Mexican Wedding Cookies

When I was young, and (I'm ashamed to admit this), up until about 3 years ago, I was convinced that these cookies were my mother's. By that I mean her recipe that she was brilliant enough to dream up. I guess my mind as a child associated the "Mexican" in the title with my mom's Spanish (as in, from Spain) heritage...which shouldn't have made much sense 3 years ago anyway.

Imagine my surprise as I perused the grocery store (3 years ago) and came upon a pink Keebler box entitled "Danish Wedding Cookies," complete with a picture of powdered-sugar coated balls.

Could these...

Were these...

Were the Mexican Wedding Cookies that had always been a staple during Christmases of my childhood not been an example of my mom's brillance at work?

Apparently not, I soon confirmed with a quick Google search. The exact same cookies are not only known as Mexican Wedding Cookies, but also as the Keebler box suggested, as well as Russian Tea Cakes and, not so subtly, Pecan Snowballs.

Regardless of what you call them or what culture you associate them with, these cookies are often the only one of their kind on holiday potluck tables. They bake up much like shortbread, buttery and crumbly, and after a quick roll through powdered sugar, are irresistible at best and dangerous at worst. You may find you need to double the recipe (this one yields about 36).

You will need:

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cups powdered sugar, plus 1 cup for dusting
1 tbs vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup - 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Knead all ingredients except pecans together until a ball forms, but do not overmix or the cookies will be tough. Knead in pecans.

Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until chilled enough to handle (about an hour). Form dough into balls, and bake 12-16 minutes until the balls are golden brown.

Allow to cool. Put the rest of the sugar in a large bowl. When the cookies are cool to the touch, place 2-3 at a time into the bowl, and shake to coat with sugar. Once all the cookies are coated once, sift the remaining sugar over the cookies to give a second coating.

Savory Bread Pudding

Man. Is it just me, or is it really hard to go back to eating normally after Thanksgiving? All I want are cookies.

Alas, I refuse to undo the work I've done all year and nullify my thrice weekly workouts by eating cookies morning, noon and night. Add to that the fact that I've become a part of my company's Wellness Committee, and therefore I. must. resist.

My carb cravings hit full tilt this time of year also, and they eventually become unignorable to the point that I have to give in from time to time, despite my best efforts to ingest main-dish salads every night leading up to Christmas (as the buffalo wings digesting from dinner laugh at that best effort).

Enter bread pudding...but not the sort that would quell my cookie craving. This is a savory bread pudding, which I'd like to think is fairly original and imaginative, but I'm sure I'm not the first to give it a shot. I had leftover Italian bread from my parents' visit over Thanksgiving, as well as half and half and a smattering of good cheeses from the same visit (my Italian father is a Grana Padano snob, while I'm generally content with Parmesan in a tub). Josh had just dried the final sprigs of a hearty sage plant that had survived at least two overnight frosts, so you see, I had no choice.

How do I know when a new dish is a hit? Josh tells me he loves me with his mouth full.

You will need:

2-3 slices bacon (peppered bacon would be sooo goooood)
1 shallot, sliced thinly into rings
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 or 4 leaves of chopped sage/2 teaspoons dried sage
4 1/2 cups of French or Italian bread cubes, cut from a loaf and loosely packed into a measuring cup
1 cup mixed grated cheeses (I used Grana Padano, white cheddar and muenster)
4 tablespoons heavy cream
Salt and pepper

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crispy. Remove, crumble, and set aside. In the same pan, cook the shallot until beginning to brown, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sage and cook just until fragrant, about one minute (don't burn the garlic).

In a medium bowl, combine the shallot mixture, bread cubes, cheeses, and bacon. Pour in the cream and stir until everything is moistened. Add a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.

Transfer to a greased casserole dish and cook for 20-30 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly.

November Daring Baker's Challenge: Crostata

This chocolate and ricotta tart is light, fresh and easy to make. I do wish I had gone with a different pastry - something saltier and flakier - but for the quick pastry it is, it works well with the ricotta filling. We had a couple of pieces once it cooled, and left the rest of the tart in the freezer for several weeks until the day after Thanksgiving, and it froze and defrosted perfectly.

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

These challenges are helping me to better equip my kitchen - I've been after a tart pan for ages, and even though we were allowed to make a free-form tart, I took this challenge as the best excuse I could fathom to get my hands on a tart pan!

The recipe I used came from Broxholm Road (warning: measurements are given in Metric format, so some conversions and/or a kitchen scale are necessary).

And here's the challenge post.

November Daring Cook's Challenge - Crab Souffle

I have a hazy memory from my childhood involving the '80s cartoon version of Alvin and the Chipmunks and souffles. One of the Chipettes - the chubby one - was some sort of master chipmunk cook who one day took on the task of whipping up a gorgeous souffle. Details are sparse in my memory, but I do remember she was very upset when a loud noise caused her souffle to fall and puddle around itself.

Way to turn a budding cook off from ever bothering.

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

Seriously, y'all - I can't believe this came out of my oven. I made this. It was all things a souffle should be: light, fluffy, decadent. I didn't dare open the oven door or make a sound as they rose perfectly, but I did squeal inwardly with delight.

Even though in the 45 seconds it took me to retrieve my camera, turn it on and set the focus to macro, all of the souffles had deflated, the deflation was not as extreme as the Chipette's. It stayed intact and was incredibly tasty. I am so excited to try this base with a number of different fillings sweet and savory, but this Gruyere-crab combination is the stuff a home cook's dreams are made of.

Here's the link to the original challenge post.
And here's the recipe I used from The Kitchn (adding a generous handful of crab meat and chives to the bechamel).

White Chicken Chili

I moved to Nashville friendless. Friendless and jobless (but fortunately, not homeless). I moved here not knowing a soul and never having stepped foot in the city. It was a huge leap of faith that could have brought any number of horrendous consequences, but this is very clearly where I'm supposed to be, and it's turned out to be best thing I’ve ever done.

The first friend I made in Nashville was a co-worker, a relationship that I long shied away from working in Human Resources, but she was relentless in her pursuit to engage me in conversation. Eventually she wore me down. Among other things, we bonded early on over our love of food and consequently, our diet and exercise hurdles and accomplishments (around the time we met, we had both recently shed 35 pounds). However, it didn’t take long for it to become clear that our cooking styles were radically different – she is a clean cook, who is all about ease and as few ingredients and steps as possible. I am a tornado in the kitchen and prefer to make complicated recipes as long and drawn out as possible. Where she reaches for Hershey's chocolate syrup, I’m measuring milk, corn syrup and cocoa powder and boiling it in a saucepan myself. She deems this “Vicki-tizing” a recipe.

Early on, she shared a recipe with me for White Chicken Chili, which includes diced green chilies, Great Northern beans, onions and cream of chicken soup. It did not disappoint, and I made it to the letter for years. I’m sure you know where this is going – in my quest to obliterate processed foods from my diet, I recently began making my own “cream of” soups, and this chili was my first guinea pig recipe. I noticed the difference immediately – the chicken flavor was more pronounced, the mixture itself was much paler than the familiar condensed soup day-glo yellow, and I felt much better eating it knowing there was not a trace of xanthan gum or maltodextrin in my soup.

This recipe includes the homemade cream of chicken soup, but if you can’t break free from the can, dump two whole cans into a soup pot, and proceed to “for the soup, you will need...” It's delicious either way.

For the cream of chicken soup, you will need:

½ cup of butter (one stick)
½ cup flour
1 cup chicken broth or stock
1 cup whole milk, warmed
2 chicken bouillon cubes
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in the bottom of a heavy-bottomed soup pot. Once the butter is melted (do not allow to brown), add the flour and whisk constantly until smooth, forming a roux. Add the warm milk to the roux and whisk constantly over medium-low heat until the mixture begins to thicken. Once the sauce coats the back of a spoon, add bouillon cubes and chicken stock and stir. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

For the soup, you will need:

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
½ a medium onion, diced
1 can diced green chiles
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tablespoon ground cumin
½ tablespoon red ancho or chile powder
2 chicken breasts, shredded or cubed (I like to pull the meat off a grocery store rotisserie chicken)
1 can Great Northern or Pinto beans, drained and rinsed
Salt and pepper to taste

In a separate skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. When oil is hot, add the diced onions and cook for 5 minutes before adding chiles and garlic. Cook for 2-3 minutes, then add to cream of chicken soup mixture. Add all spices, salt and pepper to taste. Add shredded/cubed chicken and beans, and simmer slowly for approximately 10 minutes.

Note: this produces a very thick, chowder-like soup. If you like your chili/soup thinner, add another cup of chicken broth or stock.

Serve with sour cream, shredded Monterey Jack cheese, and cilantro.

Roasted Potato Salad

As fall approached (and soon returned from whence it came, but that’s neither here nor there) this year, in the midst of stockpiling canned pumpkin, planting potted mums and dreaming up Halloween costumes, Josh and I attempted to wax nostalgic about the autumnal orange-hued pleasures of last fall.

We got nothin’. Not a single memory apart from making a mad dash to a Halloween superstore on Halloween to rummage through the wreckage of picked-over eleventh-hour bits and bobs left over from Halloweeners with better organizational skills (and far more free time). Somehow we managed to find cohesive costumes in a pair, even though our “costumes” consisted only of devil horns. But I digress.

Our memories of last fall are inclusive of little aside from turning Lowe’s into our second home, my griping about that blasted second coat of paint, packing up my apartment and covering ourselves in sawdust. Hearty homemade meals, mums, weekend baking and pumpkins? Not so much when deep in the throes of an all-consuming home remodel. We didn't even have an operational oven.

Needless to say, this fall I have been nothing short of the happy homemaker, with my 18 cans of pumpkin on reserve and purple (what else?) fall mums coddled occasionally tended to by the front door. I’ve baked sticky, sugary, cinnamony treats every weekend, have fed my family their fill of slow-cooked meats and ensured their bellies are full of hot, chunky soups.

So when Alyssa of all people requested salad for dinner last Friday night, and Josh requested grilled burgers, I resolved to find a side dish that would throw a little fall into our suddenly-summery early November evening meal. There’s nothing I love more than potatoes with burgers, but sweet potato fries seemed too easy, too obvious. Cold, boiled potato salad would be all wrong.

Enter: roasted potato salad. Served warm or cold, roasting the potato chunks prior to tossing them in mayonnaise brings out amazing caramelized flavor, and a depth you would never find in a boiled potato. I’m not sure I’ll ever serve potato salad another way; since potato salad is so versatile as it is, it can be easily customized to suit your favorite potato salad recipe. Just roast the potato pieces instead of boiling them. Who knew?

For my variation, you will need:

6-8 medium potatoes, skin intact, cut into medium-sized cubes and/or wedges
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and black pepper

2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sour cream
4 green onions, white and light green parts only
3 chives, diced
1 teaspoon smoked (or regular) paprika
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Toss potato pieces in a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast on a sheet pan or pizza stone for 20 minutes, until easily pierced with a fork. Remove potatoes to a plate and let cool to nearly room temperature if serving warm, or cool in the refrigerator if serving cold.

In another bowl, combine mayonnaise, sour cream, onions, chives, paprika, salt and pepper. Stir to blend thoroughly. Add potatoes and toss to coat in mayonnaise mixture. Serve immediately.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

All I did for these was adapt the recipe for pumpkin cream pies into pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. I topped some with caramel-chocolate candy corn and some with toasted walnuts.

Tada!

By the way, I've finally figured out a good lighting situation in my house...now I want to re-take all of my food pictures! I just might do that...