Rosemary Butter Cookies

If my condo was burning down, I would grab the magazine this recipe is in. Once I thought I lost it, and I almost lost IT! I would have written to the Martha Stewart company begging for a replacement.

Anyway, I make these cookies every year for Thanksgiving. My mom and sister would have me disinvited if I didn't bring them! Rosemary is an unusual ingredient for cookies, I know, but if you like the scent of rosemary you will LOVE these cookies. They are incredibly good. And with the sugar on the the outside, they remind me of those tins of butter cookies, just homemade, and with a twist. I saw my baggie of rosemary from my parents' yard in the fridge and couldn't think of anything else to make but these.

When you roll the logs of dough, make them quite skinny so you will have cute small cookies. I use Turbinado sugar (or Sugar in the Raw) instead of sanding sugar since it's much cheaper and very good. Rosemary Butter Cookies
recipe from Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies magazine, 2006

Makes about 5 dozen

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg white, beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup fine sanding sugar

Put butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in whole egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour, rosemary, and salt, and mix until combined.
Halve dough; shape each half into a log. Place each log on a 12-by-16-inch sheet of parchment. Roll in parchment to 1 1/2 inches in diameter, pressing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow log. Transfer to paper-towel tubes to hold shape, and freeze until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375. Brush each log with egg white; roll in sanding sugar. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake until edges are golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Store in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

It has been cookie mania over here in my messy kitchen! I've made Potato Chip Cookies, Rosemary Butter Cookies, and these Chocolate Chunk ones. Of course, each one comes with it's own story, so here they are, one at a time.

We call these Mac Cookies because my grandmother, who we called Mac, made these by the thousand every time she visited us from Florida. They are by far the best thing she ever did for us kids, but hey, we'll take what we can get! The recipe is originally from the packaging of Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate, though they have changed the recipe since. I didn't add walnuts today, but I usually do (black walnuts when I can get my hands on them), or sometimes pecans. I get my chocolate from Trader Joes, and I use bittersweet, which is less sweet than semi-sweet. You can use either light or dark brown sugar, but I prefer dark. Especially if you add nuts, the batter seems extremely chunky, like there's not enough batter for the chunks of chocolate and nuts, but don't be alarmed! You can make small, bite sized cookies or huge ones and they will all be perfect, just adjust the cooking time a minute or so more or less.Chocolate Chunk Cookies
1-3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 pkg. (12 oz.) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts

HEAT oven to 375°F.

MIX flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

BEAT butter and sugars in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chunks and walnuts. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls on to ungreased cookie sheets.

BAKE 12 to 13 minutes or just until golden brown. Cool on cookie sheets 1 minutes. Remove to wire racks and cool completely.

Brie en Croute

Here is another recipe from our weekend at Deep Creek Lake. I placed the brie in a round glass oven-safe dish, rather than on a cookie sheet as called for, for easy transport in the cooler. It baked up perfectly in the dish, but I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the final product. I did paste at the bottom a picture from Foodtv.com where the recipe is listed.

This is one of those SIMPLE recipes that never fails to wow people. A 2 year old could make this. What makes this special is 1) it looks cool, 2) frozen puff pastry is such a great product and everyone is automatically impressed because it's not an everyday ingredient, and 3) Brie cheese is so delicious and special just on it's own. I'd make this much more often if Brie was less expensive, but the fact that it's a once-in-a-while dish also makes it special.Brie en Croute

recipe from The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook by Paula Deen

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, pre-packaged

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1/2 cup walnuts

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 (8-ounce) wheel Brie

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

Crackers, for serving

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Defrost puff pastry for approximately 15 to 20 minutes and unfold.

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Saute the walnuts in the butter until golden brown, approximately 5 minutes. Add the cinnamon and stir until walnuts are coated well. Place the walnut mixture on top of the Brie and sprinkle the brown sugar over the mixture.

Lay the puff pastry out on a flat surface. Place the brie in the center of the pastry. Gather up the edges of the brie, pressing around the brie and gather at the top. Gently squeeze together the excess dough and tie together with a piece of kitchen twine (or just overlap the corners of the dough on top).

Brush the beaten egg over top and side of Brie. Place Brie on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes until pastry is golden brown. Serve with crackers. To give a special look, cut extra pastry into heart or flower shapes and bake until golden.

Picture is from foodtv.com

Pumpkin's second life

This good little pumpkin made a great cheesecake, and now proudly adorns our front door :o)

Pumpkin Cheesecake!

Yes this post deserves an exclamation point! It is yummmmmmmmmmmm delish!
Special thanks to Lestra for giving me this awesome baking pumpkin, and to Pepsi for giving me the idea for pumpkin cheesecake! I googled the recipe from California Pizza Kitchen, where Pepsi says she and her husband look forward to their pumpkin cheesecake every fall and hope they haven't run out by the time they get there!

Who knows how authentic this recipe is to CPK since it's from some random website, but either way it gets two thumbs up from me. I'll post the recipe as is first, then share my notes and pictures:

California Pizza Kitchen Pumpkin Cheesecake
recipe from fooddownunder.com

GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST
1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 22 sheets, finely crushed with a rolling pin)
3 tbl sugar
6 tbl unsalted butter melted

CHEESECAKE FILLING
3 pkt cream cheese - (8 oz ea)
1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar - (firmly packed)
1 tbl all-purpose flour plus
2 tsp all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
1 cup sour cream plus
2 tbl sour cream
3 lrg eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree

To Make the Graham Cracker Crust: Put the graham cracker crumbs in a food processor fitted with the steel blade and process until they have a uniformly fine texture. Add the sugar and pulse to combine. With the machine running, pour the melted butter through the feed tube and continue processing just until the mixture forms a soft mass. Remove from the processor and firmly press the mixture into the base of a 9-inch springform pan, spreading it evenly.

To Make the Cheesecake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater attachment, beat the cream cheese until soft, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the brown sugar and continue beating until thoroughly incorporated and creamy.

In a separate small bowl, stir together the flour, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg. Add the flour mixture to the cream cheese mixture and beat until thoroughly combined, stopping occasionally to scrape down the bowl. In the same way, beat in the sour cream and then, one at a time, the eggs, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and pumpkin and beat until thoroughly combined.

Pour the filling into the prepared springform pan and place on the center rack of the oven. Bake for 1 hour. Protecting your hands with oven mitts or pads, test for doneness by gently moving the pan to see if the center of the cheesecake has firmed up - a sign of doneness - or is still slightly fluid (alternatively, check the cheesecake's internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer, which should register 180 degrees). The cheesecake may require up to 20 minutes more baking time.

When it is done, let it cool to room temperature and then refrigerate it overnight before removing the side of the pan. Cut the cheesecake into wedges with a sharp knife.

OK first, cardamom. CARDAMOM! This spice, of which only 1/8 teaspoon is called for in this recipe, is $15 per jar! Even $13 on sale at Safeway was RIDICULOUS. I should have noted in my apple butter post that I did not include the cardamom, so I apologize but I'm pretty certain that you'd leave it out too. Cardamom is related to the ginger family, but with all the spices going on (in both recipes) I did not add more of ginger or anything else, I simply omitted it and recommend you do the same if you want to save a little money. Or instead use the $14 (sale price) for four pounds of unsalted butter like I did! Goodness groceries are expensive!

But while we're on the subject of spices, I can't talk about spices and not talk about Penzeys. Penzeys is a spice retailer that I absolutely love. My momma learned about them and started ordering boxes and boxes of spices for me, my sister, and herself every Christmas. They are very high quality and much cheaper than grocery store prices for McCormick or store brand spices. And the selection is infinite for all types of whole and ground spices and spice blends. For example check out the cardamom page! See, I could spend $4 and get four tablespoons (1/4 cup jar) of cardamom seeds or ground. They opened a store in Carytown, near my folks house, and they also have one in Falls Church. You can smell each and every single spice they carry at their stores and it's magnificent. I could die in that place. I love it so much. But really though, your nose does wear out after a dozen or so, so sniff selectively.

The recipe of course calls for pumpkin puree, canned, but since I had that lovely pumpkin... well, it met an early demise... (isn't this cooler than a jack-o-lantern!!)

Please, don't feel sorry for the pumpkin, it was happy to live out it's full potential as a cheesecake. Feel sorry for my poor knife because a hammer was involved with getting the sucker split open.
Martha says to roast a pumpkin, cut it in half and remove the seeds, then place cut side down on a baking sheet in a 400 degree oven for at least 1 hour. Mine roasted as such for about 15 minutes, then I had to leave the house, so I turned off the oven without opening the door, and let them sit in there while I was gone for 2 hours.
They were perfectly soft and steaming hot under very hard shells when I got home!
I took the pumpkin flesh and whirred it up in the food processor once it was cool, and I had a little less than 2 cups of fresh pumpkin puree. It tasted really good just plain!

Here's the graham cracker crust I was pressing into the pan with a cup. I thought the crust came out too thick, so next time I'll use less graham crackers, but it tasted good and held the shape of the cheesecake nicely.
Here's the pumpin puree getting plopped into the batter.
Yes, you know I sieved the batter! Do not skip this step even if it looks fine to the naked eye! You guarantee to eliminate any egg boogers and clumps of cream cheese, and your batter will be absolutely perfect and smooth. Don't forget to use separate spatulas pre- and post-sieving!
Here's the cheesecake straight out of the oven, puffed and cracked in all it's glory.
And here it is at serving time, sunken in and chilled out.
Well, I had to test it before I could get the camera, and you can't blame me for that! It is excellent - not overly spiced, not too pumpkin-y, and not to little either.
Pepsi I hope you and Kyle are home because I'm about to text you and see if you want me to drop some off at your house! No matter how much you like cheesecake you can only eat so much, so there's plenty to share! Anyone else in the area want some in fact? Let me know!

PB&J Bars

This is another recipe from our cabin weekend. I caught people eating this at all hours of the day and night! It's very rich and heavy, so a serving is just a small square and a glass of cold milk is a MUST!

The only tip I have for this one is don't spread the jelly all the way out to the edges of the pan. When it touches the edge, it gets too sticky and candy-like, and I like the end and corner pieces nice and crumbly.

I don't have a picture of mine, but this is from the recipe book. Better than nuthin??
Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars
recipe from Ina Garten's cookbook Barefoot Contessa at Home

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups (18 ounces) creamy peanut butter (recommended: Skippy)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 cups (18 ounces) raspberry jam or other jam (I used seedless strawberry preserves)
2/3 cups salted peanuts, coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch cake pan. Line it with parchment paper, then grease and flour the pan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light yellow, about 2 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the vanilla, eggs, and peanut butter and mix until all ingredients are combined.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture. Mix just until combined.

Spread 2/3 of the dough into the prepared cake pan and spread over the bottom with a knife or offset spatula. Spread the jam evenly over the dough. Drop small globs of the remaining dough evenly over the jam. Don't worry if all the jam isn't covered; it will spread in the oven. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts and bake for 45 minutes, until golden brown. Cool and cut into squares.

Apple Butter Hand Pies

I would not put this recipe in the Easy category, but I still recommend you try it! This is like a pastry or turnover, a cookie-like crust with an apple butter filling. I made two batches of these, and the first was a little tricky, but I got a feeling for how the dough behaves so the second batch was much easier. Here's what I learned to share with you so it will be easier on your first go round! You really have to work quickly with this soft dough when rolling and filling it because it rapidly becomes too pliable when the fat warms up. For this reason, also be sure to turn off any above the counter lights because they may work against you. I had this problem the first time, so I just stopped mid-rolling and threw it in the fridge for a few more minutes. When I got it out again I was prepared to work much faster and without the bright lights. Also, I doubled the recipe but only used half the lemon zest called for, and still found the lemony scent and flavor to be almost too much, so in the recipe retyped here I took the liberty of halving the amount. For the first batch, which I made at my mom's house, I had a 4 1/2 inch round cookie cutter available but preferred to use one a bit smaller, and I used about the same smaller size for the second batch too (I used the rim of a large cup actually). Each batch made 22 hand pies. Last tip: do not worry if/when (really, when) the dough cracks and stretches open while folding them over; the filling will not run out, bubble over, crack much further, or burn. It will be completely fine.

Apple Butter Hand Pies
Recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook
Makes 14
(recipe easily doubled)

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 large egg
3 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Grated zest of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups Apple Butter
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter and 1 cup sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add egg to the sugar-butter mixture, and beat until just blended.

Add cream cheese, buttermilk, and vanilla extract, and beat until well combined. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, lemon zest, and salt, and add to the cream-cheese mixture. Beat until completely blended. Transfer the dough to a piece of plastic wrap, and using your hands, press the dough into a 1-inch-thick patty, wrap well, and refrigerate for at least one hour. If preparing ahead of time, the dough can be stored at this point for up to one month in the freezer.

Divide the refrigerated dough in half. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out one half of the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 4 1/2-inch-round biscuit cutter, cut seven circles out of the rolled dough. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and place in the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes. Repeat the rolling, cutting, and chilling process with the remaining half of dough.

Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator, and let stand at room temperature until just pliable, 2 to 3 minutes. Spoon about 2 tablespoons apple butter onto one half of each circle of dough. Using your fingers or the back of a spoon, spread out apple butter. Keep apple butter on half the circle, and spread until it is about 1/2 inch from the edge, making sure apple butter is not completely flattened. Quickly brush a little cold water around the circumference of the dough, and fold it in half so the other side comes down over the apple butter, creating a semicircle. Seal the hand pie, and make a decorative edge by pressing the edges of the dough together with the back of a fork. Repeat process with remaining dough. Place the hand pies on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and return to the refrigerator to chill for another 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Combine the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and the cinnamon in a small mixing bowl. Remove the chilled hand pies from the refrigerator, and lightly brush with cold water. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar generously over the pies, and place pies in the oven to bake. Bake until the hand pies are golden brown and just slightly cracked, about 20 minutes. Remove the pies from the oven, and let stand to cool slightly before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.

I think the one on the upper right must have just fallen off the cooling rack.......