Mmmm, cookies!

Not just any cookies, fancy time consuming checkerboard cookies!

I used to subscribe to "Fine Cooking" magazine and one year they had a spread on Christmas cookies. I saw the checkerboard cookies and really wanted to give it a try myself. They were time consuming to make but turned out very well. The problem with the recipe the way it was written is that there is chocolate cookie dough left when you're done, a waste of perfectly good cookie dough. I knew I could take care of that problem.

The checkerboards in the recipe are a 3x3 configuration as such:My solution to the problem was to turn them into 4x4 squares instead of the 3x3 squares. It worked! I ended up with logs of dough that looked like this:

Slice and bake!

A very happy mishap

I like shepards pie. It's easy to like with all those lovely mashed potatoes, ground beef, and corn. I have a bunch of freshly dug potatoes as our potatoes grew very well this year so shepards pie seemed to be a perfect Sunday dinner of comfort food with friends.

Alas, I had no ground beef, just ground turkey which, let's be honest, doesn't have a lot of flavor. And I had a few leeks from the garden that were getting a little old and it's not acceptable to waste leeks! So I did what I often do, I improvised. This creation turned into a dinner that was addictive, none of us could stop eating. So while it was bad for the waistline, it was terrific for the tastebuds.

Luckily, or unluckily, it made a huge batch and I froze some for a future dinner.


Potato Leek Shepards Pie

Amounts are approximate

1 lb ground turkey
1 large diced onion
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Seasoned salt to taste

3 leeks, cleaned and sliced thin
4 tbl butter

About 2 oz cream cheese

Milk

About 2 lbs potatoes, peeled, cooked, and mashed

salt and pepper to taste

Frozen corn

Grated cheddar cheese

Brown the meat with the onions and garlic and season it to taste. Sautee the leeks in the butter until soft and sweet. Use an imersion blender to mix the leeks, butter, some milk and the cream cheese. Stir the leek mixture into the mashed potatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Put the meat mixture into a casserole dish, layer corn on that, then top with mashed potatoes, and grated cheese. Bake at 400 until the cheese is melted and the dish is hot, about 30 minutes.

Try not to eat too much.

Very Awesome Blueberry Cornmeal Cake

This was in the Burlington Free Press and is originally from the Huckleberry Bakery and Cafe in Santa Monica, CA by way of Bon Appetit, May 2010. I've made it three times. It's that good.

Blueberry Cornmeal Cake
325 F, about 1 hour and 15 minutes

1 1/3 c flour
2/3 c corn meal (I liked the coarse stuff better than the finer stuff for this)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
6 T vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp honey
10 T butter (room temp)
3/4 c + 3 T sugar, divided
1 tsp salt (the recipe calls for 1 1/2 tsp but that seems like a lot)
1 c ricotta cheese
1/3 c plain yogurt (I subbed half milk, half lemon juice)
3 cup blueberries

Prepare grease 10" springform pan (I used parchment on the bottom too). Whisk flour and the next 3 ingredients. Whisk oil, eggs, vanilla and honey. Beat butter, 3/4 c + 2 T sugar and salt until creamy.

With mixer running, slowly add egg mixture. Beat in flour mixture, just to blend. Add ricotta and yogurt to blend.

Pour half of mixture into the pan. Cover with half the blueberries. Pour remaining batter in and top with the rest of the blueberries. Sprinkle with remaining sugar.

Bake until top is golden brown and tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about one hour and 15 minutes, longer if the blueberries are frozen. Cool in pan on rack.

Barley and Black Bean Chili

Barley and Black Bean Chili


olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
6 cloves garlic
1 T chili powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced - a little goes a long way! To taste
1/2 lb black beans, soaked and cooked
1 28 oz can tomato...crushed, pureed,or mini dice
2 cups cooked pearled barley
dash sugar
Salt & pepper to taste

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add beans, tomatoes, chipotle to taste, water. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes.

Stir in cooked wheat berries and heat through.

I loved this stuff! Mmmm.....

What to do with leftover pie crust

You make pie crust pinwheels!

And don't blame me if you begin to make pie crust just for the "leftovers."

Fennel Mashed Potatoes Oh MY!

Fennel is a very tasty vegetable but one with which I've had little experience. We got some in the share the other day and I didn't have anything in particular in mind when I realized we also had fresh potatoes from both the share and our garden.


Fennel Mashed Potatoes

About 2 lbs potatoes
1 bulb fennel, sliced thin
Shallot
2 T Butter
4 oz cream cheese
Salt to taste

Start the potatoes boiling. Saute the fennel and shallot in the butter until soft, about 20 minutes. Drain and mash the potatoes, add the cream cheese and fennel.

Sam couldn't stop eating these -- he had them for a pre-dinner snack, dinner, and for breakfast the next day. What's not to like? Fat, fat, and more fat. They tasted like sour cream and onion potato chips.

Zucchini

We've been getting zucchini and yellow squash in our share lately. I gave some away but it just keeps on coming so I decided to try something new and different. I read, somewhere, about using the zucchini as pasta and while I didn't really believe that anyone who loved pasta would be impressed, it seemed to be worth a try.



Pesto over Zucchini and Chicken

1 medium/large zucchini
Mix of fresh herbs (I used dill, parsley, basil, thyme, cilantro from the garden)
Olive Oil
Shallot
Juice from half a lime
Salt to taste
Cooked diced chicken

Use a mandolin to cut the zucchini into long spaghetti-like strands. In a food processor, make a paste of the herbs, shallots, olive oil, lime juice, and salt. Mix everything together. Enjoy.

It was a cool and refreshing and very very tasty dinner. Who knew that Sam would ever give zucchini a thumbs up?