Depends How Good You Live 'Em

How Many, How Much

By Shel Silverstein

How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.
How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.
How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live 'em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give 'em.



You didn't think I'd leave you without chocolate on Valentine's Day, did you?

Silly.

Chocolate Heart Sandwich Cookies with Whipped Espresso Ganache


Ingredients:

For the cookies:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
  
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (I like Droste brand)

For the ganache:

• 2 cups milk chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
• pinch salt

Directions:

Preheat oven at 350ºF.

To make the cookies, first whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and espresso powder in bowl and set aside. Using the paddle attachment, mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and cocoa in mixer. Turn off the mixer and add the flour mixture, then mix until smooth. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least a half hour.

Roll out cookie dough on floured counter or between sheets of parchment paper until it's about 1/4-inch thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut out large heart shapes from the dough. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 8 to 11 minutes, until the edges are firm and the centers are slightly soft and puffy.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

While the cookies are cooling, make the ganache by mixing the cream and espresso powder together in a saucepan until smooth. Heat the cream mixture until it just starts to bubble and simmer at the edges of the pan, then pour the hot cream over the chocolate in a medium bowl. Let the mixture sit for a minute, and then gently use a whisk to emulsify the ganache - it will look smooth and shiny. Let the ganache cool in the refrigerator for about an hour. Once cooled, but still a bit runny, transfer the ganache to the bowl of a mixer set with the whisk attachment. Whip the ganache until it has thickened and lightened in color (it will take about a minute or two) - it will look a bit like buttercream when it's finished.

Spread the ganache thickly on the flat side of half the cooled cookies, and top with the remaining cookies to form sandwiches.

Serve with tall glasses of milk, and maybe a kiss for your Valentine.

Makes approximately 25 sandwich cookies (depending on the size of your cookie cutter).

I'll Think It's Pretty Cute

I can't decide how I feel about Valentine's Day.

On the one hand, it's the most annoying day on the planet. I mean, what's fun about a tidal wave of cringe-inducing jewelry commercials and a slew of fussy and overpriced prix fixe "lovers" menus at every restaurant in town?

If you're single, Valentine's Day is an exercise in eye rolling - through endless public displays of affection and a general onslaught of cheesiness, usually in the form of some sort of romantic movie marathon on TV. If you're coupled, Valentine's Day is an exercise in obligatory romantic creativity -- intense pressure to find the perfect, adorable-yet-not-at-all-cliché expression of affection for your Valentine. Flowers? Chocolates? Please.


On the other hand, I like flowers. And chocolate, and John Hughes/Rob Reiner movie marathons. And if you ask me to be your Valentine, I'll think it's pretty cute. Just make sure you're ready for this jelly.


Blood Orange Jelly Hearts

These jellies are made with agar (instead of gelatin), so, in addition to being awesome and adorable, they are both vegan and gluten-free.

Agar is a natural vegetable gelatin counterpart, made from algae or seaweed. It's sold as a powder, and you can usually find it at health-conscious or vegan food stores (I believe it's sold at Whole Foods) and most Asian markets.

Fruit purées, such as the blood orange purée called for here, are sold frozen in many specialty stores, as well as online (Amazon carries it, as well as a site called perfectpuree.com). If blood orange isn't your thing, flavors like pomegranate, strawberry or cassis are delicious and would yield nice red colors for your Valentine.

We make these little guys at Liddabit Sweets, the Brooklyn-based candy company where I work. So if you don't feel like making your own batch, by all means, let us make them for you.


Ingredients:

• 50 grams agar
• 1020 grams sugar, plus extra for rolling
• 820 grams water
• 880 grams light corn syrup
• 820 grams frozen blood orange purée, thawed

Directions:

Make sure you have a deep-fry or candy thermometer at the ready. (One like this works perfectly here.)

In a medium bowl, whisk together the agar and the sugar. Put the water in a saucepan with tall sides, and begin to heat it on the stove top. Once the water has warmed, whisk the sugar/agar mixture into the water, and bring the mixture to a simmer. Add the corn syrup and stir gently. Latch the thermometer to the inside of the pot and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook the jelly mixture until it reaches 106º CELSIUS. Once it reaches 106ºC, turn off the burner and let the mixture cool to 90ºC.

Remove the mixture from the stove and add the fruit purée, stirring to combine. Pour the warm jelly mixture into a greased (Pam works well) half sheet pan (half sheet pans are essentially cookie sheets with dimensions 18"x13"x1").

Let the mixture cool in the half sheet pan for at least an hour, during which time the jelly will firm up. Test the firmness by pressing the jelly gently with a finger - it should feel just firm and slightly jiggly in the center. Once set, use a cookie cutter to cut shapes from the jelly, and place them on a cooling rack. Let the jelly shapes dry out for an hour on the cooling rack before rolling them in sugar to finish.

Go Packers?

My littlest sister, a Wisconsin resident and Packer fan, wanted me to name this post "GO SIX PACK GO." She then thought better of the idea, deciding that "few people will get it. But I will, and Dad will. And then Dad will explain it to Mom and she still won't get it."

All true.

So, um, Go Packers? Cheese head pride?

To be perfectly honest, I don't much care about the football being played at this year's Super Bowl (sorry, Pops). I'm mostly in it for the food. And maybe the occasional E-Trade commercial. Oh, and the prospect of a new (!) episode (!) of GLEE following the game (don't judge. You know you're a closet Gleek).

Super Bowl food is just good. It's salty and tangy and creamy and cheesy and... salty. And it doesn't apologize for being so. The Super Bowl says, give me some wings. And some blue cheese. And guacamole. And some beer and a pizza and some chips. Chips, dammit! With dip.

Well, fine.




Homemade Wheat Pita Chips with Creamy Garlic Edamame Dip

I know it's easy to find good pita chips at the grocery store, so if you go with store-bought I'll understand, but I feel obligated to tell you that making your own is just so much more fun. And your game day friends will really appreciate you going the extra yard. You know, for the first down.

Zing.

*Note: Za'atar is a Middle Eastern spice mix made up of dried herbs, sesame seeds, salt and sumac. You can find it in specialty shops or else you can mix up your own.

Ingredients:

For pita chips:

• 8 small whole wheat pita breads
• 1 cup olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons za'atar*
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• big pinch of sea salt
• big pinch of ground black pepper

For edamame dip:

• 2 cups cooked edamame, removed from the pod (I like the frozen bags of shelled edamame, plus extra for garnish, if you like)
• 1 cup mascarpone cheese
• 1 Tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup olive oil, plus extra for finishing
• big pinch of salt
• big pinch of ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. In a medium bowl, combine the olive oil and spices and mix to combine. Cut the pita breads into wedges (1 small pita bread should yield 8 wedges), and dip each wedge into the oil & spice mixture until fully coated. Place pita wedges in a single layer on a baking sheet or two. Bake the pita wedges in a hot oven for about 7 minutes (or until lightly browned), and then use tongs to flip each wedge, and cook for another 7 minutes, until chips are brown and crispy. Remove the chips from the oven and let cool.

To make the edamame dip, toss the edamame beans, mascarpone, garlic, salt and pepper, and a splash or two of olive oil into a food processor or blender. Blitz on high until chunky but starting to combine. Drizzle in more olive oil, a little at a time, as you continue to blend, stopping when the mixture is smooth and creamy. Taste the dip and adjust the seasonings - feel free to add more garlic, salt or pepper as necessary. Serve with homemade pita chips.

Makes about 3 cups of edamame dip and roughly 64 pita chips.

This Little Verse

I recently came across this little verse and I think it's sort of fantastic.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.

It was written by Edward Lear in 1871 as part of a longer poem called The Owl and the Pussycat. I've only just heard of it - how is that possible? The poem is funny and charming and ridiculous, and discusses a "beautiful pea green boat," a singing owl (an "elegant fowl") and a "land where the Bong-tree grows." And, as we've learned, something called a runcible spoon.



Illustration by Edward Lear

A runcible spoon. Couldn't you just eat that up? Isn't that the most satisfying morsel of verse? Don't you want something you can call runcible?

Well, I do. I looked it up and found out that runcible isn't even a real word; Edward Lear just made it up and put it into several of his poems. Isn't that the greatest thing you've ever heard?

Here are six things I'd like to runcibly eat with a spoon:

1. Chocolate Ice Cream


2. Curried Squash Soup (here's the recipe)


3. Aunt Marie's granola with cranberries, pecans and dates (here's the recipe)


4. An entire jar of peanut butter. Or Nutella.

5. Apple Betty (recipe here)


6. Chicken Tortilla Soup


Chicken Tortilla Soup
Adapted from Rebecca Goldfarb & The Social Table

Ingredients:

• 8 cups chicken stock (I like low-sodium)
• 2 large chicken breasts, boneless & skinless
• 1 head garlic
• 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
• 1 dried chipotle pepper
• 2 limes
• 1 large onion, finely diced
• 1.5 cups sweet corn kernels, fresh or frozen
• 2 Tablespoons cilantro, chopped
• salt & pepper to taste
• shredded sharp cheese, for garnish
• toasted tortilla strips or crushed tortilla chips, for garnish
  

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Once the oven is hot, roast the garlic: leave the garlic bulb whole and slice off the very top of the bulb, exposing the individual garlic cloves. Drizzle some olive oil to cover the exposed cloves, and wrap the entire bulb in some tin foil. Place the foil-covered garlic straight on an oven rack and roast for about 45 minutes, until golden brown and fragrant. Remove from oven and set aside.

In a large pot, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Add the whole chicken breasts and lower the stock to a simmer. Poach the chicken in the broth until fully cooked, about 25 minutes. Remove the chicken from the broth and let cool on a plate. Bring the stock back up to a boil.

Once boiling, add the diced onions, tomatoes, and chipotle pepper to the stock. Squeeze the individual cloves from the head of roasted garlic into the stock. Reduce soup to a simmer and cook gently for about 30 minutes.

While the soup is simmering, shred the cooled chicken breasts.

Once the soup has been simmering for about 30 minutes and smells a bit smoky from the chipotle, remove the chipotle chili from the soup and discard. Add the corn, lime juice, cilantro and shredded chicken. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes or until the chicken is warmed through.

Serve with a handful of shredded cheese, some toasted tortilla, and a spoon, runcible or otherwise.

Serves about 8.

Happy New(ish) Year

Things I crave in the blustery, shivery, bleary month of January:

1. Long, quiet mornings, and the peppermint tea and crossword puzzles that come with them.


2. Snowy beach hikes with Mom and the littlest sister.


3. Bowls filled with belly-warming heartiness.

pasta with Ben Fenton's spicy sausage tomato sauce and fresh ricotta cheese

lentil stew with kielbasa and veggies

aunt Marie's turkey chili

chicken and rice soup

January is a difficult month. Here in New York, it's cold. Like, finger-numbing, eye-tearing, sorry-I-just-bumped-into-you-but-I-have-to-nuzzle-my-head-in-my-coat-because-otherwise-my-face-will-freeze-off cold. The holidays are over, so all the pretty lights have flown north for the next eleven months (apparently to some town named "Yourattic") and the city sidewalks are covered with dirty snow and pine needles, sad remnants of the merriment of Christmas past.

Despite the searing cold, people are full of resolution, so the gym is brimming with runners and kick-boxers and yogis, and the blond woman who's always there seems to now be always always there, which is both impressive and concerning.

Cookies are frowned upon. Salad is the darling of the month.

Ugh.

January plays host to this weird back-and-forth, one side of which takes one look outside and says stay in the warm, nothing good can happen out there, the other side chirping it's a New Year! Be happy and healthy! Run faster!

Well. Fine. I consider myself an optimist (and, you know, someone who likes her pants to fit), so I'll go to the gym. I'll make a big, productive to-do list. I'll drink more water, and less booze. I'll even eat a bunch of salad. But I will finish it all off with a cookie.


Freeze and Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies
Barely adapted from The New York Times

These are decidedly not healthy, but I use a bit of whole wheat pastry flour in the batter to make myself think that they, you know, could be. I also flash freeze the dough in single cookie portions, so I can store the ready-to-bake dough in my freezer and bake myself one (or two, c'mon now) warm, fresh cookie(s) at a time. This method eliminates the threat of baking an entire batch at once and feeling the need to eat them all. I mean, we all have our ways of cutting back after the holidays.


Ingredients:

• 8.5 ounces all-purpose flour
• 8.5 ounces whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 2.5 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  
• 10 ounces light brown sugar
• 8 ounces granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:

In a small bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes with the paddle attachment of a stand mixer). Add the eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. Add vanilla. Stop the mixer and add the dry ingredients. Gently mix together until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Using an ice cream scoop, drop cookies onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and use your fingers to flatten them slightly - you're getting ready to flash freeze them, not bake them, so don't worry about overcrowding the baking sheet; drop the cookies as close together as you can get them. When you've filled up an entire baking sheet, place the sheet in the freezer, uncovered, until the cookies are frozen through, about 2 hours. Once frozen, transfer the raw dough balls into a freezer-safe plastic bag and seal tightly. Store in the freezer up to 3 months, and when you're ready for cookies, bake at 350ºF for 10-15 minutes (baking time will vary depending on how large you make your cookies - just be sure to remove them when they're lightly golden and just browning around the edges).

Cookies For The Big Guy

It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees...


And making Grinch omelets.


But I promised you cookies and, for the sake of a jolly old guy in a red suit, cookies you shall get.

Classic Christmas cookies - cut-out sugar cookies piped with royal icing, usually - are fun to make and nice to look at (especially these. And these), but sometimes they're, um... annoying. And before you gasp and yell "blasphemy!" I should tell you that I'm Jewish, so, you know. That's already sort of a done deal.


I love a good classic Christmas cookie, but a good classic Christmas cookie takes time and patience. The mixing, the rolling, the chilling, the baking, the cooling. Then the mixing of the royal icing and the coloring and the piping and the flooding and then, quite importantly, the drying. Only then can you bite the head off an unsuspecting snowman.


This Christmas, I'm going for simplicity and warm, comforting flavor. Chocolate chip. Pumpkin whoopie pies. Chewy holiday spiced snickerdoodles!





I think, even for a Jew, Santa would approve.

Chewy Holiday Spiced Snickerdoodles
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated


Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1.5 cups sugar, plus extra (about 1/4 cup extra) for rolling
  
• 3 oz cream cheese, cut into small pieces
• 6 tbsp butter, melted
  
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 tbsp milk
  
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon,
  
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium-sized bowl.

Combine the 1.5 cups sugar and the cream cheese in a large bowl, then pour the warm butter on top and whisk to combine. The mixture will be slightly lumpy. Whisk in the oil until combined, and then add the egg, milk and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Add the flour mixture all at once, and beat gently until the dough forms.

Using a spoon or an ice cream scoop, portion out the dough by the heaping tablespoon, and roll gently into balls. Put some sugar in a shallow bowl (about 1/4 cup) and stir in the spices. Roll each dough ball in the spice/sugar mixture, and place on a baking sheet, evenly spaced. Gently press each ball of dough with your hand or the back of a drinking glass to flatten slightly. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the cookies look slightly cracked. If you can't decide if they're done, take the cookies out of the oven. In the case of these chewy delights, underbaked is better than over.

Serve with a tall glass of milk for Santa, and maybe a side of carrots for Rudolph et al.

Just Take A Second

I know I should be focusing on holiday cookies right now (both today's snow flurries and the calendar say we're well into December), but I want to linger over Thanksgiving for a bit. I mean, at this point, what's the harm in another piece of pie?

classic pumpkin pie

roast capon

Gramma Inez's pumpkin cheesecake with cranberry swirl

roasted root vegetables

Or some homemade brioche rolls?

sweet potato brioche rolls

sweet potatoes with pecans and parmesan. and toasted mallows.

roasted Brussels sprouts with crispy pancetta

Can I just take a second to say... yum?



I've been basking in the full-bellied warmth of Thanksgiving for the past week and a half, thinking about all the time spent in the kitchen, the scent of warm butter, fresh herbs, and toasted pecans, Emily's très adorable table decorations, and the hilarity that ensues when you combine a table full of cousins and an iPhone app called "FatBooth."

Julie, Casey & Teddy post FatBooth

new cousin Julie (yay!) and Casey

Mama and Popsicle

As far as I'm concerned, cookies can wait another week. I'd rather have another slice of pie.

I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie

With that in mind, allow me to present my official 2010 Pie Lover's Gift Guide:

• a classic pie dish by Emile Henry
• Terrain's ruggedly beautiful solid birch Pastry Board
• I'd say a pie bird, but who needs birds when this little piglet is available?
• a stainless steel pastry scraper - maybe not as exciting as a pie piglet, but a must-have for any serious baker of pies
  
• these miniature cutters make for pie decoration perfection
• there's something about a round cooling rack that just makes me happy
• a set of snowy ceramic pie weights, for when dried beans just won't do
  
• a French rolling pin, bien sûr
• a pumpkin pie candy bar from the confectionists du jour, Liddabit Sweets
• this apron from Anthropologie basically defines the word adorable

So, there you have it - a comprehensive guide to most things pie, just in time for the holidays. Next stop - cookieville.