Cookies? I don't want any cookies!

Well, I did it. I broke my "no processed foods" rule. And my "meat-is-only-for-special-occasions" guideline. I've been having a lot of low-level nausea lately, and I haven't been wanting to cook for myself at all, not even to chop celery. So I gave in and bought some frozen prepared veggies, a premade rice side dish, and a cut of beef. The beef will go in the crockpot with onion soup mix, and the others will be cooked in the microwave. I suppose it's better than soybeans and bread for dinner, or maybe banana with peanut butter and a piece of bread.

Seriously, I've been having some of the weirdest meals lately. I just don't have much appetite, and I don't have the energy to cook things that I really don't want to eat anyway. Sometimes I do crave "real food," but not enough to do the work to make it show up in front of me. :-) So that's why I haven't been posting "real food" recipes lately. There's no recipe for soybeans and bread. You zap the soybeans and butter the bread--not much cooking there. If I'm feeling adventurous I might even make up a batch of biscuits, and if they're Bisquick biscuits I'll make sure to burn them a bit so they taste better. In any event, I'm trying to hit all the food groups, even if my meals have been a little odd.

I was pretty pathetic yesterday at the grocery store trying to figure out what I'd eat for the week. I didn't want food at all, but I was taking it on faith that I would probably want it at some point in the future. My thought process (and some talking under my breath) went something like this:
(look at something) Ick. (and something else) Ick. (and something that sounds really terrible) ick.ick.ICK! okay Rose, calm down, you don't have to get that... (repeat over and over)
I suppose someday I'll have a child saying that to me.

But I have been baking cookies. I'm not sure how I have energy for that. I think it's just habit: Christmastime means baking cookies. The one consolation is that I don't have to eat them. Yes, I mean that. I've baked double batches of three kinds of cookies so far, and I doubt I've eaten more than ten cookies. The toffee I've been making appeals to me, so I've eaten more of that than of the cookies. I think it tastes good because of the dark chocolate, because that settles my stomach. (Whole grains do, too: whole wheat bread, whole wheat biscuits, raw oats...)

In two weeks, I have a doctor appointment with a top-notch doctor, and we'll try to figure out this nausea thing. Until then, it's Tums for dessert, and in that sense I'm getting plenty of dessert. ;-) And I don't mind, honestly. I'm grateful for what I do get to enjoy, and I have a blessedly short memory for side effects. I know this isn't the first Christmas season I've had nausea, but I can't specifically remember any of the others. Isn't that wonderful? The Lord is so kind.

And, of course, the most fun part about cookies is giving them away.

Almond Spritz Cookies

 

I have to start off by saying THANK YOU to my mom for the spritz press she sent me. It's a Kuhn Rikon brand, and it works wonderfully. It's so easy to use. I think she found it at HomeGoods, and soon afterwards, I found it in the mail, to my surprise and delight. It actually has a few features that are nicer than my great-grandmother's cookie press (which we have at home, and which I've used for many years). I almost feel like a traitor saying that, but maybe one day my great-grandchildren will like this one the way I've enjoyed my great-grandmother's, and so it'll be all right.

Spritz cookies are fun because you put them through the press and they come out in wonderful shapes. They look so fancy! The directions say that they should be delicately browned, but if you burn them a little, don't worry, because the slightly burnt ones are the best. And, of course, the burnt ones don't look nice enough to give away, so you have to keep those...

If you haven't used a spritz press before, be patient with it. You raise the presser-thing up as high as it will go, insert dough in the tube (fill it as full as you can), put a disk with holes in it on the end, and screw the thing that keeps the disk in place over the disk. The cookie sheet must be cold and ungreased (it can't have a nonstick coating, and you can't use parchment paper or aluminum foil, because the dough has to stick to the cookie sheet). Put the cookie press on the sheet, click the handle, and raise the press just after you click. Every time you click the handle, enough dough for one cookie will come out. But the first four or five will never come out properly. For those, scrape the dough off the press and throw it back into the bowl. After that, you should start getting good cookies. The shape will change a little as they bake, since they spread out somewhat. Remove them from the cookie sheet with a very thin spatula as soon as they come out of the oven. Note that some shapes will cook faster than others, so expect variations in cooking time.

If, as you click the press, the dough starts coming out of places other than the holes in the disk, you haven't assembled it properly. Try to find out where it's undone, so you don't lose any more dough. You may have to throw some dough away if it's stained with metal ickiness (especially if your press is old). I've also heard the cookies will come out better if you don't use food coloring and if you don't refrigerate the dough.

I made a double batch of these cookies with my landlady a couple of days ago, and we had so much fun. We used every cookie sheet in the house (hers and mine combined), and we made lots and lots of cookies. We burnt some, and we broke some, and we ate some, but we still ended up with plenty of good ones. She's making plans to borrow my cookie press after I leave to go home for Christmas.


Almond Spritz Cookies

1 c. butter (must be butter)
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg or 3 yolks, beaten (note: if you make a meringue something, save the yolks for this)
2 1/2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. almond extract

Work butter until soft and cream with sugar until light. Add beaten egg and almond flavoring and beat smooth. Add the flour sifted with salt and baking powder. The dough may be rolled and cut with fancy cutters or molded in a cookie press. Fill the press and force onto ungreased cold cookie sheet. Bake in a hot oven at 400° until delicately browned.

Chocolate Fudge Candy Cookies

 

These are nice because they don't require a mixer (I only have a hand mixer). However, it takes a sturdy spoon to ply the dough out of the pot after it's chilled, and your spoon may bend a little (don't use your best spoon). A grapefruit spoon may be helpful. As to letting the dough chill, you can put it in your garage if it's cold enough. I don't have my own garage, so I put it just inside my door to take advantage of the cold window and the slight drafts. I would have put it in the fridge, but that was crammed full of boxes of butter and heads of celery.

My mom got this recipe from a co-worker of hers back in the 70s. One year she gave the recipe to a friend who didn't realize that you have to bake the cookies, and the friend wondered why her cookies didn't turn out like my mom's...


Chocolate Fudge Candy Cookies

In top of double boiler:
Melt 9 oz. chocolate chips (about 1 1/2 cups); 2 T. oleo (margarine) and a pinch of salt.

Add 1 can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk.
Add 1 c. sifted flour. Mix well.

I put the cover on and let it cool off for awhile in the refrigerator.

Lightly grease cookie sheets. Form mixture into small balls and put on cookie sheets. Place 1 pecan or walnut on top (can also use M&Ms). Bake at 350º for 10-11 min. Makes 50-60.



This is especially good with dark chocolate chips. By the way, we don't use a double boiler for this. We just do it in a regular pot

Secret Kiss Cookies

I've been baking cookies lately. It's a tradition in our family: every December we run the "cookie factory." There are seven different kinds of cookies we make, and we usually make double batches of them because we give so many away. It's a little different here with my toaster oven, but I've done toffee and chocolate fudge cookies in my own kitchen, and I'm finding other kitchens to bake in, too. I pay in cookies. People seem to like that.

My favorite part about the "cookie factory" is that we can make Christmas a little brighter for some people who wouldn't have much Christmas cheer otherwise. And if that means we use 15 pounds of flour (we've been known to do that), that's fine with us. I've used at least 5 pounds so far.

All that to say, if any of you want to join in our tradition, I'm going to post our recipes. The first one, Secret Kiss Cookies, comes from a newspaper article that my grandma read many years ago. We've been making them ever since. This is a nice recipe for kids to help with, since they can unwrap the kisses and "hide" them inside the dough. (Since there are no eggs in the dough, it's also safe for kids to eat.) I made a double batch of these yesterday, and two boys (ages 5 and 8, I think) unwrapped 100+ kisses and rolled most of the cookies. I stood by pinching off the extra dough from their cookies, so that we could make as many as possible. When the time came to lick the bowl, we didn't have any trouble finding volunteers...





Secret Kiss Cookies

1 c. soft butter
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 c. finely chopped walnuts
1 package milk (or dark) chocolate kisses
Confectioners sugar

Beat at medium speed butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add flour and nuts; beat at low speed till well blended. Chill dough. Remove foil from kisses. Using about a teaspoon of dough, shape it around a kiss and roll gently into a ball. Be sure to cover kiss completely. Place on ungreased cookiesheet. Bake in a preheated 375 oven for about 12 or until cookies are set but not brown. Cool slightly; remove to wire rack. While still warm, roll in confectioners sugar. Cool. Store in tightly covered container. Makes about 40 cookies.

Toffee

 

Yum. This recipe is almost too good to share, but my landlady convinced me.

This is a pretty easy recipe. It comes from this wonderful cookbook, and it's not that hard, but make sure to be careful. Sugar burns are probably the worst kitchen burns, so wear close-toed shoes, use potholders or oven mitts, and by all means, don't taste any of it until you're absolutely sure it's cool. If you want to try it while cooking, spoon some out and let it harden or run it under cold water before you try it.

Prepare a 5" x 7" baking dish by buttering it (using a stick of butter). Don't use a nonstick pan unless you don't mind if the coating gets scratched--toffee is terribly hard to cut. In the bottom of the pan, put a single layer of sliced or slivered almonds.

On a cutting board, cut 4-6 oz. of chocolate into fine shavings. Put aside, but have it ready.

Measure 8 oz. of sugar on a kitchen scale. Put this into a small, sturdy pot and add 8 oz. of butter (two sticks). Use a spoon or butter knife to chop the butter into chunks. Put your pan over medium heat and start stirring. It'll take about 20 minutes to do the on-the-stove part.

When the butter is melted, add 1 t. vanilla. From here, the toffee will start to look stranger and stranger. It'll bubble a lot and be really slippery. Keep stirring until the sugar melts. When it has a light toffee-like color, and when it won't stick to a silicone spatula at all, and when there's water collecting around the edges on the top, it's done. Pour it evenly over the almonds and sprinkle the chocolate on top. The almonds will get toasted and the chocolate will melt because the sugar is so hot. Let the toffee harden overnight before you cut it.

When you cut the toffee, toffee shards will fly everywhere, so do yourself a favor and choose a spot that can be easily cleaned up. I mistakenly chose the kitchen table for the first batch, and now I have toffee shards all over the carpet. Use a sharp, sturdy knife. Don't expect to get even squares, because you won't. You'll get jagged pieces, plus a bunch of crumbs (which, of course, are the cook's prerogative). I intended to use the toffee crumbs in another cookie recipe, but then I realized they wouldn't stick around long enough to be used.

Note: After you put the toffee in the pan and cover it with the chocolate, the remaining toffee will harden pretty quickly in the pan, but it's too hot to eat right away. Scrape the leftover junk from the pan into a small bowl, and you can eat it from there after it hardens. It'll be a little grainier than the toffee will be, but it's a nice foretaste.

Further note: If you don't have a silicone spatula, don't stir the toffee with a plastic spatula, because the plastic spatula will melt. That's why they make silicone spatulas.


Update: If your toffee doesn't turn out, make it into some of this...

Chocolate-Oat Bars

This is a simple dessert, but I like it because it takes something luxurious (dark chocolate) and stretches it with two ordinary and cheap ingredients (half-and-half and oats).

Needless to say, it will only be as good as the chocolate you use. The best cheap source of baking chocolate I've found is Trader Joe's Pound Plus bars--you get more than a pound of chocolate for under $5, and it tastes good, too. But you can use any type of chocolate that you'd be willing to eat "as is."

Lately I've been reading the book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. It gives simple ratios for doughs and batters, mostly. If you like inventing recipes, it's a wonderful book and you should go buy it. The recipe here for ganache is from that cookbook. The other inventions are my own. This cookbook often measures by weight rather than volume because that makes the ratios work, so you'll need to get out the kitchen scale for this recipe.

You will need three ingredients: chocolate, half-and-half, and oats.

This recipe is based upon ganache, a chocolate and cream mixture. When ganache is hot, you can use it as chocolate sauce, like on ice cream. When it's cold, you can roll it into balls and make truffles out of it.

Measure out equal amounts of chocolate and half-and-half by weight. (The recipe calls for cream, not half-and-half, but it's a very flexible recipe and I didn't want to go buy cream.) I think I used 6 oz. chocolate and 6 oz. cream. Chop the chocolate into roughly equal-sized chunks and put it in a medium-sized bowl. It's better to err on the side of the bowl being too big. I know this--I really do--but for some reason I used a too-small bowl and made a mess as a result. Oh well.

Put the cream in a small pot and heat it gently (low to medium heat) on the stove for a few minutes. As soon as it starts to simmer (make a few bubbles that weren't there before), take it off the heat right away and pour it over the chocolate. DO NOT TOUCH for five minutes. After that, take a whisk (it must be a whisk--I tried a spoon and got the aforementioned mess, but a whisk worked perfectly) and gently stir the cream and chocolate together. Now you have ganache.

Get out the oats and pour in a lot. I must have used at least three cups, but it may have been more than that. Add as many as the ganache will comfortably hold. You want the ganache to hold the oats together, not the other way around.

Now spread out a large piece of wax paper or parchment paper on the countertop and tape it down. (Parchment paper works better, but wax paper is much cheaper and it will do, so that's what I chose.) You should have at least two feet of it. Put the ganache mixture on the wax paper and spread it out with a spatula. Put another piece of wax paper over the top of the ganache mixture, and press down with your hands so that it's all about the same thickness, 1/4 to 1/2 inch. Now leave it to harden. If you have fridge space, it'll harden pretty fast in the fridge, maybe in an hour or so. I have no fridge space, so I left it on the countertop for six hours.

When it's hardened, peel off the top layer of wax paper and then replace the wax paper on top. Now flip it over (wax paper on the bottom) and remove the wax paper from the top. Now it's been loosened from the wax paper. Slide it onto a large cutting board and cut it into small squares (a large cleaver works nicely for this).

 

Store the bars in a container in the fridge. Yum.

Note: If you want your chocolate bars to be sweeter, you can add corn syrup to the ganache, or you can dust the bars with powdered sugar at the end.

Cherry Pork Roast

Apparently this recipe is famous in our church. I'm not surprised. It's so good! I don't even know who it started with, but it seems like almost everyone in the church has made it at some point or another. I adapted it for some friends who can't eat sugar or other sweeteners (except for honey). I'm not much for sugar, either, and I actually like the low-sugar version better.

This recipe is intended for Sunday dinner, which is the meal after morning-church. It's a large and joyful meal, and a lot of fun. My kitchen may be modest, but this week I had six people over for Sunday dinner. It was delightful.

Make-ahead tip: You can make the sauce in advance, cool it, refrigerate it, and when you want to use it, heat it in the microwave on half power until it's the same consistency it was when you made it on the stove. My new "stove" didn't come until yesterday, so my landlady was kind enough to let me use hers to make the sauce two days in advance. She also provided the white wine vinegar. I have the best landlady ever.


Cherry Pork Roast

4-5 lb. Boston Butt roast or other pork shoulder cut, frozen

Place frozen roast in crockpot on LOW the night before serving. If the crockpot has an auto shut-off feature, make sure to turn it off and turn it back on partway through the cooking time so that the auto shut-off doesn't interfere.

An hour before serving, after noon the next day, make the sauce:

16-20 oz cherry spreadable fruit (it's with the jams and jellies, but it's sweetened only with fruit)
2 T honey
1/4 C white wine vinegar (the recipe says red, but I like the white better)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Combine sauce ingredients in pan. Bring to boil, stirring. Reduce heat and simmer 1 minute. Remove from heat.

Remove meat from crockpot onto a plate (it'll shred on its own) and drain grease from crockpot. (I learned this weekend that if you pour the grease down the drain, it'll coat your pipes like it would coat your arteries. Happily, I didn't learn that by experience.) Trim the fat off the roast, discard, and return meat to crockpot. Cover with sauce. Cook on LOW for 30 minutes to an hour more. Serve with sauce.