Soup Just Like Mom Used to Make

My Mom used to make the best split pea soup. It was always thick, just salty enough, a lovley pea green color with bits of orange from carrots and pinkish bits of ham from the ham hock she used when she made it.

She probably still makes the best pea soup, but the bowl I ate for lunch today was almost as good. I used her recipe and let it cook down slowly to just the right thickness a few days ago, then it sat in the fridge to let the flavors mellow. Today I heated up a bowl in the microwave on low power, stirring every now and again, until it was hot and smelling wonderful. Some multi-grain toast made great croutons to go on top. Can't think of a better lunch for a cold January day.

Strange as it sounds, I used to like to eat soup for breakfast when I was growing up. Pea soup, bean and bacon soup, mushroom soup were all a welcome warming breakfast in the winter. I also like tuna fish sandwiches for breakfast, but that's another story. The only bad thing about these food for breakfast was they msot of them had pretty strong fragrances associated with them.

I didn't mind. My sense of smell has never been very acute (except when I was pregnant), but my Mom has a very sensitive nose. Things like pea soup or tuna early in the morning were not at all appealing to her because of the smell. That's why I didn't eat that way every morning...just when I could eat a little later than when she had to be in the kitchen.

I may have a bowl of this pea soup for breakfast tomorrow now that I think about it. It sure is cold enough to enjoy a hot bowlof soup in the morning. The frost was heavy this morning and it was about 28 degrees when I got up. Not too cold if you live where it's in the teens most of the winter, but 28 is cold enough for me.

Split Pea Soup

1 pound green or yellow dried split peas
2 quart boiling water
¼ lb leans salt pork or a ham hock
1 tablespoon minced onion
1 medium carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, dices
1 teaspoon salt (or more if needed)
¼ teaspoon pepper

Sort the peas, making sure to remove any small stones or grit or shriveled peas. Rinse. Place in a large heavy bottomed saucepan. Add the boiling water and salt pork. Set over medium high heat, cover and let bubble gently 1 ½ hours. Stir occasionally.

Add onion, carrot, celery, salt and pepper. Stir. Cover and simmer 30 minutes. Uncover and remove the salt pork or ham hock. If desired, cut the salt pork or any ham that can be removed from the bone into very small pieces. Return them to the pot. Stir to combine.

Taste for seasonings. Simmer uncovered until the desired thickness is reached, stirring often to keep from sticking on the bottom of the pot.

Serve hot. Croutons make a nice garnish. Serves 4 – 6.

Sweet Thing

It may be January and the tradition in January may be to go on a diet if you think you need to, but January is cold and wet, too. Sometimes you need a little sweetness.

This cake is a simple one, one layer, not too much, just enough. It is a variation on Pineapple Upside Down Cake, but the fruit is raspberries, the glaze has not a speck of brown sugar, and the addition of sliced almonds add some needed crunch. The special ingredient, besides the raspberries, is Meyer lemon zest and juice. A small slice goes well with a cup of tea or coffee and brightens the day.



The two lovely ladies who gifted me with raspberries and Meyer lemons know who they are...thank you! Without your gifts this cake would not have been as special.

Forgot to mention that it wasn't just raspberries, but a wonderful gift of golden and red raspberries . We ate some fresh with our daily bowl of fruit, but I wanted to bake with some of them, too.

It’s easy to find all kinds of recipes that use a lot of raspberries, but hard to find any perfect for a limited number of berries, so I adapted an upside-down cake recipe, taking away the brown sugar, pineapple, cherries and walnuts and replacing them with the raspberries set into a glaze made of butter, sugar and Meyer lemon juice, with just a little lemon peel thrown in. Between the berries, I scattered sliced almonds. Some more lemon zest went into the cake batter.

The cake was changed, too. I soured some milk with more Meyer lemon juice instead of using buttermilk. I added ½ cup of almond meal and some baking powder, too. So, really, this is an original recipe.

Since I looked at over ½ dozen pineapple upside down cake recipes, I’m not really sure which one I used, but it seems closest to the one in Baking in America by Greg Patent.

It turned out to be a beautiful cake. The raspberries became almost a jam, the cake was very light and flavorful. You could taste the lemon but it was not overpowering. The almonds added texture.

The only problem I encountered was that the cake was less dense than many upside down cakes and it was difficult to remove from the pan in one piece. Lots of the topping stuck to the pan, too.

If looks matter (I scooped what stuck up with a spatula and put them back on the cake, but it wasn’t as pretty as it could have been), melt a little raspberry jam to spread over the rough patches. If I had let it cool longer, the cake would have come out better, but the topping would have stuck even more. Difficult call.

Raspberry Almond Meyer Lemon Upside Down Cake

The Glaze
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup lemon juice
The Fruit and Nuts
1 pint raspberries
about ¼ cup sliced almonds…use more if you like

The Batter
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup almond meal
1 tablespoon lemon zest
½ cup milk
¼ cup lemon juice
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs at room temperature

To Make the Cake:
The Glaze
On the bottom of a heavy bottomed shallow pan (9 or 10 inches in diameter) or cast iron skillet, melt the butter. Stir in the sugar and turn off the heat. Stir to begin dissolving the sugar. Then add the lemon juice and stir to combine. Sprinkle the lemon zest over the mixture, then stir in. Set aside to cool.

The Fruit and Nuts
Once the mixture has cooled, carefully place fresh raspberries (that have been washed and gently dried) over the surface of the glaze mixture, spacing them as evenly as possible. Scatter the sliced almonds between the berries onto the glaze. I used my fingers to get them onto the glaze. Set aside.

The Batter
In a bowl or on a piece of waxed paper, put the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt. Sift or stir together with your hands. Use your hands to mix in the ground almonds and lemon zest. Set aside.

Put the milk and lemon juice together in a non-reactive container and let it thicken. Set aside.
Use a mixer to beat the butter at least a minute until very light and creamy. Add ¼ cup of the sugar and beat until combined. Add the vanilla. Beat until combined. Add another ¼ cup sugar, beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the bowl and beaters between additions.

Add one third of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, beating at medium speed just until combined. Add half the milk mixture, beating at medium speed just until combined. Add another third of the dry ingredients, beating as before, the rest of the milk mixture, beating as before, then the last of the dry ingredients, beating just until mixed. Use a spatula to incorporate any flour remaining on the side of the bowl. Pour the batter over the prepared glaze and fruit and place pan in a preheated 350 degree F oven. Bake about 40 minutes, until the cake is done, springing back when center is pushed.

Let cool 5 minutes, then invert over a rimmed plate or platter. If any of the fruit or glaze remains in the pan, gently remove it with an offset spatula and place back on the top of the upside-down cake.

Serve warm or cool. Good with a scoop of raspberry sorbet. Serves 8.

A Year Food Blogging

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
2008 may have not been the best year for the economy, it may have been more stressful than most, and it certainly was one filled with drama and change on the news, but it was a FUN year for blogging!

I experimented with a new ingredient, verjus, in the first post of the year and showcased the best bread yet using my wild sourdough starter (my newest hobby) in the last post. Should you be interested in how to make a wild yeast sourdough using unsprayed organic grapes It is explained here.

In between there were lots more cookies recipes than usual, many savory and sweet recipes made using local ingredients, and an original and sort of silly recipe, Bacon Bittersweet Truffles.

In October I passed the 250th post mark and had the 2nd anniversary of blogging at Feeding My Enthusiasms. This will be the 285th post…hard to believe…but I’m still having a blast.

I managed to do all 12 Daring Baker challenges this year from Lemon Meringue Pie to French Yule Log, plus I wrote the 13 (Baker’s Dozen) bit of fiction in the Land of St. Honore’. Maybe we will return there in 2009 to see what the denizens of the land are up to. I was also the host, with the lovely Deborah of Taste and Tell, of the April Daring Bakers challenge where the many, many Darng Bakers who participated made an amazing variety of Cheesecake Pops…that was a lot of fun.

The great thing about the Daring Bakers is that you really stretch yourself to learn new techniques, to organized the tasks so that it all comes out right, and to learn from your fellow Daring Bakers…which I do all the time.

My favorite experiences, beyond hosting the Daring Baker challenge, were doing other challenges with two baking buddies, Mandy in May

and Hil in November.

They are both creative and skilled bakers and fun to share a kitchen with. Hope they will join the Daring Bakers themselves one day.

But it isn’t all baking on this blog. One of my favorite recipes this year was the Grilled Cheese and Basil Polenta. There is something about the creamy polenta, the fresh basil, the melty cheese and the crisp crust from grilling that is just wonderful. Although they DO involve baking, my other two favorites were the summer pudding from August.

and the July Daring Baker challenge. There is something about fresh berries that makes the pudding simple but perfect. The July cake was rich and somewhat complicated, but it sang with the flavors of dark chocolate and peanuts.

I also enjoyed making recipes from my childhood like savory stuffing for turkey (or chicken), chocolate pudding cake, easy saucepan fruit bars and simple rolled sugar cookies, and most recently home made hot cocoa. I hope to share more childhood memories and recipes this year.

Wishing you and those you love a very Happy New Year & lots of good food shared with each other.

Braided Bread to End the Year

It is only recently, with the blessing of starter awaiting my creativity in the fridge, that I've really spent much time or thought on bread baking. The more I know, the more I realize that I don't know...always a promising start to a new hobby.

One of the breads that I have always admired and often thought that I would make, but never did, is a simple braided bread. This Christmas the Third Sister Down gave me a great new baking book called, plainly enough, Baking, by Martha Day.

It has over 400 recipes and more than 1800 photographs so it is my kind of book. There are recipes for breads, muffins, cakes, pies, tarts, and cookies.

One of the bread recipes is exactly what I was looking for. The dough is enriched with some butter and an egg, honey and milk, and it worked up into a slightly sticky dough with nice long gluten strands. I thought it might be difficult to braid since it was so soft, but those strands helped. It easily braided and make a spectacular looking loaf. The best part was that it tastes really, really good. I especially enjoy it toasted with a little butter and jam.

The only change I made was that I substituted a cup of my sourdough starter for the yeast, but then added 1/4 teaspoon of dry yeast to the milk mixture, just in case. I added the flour slowly and let it knead a long time in the KA mixer. Because my starter is on the wet side, I added about another 5 or 6 oz. of flour.

Braided Bread
based on Plaited Loaf recipe in Baking , by Martha Day

1 tablespoon active dry yeast (¼ teaspoon active dry yeast if using starter, too)
1 teaspoon honey
1 cup lukewarm milk (not over 100 degrees F) – I used a combination of condensed milk and low fat milk
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
(1 cup sourdough starter, if using)
1 egg, slightly beaten
15 oz. bread flour, plus about another 1 cup if using starter
Note: Flour amounts vary depending on moisture of the flour and of the kitchen
1 teaspoon salt
Glaze: 1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon milk

Combine the yeast, honey, milk and butter. Stir and let sit for 15 minutes.

Stir the egg (and the starter if you are using it) into the milk mixture and put in a mixer bowl. If you have a large stand mixer use it.

Stir together the flour and the salt. Pour about half into the mixer bowl with the milk mixture and mix with the paddle attachment or stir with a spoon. Switch to a dough hook, if using. Add the rest of the flour, about a 1/3 cup at a time, until the dough is soft but holds together well. At the end you may need to add the flour a tablespoon at a time. If not using a stand mixer, turn out on a floured surface when it is too hard to stir the flour in. Knead the rest of the flour in. Knead with mixer or by hand until dough is smooth and elastic.

Place dough in an oiled bowl, turn over to oil both sides. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 ½ hours.

Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment or a silicone mat. Set aside.

Turn risen dough out onto a floured board. Knead for a minute to release trapped gas. Divide into three even pieces of dough. Shape each piece into a long ‘snake’, about 18 inches long. Place the three strands side by side on the prepared pan. Starting at the middle, braid the three strands, then turn it and braid the other side. Tuck the ends under. Cover loosely and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Brush the loaf with the glaze using a pastry brush. Bake until golden, for about 40-45 minutes. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

Childhood and Cocoa

My earliest memories of having hot cocoa are from the days when we walked to and from school...I was in kindergarten. It took about forty five minutes to walk home on our little legs. My companion most days was Kevin who lived a block further on past my house. Kevin later became a priest. I guess I was a good influence, or at least not a distraction from his vocation. I think sometimes he stopped by our house and had some cocoa, too. After first grade my Mom started driving us to school, so I didn't see him much. Looking back it seems kind of amazing that little kids just walked by themselves all those miles, but times were different.

In late fall and for much of the winter, my Mom would make hot cocoa for the school kids and for the little ones who were old enough to drink hot drinks. She usually used canned milk because regular milk was expensive and there were a lot of kids. She would often join us at the dining room table, sipping on her cup of tea, perhaps with a piece of toast or a cookie if we were having cookies. It was a time when we could tell her how things were at school. In later years I would have tea, too, and we would talk politics. We still talk politics and I can not tell you how excited my Mom is that we will be having such a grand new president in a few weeks! As a life-long Democrat, she is thrilled.

Getting back to my childhood, I remember that I loved to have hot cocoa when we came home in the winter after sledding. I would stay out in the snow until I was totally chilled, so warm, dry clothes and hot cocoa were just the best thing going.

Later, when I was in high school but my sister had graduated and gone to nursing school a few hours away, I made the cocoa to welcome my parents home after their long drive to take her back to school when she had visited home. It was always a relief to see their car's headlights turning into the driveway.

Home made cocoa is so simple to make. I usually still make it with Hersheys cocoa powder, but now I often use low fat sweet milk. A special trick is to add the vanilla just before you serve it...you can really smell it during your first sip! If you like marshmallows, by all means add some to your cup.

Hot Cocoa from My Childhood
For each serving:

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon sugar
a pinch of salt
¼ cup hot water
1 cup milk (I used a combination of evaporated and fresh)
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a saucepan, mix together the cocoa, sugar and salt. Make a paste with some of the hot water, then add the rest, stirring constantly, to make a smooth liquid.


Heat over high heat just until it begins to simmer, then reduce heat to a simmer and simmer 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add the milk and stir to incorporate, then turn heat to high again and heat to the desired temperature to drink (some people like their hotter than others), stirring occasionally. When at the desired temperature, turn off the heat and add the vanilla. Stir.

Serve right away in a large coffee cup or mug.

Elegant French Buche de Noel

December challenge absolutely required daring and diligence....read on.

Frozen French Yule Log

Once again the Daring Bakers have gone to the brink with an over the top dessert for the holidays. Last year it was the cake and buttercream Yule Log, this year it is the very elegant frozen French Yule Log or Buche de Noel.

A frozen Yule Log very reminiscent of an ice cream cake, only often it’s not made of ice cream but rather frozen mousse of some sort. In French this is called an entremets which is sometimes loosely translated in English as simply a cream dessert. This also means that this recipe is not holiday-specific, it is also just a scrumptious dessert recipe. I suspect, after making this dessert, that most French women purchase their frozen Yule Logs for the holidays, but I am very glad that Hilda and Marion chose it for the December challenge and that I made the time to create my own version, full of chocolate and coffee flavors.

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand. If you find that you enjoy these type of desserts, check out Florilege Gourmand for many more gorgeous entremets.

These Daring Baker challenges each month are usually each a learning experience.

With six required parts, many flavor choices to make, and the amount of organization required a lot was indeed learned making this Yule Log!

I also learned that Sweetie doesn’t know not to interrupt my concentration as I’m piping chocolate mousse over the coffee crème brulee’ just before piping more mousse and laying in the white chocolate buttercrunch crisp layer. Then I learned that sincere apologies are needed after I yelled at him for interrupting me, followed by a great deal of thought about the relative importance of doing the challenge. Even though it turned out to be his all time favorite of the Daring Baker challenges, making it with all of the other stressed of Christmas time might not have been wise.

The good news is that I kept the learning experience going by identifying more stressors and dealing with some of them. So it was actually a good thing that the challenge was made and the mousse was interrupted. Ha hah! Still, sorry Sweetie!

The photo above shows all of the layers and how my slices looked for serving.

Chocolate was the main flavor of my buche, with (first element) dark chocolate icing (I used the milk chocolate recipe but used dark chocolate…don’t care for the cocoa version), (second element) dark chocolate ganache, (third element) almond dacquoise and extra almond dacquoise for décor (photo below shows dacquoise being spread before being baked),

(fourth element) a luscious coffee crème brulee’ (simmered some coffee in the heavy cream, then used a fine tea strainer to strain out the coffee grounds. This was my favortie part of the challenge. Photo below.

The next layer was (fifth element) a crisp made using crush cereal,

white chocolate and pulverized buttercrunch candy. If I were to make this again, I would break up the crisp layer because it was too hard to cut…maybe not enough cereal?

The dark chocolate mousse (sixth element) was the most difficult element for me but it was fun to see what the syrup did with the whisk on my KA…almost like cotton candy.

That worried me, but it ended up blending in fine and the mousse was quite delicious.

I decorated the top with dacquoise stars and chocolate covered coffee beans. It made a great dessert for a holiday dinner with friends.

Thank you Hilda & Marion and Flore, too. Happy Holidays all you Daring Baker type people!

Check out the hundreds and hundreds of variations of this gorgeous dessert through the Daring Baker Blogroll.

You can go to Hilda’s blog, Saffron and Blueberries for the full recipe. Marion will be posting closer to the New Year.

Roasted Beets Rev Up a Salad

Start with freshly washed, crisp mixed salad greens.

Don't they look wonderful?

Make a dressing with the juice of 1 lemon, a teaspoon lemon zest, 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, about /34 cup olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Whisk it all together. The blue cheese gets crumbled on top...about 1/4 cup.

The beets were washed well, the root and top removed, put in heavy foil with a little olive oil, then roasted at 400 degrees F until tender, about 1/2 hour. Then I peeled them...a messy job. Next time will probably peel them first. Chill the beets (unless you like cool salad and warm beets), then slice in thin slices.
Toss the chilled greens in the dressing, place on plates. Top with the blue cheese, the beet slices, and toss on a few candied or plain walnuts if you have them. Voila'...beet salad.

The dressing will dress enough greens to serve 2 - 4. The other ingredients are to taste. Extra salt and pepper should be available, too, for those who like more.

Mid-winter Wishes

In many cultures this time of year is celebrated as the time when we pass the longest night of the year and the light of longer days begins to return to the world. As a Christian I celebrate the birth of Christ and Christmas and the light that He brought to the world.

Wishing you the comfort and joy of the season. Hoping that you will gather with friends and family to celebrate the delight of loving and living. Especially hoping that there will be cooking and baking and feasting as part of the celebrations.

Here is my baking angel to wish you the happiest of holidays! Elle

Oats Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls

If this posts gets a nursery rhyme stuck in your head, that’s OK if that motivates you to bake these rolls. Of course if you forget to add the oats, like I did, it is a more pedestrian Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls.

There is nothing like fresh, warm from the oven dinner rolls at a potluck, especially when you know that the hostess is providing slices of ham and roast turkey. It may not seem as seasonal as candy cane cookies or fudge, but pot lucks are so typical of entertaining during the busy holiday season…the work is shared and we get to make something wonderful to bring. I'm submitting this as an entry for Bread Baking Day # 15, hosted by Annarasa, with the theme of celebrations.

This recipe is based on one of Marion Cunningham’s from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book. In case you have not read this book, it is a wonderful compendium of basic baking recipes, plus riffs on those. I especially like the front and back endpapers which have measurement equivalents, a basic pie dough formula, how to make a piece of parchment into a piping bag, how to soften gelatin and other tips.

Twenty-four to thirty soft, crusty, warm, yeasty dinner rolls are hard to beat. I made mine as pull-apart pan rolls, leaving about 2/3 of them plain on top and adding seeds to the rest. I replaced some of the all-purpose flour with barley flour and whole wheat flour and used my whole wheat starter.

NOTE: To use regular yeast instead of starter, when I add the starter to the other ingredients, leave that out and sprinkle 1 package dry yeast on top of the ingredients, stir, and let stand to dissolve.

A bonus is that your house smells yeasty and wonderful for hours. These would also be great for Christmas dinner, with roast beef or turkey or goose.

Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls
1 ¼ cups milk, warmed
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick or ¼ cup0 butter, softened (plus another 2 tablespoons if making pan rolls)
1 cup whole wheat starter – if using dry yeast, see Note above
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup barley flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/13 – 3 cups all-purpose flour

Stir the warm milk, sugar, salt, and butter together in large mixing bowl. Make sure that the liquid is no warmer than 115 degrees F dry yeast, ten degrees less for cake yeast and starter.

Stir in the starter, then beat in the barley flour, whole wheat flour and ½ cup all-purpose flour.

Switch to the dough hook if you are using one. Beat in the rest of the flour on low speed. Continue to knead with the mixer 5-6 minutes or turn out onto a flour surface and knead for 6 – 8 minutes, until smooth and elastic.

Put into a large, greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap,a nd let rise until dougle in buld, Punch down and form into rolls.

Pan pull-apart rolls: Melt 2 – 3 tablespoons butter in a shallow dish in the microwave, making sure to cover the dish with waxed paper to keep spatters down.

Take the dough ball and divide it in half. Roll each half into a roughly 12 inch rope. Cut each rope into one inch pieces.

Roll each piece between the palms of your hands into a ball. Continue until all balls are made. Dip each ball in butter, coating all sides, then place in an 8 or 9 inch cake pan, leaving a little room between balls. If desired, sprinkle with seeds.

Cover loosely and let rise until double in bulk.

Bake in a preheated 425 degree F oven for about 15 minutes, or until the tops are a ddp golden brown. Remove from the oven, ease the rolls out of the pan and onto a rack to cool for a moment. Serve while warm with butter.

Christmas Cookie for Our Daughter

Every year, for longer than I care to remember, I’ve baked a buttery, nut and cherry flecked cookie for Christmas. The original recipe called for the dough log to be rolled in coconut before wrapping it up for it’s stay in the fridge. After making it that way for a few years, I decided that the coconut was messy and often burned before the cookies finished cooking. Soooo, goodbye Santa’s Whiskers and hello Shaven Santa cookies. Call ‘em what you like, they are yummy!

These have become a holiday tradition; it just isn’t Christmas without them. When we traveled to Monterey after our son died, I brought a tin of these cookies along. When we visited my Mom on Christmas a few years ago, brought some to eat on the plane. When we went to Seattle for Christmas, our very own Shaven Santa cookies kept the Macrina cookie selection company.

This year our daughter will be in the Nashville area for Christmas so I’m mailing a box to JM’s mom and asking her to put the package with these same cookies under their tree…a bit of home and tradition to meld with the new experience.

So you can bake these and start your own tradition…and you can add back the ‘whiskers’ of coconut if you like. They taste great either way. If you make them with both red and green candied cherries as we do, they also look very festive. They are tender and have both an almond and a pecan flavor. Best of all they go together quickly and are easy refrigerator cookies….just slice and bake.

Shaven Santas/Santa’s Whiskers

1 cup softened butter (2 sticks)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3/4 cup mixed red and green candied cherries
1/2 cup pecans

Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add almond extract and beat until creamy.

Mix in the flour until well blended. Dough will be stiff.

Coarsely chop cherries and pecans.

Stir in fruit and nuts. Mix well. Form dough into two logs on pieces of plastic wrap.

Wrap well and refrigerate at least an hour and up to one week (or freeze up to one month).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove dough logs from fridge or freezer. If frozen let thaw a bit.
With a serrated knife, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch thick discs.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheets about 12 minutes or until edges are golden. Cool on rack.

Makes 4 or 5 dozen.
Note: To make as Santa's Whiskers roll logs in coconut before wrapping to refrigerate or freeze. Proceed as written with rest of recipe. Make sure not to burn coconut when baking.

I’m submitting this to Food Blogga Susan’s great cookie event, Eat Christmas Cookies, now in it's second year. She has a wonderful assortment of cookies already showcased for this year. If you need inspiration, or a virtual cookie fix, head on over to the round up!

Package Time

You'd think it was the North Pole or something. Packages have been coming and going like crazy!
Although there has been cooking and baking going on here on the hill, there has been no time to blog about it...because of packages.

Some of the goodies were gifts and some have been mailed, others will go today. Since they are Christmas gifts, no blogging allowed...some of the recipients read these posts...wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.

Some will be given today to Doublepeas here at home and some on Friday to Natasha and her hubby in Davis at our favorite goulash restaruant.

Some will be mailed (hopefully this morning) to Tennessee where our daughter will be for the holidays. First year not home for Christmas, but finding a good guy and spending Christmas with his family are wonderful reasons, although I'm barely keeping a stiff upper lip, happy for her though I am.

Packages are arriving, too.

One came from Tanna at My Kitchen In Half Cups. It was a winner! She sent it as part of the Pay It Forward event. Three totally yummy baked goods, plus...RECIPES!!...so I can make them myself. THANK YOU Tanna!

One has yet to be blogged about by Tanna herself, and another one (the lovely filled one in the photo above) can be found by using the link in the above paragraph, so today I can only share one of the recipes with you. It is a good one...Lemon Tea Bread. This one has a sweet lemon glaze that soaks into the loaf and forms almost a sugary crust on top, too. It was the favorite of the three for my nephew. I made a loaf as a gift because it's the best lemon tea loaf ever!

The recipe was given to her by an elderly neighbor years ago. One of the gifts of the season is passing on good recipes. These can be baked in little loaf pans, too. That's what Tanna did...makes 'em very cute! Here is her recipe with notes:

LEMON TEA CAKE BREAD

When we lived on Eager Road above the Watsons, there was a delightful 90 year old lady named FiFi in the building next to ours. One morning FiFi couldn’t get her car started. Good neighbor Sue came out to help and they got FiFi’s car started. To say "Thank You", FiFi baked Sue a loaf of Lemon Tea Cake Bread using an old family recipe. After considerable enticements to get the recipe, FiFi finally relented and Sue of course shared it with me. This is one of those things people really do remember and ask for again and again. Many years I have used this for Christmas gifts.

1/3 c melted butter 1 t salt
1 c sugar 1/2 c milk
2 eggs grated rind of lemon
1 1/2 c flour 3 T lemon juice
1 t baking powder 1/2 c ground almonds

Mix sugar with melted butter, beat in eggs. Add sifted ingredients alternately with milk, beating just enough to blend. Fold in grated lemon rind and ground almonds. Using pound cake size pan, bake in 350° oven for 50 min. While still hot drip lemon juice in 1/2 c sugar over top. Wrap in foil when cool.

DO NOT CUT FOR 24 HOURS

FI FI ON EAGER ROAD

Warm and Savory and Flat Bread

I love good focaccia bread. There is something about the dimples in the dough, or maybe it's the olive oil and salt and other goodies that fill the dimples. That' s probably it. Still having a lot of fun playing with the sourdough.

I used a simple topping of good olive oil, sea salt, and some rosemary. You can serve this with soup, or slice it in half and use it to make sandwiches, or even just snack on it...the latter is what happened to a lot of this pan of focaccia. It goes together easily. I boosted the yeastiness with a little active dry yeast, but next time I think I'll skip that.

Sourdough Focaccia with Rosemary

1 cup sourdough starter
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 cup water, divided
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
3 - 4 cups unbleached all purpose or bread flour
2 teaspoons salt

about 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary

In the bowl of a stand mixer place the sourdough starter. Add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and mix briefly with the paddle attachment just until the oil is mixed in.

Make sure the water is lukewarm. Take 1/4 cup of it and add the dry yeast. Let sit 5 minutes until foamy.

Add the yeast, the rest of the warm water, and about half the flour. Mix with the paddle.

Switch to the dough hook. On slow speed add the flour, a half cup or so at a time, adding only a few tablespoons at a time toward the end. The dough will be soft. Add the salt and then knead with the dough hook on low to medium low speed for about 6 minutes, until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl and is smooth. Turn out on a lightly floured board or counter and knead in most of the rosemary, leaving about a teaspoon for the top.

Form the dough into a ball. Oil a large bowl (not metal) and turn the dough ball in the oil to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm place and let rise until doubled in bulk. It took mine four hours, but even my 'warm' place wasn't as warm as it should have been.

Punch dough down, turn out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface, knead a few time to get rid of the extra trapped gas. (I should had done a little more of this...I had some whopper air bubbles in the finished focaccia.) Oil a large baking sheet and spread the dough out in the pan. I pushed it with my fingers, pushing it into one corner, then another, then the other side of the pan. Dimple all over with your finger tips. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of olive oil over the dough, sprinkle with the remaining rosemary, and sprinkle liberally with more sea salt...to taste.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 15 minutes. Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for about 15 - 20 minutes, until top is golden. Cool slightly on a rack, then turn out onto a cutting board and cut into serving sized pieces. Can be eaten warm or cold.

I'm submitting this focaccia to Susan at Wild Yeast for the latest YeastSpotting event. Do check out the roundups...they always have yummy recipes using yeast or yeasted dough.

Baking Christmas Cookies - Crescent Cookies

Every year for the last little while my Mom has baked dozens and dozens of her famous Crescent Cookies and shipped a tin to each of her children's families at Christmas. These rich morsels contain lots of butter, finely chopped pecans, and are rolled in confectioner's (icing) sugar. Each one sits in a muffin paper. Only a few break during shipping, so there are plenty for the cookie tray and some to go with a restorative cup of tea.

This year Thanksgiving was too late. Crescent Cookies will have to be baked at home. Mom is gearing up for Christmas visitors and for making the Lane Cake, so she really doesn't have the time or energy this year for baking so many Crescent Cookies.

Even if you are not an official member of my family, you can start your own holiday tradition by baking a batch (or more...they make great gifts!) of these delicious cookies. They are simplicity itself to make.The recipe may have come from somewhere else originally, but I got my copy from my Mom and reprinted it in Family Food, 1994.

Crescent Cookies

1 ½ cup butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
3 cups flour
1 ½ - 2 cups finely chopped pecans
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Cream butter, add the rest of the ingredients, and mix thoroughly. Chill. Shape into 1 inch by 3 inch crescents on a buttered baking sheet. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes in a preheated 300 degree F oven. Cool. Roll in confectioners’ sugar and store airtight. Makes 4 dozen.

To prepare in a food processor: Put the butter, cut into chunks in the bowl of the processor. With metal blade, cream butter on high about half a minute. Add rest of ingredients and process until a ball of dough forms. Chill. Continue as described above.

Merlin On the Table

King of the hill is the perfect description for Merlin, our fluffy gray cat. He knows he isn't supposed to get on the table, but he just ignores that when it suits him. Perhaps he knows that he is irresistible.