occasion. And the balsamic glaze lives in my refrigerator door.
What I didn’t like: maybe not the most complex of flavors, but hey, this was an “easy” dish. It’s hard to get complex flavors when it’s just cooking in a sauté pan!

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

If you’re most of my readers, you probably don’t have wattleseed in your spice pantry. If that’s the case, and you don’t really want to buy any (from Australia) then you may want to breeze on by this recipe. If you’re intrigued, you may want to look at my previous post about wattleseed, incorporated in the recipe for wattleseed ice cream – my favorite (to date) wattleseed recipe.

Have you ever made something – in this case baked something – and it was good, but not the “best,” so you gave it away, or even tipped it into the trash? Sometimes it’s just that whatever it was didn’t appeal to you the next day – I’ve had that happen often enough. Like left overs! When I made this cake, I also made the wattleseed ice cream along with it. The ice cream was the star of the show. No question! I was bereft when the quart of wattleseed ice cream was gone. In the meantime I’ve restocked my wattleseed supply. That, in itself is another story – an acquaintance at a local herb and spice store had an employee who was visiting Australia – one thing led to another and I ordered wattleseed from Vic Chericoff, had it shipped to where this employee was staying and she brought it home in her suitcase! I gave her a Starbucks card as a thank you. Yippee. I now have enough wattleseed to make another 3-4 batches of ice cream. There’s a lesson here – if anyone you know is going to Australia make arrangements to have them bring you some! I bought it when I was in Australia 2 years ago, but I only bought a little bit. Definitely not enough!

The cake recipe. Well, I found it on a website that also (it just happens) sells wattleseed and some other indigenous Australian products. And a wattleseed cookbook. And has a group of wattleseed recipes too. The cake looked interesting – I like Bundt cakes. I had an orange and a lemon, so I put it together and baked it up in a flash. The batter is divided in half – half gets wattleseed – the other half gets orange/lemon flavorings. You swirl it around in the pan a bit and that’s what you get. The above photo shows the top before I’d swirled it. The one at right shows it after I’d used a knife to swirl the batter.

So, to get back to this cake story . . . after making the cake I was hoping the wattleseed would be just permeate the flavor. It didn’t. What I tasted was the orange and lemon in it. Hmmm. Not what I had in mind. We had it that night, and I think my DH and I had a piece the next night. By the following day it didn’t appeal to me at all, so without asking my DH I threw it out. My hubby doesn’t eat much sweets, so I never thought for a minute he would miss it. Oh yessiree, he did! Went hunting for it a day or so later. Therefore, I made a couple of minor flavor changes to this recipe – toning down the orange (I only added lemon because I didn’t have enough with just one orange) and lemon. Use small ones so the zest doesn’t overpower the cake. That’s all. And definitely don’t over bake it – I think I did and it was a bit on the dry side. I prefer moist cakes. My DH I guess likes cakes drier than I do!

What I liked: well, that here’s another way to use wattleseed. I don’t have a big inventory of recipes for it (yet), although if you click on the link up above you’ll find several, mostly desserts. Just remember that wattleseed is subtle. You don’t want to use a lot of it (it’s precious, remember, for a Californian since it ships from Australia!) in any case. I’ll watch the baking time very carefully next time.
What I didn’t like: that the wattleseed flavor wasn’t the predominant flavor. But it was still nice anyway. A kind of a white spice cake. See what you think and let me know!

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

I hadn’t actually tossed this salad when I took the photo, nor had I sprinkled the spicy pepitas over the top, so this photo doesn’t exactly show you the finished product! But don’t let that deter you from making this very tasty salad.

I’m always on the lookout for a new twist on a green salad. I love salads, and particularly enjoy taking some new combination when I’m asked to bring one to someone else’s house. That was the case recently, so I looked through all of my salad recipes to try, and this one stood out. It was a clipping from Bon Appetit in 2009. Next I went online to find the recipe, and hoped to find some comments from others about it. Did they like it? Or not? What would they change, etc. Surprisingly, there was nothing online at all, except the recipe itself. Hmmm. Well, that didn’t deter me from making it anyway. I liked the idea of the avocados, the pepitas (pumpkin seeds) roasted with spices.

The reason I said that I like making this kind of salad to take to someone else’s home is that I probably wouldn’t put in quite this much effort for a salad if I were preparing a company dinner at home. But since all I had to take was salad and bread, it was easy!

First I made the pumpkin seeds. They’re toasted in a large frying pan with a little bit of oil (don’t be tempted to use more oil, it isn’t needed), then when they’re nicely browned you sprinkle a sugar, cayenne and salt mixture over them and allow them to dry. As it was, I couldn’t find unsalted pepitas, so I didn’t add the salt suggested in the recipe.

Meanwhile, you can combine all the other ingredients for the salad part and let them rest in the refrigerator (untossed). The vinaigrette was easy enough to make – it’s olive oil, avocado, cilantro, lime juice vinegar, garlic and a little bit of serrano chile pepper. Also 1/4 cup of the toasted pepitas are added. They provide almost a smoky flavor, although they were merely toasted, not smoked. Just before serving slice up an avocado, dress the salad with the avocado dressing and sprinkle more of the pepitas over the top. Done.

CHANGES I MADE: I used a lot less Feta cheese than the 1 1/2 cups the recipe called for. I also didn’t use the jicama (the one my DH bought was rotten inside, and it was too late for another trip to the grocery store) and I only used one avocado in the salad, not two. I also soaked the red onion in a little water and vinegar for 20 minutes to take out the raw, sharp taste. I didn’t include that tip in the recipe itself since most people don’t care about that.

What I liked: mostly it was the flavor the pumpkin seeds added – but also it was a nice combination with the salad greens, avocado, cucumber and the pepitas. You might want to make more of the pepitas as they make a great snack or for other salads later on.
What I didn’t like: really nothing that I can think of. Next time I might add some Romaine lettuce to the salad (a sturdier lettuce) because the very thick dressing almost overwhelmed the tender greens.

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Oh my, oh my. Chocolate decadence. Chocolate heaven. Sugar overload. Chocolate overload. These are slightly crunchy on the very delicate outside and soft and meltingly tender on the inside. I don’t know how that chemistry works, but it does!

Can you tell by looking at these that there’s just a little hint of crispiness to those edges? The whole cookie top is shiny – I think that means there’s lots of wicked butterfat in it and sugar. Yep to both. But when your teeth sink into them, the cookie almost melts before it sort-of sinks and collapses (not crumbles) in your mouth. When I read the recipe in the latest issue of Food & Wine I was smitten with the description of these – brownies in cookie form. I mean the mag is just hot off the press – it’s still October and I’m reading the November issue. You know how that is – all the food mags seem to compete on how early they can publish before the true publish-by date. But anyway, the cookie is from Belinda Leong (obviously she’s the B) of B. Patisserie in San Francisco.

What makes these cookies all craggy-like on top is the folding in of chocolate chips after you’ve smoothed together  the cookie batter. Chocolate chips don’t quite melt into the cookie, but once cooled, they are still intact inside. These taste nothing like a box-mix brownie – it’s not cake like. It’s almost soufflé-like – puffy and soft. They’re not like fudge either – they’re not dense at all, yet there is a ton of chocolate in this recipe (a pound of semisweet that’s melted into the batter and 12 ounces of chips folded in at the end).

The other thing that’s truly unique about these is the method – once you’ve folded in the last of the chips, the batter is spread into a baking dish and FROZEN for an hour or so. Yes, that’s what I said. Then you use a sharp scooping implement (I have cookie scoops from King Arthur Flour that I use all the time – one for cookies and one for muffin size). The scoops of batter are placed on a parchment-lined baking sheet and baked at 400° for 10 minutes. Allow them to cool slightly on the sheet afterwards, then use a small spatula to put them onto a rack to cool completely. I used one sheet of parchment for all the cookies (I made the cookies smaller than the recipe indicated, so I got 48 instead of 36), but I did scrape off the still-warm crumbs that stuck to the parchment. The first batch were pretty hard to scoop out of the dish (because it was frozen), but as the batter sat out at room temp, it was easier and easier.

The only adjustment I made to the recipe was to add a bit less sugar. I’m glad I did, and I think you probably could add even less. I don’t love overly sweet cookies – so use your own judgment. I’ve made a note in the recipe about it.

What I liked: well, the rich, over-the-top chocolate flavor, the texture altogether (crispy outside, melty soft inside). They’re also very delicate, but wickedly chocolate.
What I didn’t like: nothing, really. It’s a very rich cookie – know that before you start!

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet