One Cookie Dough - Endless Possibilities

From one simple  batch of cookie dough, you can make an endless variety of cookies.  This recipe easily doubles.  For each of the add-ins listed below, use one half of the single recipe or one fourth of the double recipe.

Basic Creamed Dough

(Adapted from The Good Cook)

Makes about 1 ½ pounds, or about 40 cookies)

Single Recipe
14 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt

Double Recipe
28 tablespoons
2 cups sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt


In bowl of electric mixer, cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the beaten egg.  Sift together the flour, baking powder.  Add the dry mixture to the creamed mixture and beat until just combined. 

Add in suggested ingredients.  Bake in a preheated 375º oven for about 10 minutes or until firm and golden brown.  Remove from the pan onto cooling rack and cool completely.

Variations:

(For single batch)
Chocolate Dough: Substitute ½ cup cocoa powder for ¼ cup flour.

Rich dough (suitable for piping): add 2 tablespoons butter and 1 egg yolk.

Swirls: Make one batch plain, one batch chocolate.  Roll flat. Top Plain with chocolate and roll jellyroll fashion. Slice. 

Additions:
To ½ single batch or ¼ double batch add:

½ cup nuts, candied fruit, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, macadamia nuts, toffee bits (everyone’s favorite), or dried cranberries.

Roll into balls and make jam thumbprints or add chocolate kiss.

Add 1 tablespoon bourbon or other liquor.

Replace extract with rose water, orange extract, lemon extract, etc.

Glaze cookies with royal icing tinted and flavored (pink color with rose water; green color with mint, etc.)

Add 1 teaspoon spice (apple pie spice, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, cardamom, etc.)

Pipe in cookie press.

Dip in chocolate.
Roll in nuts.

Let your imagination go!

Suggestions:

Make a double batch, set aside. Make second chocolate batch in same mixer, so you won’t dirty it twice.

;-)

Upon perusing my Facebook wall today, I discovered this lovely note from my friend,  Stewart:

This is for my friend Sally. Her oven is kapoot and she can't bake or nothing!

It was followed by this link: No-Bake Cookies

Well, folks, I have no choice do I? All my excuses have been demolished. All that is left is to make some nummy Christmas cookies sans oven.

Ah me!  How I suffer so!  Nummy cookies to create and yummy CHOCOLATE WEEK!! next week.

Fruitcake-free Fruit Crunch

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard all the fruitcake jokes.  The thing is, I like fruitcake! People who don't like fruitcake have never had a good one.

To ease you, my dear readers, into the daring task of trying fruitcake, here's a snack mix.  It has the flavors of fruity goodness, without  the cake.

I double-dog dare you to try it.

Fruitcake-free Fruit Crunch

2 cups wheat cereal squares
2 cups rice cereal squares
2 cups corn cereal squares
2 cups oat cereal squares
1 cup dried golden raisins
1 cup dried, chopped dates
2 cups dried sour cherries
2 cups mixed nuts (may be salted or unsalted)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 Tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice

Line two large rimmed baking sheets (15 x 10 x 1 or larger) with parchment paper.  Layer half of dry ingredients in each pan. Mix thoroughly.

In 4-cup (or larger) glass measure, melt butter in microwave.  Add honey, brown sugar,  ginger and spice.  Whisk to combine.  Drizzle half of liquid mixture over each pan of cereal mixture.  Gently stir to coat cereal mixture.

Bake at 325º for 30 to 35 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  Cool pans of crunch on wire racks.  Break apart any large pieces. 

Cheapy and Easy -- And Beefy!

No, I'm not insulting my friends.  Here's a beef recipe that's cheap and easy.

Chuck, Top Round and Bottom round roasts are some of the cheaper cuts of meat. Prepared properly, they taste like money. Try this for your holiday table!

Penny Pincher's Money Roast

Place raw meat in dish. Salt and pepper roast (Preferably using Koshering salt), turning to season all over.  Let meat sit out on the counter for about 1 hour, to bring to room temperature.  (One hour is well within the FDA's recommended maximum time of two hours.)

Meanwhile preheat your oven to 325º.

Place roast in greased pan.

Cook at 325º for 30 minutes per pound, for medium; 35 minutes for well-done.  For instance, if you have a 3 1/2 pound roast, cook it for 1 hour and 45 minutes.  This cut should not be served rare.

Remove from oven and let rest for five minutes, then serve.

The key here is that you will be using the right temperature for the right cut of meat.  If you cook it too high or too low, the roast will dry out. Different cuts of meat require different cooking times.

Cranberry-Chai Tea - Perfect for Holiday Gatherings!

Miss Sally-Page darlin', 

I need a nice hot Christmas tea recipe to be served at a brunch. Ya got one, girl? We used to do a cider/tang thingie in NC. I might do that.......... Mulling (no pun intended) it all over in my little brain. 

Pam 

Dear Pam,

How spicy do you like it? Let me be clear; I'm talking about TEA. Oops. I beg your pardon. That's none of my business.

Your wish is my command. Just for lil ol' you, an easy to make, easy to double recipe.  You can make this in advance and simply reheat it.  I like to make a big pitcher of it to have on hand.  When friends pop by or winter winds chill my fingers, a quick zap in the microwave and  tea is served.


Cranberry-Chai Tea

4 cups water
1 tablespoon fennel seed
6 green cardamom pods
12 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
6 black peppercorns
1 tablespoon finely chopped candied ginger
2 (family-sized) tea bags
¼ cup brown sugar
4 cups cranberry juice cocktail

In a medium saucepan, add fennel seed, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick, and peppercorns.  Heat on medium until spices are fragrant, but not burned, about three minutes.

Carefully add water and ginger root.  Add tea bags. Bring water up to 190º or until almost beginning to boil. Do not let it boil.  This should take 15 – 20 minutes.

Set pan off heat and let steep three minutes. Remove tea bags and strain out spices.

Stir in the brown sugar and cranberry juice cocktail. Reheat on medium temperature. Serve warm.  May also be served chilled.  (May be served warm or chilled with a shot of vodka or rum!)

May be made ahead, chilled and reheated. Candied ginger can be added to individual servings, if desired.

Makes ½ gallon.

Double Recipe:

8 cups water
2 tablespoons fennel seed
12 green cardamom pods
24 whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
12 black peppercorns
2 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
4 (family-sized) tea bags
½  cup brown sugar
1 (64 ounce) bottle cranberry juice cocktail

Makes one gallon.

NoJoMo, The Last Entry

Today is the last day of NoJoMo: November Journaling month. My blogging buddy, Stove Lady dared me to take the challenge of journaling everyday in the month of November. Well,  I did it!

Had Stove Lady not challenged me, I never would have done it. This was an incredibly difficult month; divorce proceedings have been haunting my every shallow breath.  The paperwork involved was more than I ever could have imagined. My house is a wreck from all the files scattered about the house.

The idea of running a food blog was getting me down. I'd stopped writing in it. It's hard to write a blog about home cooking when there's no one at home; no one to eat my delicious food. It's harder still when my kitchen is full of stacks of legal documents staring back, watching me cook.

However, NoJoMo was a lifesaver.  It gave me something I had to do everyday, no matter how discouraged or sad I might have been.  It forced me out of a funk.

NoJoMo became my walking buddy.  Looking for beautiful fall leaves for the cranberry sauce shoot, I returned to my daily walk. Neglected in my despondency, my daily walk is my companion once again. I'd forgotten how beautiful my neighborhood is. Now, I've taken to bringing along my iPhone.  A leaf or lawn ornament may inspire another story and I'll need that picture.

Cooking for one lonely divorcée seemed horribly sad. Instead, blogging everyday has connected me with old and new friends.

Forcing myself to develop recipes for this blog left me with more food than I could ever possibly eat. The apple fritter story left 40 fritters in need of a good home. I took them to the attorney's office, making delicious the sad task of divorce mediation.

Friends email or Facebook me with culinary questions now.  In real life, (or as my friend, Bucks Burnett, calls it, "Face-to-face book") friends mention a recipe or story from my blog. What do you know? People actually read this!

Patient dining companions are almost used to hearing me exclaim, "Don't eat that yet! I need to take a picture!" They even model for me. ("Now put your hands around the plate as if you can't wait to dig in!")

There were times when desperation made me write about the craziest topics, like frying chocolate chip cookies. That crazy post resulted in a funny reply from a French chef -- now another blogging buddy!  (By the way, you can't fry chocolate chip cookies, but you can microwave them for two minutes on 50% power. They won't be as brown as they would be baked in a conventional oven, but they will definitely satisfy a sweet tooth!)

Even now, with the deadline for this entry approaching, blogging forced me get out of the house to buy batteries for my dying mouse.  I'd been indoors all day, pitying myself for not having anyone with whom to make Christmas cookies.

Blogging forced me to reflect fondly on family memories. It connected me to my precious niece. Photo shoots made me dig out grandmother's silver and polish it.

Constant blogging drove traffic to this site as well as to my music website. In fact, this experience inspired me to set up a blog on the music site as well.

Publications have hired me as a freelance writer.

Blogging during this difficult time gave me a way to say good-bye to my ex in a way both compassionate and delicious.

Will I continue? Yes, but probably not as often. Christmas is upon us. For musicians, that means work! I discovered it's easier to blog everyday than sporadically, but I may take off the weekends. Singing beckons.

So, thank you, Stove Lady. Thank you for bringing old and new friends into my heart and home. Blogging pulled me through during a difficult time. While there is no one to share my home and the fear of losing my home still haunts me, good friends are only a mouse click away.

My Christmas Menu - 2008

Hi Ms. Home Cook,

What are you cooking for the holidays?

C

Dear Madame C,

How kind of you to ask.

On this year’s menu:

Brie-Champagne Soup
Brined and Smoked Turkey
Triple-Corn Spoonbread
Sweet Potato – Apple Casserole
Holiday Brussels Sprouts
Mother’s Fruitcake
Cherry Crumble

Many people turn up their noses at Brussels sprouts, and rightly so. Too often they are cooked unappetizingly. Left whole, the exterior becomes discolored and overcooked, while the interior is unpleasantly undercooked.

I have come to rescue the world from horrid brassica. Heavy is the burden, but it must be borne. Christmas feasts across the world are depending on this recipe.

In this recipe, Brussels sprouts are shredded, thereby insuring even cooking. The combination of greens with red cherries gives this a festive holiday look.

Holiday Brussels Sprouts

1 pound Brussels sprouts
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
Salt & pepper, to taste
½ cup dried sour cherries or dried cranberries, halved
¼ cup sliced almonds

Core Brussels sprouts and separate leaves. When the core gets too tight to separate, quarter. (This may be done ahead of time and refrigerated until ready.)

Alternately, slice Brussels sprouts into thin shreds (chiffonade). A mandolin or food processor makes quick work of this task.

Heat a large skillet on medium. Pour in olive oil. Add sprout leaves, nutmeg, salt & pepper. Stir-fry, using tongs to lift and flip sprout leaves. Cook until done to your liking. In the last few minutes, add cherries. Taste and adjust seasonings. Top with almonds and serve immediately.