Coconut - Orange Snowballs

In true holiday spirit, the last cookies we chose to make for the party are called snowball cookies!
They look like little balls of snow, but taste like a mix between a powdered donut and citrus / coconut cookie - delish!
The cookies are actually dusted with powdered sugar twice. This first picture was taken after the first dose of powdered sugar. As soon as the cookies came out of the oven we rolled them in the powdered sugar.

After letting the cookies cool, we sprinkled even more powdered sugar to give them the true snowball effect. My kitchen was covered in powdered sugar by the end, but it was easy to clean and totally worth it. These little treasures taste just like they fell from heaven.
I didn't have any coconut extract, so I substituted lemon extract for a little extra citrus kick. The combination of the orange peel, lemon, and coconut create fireworks in your mouth - these cookies are a must have for any holiday party.

Recipe to follow...

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups sweetened flaked coconut

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 1/4 cups sifted powdered sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 teaspoon coconut extract

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons grated orange peel

1/2 teaspoon salt

Methods:

1) Preheat oven to 350*F. Bake coconut on rimmed baking sheet until light golden, stirring occasionally, about 12 minutes.

2) Using electric mixer, beat butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, and both extracts in bowl to blend well. Beat in flour, orange peel, and salt. Stir in coconut. Cover and chill at least 1 hour and up to 1 day. Soften sough slightly before shaping.

3) Preheat oven to 350*F. line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. using 1 tablespoon dough for each cookie, roll dough between palms of hands into balls. Place on prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart. Bake until golden on bottom but pale on top, about 18 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks; cool 5 minutes. Place remaining 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar in bowl. Roll hot cookies in powdered sugar, covering completely. Cool cookies on rack. Roll cookies in powdered sugar again, coating generously

Recipe courtesy of: Epicurous December, 2003

Lil Kaplan's Rugelach

The second cookie we made for our holiday party is Rugelach - I had to add a little Jewish pride to mix of Christmas themed cookies.
My good friend Ronnie makes the best Rugelach I have ever had, so I used the same recipe.

Again, I used my apricot jam in this recipe. We filled some with just sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon, and some had all of the fillings. We added mini chocolate chips to some because who doesn't love chocolate?! The picture below is filled with cinnamon, sugar, walnuts, apricot jam, AND mini chocolate chips - YUM.
Again, this dough needed to be chilled for an hour, but was MUCH easier to work with than the Linzer cookie dough, and the process was a bit easier too. It was so much fun to roll all of the ingredients up into pretty swirls.
The Rugelach came out of the oven with a crispy outside and a sweet inside. I didn't think this recipe made enough cookies, so I may double it next time. I am traveling to Israel next month and hear they have the best Rugelach EVER - so keep an eye out for round 2 of Rugelach making in February.
My Rugelach didn't come out quite as great as Ronnie's, but they were quite delicious! With some practice I may be able to give her a run for her money!

Recipe to follow...

Pastry:

2c flour

1/2lb. unsalted butter

3/4c sour cream (I used 'light' sour cream like a good dietitian)

1 egg yolk

Combine all ingredients in food processor (I used a mixer) until it forms a ball. Chill for 1 hour.

Filling:

3/4c sugar

3/4c finely chopped walnuts

1tsp cinnamon

(I added mini chocolate chips too)

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl

Procedure:

Cut ball of dough into fourths. Roll each piece into a 1/4 inch thick circle and cut into sixteenths (wedges). Put about 1/2tsp filling on fat end of each wedge. Roll towards the point.

Place rolled rugelach on an ungreased cookie sheet and back for 30 minutes at 375*F until lightly browned.

Linzer Cookies

I had a holiday luncheon at work this week so Kitchen M, a friend, and I decided to bake cookies for the party rather than buying dessert. After 4 hours of baking, we came out with plates and plates of cookies.

These first cookies were the most difficult to make, but they were also the most delicious.
Unfortunately, It wasn't until we had the nuts cooked and the dough made that we realized that the dough had to be chilled for at least 2 hours... I think this is the most diffcult recipe / production I have tried during my short cooking career.

The dough came out of the refrigerator very hard, but warmed up and softened quickly. Once the dough got soft it was very difficult to work with, so we had to continually stick it back in the refrigerator to cool down. - took much longer to get the cookies in the oven than expected!
The kitchen was filled with wonderful aromas while the cookies were baking! I made apricot jam in June and have lots of jars left, so we used the apricot jam rather than the raspberry jam the recipe calls for. We were able to make a little more than 2 dozen cookies - I guess the cookies were thinner than the recipe says. The cookies are not too sweet, but the combination of the apricot jam and the hazelnuts is to die for!
The cookies were a HUGE hit at work and everyone is telling me how delicious they are. I guess it was worth all of the time!

Recipe to follow:
Ingredients:

2/3c hazelnuts (3oz)

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2 sticks (1cup) unsalted butter, softened

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 12-oz jar seedless raspberry jam

special: A 2 to 2 1/4-inch fluted round cookie cutter and assorted 1/2-inch shaped cookie cutters

Methods:

1. Put oven rack in muddle position and preheat oven to 350*F

2. Toast hazelnuts in a shallow baking pan until fragrant and skins begin to loosen, about 6 minutes. Rub nuts in a kitchen towel to remove any loose skins (some skins may not come off). then cool to room temperature. Pulse nuts and 1/4c brown sugar in a food processor until nuts are finely ground.

3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl.

4. Beat together butter and remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add nut mixture and beat until combined well, about 1 minute. Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until just combined.

5. With floured hands, form dough into 2 balls and flatten each into a 5-inch disk. Chill disks, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 2 hours.

6. Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350*F.

7. Roll out 1 disk of dough into 11-inch round (1/8 inch thick) between 2 sheets of wax paper (keep remaining dough chilled). If dough becomes too soft to roll out, re wrap in plastic and chill until firm.

8. Cut out as many cookies as possible from dough with larger cookie cutter and transfer to 2 ungreased large baking sheets, arranging about 1 inch apart. Using smaller cutters, cut out centers fro half of the cookies, reserving centers and re-rolling along with scraps.

9. Bake cookies, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until edges are golden, 10-15minutes total, then transfer with a metal spatula to racks to cool completely. Make more cookies from second disk.

10. Spread about 1 teaspoon jam on flat side of 1 solid cookie and sandwich jam with flat side of 1 windowed cookie. Sandwich remaining cookies in the same manner.

No nutrition info for this recipe - sorry! But from the taste of the cookies, I don't think we want to know!

Recipe courtesy of: epicurious, DECEMBER 2008

Breakfast for Dinner

Yesterday my friend, Kitchen M, brought me one of her fabulous Buttermilk English Muffins to taste. I forgot to eat it at work and brought it home. When I got home from work, my mother said that she was craving Joe's Special (usually a breakfast item). Quite a coincidence that I had an English muffin waiting for me too, so breakfast for dinner it was!

My mom found this recipe on Epicurious and we started cooking.

1. Crack the eggs into a small bowl and add the Tabasco, salt, basil, and pepper. Whisk just enough to combine; you should still see large bubbles. Set aside

2. Warm the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until soft but not beginning to brown, about 4 minutes. Add the ground turkey and continue cooking until uniformly brown, breaking the meat into small pieces as it cooks. Cover with the spinach, place a lid over the mixture, and cook for about 3 minutes, just until the spinach wilts.

3. Stir the spinach into the meat, cooking briefly to eliminate excess liquid if the mixture seems watery. Pour the egg mixture over it all, stirring with a spatula from the bottom until the eggs begin to set. Remove from the heat and stir a few more times, as the eggs cook through from the residual heat. Serve immediately.

I spread some pumpkin butter on the English muffin and enjoyed this yummy breakfast for dinner. This was simple and quick to make and totally delicious! I made some alterations, additions and substitutions to the recipe we found to make it a little healthier and nutrient dense - take a look below.

Ingredients:

6 large eggs ( I used 3 whole eggs and 4 egg white)

Splash or two of Tabasco or other hot pepper sauce ( I used Trader Joe's hot chili sauce and used it to top the scramble as well)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon dried basil or oregano ( I used both)

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon unsalted butter ( I skipped the butter)

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1/2 pound lean freshly ground beef ( I used ground turkey)

3/4 to 1 Pound fresh spinach ( Naturally, I used a pound)

I also added about 1/2 c of sliced white mushrooms and one medium sized baked potato cut into cubes.

It was so much fun to cook with my mom for a change - and she didn't even tell me I was cooking to slowly!

Recipe courtesy of: Epicurious, February 2002 ; A Real American Breakfast

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

I have had the itch to bake all weekend and finally had 2 hours of free time today, so I needed to find a quick, delicious recipe with ingredients that were likely in my pantry.

Under the title of this recipe in my Cooking Light cookbook it says, "This simple mix-and-drop dough comes together in minutes and may not even require a shopping trip, thanks to its pantry-friendly ingredients". How perfect is that? So chocolate peanut butter cookies it was!

I thought I had all of the ingredients, so I started mixing....

When it came time to add the canola oil, I realized I only had olive oil. At this point I was already investing in my baking project, so I figured what the heck? It will be an experiment, right? Also, my subconscious RD voice kicked in - between the peanut butter and the olive oil these cookies are going to be loaded with healthy monounsaturated fats!

After making the banana bread , I put a thermometer in my oven to tell the the exact temperature. Turns out when I set my oven to preheat to 350*, it really only gets up to 325* - Something I definitely need to keep in mind from now on.

The recipe says to bake the cookies for 12 minutes or until golden. The cookies took about 15 minutes to turn golden in my silly oven, I was still able to get them done within the 2 hours.

The cookies came out pretty good. They aren't like 'normal' peanut butter cookies that are dry and crumbly. They taste more like chocolate chip cookies with a peanut butter taste.

They came out a little dense, probably because I used olive oil - but DELICIOUS none the less.

Since everyone at work has been nagging me to bring my creations in, I baked some extra cookies for everyone to enjoy tomorrow!

Recipe to follow:

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup canola oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 large egg whites

1 large egg

12 ounces all-purpose flour (about 2 2/3 cups)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup semisweet chocolate minichips

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 350*

2. Combine first 8 ingredients in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.

3. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl; stir with a whisk. Add flour mixture to peanut butter mixture, stirring just until combined. Stir in minichips. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on 2 baking sheets. Bake at 350* for 12 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Yield: 3 dozen (serving size: 1 cookie)

Nutrition Facts: Calories: 128 ; Fat: 4.5g ; Iron: 0.8mg ; Cholesterol: 6mg ; Calcium: 16mg ; Carbohydrate: 20.5g ; Sodium: 106mg ; Protein: 2.3g ; Fiber: 0.6g

Recipe courtesy of: Cooking Light, DECEMBER 2008

Linguine with Scallops and Veggies

After eating out almost every night for the past couple of weeks, I decided a home cooked meal was in order. I have discovered that working all week does not leave much time for grocery shopping, so I didn't have much to work with. We had frozen scallops, frozen mixed vegetables, pasta (of course) and various leftovers from previous recipes.

I boiled a pot of water for linguine; which up until I started this blog was about the extent of my cooking skills... Threw some olive oil, red onions, vegetable broth, garlic, and basil into a skillet to cook the scallops, heated up the frozen veggies in the microwave, and mixed it all together.

This dish was not overwhelming with flavor, but it wasn't terrible either! I sprinkled a little parmesan cheese on top (my favorite) and it turned out to be a nice little dinner. My motto is that anything with parmesan cheese is delicious - I rarely eat pasta or pizza without it.

I have always been skeptical about coking without a recipe, but practicing with Cooking Light recipes has definitely build up my confidence!