Monthly Archives: September 2010

Get your espresso jolt in this cookie

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It’s a cookie, but it’s not sweet. It’s flavored with espresso, but it’s not coffee. It’s the perfect bite of rich espresso flavor in a buttery crunchy cookie. And if that’s not enough, these cookies will take you less than 30 minutes to make — really!

So, get into the kitchen and bake up a batch to celebrate National Coffee Day today.

I used to be able to purchase instant espresso powder in the coffee aisle at my local grocery store. It’s no longer available there, so my last jar came from Williams-Sonoma.

If you haven’t tried cocoa nibs, you will fall in love with their bittersweet flavor and big crunch. Cocoa nibs are the crushed form of cleaned and roasted cocoa beans. Some places I’ve seen them include kitchenware and gourmet food stores, natural food stores and chocolate shops. They can be ordered from The Spice House, one of my favorite spice stores, too. I use the nibs to make my favorite homemade ice cream. Cocoa Nib Ice Cream is a family favorite. I use the recipe in Alice Medrich‘s book, “bittersweet.”

If you just can’t wait to make these cookies and you don’t have cocoa nibs in your pantry, use chocolate chips chopped very fine.

When I baked the cookies this morning, I saved a little of the dough to press into a small (4-inch) springform pan. I baked it and this evening I’ll fill the little round espresso shortbread crust with a big scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. I’ll drizzle it with some warm homemade fudge sauce and serve it to my husband for dessert. He will love it.

So, here’s to you on National Coffee Day.

Espresso-Cocoa Nib Shortbread Bites

  • 6 tablespoons powdered sugar
  • ¾ cup flour
  • 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
  • A pinch of salt
  • ½ cup (1 stick) butter, chilled
  • ¼ cup cocoa nibs, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Cut butter into small chunks.  Measure powdered sugar and flour into medium mixing bowl.  Add salt and instant espresso powder.  Mix. Add butter.  Cut with pastry blender or two knives.  (This process of mixing dry ingredients and incorporating butter can also be done by pulsing in the food processor.) When it begins to form a crumbly mixture, use fingers to mix.  When mixture begins to hold together, add cocoa nibs and mix in.  Use #100 portion scoop to form balls of dough. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet.  Flatten with hand.  Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.  Transfer from baking sheet to cooling rack.  Makes about 2 dozen dainty cookies.

Swiss Apple Pie Cake with Rosemary-Thyme Butter Sauce

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One of my favorite things about Fall is apples…and trips to the apple orchard. This year, without a trip to one of my favorite apple orchards in the Twin Cities area marked on the calendar, I was beginning to think it would be the first time in many, many years that I didn’t get to an apple orchard. But then, an apple angel saved the day. In my column this week, I tell the story about an apple detour I took on my way home from a recent Minneapolis trip. The sign along Highway 10 that made my car turn down a winding country road in search of my favorite fall fruit, turned into a wild goose chase. But then, an angel appeared and offered me all the apples I could possibly want or need.

With the big bag of apples I brought home, I made an apple tapioca sauce with a handful of the fruit. I could have moved on to the apple crisp that has been a family-favorite for years. I posted that recipe last year around this time. Click here to get right to my apple crisp recipe.

But, I decided to pull a church cookbook off my shelf. I have a bunch of them that I’ve collected over the years. I randomly pulled a book from the tightly-packed row lined up on the shelf. I paged through the one that wound up in my hands: The Centennial Cookbook (1887-1987) from St. Olaf Lutheran Church in Devils Lake, North Dakota. I stopped at Swiss Apple Pie Cake that was submitted by Berdelle Nelson. I added a little salt to the cake batter and rather than dissolve the baking soda in hot water as Ms. Nelson directs, I used buttermilk, but otherwise followed Berdelle’s recipe. I happened to have buttermilk in my refrigerator. Don’t go out to buy buttermilk just for the 2 teaspoons. Just use the hot water . She included a recipe for Rum Butter Sauce to serve with the cake. I decided to infuse the buttery caramel-like sauce with some fresh herbs from my garden and skipped the rum. I also added a teaspoon of honey. The slight hint of piney rosemary and aromatic thyme in the creamy, buttery caramel sauce is so perfect with the tender apples in the cake.

I’m adding this recipe to my file of apple recipes that must be made each year. It is amazing. I’m so glad Berdelle Nelson took the time to submit the recipe to her church cookbook committee so many years ago.

Swiss Apple Pie Cake with Rosemary-Thyme Butter Sauce

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons buttermilk
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 1/2 cups chopped, peeled apples
  • 1 cup broken, toasted pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter the inside of a 9-inch glass pie dish and set aside. Break egg into a mixing bowl. Add sugar and beat with a whisk until well blended and light. Add melted butter and whisk the mixture to blend. Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk in a small bowl. Add to mixing bowl and whisk in. Sift flour, spices and salt into mixing bowl and stir mixture until dry ingredients almost disappear. Add apples and nuts and gently stir them into the batter. Spread batter into prepared dish. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven 35 to 45 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool. While cake is baking, begin making Butter Sauce.

Rosemary-Thyme Butter Sauce

  • 1/2 cup whipping cream
  • 1 sprig fresh rosemary, about 5 or 6 inches long
  • 1 sprig fresh thyme, about 5 or 6 inches long
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar

While the Pie Cake is baking, measure whipping cream into a saucepan. Add sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme, stems and leaves. Bring mixture to a boil. Remove from heat and set aside. Allow herbs to infuse whipping cream with their flavor while cake is baking, or for at least 30 minutes. When you are ready to proceed with preparation of sauce, pour cream through a strainer to remove herbs. Use the back of a spoon to press herbs in strainer. Add butter, honey, sugar and brown sugar to sauce pan along with the strained whipping cream. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring as it heats. Boil vigorously for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Serve sauce warm with Swiss Apple Pie Cake.

Store remaining sauce in a covered jar in the refrigerator. Heat before serving.

Oktoberfest Bean with Bacon Soup (and so much more)

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It’s been a busy week, with much of it being spent out of town and in the car. Two back-to-back road trips to Minneapolis gave me some new restaurant experiences, an interesting apple detour (read about that in my column next week), wonderful tastes of kolacky and potica at the Czech-Slovak festival in Highland Park and a stop at Vinaigrette to stock up with more of their olive oils and vinegars. I slipped some work in between all of the fun.

A highlight of my eating experiences in Minneapolis was dinner at Sanctuary. The chef was introducing his autumn menu that evening. My dining partner and I started with Yellow Curry, Cauliflower and Potato Cream Soup with Cilantro Oil. It was smooth and creamy with just a hint of spicy curry at the back end of each spoonful that went into my mouth. It was wonderful. I also had huge, perfectly grilled shrimp that were served with salsa verde and pineapple sour cream. The meal was the perfect prelude to a one-block walk over to the Guthrie to see “The Master Butchers Singing Club.”

I tried recreating that lovely Yellow Curry soup to serve to my friend on her birthday yesterday. It didn’t live up to the delicious soup prepared at Sanctuary, but it was good, nonetheless. I’m going to keep working on it before I share it with you.

On my return home from one of those trips this week, it was time to prepare an evening meal. I was tired and didn’t have a whole lot of time. In the refrigerator I found the same ingredients that were in German-Style One-Dish Meal from my last blog post. I decided to turn it into soup with the addition of some broth and a can of pinto beans, both in my pantry. It was a hot, satisfying soup, full of flavor.

I didn’t use a recipe. But I kept track of what I used so that I could make it again. Because I enjoyed it so much, I’m sharing it with you. But, it’s soup, remember. So a recipe isn’t all that important. Use any kind of broth you have on hand, any kind of beans, any kind of sausage — just use what you like and stick to the basic proportions in the recipe.

I’d call this soup fast food — but healthful and made in your own kitchen. Think of it as that canned bean with bacon soup that you just mix with water. But, so much more with many healthful ingredients and much less sodium.

With Oktoberfest in mind, this soup is definitely German to me.

Oktoberfest Bean with Bacon Soup (and so much more)

  • 4 slices bacon
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
  • 2 chubby cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 cup beer
  • 2 1/2 cups beef broth
  • 1 pound sauerkraut
  • 1/2 pound smoked turkey sausage
  • 3/4 pound cooked potatoes, cut into small cubes
  • 1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
  • Sour cream for serving
  • Chopped parsley for serving

Fry bacon in a soup pot. When bacon is crisp, remove to paper-towel-lined plate to drain.

Add olive oil to the bacon fat in pot. Saute onions until tender. Add garlic and saute for a minute more. Add beer, broth, sauerkraut, sausage, potatoes and beans. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until all the ingredients are heated through.

If you don’t have cooked potatoes on hand, cut small cubes of raw potatoes and add them to the pot with beer and broth. Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are tender. Then add sauerkraut, sausage and beans and cook until those ingredients are heated through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Crumble bacon into a bowl and mix with chopped parsley. To serve, ladle piping hot soup into bowls. Top with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of the bacon-parsley mixture. This will make 4 large fill-you-up servings of soup.

Celebrate Oktoberfest with individual casserole meals

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You really don’t need to be German to have fun celebrating Oktoberfest. And, you don’t need to travel to Munich to enjoy the food we associate with Germany and its festival that lasts several days, providing a gateway for summer to turn to fall. This year, the celebrating began September 18 and will run through October 4th.

My dad was German, so I’ve eaten plenty of roast pork, sauerkraut and huge boiled dumplings that my Hungarian mom became proficient at creating. But when Oktoberfest rolls around, I start thinking about sausage. And sauerkraut. With boiled potatoes. In my column this week, I share a recipe for German-Style Potato Bake. Thick slices of red potatoes blanketed with a smooth, creamy beer-spiked sauce, tender bits of onion swimming through it. I’ve served the potatoes with grilled bratwurst and sauerkraut that’s simmered in beer. It’s delicious.

I decided I could combine the potatoes with sausage and kraut all in one dish. I used some enamel-coated cast iron individual serving-size casseroles that a friend gave me as a gift quite a long time ago.

I simply layered drained sauerkraut in the bottom of each casserole, chopped smoked turkey sausage next, and potatoes on the top. The creamy, beer-spiked sauce winds through the entire dish. These little casseroles can be built the night before serving and stored in the refrigerator. It doesn’t take long for them to heat up in the oven. Some good rye bread is a nice go-along.

If you don’t have any kind of baking dishes that are single-serving size, just put all the ingredients together in one large casserole dish.

All I can say is, “This is good. Really good.” My husband says it’s his new favorite meal. Make it. See what you think.

Prost!

German-Style One-Dish Meal

  • 2 pounds red potatoes, unpeeled
  • 4 slices bacon, chopped
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup beer
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
  • 1 teaspoon prepared horseradish
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 14 to 16-ounce package lean smoked turkey sausage
  • sauerkraut
  • 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley leaves

Cook potatoes, covered, in a pot of boiling water to cover. Depending on size of potatoes, they will probably need to cook for at least 20 minutes. When potatoes are tender, drain and allow to cool. At this point, potatoes can be covered and refrigerated overnight.

Lightly butter 6 small (individual serving size) oven-safe baking dishes or a shallow 2-quart baking dish. Set aside. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

If potatoes are large, cut into small cubes or slice small potatoes into ½-inch-thick rounds. Set aside.

Cook bacon until crispy in a large skillet. Transfer cooked bacon to paper towel-lined plate. Reserve bacon fat in pan. You should have about one tablespoon of fat in the pan. Add 3 tablespoons butter to the pan and heat until melted. Add chopped onion and sauté until tender. Remove pan from heat and sprinkle in the flour, stirring until smooth. Return to heat and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Gradually add beer and broth, stirring until mixture is smooth. Return to burner and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Stir in mustard, horseradish and black pepper.

Put a layer of sauerkraut in the bottom of each baking dish or large casserole dish. Layer sausage pieces over the sauerkraut. Put a small scoop of sauce over those two layers. Arrange potatoes on top. Scoop more sauce over potatoes to cover.

Bake, uncovered, in preheated 375-degree oven for 20 minutes or until thoroughly heated through and bubbling around the edges of the dish.

While potatoes are baking, use your clean fingers to crush the crispy bacon pieces into small bits. In a small bowl, mix the bacon bits with the chopped parsley.

Just before serving, sprinkle bacon-parsley mixture over the top of each casserole. Serve piping hot. Yield: 5 to 6 servings.

Tip from the cook

  • If you prefer not to use beer in the potatoes, use chicken broth for the entire 2 cups of liquid.
  • This one-dish meal can be prepared the day before you plan to serve it. The chilled casserole may need a little extra time in the oven to heat through.
  • If you like caraway, sprinkle a few seeds over the sauerkraut before adding the sausage.

These muffins are the last of the zucchini for this year — promise!

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I just couldn’t allow a zucchini season to come and go without at least one batch of our family-favorite muffins.

I began making these muffins when my older son was a tot. He’d gobble up the tiny two-bite-size miniature muffins that I made for him. I’ve been making them every year since. Now my grandchildren enjoy the muffins. But, I never had a chance to make the zucchini muffins this year at times when I would see them.

So, with some grated zucchini I had in the refrigerator, I made the sweet cinnamon-flavored muffins for the folks who work at the veterinary clinic that Gracie goes to for her care. She turned 16 weeks old on Friday and was scheduled for an appointment to finish up her puppy shots.

Here’s Gracie:

She loves visiting her friends at the clinic. And they lover her. After all, not every dog can bake.

This is the end of my zucchini recipes until next season. I promise!

Zucchini Muffins

  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 2/3 cup canola oil
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 18 muffin cups and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs. Whisk in oil, vanilla and sugar. Stir in zucchini. Measure flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a sifter and sift the dry ingredients into the zucchini mixture in bowl. Stir just until combined.

Fill prepared muffin tins 3/4 to the top. Bake 15 to 20 minutes until tops of muffins spring back when pressed lightly with your finger. Top of muffins should not look moist. Remove from oven. Run a table knife around each muffin. Allow to cool 5 to 10 minutes in the pan before removing and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes about 1 1/2 dozen muffins.

Tips from the cook

  • These muffins freeze very well. Seal tightly in plastic freezer bag or freezer container before putting in the freezer.
  • Batter can be refrigerated overnight and baked in the morning.
  • Most times, I peel the zucchini that will be used for these muffins. It guarantees there will be no green specks in the muffins, giving good indication that zucchini is one of the main ingredients. This time, though, the zucchini in my refrigerator had actually been grated when I was planning to make a baked dish. I never got around to it. You can see the green specks in the muffins.

A tomato stuffed with more than tuna

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I realized today that a can of tuna is so much more than a tin filled with chunks of fish. For me, it is a can filled with memories.

One day this week, I made myself a tuna sandwich. I used my can opener and with the loosened top, drained the water away from the white albacore tuna inside. I buy only tuna that is sustainably harvested in the Indian and Pacific oceans. It has no additives. It’s packed in water.

I thought of my mom and the tuna sandwiches she would often make for just the two of us. The only tuna she would buy was Chicken of the Sea, packed in oil. After she drained the oil, she would toss the tuna into a bowl and mix it up with chopped onion, bits of apples and some walnut pieces. Then, in went the Miracle Whip to bind it all together before it was used as a filling for our sandwiches made of soft white bread. I never cared for the walnuts in the tuna salad sandwiches and I would always keep my fingers crossed in hopes the jar of walnuts in the refrigerator would be empty when my mom went to pull it out.

As those memories flooded through my mind, I mixed my white albacore tuna with chopped onions and a small amount of olive oil mayonnaise. I mashed up an avocado to use as a spread on the two slices of whole grain bread I had toasted. Once the thick layer of tuna was on one slice of toast, covering the creamy avocado, I topped it with large pieces of sweet red bell pepper and sealed the whole thing up with the remaining slice of toasted whole grain bread.

The sandwich was outstanding. As I sat at the bar in my kitchen enjoying each bite, I thought about how different this sandwich was from the tuna sandwiches my mom used to make for me. I wondered if she would have savored my style of tuna sandwich as much as the one she was used to eating.

As I ate my tuna sandwich, I began thinking of a summer many years ago. My older son was just a toddler. The two of us were spending a week with my mom at the lake. It was a week filled with tuna lunches. My mom was so excited to make tuna-stuffed tomatoes for me. She had recently ordered a stuffed tomato at a restaurant when she was out with friends. She was so impressed with the way the tomato was cut to look like a flower with big red petals that opened just enough to make a well for a filling of tuna salad. I think we had tuna-stuffed tomatoes for lunch everyday that week, each time exclaiming over the tomato flowers, cut with such precision.

It’s been such a long time since I’ve prepared fresh tomatoes to fill with tuna. I went to the farmers market today and bought some bright red, ripe tomatoes. I cut out the stem end and, with a sharp knife, cut into the tomato but not all the way through to the bottom, forming 8 wedges that did look like flower petals. I rested the prepared tomato on a bed of fresh basil leaves that I snipped from my garden.

I mixed my sustainably harvested white albacore tuna with chopped onion, bits of sweet red bell pepper and tiny chunks of avocado, mixed it all up with jalapeno mustard and olive oil mayonnaise, and mounded the salad into the pretty tomato. And, just for my mom, I sprinkled walnut pieces over the top.

And, you know what? Those walnuts were absolutely delicious in my tuna salad.

A Simple Tuna-Stuffed Tomato

  • 3 fresh ripe tomatoes, stem-ends removed
  • 1 (6-ounce) can white albacore tuna, packed in water
  • 1/4 cup chopped sweet red pepper
  • 3/4 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon jalapeno mustard (or any spicy mustard)
  • 1/2 of a ripe avocado, chopped
  • chopped toasted walnuts, to taste
  • Fresh greens or fresh herbs, for serving

Cut each tomato to resemble a flower with 8 petals. Set each on a plate over a bed of fresh greens or herbs.

Drain tuna. Use a fork to flake tuna into a mixing bowl. Add onion and red pepper. Toss together. Add mayonnaise and mustard and mix. Gently mix in avocado. Spoon tuna mixture into tomatoes. Sprinkle with walnut pieces. Makes 3 stuffed tomatoes.

Not Just Any Old Scones

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There is something indulgent about starting the day with a cup of rich dark coffee, (no cream or sugar, thank you), and a big, warm, moist scone that is loaded with dried apricots and a generous amount of big chunks of nuts and maybe, sometimes, still-soft morsels of dark chocolate that melt on the tongue with each bite.

But, the coffee must be aromatic and wonderful. These days, my morning coffee is French press. And the scone, well, it can’t be just any old scone.

The scones I eat must be my own homemade variety. Yes, they are full of fat. That’s why they are pure indulgence. And, that’s why I make them only as a special treat once in a while. But, it is the fat that makes them so moist and flavorful.

The cool mornings we experienced last week gave warning that fall is in the air and much colder days are ahead. I was in desperate need of one of my scones.

These rich scones don’t take long at all to mix up. Because I’ve been on a crystallized ginger kick, I chopped up some of the spicy-sweet ginger and stirred it into the dough. Dried apricots are my favorite fruit to add, but any variety of dried fruit can be used. I always add big pieces of walnuts or pecans, but this time, I used up the last of the roasted and sea-salted mix of almonds, cashews and macadamias, the same nuts I used in the cookies that I shared in my previous post. Those nuts just may have put these scones right over the top.

I use a 1/2-cup measure of dough for each scone, forming 8 large scones that look like the big drop biscuits my Auntie Vera in Indiana used to make for strawberry shortcake. I love the homey look of dropped scones. The uniformly-shaped wedges and rounds are not necessary for my morning luxury.

The scones are most delicious when still warm from the oven. I have stored some in the freezer to enjoy another time. I allow them to thaw at room temperature and then heat them in the oven for a few minutes before eating.

The addition of crystallized ginger will not be something I stir into the dough every time I make these scones, but they were a bright change from the norm. If you prefer, you can leave out the ginger.

You really must make these scones and taste for yourself. They are out of this world. Really. Pure indulgence anytime of day.

Nutty Apricot Ginger Scones

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar, divided
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into small cubes
  • 1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger
  • 1 cup dried apricots, cut into large chunks
  • 1 cup nuts of choice, chopped coarsely
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1/2 cup half-and-half

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Pulse flour, baking powder, salt and 1/4 cup sugar in bowl of food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, stir the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

Lay the chunks of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until mixture looks like coarse meal. Alternatively, use two table knives or a pastry cutter to work the butter into the dry ingredients.

Add chopped ginger and pulse once for just a second or two.

Transfer mixture to a large mixing bowl. Gently stir in dry ingredients. When dry ingredients have almost disappeared, add the nuts and apricots and stir to mix in. Add whipping cream and half-and-half and stir until just combined. Do not over-mix.

Using a 1/2-cup measure, fill with scone dough and drop onto prepared baking sheets, forming 8 scones, 4 on each baking sheet.

Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup sugar over tops of scones.

Bake until puffed and golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool. Serve warm. Makes 8 large scones.

Tip from the cook

It is best to use soft, moist dried apricots in these scones.

Crunchy Cookies for Cool Days

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It’s been months since I’ve baked cookies. Chilly, damp days this week have spurred me to turn on the oven and mix up some dough.

The cool weather has also put me in the mood to clean out my pantry and refrigerator. Long overdue!

As I was digging through the pull-out shelves of my pantry, I came upon a shallow, clear plastic box of thin slices of crystallized ginger a friend had given me late last winter. It was still soft. I popped a slice into my mouth. Still chewy. Spicy-sweet heat tickled my taste-buds. My mind began reeling with creative ways to use up some of that ginger. I set it on the counter.

When I got to the opened box of rice krispies, I remembered a cookie recipe I’ve been making for years that includes a cup of the crisp rice cereal. Then came the bar of Ghirardelli white chocolate called Vanilla Dream. I ripped the outer cardboard wrap to get to the inside. The white chocolate bar was speckled with vanilla beans. I’m not a huge fan of white chocolate, but this smelled divine. I set it on the counter right beside the crystallized ginger and the cereal.

It didn’t take long for me to decide to toss those new-found ingredients into some cookie dough.

I pulled a recipe from my collection called Barbara’s Cookies. I don’t know who Barbara is, but I got the recipe from Flora, a woman from Worthington, Minn. who was visiting my mother- and father-in-law many years ago. I remember Flora telling me it was the most delicious cookie she’d ever tasted. I do agree that these crispy, crunchy cookies are just the kind that easily slide right down with a tall glass of cold milk. My husband gives them five stars.

I followed Barbara’s recipe, adding my own tweaks. I browned the butter to add more rich nutty flavor to the cookies. Ginger and white chocolate are my own additions. I was planning to use macadamia nuts in the cookies since it seemed I had a tropical theme going with these cookies. But, can you believe I could not find macadamias in the local stores? I did make a great discovery, though, as I was perusing the snack aisle. A (21-ounce) can of Planters Select Macadamias, Cashews and Almonds was a delicious combination of roasted and sea salted nuts to chop up and add to the cookies. The container was big enough so that there were plenty of nuts for nibbling on as a snack for a few days.

I could call these Crispy White Chocolate Ginger Nut Oatmeal Coconut Cookies. That’s way too long. For now I’ll just call them Sue’s Cookies. They are a good reason to heat up the oven on a cool day.

Sue’s Cookies

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup canola oil
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons minced crystallized ginger
  • 1 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 1 cup crisp rice cereal
  • 1/2 cup nuts, chopped
  • 1 cup coconut, toasted
  • 1 cup chopped white chocolate

In a saute pan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Bring butter to golden brown by allowing it to gently bubble for 5 to 8 minutes. Remove pan from heat and stir in brown sugar. Use a rubber spatula to scrape butter mixture into a glass pie plate. Place in refrigerator and allow to chill for 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Sift flour, cream of tartar and baking soda together and set aside.

Scrape chilled butter mixture into large mixing bowl. Add granulated sugar and beat until fluffy. Add oil, egg, vanilla and ginger and beat to blend. Add sifted dry ingredients and beat on low speed just until dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough. Stir in oatmeal, cereal, nuts, coconut and white chocolate.

Roll cookie dough into balls, using 1 1/2 tablespoons for each ball. Flatten slightly with palm of hand. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 10 minutes. Bottom of cookies will be golden. Transfer to rack to cool. Makes about 6 dozen cookies.

Tips from the cook

I toasted the coconut in the same saute pan that I used for browning the butter. I didn’t even wipe it out first. Just stir the coconut over medium heat until it begins to turn golden. Immediately transfer the coconut to a plate to cool.

When you’re shopping for white chocolate, check the list of ingredients. Be sure the bar you purchase has cocoa butter in it.

I find crystallized ginger in different areas of the supermarket depending on which store I’m shopping in. Sometimes it’s in the candy aisle, sometimes the natural food section and sometimes in the aisle with the baking products. It’s worth the search.

Seasonal Vegetable (and zucchini) Soup with a Fresh Basil Dollop

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A friend came to my house last week to help me prepare for an open house/book signing event that my Simple, Good and Tasty Book Club was hosting. Our guests of honor were to be the authors of the recently published book, “The Minnesota Table: Recipes for Savoring Local Food Throughout the Year,” Shelley N.C. Holl and B.J. Carpenter. It would be held at my house and we were expecting 70 to 75 people to come meet the authors. I definitely needed help getting ready for the special evening. My friend was planning to arrive around lunch time, coming from another appointment. I decided the least I could do would be to offer her a nice lunch before we got down to work.

My refrigerator was loaded with produce that I’d received in a market basket filled with fresh, local herbs, vegetables and flowers.

I cooked up a pot of vegetable soup, added some whole wheat elbow macaroni and stirred up a small batch of basil pistou (the French version of the Italian pesto). It was a simple and flavorful lunch, combined with a Marinated Zucchini, Tomato and Mozzarella Stack nesting on a bed of fresh spring greens and a slice of whole-grain peasant bread. It was just the fuel we needed as we began work on things that needed to be done for the open house.

The next day, Minneapolis authors Holl and Carpenter arrived at my house just in time to make some of their mint iced tea and honey lemonade and freshen up before guests began to arrive.

Members of my book club prepared food for guests to sample, using recipes from “The Minnesota Table.” One of the favorites was Wild Rice Salad with Dried Cranberries. Oh, what a party it was. The authors seemed to be bursting with passion and pride as they talked about their book, how it came to be and the experiences they had in the process.

They graciously signed many cookbooks, but not without a short visit with each purchaser in order to make more personal comments with each signing. Not every author does that. Everyone was impressed.

There were a few tidbits of food remaining after all the guests had gone home. My friend, Polly, stopped over as the two authors and I were nibbling some of the leftovers and sipping wine. Polly and Shelley Holl graduated from high school together. What a small world. Polly snapped this picture of Shelley, B.J. and me.

Two local bloggers were in attendance that evening and both have posted nice photos. You’ll enjoy reading their take on the book signing/open house. Get right to Heather Hanson’s blog post by clicking here. Rachelle Houle has her story about the event along with beautiful photos, right here.

Read more about the authors, their book and see their recipe for Wild Rice Salad with Dried Cranberries in my newspaper column this week. You can also listen to a short audio interview I did with Shelley Holl.

Added 9-9-10: Watch B.J. Carpenter make Honey Lemonade, a recipe from “The Minnesota Table.” If you’ve ever tasted the Honey Lemonade at the Minnesota State Fair, B.J.’s version tastes just like it. Yum! Click here to watch the segment B.J. did with me for Lakeland Public Television.

And, before I forget, here is the recipe for the soup I made for lunch the day before the book signing open house. It might be just the thing you need to warm up on a cool Labor Day weekend.

Seasonal Vegetable Soup with a Fresh Basil Dollop

  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 large carrots, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 large leek, trimmed, cut lengthwise into four equal pieces and sliced (about 1 1/2 to 2 cups)
  • 1 cup peeled, cubed potatoes
  • 4 cups vegetable broth
  • 4 cups water
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 pound fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 2 cups chopped zucchini
  • 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
  • 1/2 pound fresh tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1/2 cup uncooked whole wheat elbow macaroni
  • Pistou

Heat butter and olive oil in a large Dutch oven. Add carrots, onions and leeks. When vegetables are crisp-tender, add potatoes, broth and water. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat and simmer gently until potatoes are almost cooked through. Add green beans, zucchini, crushed tomatoes, chopped tomato and beans. Continue cooking, uncovered, until vegetables are tender.

Cook macaroni separately according to directions on package. Add cooked and drained macaroni to soup in pot. Stir in 1/4 cup Pistou. To serve, ladle soup into bowls. Spoon a small dollop of remaining Pistou on each serving. Makes about 12 cups of soup.

Pistou

  • 1 cup tightly packed fresh basil leaves
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 3 chubby cloves garlic
  • 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Process fresh basil leaves and garlic in a mini-food processor or blender. Gradually add olive oil and continue to process. Scrape mixture into a bowl and stir in the Parmesan cheese. Makes about 1/2 cup.

This Pistou is delicious stirred into an omelet, a bowl of hot pasta, or homemade tomato sauce. Spread it on homemade pizza, too. A little dollop on top of tomato soup is good, too. Oh, so many ways to use this versatile Pistou.

There are still s’more to try

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When my friend, Ann, (yes, the same Ann who shared the recipe for Shamefully Rich Chambord Brownies that I posted recently) heard about the S’more celebration I had at my house, she was reminded of a recipe she had for Indoor S’mores. She hadn’t seen it in ages, though.

Then one day I received an email from her:

“….while looking for something else, here’s that recipe I knew I had for Indoor S’mores.”

I just made a pan of them to take along this weekend when we spend some time with friends.

In Minnesota, we would call these squares of chocolate, Golden Grahams and marshmallows, bars. I don’t know when I last bought a box of Golden Grahams. Ann’s recipe calls for 8 cups of the cereal. I bought a 12-ounce box and used the whole thing. Minus a few I had to taste, of course.

Using milk chocolate chips sounded like it would result in a super-sweet s’more bar. I used semi-sweet morsels and added some peanut butter cups I had in my pantry.

My husband, the peanut butter lover, highly approves of these bars. They are both crunchy and chewy and not overly sweet.

If you are still in need of something on the sweet side to have on hand for the holiday weekend, you may want to mix up a pan of these Indoor S’mores. They take just minutes to make and you don’t even have to turn on the oven.

I just made a pan of those Shamefully Rich Chambord Brownies, too. If you haven’t tried them yet, you just don’t know what you are missing.

I can’t wait to get the next recipe from Ann.

Ann’s Indoor S’mores with some Sue-per Twists

  • 2/3 cup light corn syrup
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate morsels
  • 1 (4.4-ounce net wt.) package of 8 individually wrapped peanut butter cups, broken into smaller pieces
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 (12-ounce) box Golden Grahams cereal
  • 2 cups miniature marshmallows

Line a 9- x 13-inch pan with aluminum foil. Coat the foil lightly with butter.

Heat corn syrup, butter, chocolate morsels and broken peanut butter cups to boiling in a heavy 3-quart saucepan, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Pour chocolate mixture over cereal in a large bowl. Toss quickly to coat the cereal with chocolate. Fold in marshmallows, 1 cup at a time. Dump mixture into prepared pan. Use waxed paper that you’ve swiped across some butter to press mixture evenly into pan. Let stand until firm. Cut into squares. Ann says you should get 48 bars. They would be small. I didn’t get that many. Store in a tightly sealed container.