Sassy Radish

All right, I’ve been a hypocrite enough! I’ve said I’ll be eating healthy. I’ve banished white sugar and white rice from the household, but I let white flour linger and it’s not budging. I won’t let it go! I’ve tried eating grains that are on the low glycemic scale – perfect for breakfast right before your arduous 45 minute spin class. I’ve been cutting out red meat, eating my chicken thigh skinless, drinking more water. And what of that? All to make cookies, right?

I’ve long boasted that I didn’t have a sweet tooth. A year ago, you could have put a plate of cookies right in front of me and I wouldn’t have touched a single crumb. And now, I’m all “Oh, maybe I’ll just sample the flavor, have a little bite” and before you know it, I’m pouring myself a glass of milk, while the second or third cookie is firmly clenched between my teeth. I mean, really, we can’t even walk past Billy’s anymore without a little treat! I think the gods are finally having their revenge on me – I shouldn’t have boasted so!

So when KS and I finished dinner on Sunday and I looked at him ever-so-demurely and said “Mmm… we SO need dessert,” he shot me a coy look and said, “Cookies!”
“But baby, Billy’s is a long walk away,” I disagreed, at which point, my darling, lovely, sweet man, poked me squarely in the arm and said “Cookies!” with even more conviction.

What, now? Cookies? At this bewitching Sunday night hour, when all I wanted to do was read the travails of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy and wait for the new episode of “Curb”? But, KS knows, and you should also know, that I cannot deny him anything. Not when he makes that sweet, innocent face – that face I cannot resist, and so at 9pm, on a Sunday night, I resolved to make peanut butter cookies. The recipe for which I did not have.

And after looking all around to many a good reputable recipe site, I simply typed “peanut butter cookies” into Google search and got a recipe right from Elise’s fantastic site! Which is the recipe I made and the cookies turned out to be SO good, I had to write her a personal thank you note, because let’s face it, 10 years ago before a first recipe was posted by a food blogger, I would have had to wait til Monday when I would have to go to a physical bookstore (and you know I heart Amazon) and find a book with a peanut butter cookie recipe. How internet has satisfied the instant gratification in all our hearts! I added some white chocolate chips to the dough – and created a sublimely delicious cookie worthy of seconds and thirds and accompanied by a tall, cold glass of milk.

I suppose there’s always a back-to-back double spin class session on Sundays I can attend to make up for the gluttony of the week!

Continue reading peanut butter cookies.

You know I sometimes forget that what I consider utter and sublime perfection might not be that sublime or perfect for someone else. It never ceases to amaze me though, because I, ignorantly, like to think of bliss as universal and indisputable, but of course, that’s never true. For example those cookies that sent me into sheer cookie heaven, were not even remotely blissful for KS. In fact, he confessed a few days ago, to not even liking them in the least – he preferred those cookies instead. Sacrilege as it may be to proclaim a dark, deeply rich, chocolate cookie as untasty; it does remind me that what’s good for the goose, isn’t necessarily goose for the gander. So the quest to make a cookie for KS that he’d like, nay, love was on – big time.

So there’s a little place we like to have brunch at, Kitchenette – it’s got a homey feel with country style brunches, neverending servings of grits, home made biscuits with strawberry butter and breakfast enchiladas that I can’t get enough of. Orange juice comes in Mason jars, tables are made of painted doors with glass tops. It’s a little bit of South, or at least the feeling of it anyway, crammed into a tiny Tribeca space. And upon entering the first thing you see are these decadent cookies piled on cake stands – peanut butter cookie sandwiches, macaroons and Linzer cookies. And it’s the Linzer that caught KS attention.

I’ve always liked a good Linzer cookie, but the whole construction of them scared me off a bit. This isn’t some drop cookie that you just let back and then enjoy. This involves using a cookie form, then making an additional hole in half the cookie disks, then baking, then cooling. And finally dropping a generous dollop of raspberry jam on a whole piece and put the holey piece on top. There, now that I’ve written it, it doesn’t seem that bad at all, but for some reason, in my head, when I thought about it – whoa, that’s a lot of steps.

Given my recent baking, um, endeavors so to speak I was a bit apprehensive about giving this cookie dough a go. First I failed at pie dough and then, as if that wasn’t enough, the upside-down plum cake visual appearance gave me nightmares for awhile. The humidity today made me particularly nervous – because I’ve been told humidity and dough are not friends. But I was not to be deterred, weather or not.

The dough did give me some trouble – after I chilled it and was trying to roll it, it went all kinds of broken on me. Too sticky, too unpliable, it was holding on to the granite for dear life, until I sprinkled enough flour on it to make it work with me – which means for all you out there, if you try this recipe – do not dismay if your dough doesn’t cooperate. There is a way to fix it! Also, if you roll the dough between the two sheets of plastic wrap, it tends to work better.

Also, we didn’t have hazelnuts as the recipe require, so I used pine nuts instead, which didn’t hurt the end results at all.

And finally, do not dismay if you don’t have the fancy forms for your cookie cut-outs. I didn’t – and used a small metal cup for the outline, and a tiny kettle top to get the small circles out for the tops of my cookies. In a way, it made the cookie construction that much more fun, albeit, they didn’t have that perfect Linzer look. Still, they tasted pretty heavenly to me and to KS. I guess there’s a cookie we can both agree on, even though it doesn’t involve chocolate.

Continue reading linzer cookies.

Ever since I’ve become an avid 24 devotee, I’ve been far more sensitive to phrases that contain the word “nuclear” in them. And it doesn’t help that Fox News totally exploits that just-right-after-24-paranoia that sets in when you start thinking that everyone’s out to get you.

Usually, though not always, the word is linked to either Iran, or North Korea. Sometimes, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s name comes up, sometime it doesn’t. For someone who is politically aware, yet for some reason has trouble pronouncing the name Ahmadinejad, (AH-MA-DI-NE-JAD – I think I got it, maybe) I find wars and war terminology polarizing.

On the one hand, the history geek in me, realizes that wars have happened historically and however unfortunate are a way of social development. Or at least they have been in the past. On the other hand, I shudder at what damage war can do to a generation. The sacrifice it takes. And how, no matter what we say, whether or not we are in support or against any war, those who fight and come back are still underappreciated by the rest of us, who have no approximation of what it’s like out there.

With that in mind, I have quite the desire to make a super huge batch of these cookies, that have been making their way around the blogosphere and dispatch it to Ahmadinejad as well as Kim Jong-il. I’ll put them in pretty tins, include the recipes, and perhaps try to convince them that if they shift production to these cookies instead of nuclear whatevers, their economy will prosper – everyone in the world will want to buy their cookies (because let’s face it, there’s only a handful of us with baking fetishes).

Whether or not this is effective, I, myself, feel subdued and somewhat floating when I have these with a glass of milk. I went through an entire batch in 2 days. And while KS had a few cookies here and there (he’s not as much of a chocolate freak as I am, tant pis!), the damage done was pretty much by me. And while these might not be good for the waistline, they are certainly good for the soul. Various bloggers have been making them and hailing them as world’s greatest cookies. And at first, I was on the fence, skeptical and unsure. I mean, how good could they really be?

Well, I hate to say I was wrong to doubt the praise, but I was wrong. These cookies are the greatest things invented in cookie land – so dark and rich the chocolate, they’re frighteningly and unfairly good.

And while I might not find success with stopping world nuclear armament, I find myself more congenial to mankind after I have a few of these little circles of perfection.

World peace? Perhaps not overnight, but maybe as bloggers all over the world circulate these cookies, who knows, the joke might turn into a reality.

Continue reading world peace cookies – korova cookies.

Now I am not normally someone who you’d say has a sweet tooth. I can walk past bakeries and cupcake shops without a problem. I almost never order dessert and don’t keep any sugary snacks at home save for some dark chocolate from Scharffen Berger.

However, the holiday spirit calls to me. Be it Channukah or Christmas, I answer to the festive call like a Pavlovian dog salivates hearing the bell ring. And what is truly bizarre is that the sweets I concoct are consumed by someone other than me. I enjoy making them. And then giving them away! I know what you’re thinking – weirdo – and I completely agree. What sane person would not eat homemade sweet goodies? Exactly!

While Thanksgiving came and went, my longing for Thanksgiving flavors haven’t yet been satiated. As far as I’m concerned, I’m still reliving the last Thursday of November with much gusto. A little pumpkin something here, some cranberry something there. Which is probably why the white chocolate cookies with cranberries and pine nuts appealed to me so much this time of year.

Normally, I like to create my own recipes and share them with you, but when it comes to cookies, I rely heavily on books, magazines and cooking shows. While I love to bake and create desserts, I like to follow exact measurements and proportions to get the job done. Some say that while cooking is an art, baking is a science and I couldn’t agree more. Thus, for this recipe, which I spied in the December 2006 issue of Bon Appetit I consulted the trusty Epicurious.com and instead of macadamia nuts, used pine nuts which I find a bit more buttery in flavor.

I’ll confess to you now, that I got the steps of the beginning mixing process a bit wrong and had to throw in an extra egg to make it a bit more moist. However, this proves to me something I suspected all along – you can’t really mess up a drop cookie recipe. For baking times, I think it all depends on your oven. Some are hotter than others and while mine takes about 12 minutes to bake a batch of cookies, yours might be a few minutes more.

Continue reading cookies with white chocolate, pine nuts, and dried cranberries.