Here's to Mixed Up Blondies

Over the years I've tried a number of different combinations when I bake blondies, the brownie like bar cookie that has butterscotch instead of chocolate as the dominate flavor. I've done Big Blondes, Irish Blondes, Dumpy Blondes and California Blondes. This time I decided to go with Mixed-up Blondes. Mixed-up because I combined the basic blondie recipe with some of the aspects of the Dumpy Blondes, particular the sweet-salty combo you get by adding in potato chips and pretzels, with the Irish wholemeal flour that I used for the Irish Blondes, the fruit I added made them almost like California Blondes.  I added a few macadamia nuts, but not very many since I was almost out of them, some pecans, some dried cranberries, toasted coconut, and, of course, chocolate chips. At the end I added about 2 tablespoons golden raisins, to. Truly a mixed-up bowl of add-ins.

The resulting cookie is moist, sweet, and has some salty elements, some fruity elements and some nutty elements. I'll be taking them to a party tomorrow to honor a friend, Jean Anderson, who died last year. We're celebrating her birthday and I know she would have enjoyed these cookies.

Mixed-up Blondes
A variation of a recipe by Jill O’Connor in Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth.

1 cup (2 sticks) non-dairy margarine
3 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup Irish wholemeal flour (or whole-wheat flour)
¾ teaspoon baking powder

Add-ins: 
1 cup pecan halves
1/4 cup macadamia nuts
1/2 cup sweetened toasted coconut
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1 cup pretzel pieces (I used small ones and broke them up)
1/2 cup sea salt potato chips, lightly crushed
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons golden raisins

Use cooking spray to lightly coat a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Melt the butter and brown sugar together in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the butter and sugar are blended and completely melted and starting to bubble gently. Remove the pan from heat and let the mixture cool slightly. Mixture should be room temperature before you proceed.

Preheat to 350 degrees F. Position oven rack in the middle of the oven.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and salt. Slowly whisk the cooled butter and sugar mixture into the eggs just until combined. Whisk in the flours and baking powder to form a loose batter. (Make sure the batter is cool before stirring in the remaining ingredients, otherwise the chocolate will start to melt before the bars are baked.)

Stir the nuts, coconut, dried cranberries, pretzel pieces, potato chip pieces, chocolate chips and golden raisins into the cooled batter. (I usually mix together all the Add-ins in a bowl before adding to the batter...it prevents a clump of one ingredient here, another ingredient there...you get a better distribution by mixing before adding.) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
Bake until the top is shiny and slightly crackled and feels firm to the touch, 30 – 35 minutes. A wooden skewer inserting into the batter should come out with moist crumbs clinging to it. Let cool on a wire rack to room temperature, then turn out onto a board and cut into bars and serve.
Makes 15 large or 30 small bars.

Raspberry Blondes

One of the joys of living not too far from San Francisco is that family and friends find it no hardship to visit there. We also have family who live in the city, so we are there a number of times a year.

There was a family gathering in San Francisco yesterday, with all four members of the Michigan branch there, all three members of the Sacramento area branch there, Sweetie and I and Coffee Man, the sweetie of T-Rose who lives in SF.

Food is always an important part of any gathering in my family. Mark was in charge of most of the food, so we knew it would be creative, top-notch, perfectly cooked with fresh ingredients, and delicious. In order to work up an appetite, we decided to visit Golden Gate Park, a few blocks away. It was a beautiful day, breezy and bright and not too hot. After a meandering walk in the park, and went up in the De Young museum tower, which gives a 360 degree view.

The entrance to the bay was sort of foggy, but you could see the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge. Then we walked back. There were so many flowers blooming and tiny wild strawberries lined some of the paths. Lots of people, too, but that's part of the fun.

After the walk (which was almost too long for Sweetie as he has been mostly resting the last two weeks), we had mint juleps in honor of Derby Day, watched the running of the race in the terrible muck that the track was, and enjoyed the onion tart which I baked earlier in the day at home. I'll post the tart recipe tomorrow or the next day. It is a variation of this tart. As we caught up on family news, Mark finished off the feast.

The feast was a truly delicious slow cooked pork shoulder with Asian seasonings, served with rice and lettuce cups (well, lettuce and radicchio). Mark had created sauces to go with it which included one with cilantro, lemongrass and ginger, plus a hot one, and some kimchi. There was a delicious salad of roasted corn kernels, avocado, and various kinds of peppers. We almost didn't have room for dessert...almost.

Natasha from Sac area had shared with me that she would be bringing something from Freeport Bakery,

so I knew I should bring something non-dairy for myself. The bakery goody was their famous Princess Cake,

a wonderful creation of sponge cake, chocolate, custard, raspberry jam, much whipped cream and marzipan over it all.

My raspberry blonde bar with fresh raspberries, plenty of aromatic white chocolate, slivered almonds, macadamia nuts and coconut (but no brown sugar) was equally delicious and went really well with a cup of peppermint tea. The bars are moist, very almondy, have lots of mellow but crunchy nuts and the raspberries go so well with the almond and coconut top notes.

Sweetie was fading fast by then, so we headed home. Happy Derby Day! Try some of these Raspberry Blondes yourself the next time you have some fresh raspberries on hand. If you love white chocolate you will love these bars!

Raspberry Blondes 
makes 24

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or non-dairy butter, at room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
1 1/2 cups blanched slivered almonds
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup white chocolate chips and chunks (I used about half chips and half hand broken white chocolate chunks)
1/2 pint fresh raspberries, rinsed and dried lightly with a paper towel (don't crush)

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Use cooking spray to lightly coat a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Melt the butter and sugar together in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the butter and sugar are blended and completely melted and starting to bubble gently. Remove the pan from heat and let the mixture cool slightly.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and salt. Slowly whisk the cooled butter and sugar mixture into the eggs just until combined. Whisk in the flour and baking powder to form a loose batter. (Make sure the batter is cool before stirring in the remaining ingredients, otherwise the chocolate will start to melt before the bars are baked.)

Stir the nuts, coconut, and white chocolate chips and chunks into the cooled batter. Pour half the batter into the prepared pan and smooth with a spatula. Distribute the raspberries over the batter as evenly as possible. Pour the remaining batter over the berries and smooth with a spatula.

Bake until the top is shiny and slightly crackled and feels firm to the touch, 30 – 35 minutes. A wooden skewer inserting into the batter should come out with moist crumbs clinging to it. Let cool on a wire rack to room temperature, then cut into bars and serve.

Janus

In ancient Roman myth, Janus was the god of beginnings and endings, which is one reason that they named January after him. Now that we are past the shortest, darkest day of the year, it is somehow fitting to begin to look towards the time of year when there will be more light, more growing things, and plenty of time out of doors to enjoy. But it's also a useful time to look back at what worked and didn't work in our lives this past year, to remember the good times, too. I like to look back at the things I've included on the blog. A careful look has reminded me that my list of recipes with links is waaaaay overdue for updating. A New Years's resolution waiting to happen, right there.

One thing I can tell you is that the kidney stone I had last January made a different diet essential; one that does not include as much oxalate. Banished are much loved foods like spinach, chard, chocolate and mery much of whole grains. Limited quantities of legumes, except for lentils, and of flours and other processed grains has also cut into my usual dishes and baking. The good news is that there are still plenty of wonderful foods to enjoy, including things like broccoli and all the squashes, romaine lettuce and iceberg (which at least has crunch) and many other veggies like carrots, celery, tomatoes and cucumbers. I confess that I'm still a bit unbalanced by it since things I had thought were good for me, like whole grains and spinach, are actually bad for me now. So for, say, Christmas Eve dinner, I had a half of one of those great rolls, a small portion of those delicious potatoes, but a goodly portion of the salad since it had romaine, iceberg and red cabbage, plus carrots and tomatoes. Went light on the ham, too, because of all the sodium, but that's a different health issue. In truth the most important part of the meal is the people around the table and the enjoyment of them is full and wonderful and hasn't changed a bit. I still enjoy my occasional glass of wine, too.

Some of the recipes from 2013 that I'm pretty sure I'll return to include the potatoes and rolls on the last post,

these crock pot caramelized onions,

these white chocolate macadamia nut cookies (because I can't have regular chocolate, but I can have white chocolate!),

this oyster stew since there is plenty of soup weather to come (and it better include LOTS of rain since we are in a severe drought right now and NEED rain),

this cherry tomato salad, because it is simple and fast, burrata is delicious, and with our lack of rain I'm not likely to grow anything next summer but cherry tomatoes.

Because there is always a great selection of stone fruits and berries each summer, I know I'll want to make

the free form pie with moondust powder using some of that fruit. Since there is also likely to be an occasion that requires bringing a pot luck dish,

I'm going to keep this post of a wild rice and carrot side dish handy. It has all of the necessary attributes for a good pot luck dish: delicious, sits at room temperature well, filling, pretty easy, can be made ahead, and is unusual. The bowl that it is served in is often the first one empty at pot lucks, so that should tell you something.

We made a lot of good bread this year, but my favorite Bread Baking Babes bread was the Italian flavored

Tomato Basil Garlic Filled Pane Bianco. Not only is the large loaf delicious and stunning to look at, but the same ingredients can be used to make little appetizer rolls. Another great baked good from 2013 is for

classic blueberry muffins. I can almost smell them!

There is also Fast Focaccia, a recipe that I also made for Christmas this year. That sort of brings it all full circle.
Do you have any other favorites from this year's Feeding My Enthusiasms posts? I would love to know what they are!

Buttery Good

The December 2012 issue of Saveur Magazine has a selection of recipes using white chocolate, including the cover recipe for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. The cookies are a bit crispy and a bit chewy and infused with the complementary flavors of macadamia nuts and white chocolate...always one of my favorite combinations for cookies.

Recently I decided to make a batch of them to bring as dessert for a dinner we were invited to. When I went to the store for the macadamia nuts, I found that a can of nuts with a coffee glaze were far less expensive than plain macadamias. This gave me an excellent opportunity to play with the recipe.

A hallmark of these cookies is a buttery goodness and the almost butterscotch flavor from the brown sugar. Since the nuts had a coffee glaze, I decided to add the flavor of coffee to the batter, too. Some espresso powder took care of that. You could really taste it in the uncooked cookie dough, but it was just a hint of coffee in the baked cookies, so the buttery aspect was still dominant. Every once in a while you also bite down on a bit of the glaze, so you get a sweeter hint of coffee. These were good cookies in the original recipe, but now they are outstanding. The white chocolate is very mellow but a nice counterpoint to the coffee and the nuts keep the buttery flavors going. I used Guittard white chocolate discs, unchopped, but any good quality white chocolate will do. Chop it into chunks if it is a whole bar.

Two parts of the instructions are very important: be sure to beat the butter and sugar for at least three whole minutes. It may seem like a long time, but this helps the sugars dissolve a bit and makes sure that there is enough air in the dough. Also, leave the full two inches between dough balls. These cookies tend to spread a lot.

 

I made super sized cookies that were about 6 inches across when baked, just because it is a fun presentation. No one needs more than one cookie, although I made sure there were extra, just in case.

I know that macadamia nuts are expensive, but once in a while it's nice to treat oneself to a buttery, sweet, nutty indulgence.

White Chocolate Coffee Macadamia Nut Cookies
based on a recipe in Saveur Magazine, Dec. 2012

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons espresso powder
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
16 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (1/2 pound)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 oz. roughly chopped white chocolate
8 oz. roughly chopped coffee glazed macadamia nuts
(or use plain macadamia nuts if coffee glazed ones are unavailable)

Whisk together flour, salt , baking soda and espresso powder in a bowl; set aside. In a large bowl, beat sugars and butter on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition until smooth; beat in vanilla. Add dry ingredients and beat until just combined; stir in white chocolate and chopped macadamia nuts.

Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Using a large spoon, shape dough into balls and place 2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake until golden brown, about 14 minutes.

Remove to a wire rack to cool. Store airtight up to 3 days (if they last that long!).

Country Roads and Cookies

The drive to my friend's home to make mosaics a few days ago took me along many of the roads I drove to work for over 20 years, out into the west county. Narrow two-lane roads, often with no shoulder at the side at all, wind their way past apple orchards and redwood groves, over rough places where there are either patches or potholes. At this time of year the grasses on the verge have turned to shades of pale gold. Here and there you can spot some bright orange California poppies nodding in the breeze. It's hard to drive by the hillside where Max died, especially in summer. I miss him. Once school was out he used to come with me. A friend of his lived not too far from where I worked, so he would spend the day with Mark and I would pick him up after work. It reminds me of our dog Xam, too. He loved to come with me, even though he would spends hours in the back of the SUV. I only took him when I worked a half day. He would get a walk in the woods when we arrived, then another one after two hours and a final walk when we were ready to drive home. I know he spent a lot of time asleep, but he slept during the day at home, too. If I had the office to myself, he could be in the office, where he slept most of the time, too. I think he actually liked the car better. There was always a large bowl of water and some toys and something to chew on. The car was usually parked in the shade of the tall redwoods and he could see the birds and squirrels making their forays in the trees when he was awake. He was such a great dog and a good companion. Even though we love Pi, I still miss Xam.

Roads are the original reason for milestones; a way to mark the passage of distance. Today I celebrate a few milestones that mark the passage of time and, perhaps, dedication. This is the 790th post on the blog and yesterday Feeding My Enthusiasms passed 200,000 pageviews! When I started writing and taking photos and trying out recipes in 2006 I never thought how it would feel, down the road, to know that there is some interest out there in the blogosphere for my kind of musings and food. It feels almost like a hug. Very glad that y'all have enjoyed it, and I hope that some of these recipes are being made in your kitchen. It does take a bit of time and effort to create one of these posts, but then cooking and baking also take time and effort and the results are gone pretty quickly most of the time. I guess over time I'll associate these posts with fond memories, much as I have come to associate country roads with so many good times in days gone by, as well as fine times today.

We have been working this week on the new entry and today put together the first wall framing! Sweetie is the genius behind it all and I've become a pretty good helper. Windows and doors are ordered and today we also worked on the interior plans. Looks like we will be having some beadboard wainscoting...I really like that look.

If you are the praying type like I am, please say a few for two wonderful women I know who are in the process of dealing with cancer. If not prayer, good thoughts are always welcome. They both have great spirit, so I'm pretty sure that their battle with the disease will be successful, but it never hurts to pray...or send good thoughts.

Well, enough catching up...on to our recipe. Todays' recipe is for a cookie that I have been meaning to make for a long time. Our daughter worked after school and on the weekends when she was in high school to earn money for college, plus some to spend on fun stuff. For a couple of years she worked for a cookie company! My favorite was a white chocolate macadamia cookie. You would think that I would bake that kind since I liked it so much. Well, I never did, until yesterday. I think the cost of the nuts put me off. Macadamia nuts have a very hard outer husk and apparently it is costly to process them. The nuts themselves have a buttery quality which goes really well with the mild chocolate flavor of white chocolate. I added some regular dark chocolate chips in, too, because I can. These cookies spread a bit, so leave some room between cookies. They are also a bit thinner than traditional Toll House type chocolate chip cookies, with a little chew to them. Don't forget the vinegar...I think it contributes to the great texture. Give them a try! They would be perfect to take along on a picnic down some country roads.

Classic Macadamia White and Chocolate Chip Cookies
based on a recipe at King Arthur Flour website Makes about 33 cookies

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
¼ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tablespoons molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 (4 oz.) white chocolate baking bar, chopped
1 cup (8 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup macadamia nuts, chopped lightly

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment or a silicon baking mat) two baking sheets.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter, oil, sugars,  molasses, vanilla, and salt until smooth.

Beat in the egg to combine. Beat in vinegar. Beat in the baking soda and baking powder and as soon as they are beaten in add the all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour, combine thoroughly, then add the white chocolate chunks, chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Stir with a silicone or rubber spatula to make sure mixture is thoroughly combined.

Drop the dough, by tablespoonfuls, onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 15 – 17 minutes, until the cookies are an even golden brown, without any hint of softness in the center. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

If you have enough left, store in an airtight container for, at most, a week.