Holiday Baking and More

Baking Christmas cookies with Grandpa Wally somehow seemed to signify the start of the holiday season for me. We would have a whole afternoon devoted to cranking out dozens of cookies, and then freeze them in batch varieties to eat at various holiday dinners.

My favorite holiday cookie is a Russian Tea Cake. Some people know these cookies as Mexican Wedding Cookies, or Crescents, but I've always called them Russian Tea Cakes. A delicious walnut, or pecan, studded butter dough is baked in small rounds to a very light golden brown. Then, the cookies are cooled slightly, and dropped into a Ziploc Bag filled with Powdered Sugar. Because the cookies are still warm, the powdered sugar sticks to the outside of the cookie, and creates this beautiful white crust. They are magical.

Once I moved 3,000 miles away from my immediate family, there was no telling what each year would bring for me. Snow often factors into my travels plans, but this year it was my vacation time and finances that kept me from baking with Grandpa Wally. Next Year Grandpa-I promise!

Left to create some of my own holiday baking memories, I decided to surprise my cousins with this snack mix that has been discontinued from Trader Joe's. This is not your garden variety trail mix-this is culinary bliss. Trader Joe's donned the name Nuts About Chocolate and Coconut. For me it was my culinary crack! Besides a lightly salted deluxe variety of mixed nuts-meaning no boring peanuts-there are chunks of chocolate and paper thin shavings of freshly toasted coconut.

If I was going to re-create a mixture like Nuts About C&C, I had to make it even better than I remembered it. So, instead of one kind of chocolate, I used three: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and milk chocolate with almonds. I also amped up the amount of coconut in the snack mix.

Now toasting fresh curls of coconut was not in my forte, so I turned to my pal Martha Stewart to guide me along. After draining the coconut water, and cracking the coconuts in half, I rinsed the insides out, and lay the shells flesh side up in the oven-all according to her instructions. Now, I have to say that I love Martha to pieces, but it took nearly an hour to pop the flesh from the shells, as opposed to her quoted time of thirty minutes. It's okay Martha, I forgive you!

After successfully cracking the flesh from the shells, I peeled off the dark leathery brown skin. I began to shave ribbons of coconut into a large bowl. After each coconut half was successfully turned into ribbons of white, I lay it all out to be toasted in a very low oven.

Being careful not to burn, or even over-brown the coconut, I kept a watchful eye on my handy kitchen timer. I started out with 12 minute intervals, tossing and rotating the coconut on the sheet tray. As the coconut took on a golden hue, I decreased the minutes on my timer. Eventually I was down to checking every 6 minutes. This took me nearly an hour, but was well worth all the effort.

I let the coconut cool completely, and gently tossed it together with the nuts and the chocolate. I found these great gift bags at Target, and my home-made version of Nuts About Chocolate and Coconut was complete!

Jury Duty! uh, I mean Soup and Salad!

As I am sitting here in the DC Court House, I thought to myself that this would be a great opportunity to FINALLY catch up on my blogging. Sorry to my avid readers, but I completely fell off the wagon this fall. But, I wanted to start the New Year, and New DECADE off right.

So, while I haven't been blogging, I have still been cooking, and I have been conjuring up new recipes. Years ago, I was working at this amazing restaurant where we used only organic ingredients. We would have a new soup every night, and one of my favorite soups was a butternut squash soup. What made this butternut squash soup so special was the addition of coconut milk. It added a subtle sweetness, and a richness, without the addition of dairy. It was a way to keep the soup vegan, but also get the creamier consistency that the addition of heavy cream would have yielded.

Every once in a while, I divert my carnivorous taste buds to savor the flavor or vegetables for a while. Since I was having friends over for dinner at this time in my life, they were subjected to a meat free dinner as well. But guess what? No one really missed the meat!

In addition to my Butternut Squash Soup, I made a salad of Butter Lettuce, Marinated Roasted Beets, Blue Cheese, and Toasted Walnuts. I originally was going to candy my walnuts, and had this grand idea to try caramelizing Brown Sugar. From past experience I knew that brown sugar needed to be dried out a bit before the attempt in caramelization.

So, I proceeded to caramelize the Brown Sugar in a small pan. This was just a plain disaster! I added some of my walnuts into the pan to become coated in the liquid golden sugar. The color turned quickly from golden, to dark amber, to BURNT! I decided right then and there that I was simply going to add toasted walnuts to the salad.

Sometimes these kinds of mistakes in the kitchen open my eyes to the notion that less is more. With the marriage of the slightly tart Marinated Beets, the creamy Blue Cheese, and the richness of toasted Walnuts, I had a harmonious combination of ingredients atop my favorite salad green-Butter Lettuce. I didn't really need the addition of caramelized sugar. I just thought I did.

With a hearty loaf of homemade bread, it was a truly Autumnal inspired meal.