Christmas Cookies 3 of 3

Chocolate chip cookies. Who doesn't like them? They are pretty much a staple of cookies everyone loves them and recognizes them.

Christmas Cookies 2 of 3

Butterscotch cookies, I honestly can't think of a none chocolate cookie I like more. I find that these end up being not too full of sugar.

Christmas Cookies 1 of 3

So for christmas this year everyone got their normal gifts from me plus a box of cookies. Today's featured cookie is the chocolate and white chocolate cookie. I kind of got the inspiration for these from those "Grandma's" double chocolate cookies I ate growing up. This one got the best reviews and pretty much disappeared instantly from the batch I gave out at home.

Tulumba

This is a dessert from the Balkans. Kind of like a churro you take unleavened dough. Fry it and then soak it in a sugar syrup. I decided to try and make this dish because I was watching a Swedish (I think) movie where one of the antagonists made this. Of course he made it poorly so everyone joked about his poor cooking skills. But that got me thinking so I looked up a recipe and threw myself at it.

Pear and Squash Soup

I must admit when I saw this recipe for the first time I found it kind of odd. I mean whoever would put fruit in soup? But this worked out pretty well. The pears held together very well in cooking and along with the acorn squash, shitaki mushrooms, and onions this soup tastes fantastic with this slight sweetness. Its honestly a nice little break from the more spicy and traditional soups.

Black Bean Soup

This is another really interesting one with coloration. The black beans apparently will change the color of the broth as they finish cooking. But otherwise this was a normal stew. Onions, celery, jalapenos, bell pepper, garlic, and of course black beans all go into this meal.

Broccoli and Potato Soup

The broccoli and potato soup is interesting because of the weird green color it gets from the broccoli. However it was quite good. I started off with sauteed onions, added the potatoes and broccoli. After this concoction cooked for a little while the various herbs went in as well. After it was finished cooking I took out about half and put it through a blender so that the dish was not stew but soup.

Almond Cookies

When I was making these I in no way expected them to turn out like they did. I honestly was expecting a very crumbly cookie akin to a chocolate chip cookie made with only the egg yolk and not the egg white. However what came out was a delicious, chewy, sweet, golden, almond flavored disk.

Spinach Raviolis with Marsala Cream Sauce and Raisin Cornmeal Cookies.

I apologize for not updating in awhile. It is my fault and all I have to say is that I had a good vacation and I am now awake after making a total schedule shift from night owl to morning person due to a new work schedule. That being said, on to the food!

So tonight as the main course I made Spinach Raviolis with a Marsala Cream Sauce. I have loved this sauce since I tried it's cousin at the Macaroni Grill. You start with a shallot, mince it and saute it in butter. Add in some wine, heavy cream, more butter, and Parmesan cheese.

The Raviolis I did cheat on and used the pre frozen ones. But as a side I hand tossed some salad with Italian dressing and grated Parmesan cheese.

For dessert tonight was some Raisin Cornmeal Cookies. These turned out very good, they were light and the rum soaked raisins added just enough sweetness to the cookies.

Strawberry Cream Tart

Now this was a fun one to do. Its basically a baked tart shell, filled half way with pastry cream and then covered with strawberries. I never have made pastry cream and didn't realize that it is in essence a cooed milk and egg mixture with flavoring. Otherwise this was pretty simple and quick; as always I liked the tart shell. Someday I am just going to make a double batch of dough and bake it as cookies.

The plastic wrap is so that it won't develop a skin of dried cream on top.

Baked Pear Tart

So today's treat is a pear tart. This is a tart shell with a layer of apricot jam then a stack of fresh pears on top. I am really liking the tarts because they are a quick and simple dessert to make. At most I spend an hour preparing and baking everything to make a final product. These would be good for an emergency dessert if unannounced guests came over. The only really labor intensive part of the tart is the shell and even that can be thrown together in a stand mixer.

This recipe calls for partially baking the shell before you put in the filling. With such a quick cooking filling if the shell was not partially baked before hand you would be left with a very moist maybe not even cooked final product.

By itself the tart shell smells fantastic almost like a cookie, though I guess that the make up of the shell is very similar to a sugar cookie anyway. With the last tart I was picking at the left over shell bits as people took their slices.

Since everything is now in the oven for its final bake soon I will have pictures up.

Raspberry Jam Tart

So I know I missed a few days but these things happen. I had a busy but fun weekend and am now back so I won't waste time and get on to today's dish. I made a tart; its kind of like a pie but at certain key points very different. Instead of the normal flour, butter, and water crust tarts tend to have a sweeter crust so this one I made contains, flour, butter, water, egg, sugar, and lemon juice. Otherwise it seemed very much like a pie with a filling and good smells coming from the oven.

'smore coming soon.

So today I took a break from the kitchen and packed up and spent the afternoon at the beach. I had a lot of fun relaxing and playing in the water. I think certain people agree when I say we should go back again. Check back tomorrow for a new thing I still need to decide what I will make.

Cherry Pie

Sorry for the lateness of this update. The night I was going to bake this pie my internet died so I couldn't get the recipe online. So I like cherry pie. Often it isn't too sweet, too heavy, or too tart and goes well with almost any meal. That is why tonight I wanted cherry pie so off to the baking and more to come.

Pecan Pie

This pie I will admit is something I don't usually eat. I find it a tad too sweet for my own tastes. However, I know my family and certain co workers will happily devour it. So I make it from time to time.

The pie turned out pretty good. I even had no left overs in the filling bowl so it felt like everything was perfect. All that remains is that "How quickly it will be eaten" test.

Chocolate Chip Pie

So tonight I decided to go with the ultimate sweet tooth satisfier. Chocolate chip pie, this very tasty pie is like eating chocolate chip cookies in pie form and is even better is eaten fresh from the oven with a little bit of milk.

Blackberry Pie

Now I know this is a very basic pie, however everyone seems to love it. Anytime I bring it to the office it tends to disappear nearly instantly.

Here is one of my past efforts at blackberry pie.

More to come once I finish this pie later tonight.

The pie went okay, managed to make just enough crust for the pie. Plus since I used butter this time the crust smelled much better then the shortening one I did yesterday. I already had to start fighting off the vultures who wanted pie for breakfast.

Blueberry Pie

So I started pie week this week. Now instead of doing normal sized pies I am planning on mostly doing mini pies baked in muffin tins. Why? Well for one very good reason; its easier to eat on the run for anyone involved because its a night hand held snack.

Now for tonight's attempt I am doing blueberry pie. I have always had a bit of trouble with blueberry pie because generally the filling doesn't set enough so we will have to see how it turns out tonight.

Update: Well the pies turned out great. By the time I woke up the next morning 2/3 of the mini pies I made were gone.

Raspberry Lemon Muffins

Now I know this post is late in coming also. I promise to get back on track during next week where I will do a ton of pies, why? Because Pie-rats love pies. So back to this post being late; My brother who doesn't know about this blog as far as I know had just asked me if I was baking something tonight. It seems he has gotten accustomed to having a muffin or fresh bread to snack on every morning. Well I despite that I figured I might as well start baking.

Now for the recipe. Its one of the odder ones because instead of milk and butter the recipe called for plain yogurt and vegetable oil. Otherwise it was the standard recipe, flour, eggs, baking squiggle soda/baking powder, and flavoring of some sort. In this case the flavor was raspberries and lemon juice. The recipe called for frozen raspberries but I accidentally let mine defrost too much. So, in the mixing they started to fall apart. But things still smell great and the muffins will come out good.

Margarita Cupcakes

Sorry about the lateness of the update, but I went to the LA County fair after baking today's treat with a friend and haven't had the chance to post this until now.

So today's treat was Margarita Cupcakes. I baked them with my friend at her place and these were very good and we even managed to get the frosting right. Yes it contained tequila in both the cupcakes and frosting plus a healthy amount of lime juice.

Pictures to come tomorrow.

At the fair we indulged ourselves and has deep fried oeroes and coke icee. We also wandered around looked at the various exhibits and saw a dog agility show. Including one dog that was jumping nearly 5ft in the air. This wasn't a big dog either just about the same size as a beagle.

Apple Strudel Muffins

So today I really did two recipes. One was for the apple muffins themselves, the other was for the topping. Apples always make a good snack plus you can buy a 3 pound bag for only a few dollars so I have always been a fan.

So these muffins were pretty simple, chopped apples put into a muffin batter and then baked for 25 minutes at 375 degrees. The topping was nice as well, butter cut into brown sugar, with a little but of flour and cinnamon.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

Today I decided to go for what my co workers would jokingly call "Chocolate Death." Now for us this is both a bad and good thing. We tend to call something 'death' when we know we want it, it would taste great, but we also know it would be pretty bad for us.

On to the muffins, I unfortunately didn't have any semi sweet chocolate squares so I ended up using chips in replacement. But that was fine as they melted even quicker then a square would have. Otherwise everything was perfect and within 15 minutes of the muffins being in the oven there was a faint smell of chocolate in the air and I was getting kind of hungry. But I resisted snacking until they were ready. I think it was worth the wait.

Strawberry Muffins

Today's snack is Strawberry Muffins. Now I love strawberries, to me they are just the right mixture of sweetness, tartness, and juice. If I could I would have them as my fruit of choice every day. Plus when baking with them; the smell is fantastic.

These came out extremely well. I bought perfectly ripened strawberries and they weren't too hard or soft. They chopped up perfectly and I couldn't help but eat a few while rinsing them in the sink.

The recipe was a little off though, based off the comments in its original form it would have produced an only okay muffin with more of a bread flavor. So I added about a quarter of a cup extra sugar and sprinkled a little bit of sugar on top.

Tune in tomorrow for chocolate chip muffins.

Blueberry Muffins

So this week I decided that I wanted to take a break from bread. Family members started complaining that I was giving them too much free bread and they couldn't possibly eat it all that quickly (there are only four of us locally). So I loaded up my old standby website for recipes http://www.allerecipes.com/ and found a good muffin recipe for today.

I also went and got a new muffin tin and liners. Apparently they now make silicone based ovenware. The muffins came out good and were very popular. So much that after before I even left for work 8 of the 10 I made were gone.

Pictures to come soon.

Pane Toscano Scuro

Today's bread is a whole wheat version of the one I baked yesterday. I again had issues with getting this one to stay in a good form. When I cut the pattern into the top the bread fell down again. Otherwise it came out okay. The crust was very light and the crumb was a good wheat bread. The only thing I didn't like was the bread was heavier and flatter than I wanted.