Lora Brody rugelach, mini carrot cupcakes, and hazelnut truffles for dessert – I mis-cut the truffles, somehow … I used a half batch of my standard carrot cake recipe, but I didn’t cook the grated carrot – didn’t seem worth it for 3/4 cup carrot, but I think it threw the carrot to cake ratio off. Personally, I didn’t like the cupcakes all that much, but the kids, as I anticipated, liked them a lot.

The grapes all fell off their stems so I had to serve them in a bowl, instead of artful little bunches arranged around the satsumas and clementines. So, I took some bananas to augment the fruit selection, and no one ate them – and I dropped one, and I think I got that particular one as my breakfast banana today, because it was squishy inside.

I made one long rise almost no knead whole wheat loaf with beer, and a white loaf with white wine – figuring that since one of my favorite focaccia recipes, from Carol Field, focaccia from Liguria, has white wine, it’d be good in the bread. The white loaf came out kind of dense, while the ww one rose much better. People still ate up the white faster, though.

I shouldn’t have brewed the last pot of coffee, nor mixed the last can of orange juice – we’re still drinking both of them today.

The shirred eggs, on the other hand, we just about perfect – I put a piece of butter into the bottom of each ramekin and heated them – and then broke in the eggs and poured in the cream and topped them with the grated Parm. So the eggs didn’t stick and ramekins were easy to clean. John, Megan, Mark and I had egg & bacon breakfast sammiches today, and there was even a half left for a Al, that he snarfed within 5 minutes of coming home.

2012, a little clumpy

2011 hoppin' John, properly pilaf-ed

Carrotcake mini-cupcakes

Rugelach

Rugelach

Leftover Rugelach in a freezer container; be a good surprise dessert at a one-dish dinner

Unevenly cut truffles

So, my grandmother, my mom’s mom, is of the main reasons I make all these cookies at holiday time, and send out goodie boxes to the family. She always did, and opening the box and finding out what was inside, what new recipes she’d tried this year, was always great fun – especially when my brother and I were high school age potheads. But even at that point in my life, I appreciated my grandmother’s scientific approach to recipes, trying this and that from various cookbooks, to see how well different methods and combinations of ingredients worked – and, as Julia says “critically tasting” the results.

One of our favorite cookies that showed up in those long-ago goodie boxes was a ginger creams – a kind of chewy ginger cookie, with white frosting on top. We looked for the recipe, and in the late 1980s when I was a sorority house cook, I found a recipe in one of the sorority house cookbooks, for ginger bears – a ginger cookie that said it had the thin crust and chewy center that we remembered, and I hand copied that recipe and have been using it ever since. A few years after that long quest, once the hand-copied recipe was firmly in my cookie pantheon, I discovered what was probably the original, ginger creams, what my gramma called them, in the the 1963 Betty Crocker Cooky Book that she gave me for Christmas in 1964 (according to her inscription on the inside of the front cover). That recipe has shortening; the ginger bears have butter, so I stuck with the ginger bears.

In 2007, I entered the recipe in a Waitrose food essay contest – they were looking for the next Elizabeth David – a vicar’s wife in the UK won – but the magazine went out of business shortly after. Anyhow, I don’t think I ever made the cookies from this transcribed version – I always went back to my hand written copy. This year, I used a print out from my old blogspot blog, doubled – so 8 cups of flour – and only 2 sticks of butter. When I got to mixing the dough, I thought it looked awfully dry – I remembered other years literally pouring this dough into a bowl to chill after mixing. I checked the recipe and thought I had doubled everything except the molasses – so I added more molasses, and the quickly realized that what I now had was 4X the molasses, and 2X everything else. Forgetting the cardinal rule that adding stuff almost never solves a kitchen disaster – you just end up with more fucked up food, instead of a solution – I added enough of everything else – butter, brown sugar, spices, egg, flour – to get everything to 4X – and ended up with a giant bowl, a 16-cup of flour batch of the dough, that was still way too dry. Which got me thinking – 1 stick of butter to 4 cups of flour is really low on the butter. Could I have transcribed the recipe wrong? Should it be 1 cup, 8 ounces, instead of 1 stick, 8 tablespoons of butter? I couldn’t find that original hand copied sheet – I think I remember chucking it last year, thinking “well, I’ve transcribed it to the web now, don’t need this”  – but I checked the Betty Crocker Cooky Book ginger creams, and that has 1/3 cup shortening to 2 cups of flour. Ah Ha.

So I dumped  the whole mess and started over again with 1 cup butter for every four cups of flour – and the resulting cookies look a little flat, but I think they’re going to be right – taste like our memories. Whew.

Sunday night (12/4): Moravian ginger thins, slice & bake doughs

snowflake-shaped ginger thin

Monday morning (12/5): cornmeal anise biscotti

Cornmeal-almond-anise biscotti - new this year

Monday night (12/5): cranberry-pistachio slices, fruitcake fruit slices

Cranberry pistachio slices

Fruitcake fruit slices - WITH candied red cherries this year

Tuesday morning(12/6): almond hazelnut biscotti

Long skinny almond hazelnut biscotti

Tuesday night (12/6): almond cinnamon stars, windmill

Windmill cookies

Stars

Wednesday night (12/7): gember koekjes, orphan cranberry-pistachio slices, dough for hazelnut sables, dough for world peace

Gember Koekjes

Thursday night (12/8): chocolate toffee bars, linzer-nutella sandwiches, linzer thumbprints (bonus)

Chocolate toffee bars

Thumbprints

Friday night (12/9) : coconut cookies and world peace cookies

Coconut cookies - they look like a macaroon, but are actually a butter cookie with coconut

World peace cookies - from Dorie Greenspan - nice size this year

Saturday morning (12/10): nukhorns & Pfeffernuse

Nukhorns or rugelach

Pfeffernuse

Saturday night (12/10) – cranberry choc chippers for Savory Sunday

Also Saturday – gave away first cookie platters

Sunday (12/11) – first real disaster of cookie season, but then I baked ginger creams; frost Monday, Rose’s crescents, chocolate meringues, dough for Mark’s mom’s rolled ginger, Mexican wedding cookies, pecan bars – new recipe

Ginger creams

Rose's Crescents

Monday (12/12) – cut up the pecan bars and shipped the first cookie box – And had another disaster – stripey mint brownies. It was a lesson in why some recipes say, “do not use Dutch process cocoa”. I had bulk cocoa from the co-op and I assumed it wasn’t Dutch process, but it must’ve been – it reacted badly with the baking soda and brownies boiled while baking – all the pieces of mint, which are the charm of the brownie because they stay crunchy in the chewy brownie – and got too dark, tasted burned …  I thought about keeping them – if I put them out someone would like them – but they just weren’t right, so I dumped them, and made a big batch of white chocolate peppermint bark.  And dried fruit bark. Somewhere’s in there I made  the chocolate spritz – I think it was Monday night. And I made the raspberry almond bars Wednesday morning.

Fucked up mint brownies

Peppermint bark

Dark chocolate dried fruit bark

Chocolate spritz

Raspberry almond bars

Cinnamon stars

I was really looking forward to making these cookies. I made them last year for the first time, although I’d been looked at the recipe for years, since it was part of a Swiss cookies feature in the December 1994 Gourmet magazine, and I’ve been making the Biberli from that issue probably since it was published. They’re made with ground almonds, sugar, cinnamon, and egg whites – you make a meringue, scoop some if it out and save it for brushing onto the cookies, and then use the rest to bind the dough together. The recipe (this is dated 2000 in Epicurious; it’s the same as the older version from Gourmet magazine, except for the commentary) says they’re tricky, but in 2010, they went together like a dream, and I liked the little crunch the star cutter made going through the nutty dough. The only downside was I didn’t make enough of them. That’s why this year I planned to make an extra big batch, and expected to enjoy the process. Turns out the trick is measure. The recipe says, “1/4 cup egg whites (about 2 large)” and last year I must’ve measured – this year I counted; 6 whites for my big batch. I thought the dough looked a little wet … I tried rolling it a few times, and even got as far as cutting stars, which only squished when I tried to pick them up. I scraped the dough up off the counter, thinking maybe I could grind the nuts in the dough more finely in the food processor, and the dough’d be more workable – but the machine protested and it didn’t help. Scraped up again, and added more powdered sugar – still goo. Finally I added some gluten-free baking mix, and used the same stuff to flour the pastry cloth – and got them to roll just fine. I was afraid they’d be too sweet or too blah with the extra sugar and flour (albeit gluten-free) – but the little stars are just as yummy as last year – and there’s a lot of them!

But it did take away from baking time – when I got home I made the pignoli cookies – at least a gluten free batch. The recipe only has about 3 TBLS of flour, so I thought it’d be a good candidate for gluten free, and just I just subbed in gluten free baking mix for the flour. There didn’t seem to be enough, though, so I made a second, with-gluten batch the next day. I also made the Moravian ginger thin dough, but never got around to rolling it out till Sunday.

Also Thursday, I made the spoon cookie dough, which means browning like 8 sticks of butter in a big pot, nerve wracking because you don’t want to either under do it, nor burn it. I baked and assembled the spoon cookies on Friday, and actually everything about them is nerve wracking – not just the butter. They’re spoon cookies, afterall, so obviously, you form them with a spoon, not as precise as scoops or cookie cutters, so you’re never sure you’re making each one the right size; it’s hard to tell when they’re done enough; they’re really fragile – you can knock an edge off one in less than a heartbeat; and then when you stick them together, you’re never sure if your putting in enough jam or too much jam, and will you run out of the special strained cherry-strawberry blend that you made? Should you just chuck in some seedless raspberry now, and risk upsetting the cherry-strawberry flavor balance? Not to mention that the black cat loves the spoon cookies, because they’re so buttery, so one must be ever vigilant for her raiding missions.

So Friday was spoon cookies and not much else. But I made a lot of them, as you’ll see from my proud parent pictures. Some of the mass shots look like the ceiling at Heathrow airport where we waited – queued – to go through customs.

On Saturday, I never did any actual baking until late afternoon. I made all the kinds with chocolate stuck on top – almond with Hershey kisses, and peanut butter with chocolate stars. The almond cookies took over the world – three of the 5 qt. buckets. I baked the peanut butter ones without parchment, so I got some of the bottoms a little too brown – but Al was around to eat most of the seconds. I also made some lemon crumbles – a buttery crunch cookie with lots of lemon rind – that I’m kinda “meh” about – haven’t made them since like 1997 or so. But I just bet they’ll be someone’s fave. And in my eternal quest for a good anise cookie I made traditional springerle – which tasted pretty good after they’d dried and baked on Sunday a.m. – but if I’m going to keep doing them, I need a much better springerle mold. Or rolling pin.

Sunday I had high hopes for – but somehow  got embroiled in other domestic tasks: making veggie broth, cooking brunch, cleaning up, toasting almonds and hazelnuts and rubbing the skins off the hazelnuts. And exercise – I went for a long walk and coffee with Rach in the a.m. and restorative yoga in the p.m. And dropping my car at the shop for an oil change. I finally rolled out the ginger thins, and decided that my new snowflake cutter will be better for regular ginger bread. I made the last bit of that dough into gingersnaps and drizzled on a lemon glaze to give to my house call vet – my kitties are due for their yearly check up – and she has three daughters, I think all still at home, so I want to give her a nice box. I managed to make the doughs for three of the four slice & bakes I intended: the ginger cookies (my mother’s favorite, brown sugar shortbread with candied ginger), pistachio-cranberry (here are 2010 ones, better pix soon, I hope), and the candied fruit slices. But I didn’t make the 2 biscotti kinds I want to do this year – cornmeal anise and my tried and true hazelnut-almond. And even though I made some vanilla pudding for Mark & I to eat with Boardwalk Empire and the last of the Thanksgiving cookies (and the ginger thins seconds) the timing wasn’t right for that, either.

I was sure the vet was coming this morning – Monday – so I got up at 6:30, and made the cornmeal biscotti. Only to check my calendar and realize she’s not coming till Tuesday. Which is good, because I was feeling guilty about how few cookie kinds I have to put in her box – remember, she has three kids – by tomorrow, there’ll be at least a few more.

Pine nut macaroons

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Spoon cookies

Almond stars that ate New York

Almond stars

More and more almond stars

One almond star zoomed in - they're kind of porno, huh?

Peanut blossoms - they look kind of like bosoms, too but not as much as the almond

Peanut blossoms

Fruit cake gems - so UN-photogenic

I guess it’s OK. Or else my standards have just gone to hell – a few of the biberli have that flat look that they did a few years ago when I took the rejects to work, and made them over. But this year I feel no compulsion for the do-over. The jam cookies are done and there’s close to 20 dozen. The fruitcake gems are tiny and cute again – tho UN-photographed as yet. The fruit balls are made and glazed. The first new recipe I tried – Christmas Chocolate Bars from Joy – almonds, dried cherries, yellow raisons, and chopped chocolate in a bar cookie with beat up eggs and no shortening – went in the trash. Awful, spongey – I thought it might come out like an Italian nougat cookie, but no. It’s OK – there’ll be time – it’s a two weekend cookie season this year – I’ll just sit here and write and post pictures and listen to one if the cats snoring. And then I’ll go pack up the biberli, and maybe I can go find that Boardwalk Empire episode I fell asleep to on Sunday on demand, or on HBOGo.

Jam cookies

Raspberry jam cookies - some 6-point, some 5-

Apricot jam cookies - that 6-point star cutter's new this year

Chocolate topped fruit & nut balls

Chocolate topped fruit & nut balls

Chocolate topped fruit & nut balls

Chocolate topped fruit & nut balls

Biberli - are they sinking?

Biberli cooling

I made the last of the caramelized onions from the  galettes into onion dip with creme frâiche and sour cream – that was a success, and I made sure by tasting it on corn chips, honey wheat sticks, and wheat thins. (corn chips & wheat thins won).

I tried to use up more of the salad greens from Pie Palooza by making them into veggie broth – with squash and herbs, that woulda been good – but the greens turned the broth black, so in the morning I threw it out.

I made the leftover squash cubes, also from the galettes, into a gratin with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. It was really good, I ate a big bowl of it for supper – the crumb topping was perfectly crispy, almost like those Parmesan chips you can make, frico, I think they are – in contrast to the soft squash. But Mark didn’t want any, and although I packed a serving into a plastic container for work lunch, in the morning I ended up pitching that, too – although I did wash out and save the container.

I had a really pretty head of red cabbage and a pound of Brussels sprouts in the basement fridge, from a CSA box a few weeks ago, and I wanted to make this slaw, that I had made for a dinner last winter. It has too many steps and ingredients, but it’s really good – disappeared in a flash at that past dinner, anyways. Another success, with cashews instead of pine nuts, and Farmer John’s Asiago instead of Parmesan curls, and still good for lunch without any cheese added at all.

And I made a batch of hazelnut & chocolate meringues, to send on the plane with Rach – she’s going to have Thanksgiving in upstate New York with her no-gluten-eating fiancé, and the rest of her family – and to use up the toasted hazelnuts that had been sprinkled in the salad on Saturday night. I usually make these for passover – it’s 4 egg whites, and about a cup of sugar, and about a cup of chocolate, and or nuts. These were a lot more chocolate-y and nutty, because I had close to a cup of the hazelnuts, and I used some expresso chocolate chunks that were lurking in the bottom of the baking bin, plus part of a bag of milk chocolate chips. Another success.

And I never got around to making that pear cake – to use up the pears – maybe I’ll do that tonight. It’s got a bunch of steps – marinate dried fruit in brandy, caramelize pears, make the cake itself – and it has a caramel sauce, but I don’t need to make that, because I still have some caramel sauce from the pumpkin sticky pudding, to use up.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cabbage and Pine Nuts

Meringues

Meringues - the way the cookies reflect on the side of the plastic box is kind cool, I thought

Meringues

Pears and bananas

Pears with only a glimpse of the bananas

Last night was our much anticipated stuffed-trout dinner. Mark bought $24 worth of trout at the market last Saturday, and dug up his baked trout stuffed with bread crumbs recipe (I looked at the card and not sure whose hand writing it is, not his mom’s, maybe one of his other wives <grin>). I didn’t think to tell him to line the baking sheet with parchment, so the fish skin stuck, and the trouts didn’t look so great – but they tasted good enough to make up for it. I made some RP’s Pasta pumpkin torteloni to go with – they shoulda cooked a little longer, they were a little tough, but they tasted good too. I think I will throw them in with some cooked dried pasta tonight, and make a pasta al forno with that sausage, tomato & peppers sauce that I made on Sunday, and we never ate on Monday. It won’t be quite Tony Soprano’s baked ziti, not with that pumpkin in there, but same idea – gooey, cheesy, saucy pasta, hot from the oven.

I also made a round challah for Rosh Hashanah – or could’ve been shabat, since it was Friday night. On tasting it today, it seems a little dry – I think I overbaked it a bit. Sigh.  But it will be good for grilled cheese sandwiches or French toast – maybe my new favorite grilled cheese – sharp cheddar with American Spoon tomato jam – Hey David – your sister eats cheese sandwiches with jam, too.

I made stir fry beef and separate veggies with tofu, and rice cooked in my own home made veggie broth for supper – that was all good. And I blanched and skinned and bagged and froze 1/3 of my 25-pound CSA box of tomatoes, and right before I went to bed, I put in another 1/3 to slow roast. They came out fine, too – this is an earlier batch, but these looked a lot the same.

So now I guess I’ll just have to try that crust again, I want to make tomato tart with some of that last 1/3 of the tomatoes, and I also have leeks for a leek tart this week. I have brunch tomorrow, but I’m making potato pancakes, not pies, and they’re gonna be potato-carrot, not zucchini. At the farmers’ market this morning, I concluded that zucchini vines must die off from frost sooner than the cucumbers because everyone had cukes, and no one had zucchini. I also just decided, whil riding my bike back from the library, that grated carrot in the cakes would be better than grated butternut squash – because raw grated carrot is a lot tastier than underdone squash.

Ugly apricot peach almond pistachio frangipane tart

Over dinner, Mark and I told the Italian girl about the Julia Child, and how she said “never apologize” for your cooking  – it only makes the people who are eating your food think maybe something really is wrong. Actually, on the page attached, which is p. 90 from Julia’s posthumous autobiography, My Life in France she amplifies: not only never apologize, if the food is truly vile, you must bear it with a smile – and learn from your mistakes. Most of the time, the food is not truly vile. Usually, it’s pretty good, it’s just not exactly what you, the cook, had in mind.