Cookie Time: Pistachio Cookies

Been awhile since I actually took the time to photograph something I made. Perhaps it's just the soon coming adjustments I'll be making but I've been itching to make something with pistachios for awhile now. It's mainly because of this wonderful business:

This my friends is pistachio butter, given to me by my fantastic friend, Kari. I'm slightly ashamed to say all I've done with it until now is snitch from the jar & spread a little on some left over tortillas (don't ask me what possessed me to do that!) It's very much the same consistancy of goma paste. And it has the most unbelievable nutty flavor almost like.....I dunno......say....PISTACHIOS, maybe! (Been a long day & I'm running out of adjectives!)

So....I scrounged around & threw all hopes of finding a reliable recipe to the wind & do what amaturs do best....totally freaking wingin' it. I took from a little of this & a little of that. And if you must know, the product wasn't half bad.

Here's what I did:

Creamed together 1/3 c of shortning, 3 tbsp of pistachio butter & 1/2 c of both brown & white sugar.

I put together my "drys" in another bowl & whisked them to mix: 1 c flour, 1/4 tsp b. soda, 1/2 tsp b. powder & a few shakes of salt (I could've stood to add more salt in hindsight)

I then proceeded to add a tbsp of my much loved & cherished sexy friend Disaronno. (aww-ka-pooow!)
Mixed the dry in with the wet & it kneaded with my hand till it was well blended. Rolled into a log. :) (Sorry, can't type that, w/o getting a bit pre-schoolish) Wrapped in wax paper & set it in the freezer for 1/2 an hr. Meanwhile I preheat the oven to 200c (400f).

Cut the dough into 1/4" slices & topped with roughly chopped shelled pistachios. Loaded them onto wax paper and start handing over the snitches of cookie dough to the kids for dear life before there's an ugly "Kitchen coup".

Baked for approximately 6-8 min & cooled immidiately on a wire rack.

And there you have it. Not half bad tasting if I do say so myself. The consistancy was closer to shortbread than cookie but that's fine for me. I probobly could've stood to put....I dunno an egg yolk? But then maybe that would've turned it a bit too cakey. And I'm sure if I had used butter instead of shortning the texture wouldn't have been as flakey. Call me old school but the little brown sugar lumps that wouldn't be smashed were like little drops of caramel goodness in there & I was a happy camper. (even though my 3 year old dumped my ice coffee in the sink so she could drink water from my glass!!)

Yes Sir, somethings put a smile on my face & make my little world go round!!

Cookie Time: Cardamom Sugar Cookies

This recipe must start off a little something like this:
Meet my new friends, Mort & Pes, they are bringers of tiding of comfort & joy. If you've never smashed stuff in a stone mortar you should come by sometime & try it, it's great fun. All this banging & clanging & nothing shatters. (Except the cardamom seeds, mind you) And if you want to smell something that will literally "blow your nasal cavity to the 7th heaven" you must crush whole cardamom seeds. Doesn't look like much but I'm still reeling. My kids could smell it from the school table & came running. (Not to mention it also sounded like Mommy had finally snapped & was breaking all the dishes in the kitchen)

I found this recipe in a book I got for 100Y at a 2nd hand store called "The Joy of Coffee", (eh-hum, let's not get into that today!) There were a lot of good biscuit & cookie/snackie recipes in the back. I spied cardamom & thought "Great, any excuse to smash stuff with Mort again" So here's how it went. I halved the recipe & used 1/2 brown sugar. The best thing about this recipe is that it was very easy to handle & cut out. The kids had great fun cutting out the stars.

So, it goes a little something like this:

1 3/4 c flour

1 tsp b. soda

1/2 tsp cardamom

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 c butter

1/2 c sugar

4 tbsp honey

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp orange zest

Whisk the dry ingr together in a separate bowl. As usual with cookies, the butter & sugars get beaten together till their light & fluffy. Then add the honey & then the egg & vanilla. Next add the dry to the wet, mix till well blended.

Gather it up & put it on a sheet of clear wrap/saran wrap/cling form...whatever. Flatten out into 1 inch thick disks & chill for at least 1 hr.

Lightly flour wax paper or clean surface & roll out to 1/8 inch thin, cut out w/ cutter. Awww, how can you not just enjoy the look of those.

Place on cookie sheet & bake at 160 (350) for 10-12 min or till golden brown around the edges & raised in the center, move to wire rack immediately & cool. Snitch immediately, if not sooner.

Nummy-num-num. These were good, crispy & cute & not too sugary. The cardamom stood out well enough & orange zest added that little extra grown up flavor that I love. DH was a pretty big fan too.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

PS. The recipe says that it will keep for 2 weeks in an air tight container, not that it will survive that long. I kept some for about a week & found that they lost that crunch, I wouldn't suggest keeping them too long.

And the Cookie Muncher is.......

Before I tell you who won, I thought you should know you've got me itching to make a whole lot more Christmas goodies now. And I'm also growing more & more curious about Christmas Pudding!

I also thought that giving a measly 9 cookies seemed a little skimpy so I figured lets have 2 Cookie muncher winners!

So we put the names in a box

Jan-ken-poi!

Winner Number 1:

DAWNIE!!!

Winner Number 2:

AUNTIE ELAINA!!

So there you go. Congrats Ladies & your cookies are on the way. I already have your address, Dawn. Send me your address Elaina & they're on the way!

PS. Tx to everyone else who played along, I got your favorite dessert now, so come & visit! :)

Cookie Time: 4 Spice Cookies

I just like these cookies...because! They are total dipping cookies. Not that I condone dipping or dunking. (You know how it is, let one kid dunk the next thing you know you've got milk-toast soup-slurping party, sorry Ves!)

I would say these are pretty similar to Gingersnaps, with that extra spice kick from the nutmeg, cinnamon & cloves. They're crunchy & cute & a TOTAL Christmas cookie, in my opinion. The molasses is the clincher to the old fashioned flavor in this classic.

So let us commense to make ourselves some:

2 1/2 c flour

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ginger

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp nutmeg

3/4 tsp cinn

1 c b. sugar

1/2 c butter

1/2 c shortning

1/4 c molasses

1 egg

Whisk dry in a bowl, beat butter, shortning & sugar till smooth, add molasses, blend in egg. Mix dry into wet. Lets not try to be immature and make silly comments about how much this dough looks like poo. I have restrained myself from posting an even more suggestive picture my daughter took of it once it was rolled out into a (e-hum) log!

Cover & chill for 2 hrs. Roll into 1 inch balls place 1 inch apart on baking sheet. Flatten a little. Aren't those just the cutest little smooshed balls? Bake at 170c (350f) 8-10 min till cracked but still soft. Take off of rack & cool immideately. Store in airtight container up to 3 weeks.
I found that baking them for 8 min was even a bit much, as you can see some of them that were in the natorious "Hot Spot" in my oven came out pretty toasted, I would've done them for a bit less for a more chewy center.

PS. You can also roll these into 1 1/2 inch logs & freeze for up to 2 mo. Just slice & bake with an extra minute added onto cooking time.

Christmas Cookie Give Away!

That's right you heard me!

In the spirit of Christmas giving, I'm going to give away a box of cookies to ONE happy random person. This box will consist of: 3 cardamom orange cookies, 3 ginger spice cookies, 3 white chocolate & rum fruit cookies. (Don't tell my DH, he's terribly possessive about these last babies)

And all you have to do is post a comment with your heartfelt answer to this question:

What is your favorite Christmas dessert?

There is no wrong answer. (Unless you're the guy who says wasabi & mikan pudding) When the time limit is up I'll have my kids randomly pick one person to be the happy winner. There are only a few simple rules to this give away:

- (As much as I hate to do this) It's only going to be eligable for people who reside in Japan

- This giveaway starts NOW & ends Dec 12th (11:00pm, Japan time)

- Please don't comment more than once

Winner will be announced Dec 13th.

Now.....GO FORTH AND WIN SOME COOKIES!!

Cookie Time: Chewy Oatmeal cookies

Finally, it’s cookie time! For no particular reason I find that I don’t make cookies at any other time of year than Christmas. I’m not sure why, it’s not as if I don’t like cookies, oh….no. I am a cookie monger. I’m always afraid when I make a batch of cookies that someone will notice that double the recipe only yielded ½ the amount.

So, I hope you don’t mind if I induge in a little “cookie trip” and share some of my favorite cookie recipes and one or two new experiements. Lemmie know if you have anything outstanding that I should try. Don’t hold out on me now.

A few little tips on cookies I’d like to throw out there:

- Chill your dough at least 2 hrs before cooking, you get a much more controlled "spreading"

- It really pays to stick to butter or shortning when it calls for it, not margarine if at all possible. Just once, try it, and you’ll probably find that elusive crispy outside & soft chewy inside you love or that crunch that you’ve been hoping for.

- And most importantly.....eating obsessive amounts of cookie dough will not kill you. That's just some rumor started by the greedy teacher of yours who wanted to swipe all the left overs for herself. Snitch away, my friend!

Now let's get on with it: First up, Chewy oatmeal cookies:

½ c butter
1/2 c brown sugar
¼ c sugar
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla or almond essence
1 c flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¾ tsp cinn
1 ½ c oats
½ cup of walnuts or raisins (in a perfect world I like to use ½ c of walnuts & ¼ c raisins)

Whisk together flour, b.soda, salt, & cinn in a bowl. Cream together butter & sugars till well blended in a large bowl, beat in egg & vanilla, mix in dry ingr till well mixed. Add raisins &/or nuts. Chill for at least 2 hrs in fridge. Make 1 ½ inch balls & place on baking tray, flatten out a little (leave about 1 inch space between cookies). Bake at 170 for 8-10 min. They should still be pretty soft & doughy in the middle (if you really like them chewy)

For upper-duper chewy cookies cool on the baking tray for 5 min. The less time they spend on the baking tray after coming out of the oven the crispier they’ll be. But I don't think you want to exceed 5 min.

Sorry, I don’t have the exact amount of cookies these make. (I ate too many before I counted them!) But it’s somewhere around 24 cookies. I prefer smallish cookies so that I can eat more & be in denail. Plus you can give your kids more. Plus I think they ought to be dolled out sparingly and if you can help it w/ some milk, cocoa or eggnoggie-nog. Happy Baking Time!