PEAR, PROSCIUTTO, AND ARUGULA PIZZA

I used to claim that I didn’t like cooked fruit at all, and then that I didn’t like it in savory contexts, but lately there’s been a lot of evidence that I’ve become intrigued—some might say borderline obsessed—with pairing apples and pears with meat, probably because of the irresistible sweet-salty contrast. As soon as I turned the page to this recipe in last month’s Cooking Light, I tore it out, began trolling the online version for user reviews (it has a 5-star rating so far, I’m pleased to report), and eagerly awaited a chance to make it. Before I got an opportunity, my parents arrived for a visit and whisked us away on a trip to San Diego, during the course of which we ate at a CPK-style “gourmet” pizza restaurant, where I ordered…a pear and prosciutto pizza. The connection barely occurred it me at the time—it just looked like the most appealing thing on the menu to me at that particular moment—but when I got home and took another look at this recipe, I realized it was nearly an exact clone of the pizza I ate, down to the vinegar-dressed arugula salad on top. On the plus side, the restaurant’s version had gorgonzola, which I don’t normally love but which pairs beautifully with pears (I might add it to this recipe the next time I make it). But on the minus side, their pizza was drowning in dressing, leaving the arugula oily and the flavor overwhelmed by vinegar. When I set out to finally make my own, I was confident the homemade version would be better.

And, surprise! Of course it was better. (I tried to generate a bit of suspense with that paragraph break, but I think you know me too well to fall for it.) This being Cooking Light, I didn’t have the sodden-greens problem; there was no oil in the dressing and just the right (i.e., moderate) amount of vinegar. The combination of the caramelized onions, salty prosciutto, sweet pear, and peppery arugula was perfect. It tasted decadent, but the raw greens on top kept it feeling fresh and light—like a main dish and a salad in one! I feel like I always say this when I like something (particularly a pizza), but it’s true—I can’t wait to make it again.

A few notes:

• The CL recipe called for a 12-ounce premade pizza crust, but as usual, I was using Trader Joe’s pizza dough, which comes in a 1-pound ball, so my pizza was larger and I slightly increased the topping quantities accordingly. I didn’t really take note of the measurements I used, just eyeballed however much cheese and prosciutto it took to cover the crust.
• I used mozzarella instead of Provolone, because I prefer it and it’s what I had on hand. It was nice and neutral, lending a creamy texture without getting in the way of the other flavors. However, as I mentioned, a little sprinkling of Gorgonzola could amp this up even more.
• I used a D’Anjou pear, ever-so-slightly underripe. It worked well.
• I’m not sure how much the walnuts added to the mix. I couldn’t taste them much, and the texture clashed a bit with the rest of the ingredients, and they had a tendency to roll off the pizza when you picked it up to take a bite, so I’d understand if you wanted to omit them. But since I usually have them around, I’ll probably keep on including them.
• I think I used more arugula than the recipe called for (certainly more than is shown in the CL photo)—about two generous handfuls. I like to get my vitamins without bothering with a side salad.
• The original recipe called for sherry vinegar, but I subbed balsamic, since I didn’t have sherry, I like the taste of balsamic, and I believe the restaurant version used it.

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups thinly sliced yellow onion
1 pound pizza dough
½ to 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 medium-to-large pear, thinly sliced
2 ounces prosciutto, cut or torn into thin strips
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts, toasted
1½ to 2 cups baby arugula leaves
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion to pan; cover and cook for 3 minutes. Uncover and cook 10 minutes or until golden brown, stirring frequently.

3. Roll out pizza dough and place on a cornmeal-dusted baking sheet. Top evenly with onion mixture; sprinkle with cheese. Top evenly with pear and prosciutto. Sprinkle with pepper. Bake for 12 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is browned.

4. Sprinkle pizza with nuts. Place arugula in a medium bowl, drizzle with vinegar, and toss gently to coat. Top pizza evenly with arugula mixture.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good, but if you plan on having leftovers, don’t perform Step 4 for the entire pizza, only the part that you’re planning on eating right away. Store the pizza, walnuts, arugula, and vinegar in separate containers and don’t combine them until after the pizza has been reheated.

WHOLE WHEAT APPLE MUFFINS

I’ve mentioned it before: I’m just not a muffin person. (This despite the fact that my first cat was named Muffin. Hey, what can I say? I was 10.) They’re cute and all, but so many of them are sweet enough to verge on dessert territory, which is usually not what I crave for breakfast or a snack (and when it’s time for dessert, I’ll take candy or cookies or pie or cake, thanks). But muffins are so popular with others and so crazy easy to make that I do end up baking them on occasion, usually when I have an ingredient to use up (cream cheese, zucchini, ripe bananas) or when I need to bring a treat somewhere to share. So when I was charged with bringing the refreshments for my department’s monthly meeting, which takes place at 9:00 a.m., muffins were the obvious choice. While watching the Academy Awards red carpet show, I made poppy-seed almond muffins so I could finally get a picture for the ol’ blog—and then noticed, while rereading that entry, that I referred to making those very muffins during the Oscars three years ago! Apparently, something about the Oscars says “muffin time” to me.

I also wanted a slightly more wholesome (or wholesome-seeming) muffin option, so I decided to try this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen (adapted from King Arthur Flour). Although they sound vaguely hippie-ish—and indeed, they’re blessedly far from the cupcakes-masquerading-as-muffins phenomenon I abhor—the butter, buttermilk (ordinarily, I might try yogurt, but when baking for others my shameless desire for approbation leads me to choose the full-fat option most of the time), and generous sprinkling of brown sugar make them not out of place in the “treat” category. The whole wheat flavor comes through, but the texture is spectacularly moist and tender, with an irresistible crunchy, caramelized top. (If I were actually making these for my own breakfast/snacking purposes, I might go a little easier on the brown sugar on top, but for showoff/sharing purposes, it added just the right amount of pizzazz.) I brought 17 of these to work and had only two left over, so I think they were well received. I’d certainly make them again, on the rare occasion when I want muffins.

The recipe was straightforward, and I followed it to the letter, except that I ran out of cinnamon about 2 teaspoons (a tablespoon is a lot!) and substituted cardamom for the remaining teaspoon. I used Fuji apples and chopped them a bit smaller in an effort to ensure that they cooked all the way through (a few of them remained crispish, though, which is not my favorite texture in baked goods but didn’t seem to bother anyone else).

1 cup (4 ounces) whole wheat flour
1 cup (4¼ ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
½ cup (1 stick; 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup (3½ ounces) granulated sugar
½cup dark brown sugar, packed, divided
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup (8 ounces) buttermilk or yogurt
2 large apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Grease and flour muffin cups (or line them with paper liners) and set aside.

2. Mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and add the granulated sugar and ¼ cup of the brown sugar. Beat until fluffy. Add the egg and mix well; stop once to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Mix in the buttermilk gently. Stir in the dry ingredients and fold in the apple chunks.

3. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, sprinkling the remaining ¼ cup brown sugar on top. Bake for 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 400 degrees, and bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins for 5 minutes in the tin, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Yields: 12–18
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: High. These will remain moist in a sealed container at room temperature for several days, and they can be frozen for longer storage.

ROASTED PARSNIPS WITH BALSAMIC VINEGAR AND ROSEMARY

First fennel, then sweet potatoes, and now parsnips? 2010 has thus far apparently been The Year of New Vegetables , or at least The Year When I Finally Discover Great Recipes That Make Me Fall in Love with New Vegetables. I’d cooked with parsnips a few times before (once in a soup, and occasionally in various roasted-vegetable mixtures), but the results were never particularly blogworthy. Plus, for some reason I have a hard time obtaining parsnips—I never see them at the farmers’ market, and while it’s not that surprising that Trader Joe’s doesn’t have them, I’m confused that I can’t seem to find them at my local Vons either (which is a standard not-that-fancy chain grocery store, but does carry most other produce items I can think of, including quail eggs [I always wonder why those aren’t in the egg section]). So I have to go to Whole Foods, which is not on my usual grocery-getting rotation (the only things I regularly buy there are bulk oatmeal, ground pork, and Leinenkugel's beer), and where they are not particularly cheap for such a humble vegetable. Whither the parsnip in Pasadena?

This recipe from Jack Bishop’s indispensible Vegetables Every Day sounded like it was worth the special trip to Whole Foods, and an excellent way to give parsnips a chance. Roasting is pretty much always one of the best ways to broach a new vegetable, and parsnips roast up particularly well, sweet and caramelized, reminiscent of oven-baked sweet potato fries (one of my recent obsessions, although I haven’t posted a recipe yet because I’ve been playing with different versions). There are a million variations on roasted parsnips available on the Internets, but I’m so glad I tried Bishop’s, because the simple rosemary-balsamic glaze takes these to another level. Two tablespoons sounded like an awful lot of vinegar to be soaking my already-nice-looking roasted parsnips with, but sure enough, after a few more minutes in the oven, the vinegar magically cooked down into a sticky, subtle glaze that made them taste even better--an addictive treat of a side dish I'm already yearning to eat again.

The recipe is easy-peasy, although I did a poor job of cutting my parsnips into uniform-sized pieces, and I’m guessing that overall I could have done bigger ones, because they didn’t need anywhere near 40 minutes to get browned and tender (I’m guessing maybe 25 minutes?) and a few neared the verge of charred. So just keep an eye on them while they’re roasting and trust your senses over the recipe; when they look good to you, take them out.

2 pounds parsnips
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Peel the parsnips. If they are quite small, you can simply cut them into 1½-inch chunks. Larger parsnips will probably have a tough woody core that needs to be removed. (You can see it when you cut open the parsnips. To remove the core, quarter the parsnips lengthwise and then use a paring knife to shave off the portion of the core that is attached to each quarter.) Cut the cored parsnips into 1½-inch chunks.

3. Toss the parsnips with the oil on a large rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Roast, turning once, until golden brown, about 40 minutes.

4. Combine the vinegar and rosemary in a small bowl. Drizzle the mixture over the roasted parsnips on the baking sheet and toss to coat. Continue to roast until parsnips are glazed, about 3 minutes.

Serves: 4 (or possibly fewer; I made an approximately 1.5-sized version of the recipe and the two of us ate it all in one sitting)
Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour
Leftover potential: Unknown; I imagine they would lose some of their crispness but still taste quite nice

WILD RICE, PORK CHOP, AND APPLE SKILLET

This was my first time cooking pork chops. I think it was also my first time eating pork chops since childhood, when I distinctly disliked them, along with steak, chicken breasts, and any other large uninterrupted slabs of meat, which always seemed so bland and chewy to me that I ended up trying to secretly spit them out when no one was looking, which I’m sure was lovely for my parents. Now I’m quite a fan of meat, but I’ll admit I prefer it in small bits mixed with other things, and still feel dismayed when presented with a plate dominated by a big piece of it. So I was nervous about this dish. But my mom had given me some wild rice—real, hand-harvested Minnesota wild rice, not the wimpy cultivated grocery-store stuff—which was another thing I had no experience in cooking (I’m not a big rice eater), and I figured the best place to look for a suitable recipes was the St. Paul Farmers’ Market Cookbook, where this recipe jumped out a me. It looked dead easy, and I hoped the onions and broth and pork would jazz up the rice while the apples jazzed up the pork.

For my inaugural pork chop voyage, I figured I’d better spring for the highest-quality meat or it wouldn’t be a fair test of whether I really like pork or not. The Whole Foods meat counter (how I love ordering my meat from a real person, picking the pieces out myself, getting exactly the quantity I need, and having it neatly wrapped up in paper, not shrink-wrapped onto a tray; I wish there was a good old-fashioned butcher shop in my area) yielded four handsome, fresh pink chops, thick but not overwhelmingly large, for an eyebrow-raising $20 (although that’s only $5 a chop if you think about it, and the rice was free and the broth homemade and the other ingredients super-cheap, so after the initial sticker shock I determined it had been well worth it). I used Fuji apples and my enameled cast-iron Dutch oven. I had to do some guesswork when following the directions, because the recipe was for an electric skillet and just gave temperatures rather than stovetop settings (it also didn't call for any salt or pepper), but the method was so simple (brown pork, throw in other ingredients, let cook) that this wasn’t a problem. Even though the food had to cook for an hour, it was completely hands-off time, so this is still a decent recipe for a weeknight because you can go do something else while you’re waiting (I made a salad and then played some Wii!). Everything went smoothly and it tasted really good; the sweetness of the apple and the onion balanced out the earthy rice and savory pork, and the fact that the pork was braised in liquid with the rice kept it from the dreaded dryness. I probably won’t make this recipe again on a regular basis, but only because it’s rare to get my hands on the real wild rice. As for pork chops in general, I don’t think I’m going to start eating them on a regular basis, but I would definitely make them again if I found a good-looking recipe. Like, say, one that involves braised fennel…oh, dear.

4 pork chops, about 1 inch thick
1 tablespoon olive oil or canola oil
1 cup uncooked wild rice
1 large onion, sliced
2½ cups chicken broth
2 large red cooking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Season the pork chops on both sides with salt and pepper to taste, then add the chops to the pan and brown on both sides.

2. Remove chops to a plate and add wild rice to skillet. Arrange chops over wild rice. Place the onion slices over the chops. Pour chicken broth over everything and bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook at a slow simmer for 1 hour.

3. Add apple slices and simmer, covered, about 15 minutes more, or until apples and wild rice are tender and chops are fully cooked. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves: 4
Time: 1½ hours
Leftover potential: High

HONEY-VANILLA ICE CREAM

I can scarcely express how much I love this ice cream. I like honey and I like vanilla, so I didn’t doubt that they would be good when mixed when cream and frozen to a fluff, but even so I was taken aback by how incredibly delicious this tastes to me. Sometimes I think it reminds me of something nostalgic and half-remembered, and other times I think it must be what’s meant by “a land flowing with milk and honey.”If I could figure out how to make the inside of my mouth taste like this all the time, I would die happy. It’s not just that this is a good, simple, easy ice cream recipe (by Patricia Wells, via 101 Cookbooks); it strikes some sort of deep chord in me. I’ve been dying to share it with you ever since I tried it...er, last July.

In fact, this is the recipe that put an end to my run of frozen-treat making, which had started when I got my ice cream maker for my birthday in April. It was a halcyon few months—and then summer happened. Triple-digit desert heat + an apartment with no air conditioning + a wimpy freezer = ICE CREAM FAIL, ironically at the time that one requires ice cream the most. Even after a night in the freezer, my honey ice cream had the consistency of a milkshake that had been sitting in a hot car. We slurped it down happily just the same, and I vowed to make it again come cooler weather. But still, even though I knew perfectly well that the heat was to blame (not to mention that homemade ice creams, at least the non-egg ones, tend to be softer than commercial ones anyway, and this one didn’t even contain fruit or anything else that might have given it some extra body), deep down I felt jinxed, like I’d lost my ice-cream mojo. What if I tried it again and it didn’t work? Fall rolled around, but I didn’t get back on the horse, telling myself that I needed to find a source of good-quality vanilla beans cheaper than my local grocery stores. (The original recipe called for two beans, which is wildly extravagant, and although delicious, unnecessary; even most plain vanilla ice cream recipes don’t use more than one. I used one bean this time and it turned out just as tasty.) When Santa put a jar of three Penzeys beans in my Christmas stocking, that excuse went out the window, and now, with spring and the advent of tasty fruit season upon us (I'm fixing to be a frozen yogurt fiend!), I knew I had to face my fears before the summer heat returned. And this time, everything worked out just fine.

Both times, I used the amazing honey I got from the CSA last summer, but now the jar is just about empty. Next time, I’ll buy the honey at the farmer’s market (probably orange blossom, which tastes like candy to me). I’m sure the recipe would still be better than a poke in the eye if you used average everyday honey, but since honey is the main flavor here, it’s worth getting the good stuff. Luckily, a big jar of good honey plus a vanilla bean make this just expensive enough that I can’t justify making it every week, because otherwise I’d be (bee?) in trouble. Did I mention I love this stuff?

1 vanilla bean
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
½ cup honey (use a high-quality, aromatic honey that you enjoy the flavor of)

1. Flatten the vanilla bean and cut it in half lengthwise. With a small spoon, scrape out the seeds. Place the seeds and pod in a medium saucepan. Add the cream, milk, and honey. Stir to dissolve the honey. Heat over medium heat, stirring from time to time, just until tiny bubbles form around the edges of the pan, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Remove from the heat and let steep, covered, for 1 hour.

3. Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled (several hours to overnight).

4. Remove the vanilla pod, and stir the mixture again to blend. Transfer it to an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions.

Serves: About 6
Time: 15 minutes, plus at least 4 hours of chilling time, plus freezing time
Leftover potential: Good

PENNE WITH PORK, PEARS, AND MUSHROOMS

Just when I start thinking it’s time to put a moratorium on acquiring new pasta recipes when I have so damn many already, I keep stumbling across new ones full of exciting ingredients: first fennel, then kale, and now pears! It took me a while to work up the gumption to try this unusual pasta sauce (another great find from the Meat Lite column at Serious Eats), but I’m certainly glad I did. Of course pork is often complemented by fruit, so I knew the pears would work out well, but I was still surprised by how well the three main ingredients, spiked with sherry, broth, and vinegar, melted into such a rich, savory sauce. As promised, it felt satisfyingly meaty even though it contained only a small portion of pork (it breaks down into tiny bits and permeates the sauce). A enthused that it might be his favorite pasta recipe. My reaction was more along the lines of “this is pretty good”; I enjoyed making and eating it, but there are a lot of pasta recipes that I prefer, most of them meatless. Even though there were a lot of flavors involved, the end result tasted so uniformly brown to me. I might experiment with brightening it up with parsley or lemon at the end. Still, if you’re looking for something to shake up your usual pasta routine or want to impress dinner guests with your gourmet cooking skillz—or if you just want something warming and hearty but not gut-busting on a cold winter night—this pasta will give you a complex dish with very little effort.

There was one flaw in the recipe as written: It called for 2 tablespoons of olive oil; 1 tablespoon was used in Step 1, but the second was never mentioned. I just used both tablespoons in Step 1, but that looked like too much. My pork got nice and crispy and browned, but then the pan seemed a bit dry in subsequent steps. One of the Serious Eats commenters said they added it with the mushrooms, so I’ve gone ahead and written it into Step 2 below. That was my only real deviation from the recipe. My sauce did seem a bit over-liquidy even after 30 minutes of simmering, so I took the lid off and raised the heat to try to reduce it further, but then once I put the pasta in, it seemed a little dry and I had to add pasta water, so really I should probably have followed the recipe more closely in that regard. I have noted below that you might want to reserve some pasta water, though, just in case.

I used homemade chicken broth and a red D’Anjou pear, both of which worked well for me. The original recipe says you can use white button mushrooms, but I really think you should go with the brown cremini (as I nearly always do when mushrooms are called for).

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
¼ pound ground pork
2 large shallots, finely chopped (½ cup)
½ pound cremini mushrooms, quartered
1 large pear (about 10 ounces), diced small
2 large garlic cloves, sliced
¼ cup dry sherry
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1½ cups mushroom, vegetable, or chicken broth
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 pound penne pasta
Freshly grated or shaved Parmesan cheese to taste

1. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large, high-sided sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the pork and cook to brown, about 5–7 minutes, breaking the meat into small pieces with a wooden spoon. Add the shallots and sauté an additional 2–3 minutes.

2. Add other tablespoon of oil and the mushrooms to the pork and shallots; sauté 5–7 minutes, until the mushrooms begin to brown and soften. Stir in the pear and garlic, cooking for another 2–3 minutes.

3. Pour in the sherry and scrape any browned bits from the bottom of the pan as the liquid sizzles. Let the sherry reduce until it is almost dry. Add the thyme, broth, and vinegar, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer, partially covered, for 20–30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. While the sauce simmers, cook pasta according to package directions. Reserve about 1 cup of pasta water, then drain the pasta and toss with the sauce, adding pasta water if needed to moisten. Top each serving with grated Parmesan to taste.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good.

SWEET POTATO AND SPINACH SALAD WITH WARM BACON VINAIGRETTE

Yes, another salad with bacon and another mustard vinaigrette. I just can’t help myself! This one has a convoluted story: Along with kale and fennel, I’ve been craving sweet potatoes lately. In my analog recipe stash, I had a photocopied recipe from some forgotten cookbook for a warm side dish of sweet potatoes with spinach and bacon, which suddenly started sounding irresistible to me. So I went online to see if anyone else had made the recipe and what they thought of it. It turns out that you get a lot of results if you Google “sweet potatoes spinach bacon”—but most of them are salads. Apparently, sweet potato, spinach and bacon salad is, like, an established thing? I clicked on a few recipes and soon realized that they sounded better than the original recipe I’d been searching for. First I found this Mark Bittman recipe at Serious Eats, but I wasn’t sure the ginger, cumin, and orange flavors were what I wanted. Then I found this Rachel Ray recipe (yep, I fell into the Rachel Ray vortex again). It sounded delicious, except for the fact that the sweet potatoes were boiled, which, bleah. Why boil a sweet potato when you can roast it? So I stole the roasting method from the Bittman recipe, halved the Rachel Ray recipe, and went to work. We were both extremely pleased with the result. This is a big, bold salad bursting with a wide variety of flavors, textures, and fresh, colorful vegetables. I could have just eaten the salt-and-peppery roasted sweet potato chunks on their own, but on a bed of crisp spinach (mine didn't really wilt; I think my dressing had cooled a bit, but I didn't mind), dressed in a tart-sweet dressing and spangled with bacon, they were amazing. Even non-sweet-potato-lovers (A is one) will love this.

2 medium-large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 slices bacon, diced
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2–3 cups baby spinach

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Roast, turning occasionally, until crisp and brown outside and just tender inside, 20–30 minutes. Remove from oven and keep them on the pan until ready to use.

2. While the potatoes are cooking, place a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the bacon, and cook until crisp.

3. Remove the bacon from the pan and add the onion, garlic, some salt, and tons of black pepper to the bacon drippings. Cook until the onions are tender, about 5 minutes.

4. Remove pan from the heat and add the mustard, vinegar, and remaining 1 tablespoon oil, whisking vigorously to incorporate the dressing.

5. Place the spinach in a large bowl, add the sweet potatoes, pour the dressing on top, and toss well to coat the potatoes and lightly wilt the spinach. Crumble the bacon over everything. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves: 2 as a main dish or 4 as a side dish
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: We didn't try, but probably not great.

BAKED OATMEAL

Brilliance, thy name is baked oatmeal.

I love oatmeal—I’m a sucker for it in baked goods and have been known to snack upon handfuls of raw oats. But I don’t find myself eating regular old steaming bowls of cooked oatmeal very often, because (a) I don’t usually have that much time in the morning, and (b) strangely, I’m not very good at making it. If I use the microwave, it boils over; if I use the stovetop, scalded milk sticks to the pot; and either way, it tastes sort of bland and boring. And the less said about the sickly-sweet instant stuff, the better. So I had pretty much resigned myself to eating cold cereal for breakfast—which is no problem, really; it’s one of my favorite foods and I make a killer homemade granola, but sometimes in the winter something hot and comforting sounds so good. Then I got a sudden hankering to make this recipe, which I had torn out of a Penzeys catalog at my parents’ house years ago and jammed into a folder (a Dawson’s Creek folder, of all things, which I once received as a gag gift, possibly at a white elephant party) where all the orphaned recipes I collected on a whim languished sadly. When menu planning, I always use the Internet, referring to my blog or all the online recipes I’ve bookmarked using Delicious, so I always forget about the torn-out magazine pages and photocopied pages from library cookbooks until it’s too late. But a spate of cold weather had me craving hot oatmeal, and I’m so glad I exhumed this recipe because it is the perfect solution to all my problems—er, the oatmeal-related ones, anyway.

This was easy to throw together on a Sunday morning. I was a little suspicious of how full the baking dish was—wouldn’t it boil over?—but what emerged from the oven (which I stupidly forgot to photograph) looked flat and solid and browned, like a cake. When I scooped out a spoonful, the interior was tender and fluffy, sort of like an oatmeal pudding, with toasty edges reminiscent of a soft cookie. It tasted like good, perfectly seasoned oatmeal. The best part was that after taking my initial serving, I threw the rest into an airtight container and stashed it in the refrigerator. Then every morning for the next week, I pulled it out, scooped out a bowlful, microwaved it for a minute, poured milk over it (recommended, as this has a slightly drier texture than your usual oatmeal), and voila! Oatmeal with all the fixins. Amazing! I can tell this is going to be a life-changer. I can’t wait to make another batch; it’s like the winter version of granola—and like granola, I suspect it’s infinitely customizable. Probably any dried fruit would work here; I used raisins and will use fewer next time, because I only like the occasional raisin in my oatmeal. I liked the walnuts but see no reason you couldn’t try pecans or almonds instead. I might experiment with using a bit less sugar (it wasn’t overly sweet by any means, but my tolerance for sugar in the mornings is unusually low), and will perhaps add some flaxseed meal too. You could also get experimental with the spices; I did add a little cardamom, because I adore it, but I suspect the other chai spices (nutmeg, allspice, coriander, even turmeric) would fit in well too. And of course, you can top it with whatever you like—yogurt, fresh fruit, jam, etc.

About the only annoyance with this recipe is that you end up with four spare egg yolks, which I hate to waste, but if I start making custards or mayonnaise or lemon curd or pudding all the time, it’s going to defeat the purpose of this wholesome, sensible breakfast.

POSTSCRIPT: I have since made this twice more, and I think I've arrived at a version that's just the way I like it. I made the following changes:

• Reduced the brown sugar to ½ cup
• Reduced the raisins to ½ cup
• Used 2 whole eggs instead of 4 egg whites
• Omitted the oil
• Added 3-4 tablespoons ground flaxseed meal

I didn't detect a real difference in texture (or taste) due to the egg change. One of the times, the interior seemed slightly softer, but I may also have just underbaked it, because the next time it seemed to be the same as the egg-white version. Obviously, the egg-white version will be a little lighter in terms of cholesterol, but the whole-egg version is less wasteful and more convenient for me, so I'll be sticking with it. I figured that with the whole eggs plus the flaxseed, I didn't need the oil at all, and I didn't notice its absence. It's such a small amount that you might even be able to omit it while using the egg whites, if you oil the baking dish generously (I found that sometimes the browned exterior of the oatmeal tends to stick).

One time I also used chopped almonds instead of walnuts, because I had some that needed to be used up, and I threw in a drop of almond extract too, just for kicks. It tasted good, but I actually liked the texture of the walnuts better. If I try almonds again, I'll give sliced ones a shot.

2¼ cups quick cooking oats or 2¾ cups old-fashioned oats, uncooked
⅔ cup firmly packed brown sugar
¾ cup raisins or dried cranberries (craisins)
½ cup chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
3⅓ cups skim milk (I used 1%)
4 egg whites, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Milk, yogurt, and fruit for serving (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8-inch square glass baking dish with cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, combine oats, sugar, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, and salt. Mix well. In a medium bowl, combine milk, egg whites, oil, and vanilla and mix well. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until well blended. Pour into the baking dish.

3. Bake for 50–60 minutes or until center is set and firm to the touch. Cool slightly. Serve topped with milk or yogurt and fruit, if desired.

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Serves: 6–8
Leftover potential: High. Store leftover oatmeal tightly covered in the refrigerator and you can enjoy it all week long! Just scoop out your daily serving and reheat it in the microwave.

SPAGHETTI WITH BLANCHED KALE AND GARLIC-ROASTED POTATOES

I’m on a major kale kick lately, so I finally got up the gumption to try this recipe from Jack Bishop’s Pasta e Verdura. It’s one of my favorite cookbooks of all time (now shamefully out of print?)—and the source of at least half my cherished pasta dishes—so you wouldn’t think I’d be so reluctant to give this recipe a shot, but (a) there have been a few duds among all the gems in it; and (b) I tried a different kale pasta in December and wasn’t particularly thrilled by it, even though it came well recommended...which made me fear that I don’t really like kale quite as much as I think I do, like maybe I’m some sort of kale dilettante who likes it roasted or mixed with a bunch of other things but can’t handle the strong stuff straight up.

Luckily, I loved this. It’s exactly what it sounds like—crispy, garlicky, herby golden nuggets of potato tossed with tender, lemony kale over spaghetti. I devoured nearly all the leftovers myself (I think A only managed to snag one serving) and wouldn’t mind making it again right now. I did, belatedly, realize that it’s pretty much just a wintry version of a recipe I already have, only with spaghetti instead of penne and kale instead of arugula, but I think I actually like this one more; it seems to gel better somehow. The only thing I’d change from the original recipe? Saving some of the pasta water to loosen up the final dish—I almost did, but then figured I’d trust the all-knowing Bishop, and then sadly my results were on the dry side (although obviously still thoroughly edible). Also, be sure to use plenty of salt, or this may seem on the bland side at first bite (but trust me, it really isn’t). Now go forth and eat kale!

1 pound small red potatoes
6 tablespoons olive oil
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon salt, plus extra to taste
1 pound kale (about 2 large bunches)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 pound pasta
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Scrub the potatoes under cold running water, but do not peel them. Cut the potatoes into ½-inch chunks. Place in a baking dish large enough to hold them in a single layer (I used a 9x12 Pyrex). In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons oil with the garlic, rosemary, and 1 teaspoon salt. Drizzle the oil mixture over the potatoes, toss well, and spread back out in a single layer. Bake until potatoes are crisp and golden brown, about 40 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, bring several quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. Remove the tough center stems from the kale and discard (I find that folding them in half and slicing it off works best). Wash the kale leaves well in a colander or (if they seem particularly sandy) in a large bowl of cold water. Slice the damp leaves crosswise into ½-inch-wide strips. Add the kale and salt to taste to the boiling water. Cook until kale is tender but not mushy, about 4–6 minutes. Drain the kale and toss it in a large bowl with 2 tablespoons oil, the lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

4. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta. Add the pasta and cook until al dente; drain (you may want to reserve a bit of the pasta water).

5. Add the roasted potatoes (along with any garlic and rosemary that can be scraped from the baking dish) to the bowl with the kale. Mix well, then add the hot pasta, the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well (if you have reserved pasta water, add some if the pasta looks dry). Serve sprinkled with Parmesan.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Leftover potential: High

POTATO AND SAUSAGE PIZZA

Potatoes and sausage seem like such an obvious pizza-topping combination that I’m surprised I haven’t tried it already. I mean, I’ve got pizzas with potatoes and pesto, potatoes and chicken, potatoes and leeks, potatoes and other root vegetables…I’m a potatoes-on-pizza fiend, apparently. In fact, while I was making this one, A kept asking me, “Are you sure we haven’t had this before? It sounds so familiar.” But believe it or not, it’s new, and it’s tasty, with garlic and shallots and Fontina and Parmesan boosting the flavor of the meat-and-potatoes combo.

The recipe is from Serious Eats’ Meat Lite column, although I’ll admit I went a bit heavier on the meat than the recipe says; I was using my lighter, homemade, precooked sausage, which not only gave me license and desire to be more generous with it but also allowed me to skip a step in the recipe prep, always a good thing. The only difficulty in preparation came in slicing the potatoes sufficiently thin without a mandoline, but that was just a slight annoyance and well worth the effort.

4 small/medium Yukon Gold potatoes
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 link (about 2.5 ounces) Italian sausage, mild or spicy
4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
3 large shallots, peeled and sliced very thin
1 pound pizza dough
4 ounces grated Fontina cheese (about 1¼ cups)
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

2. Slice the potatoes ⅛ inch thick (a mandoline is helpful here, but not required).

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove the sausage from its casing and crumble the meat into the hot pan. Cook the meat about 5 to 7 minutes, breaking it up into smaller bits with a wooden spoon as it browns. (If using precooked sausage such as ’Atsa Spicy Pizza Sausage, skip this step; just add 1 tablespoon oil to the skillet and cook the garlic and shallots in it..)

4. Reduce the heat to medium, add the garlic and shallots to the pan, and saute with the sausage.

5. Stretch the dough out and press it onto a baking sheet. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the dough and then set half of the potato slices in one layer across the dough. Put the other half of the potatoes in the pan with the sausage and cover with a lid or foil. Transfer the dough to the hot oven and bake for 5 minutes.

6. Remove the pizza from the oven and sprinkle half the Fontina over the first layer of potatoes. Spread the sausage, garlic, shallots, and remaining potatoes on top. Season with salt and pepper. Add the rest of the Fontina and the Parmesan. Return the pizza to the oven and bake 10 to 15 minutes more, until the cheese is bubbly, the crust is golden, and the potatoes are tender.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good, especially if reheated in the oven

LENTIL STEW WITH SAUSAGE

Every now and then (about twice per winter, on the darkest and wettest of days) I get a hankering for lentils. Luckily, I have a good recipe for an easy lentil soup. Unluckily (or less luckily, anyway), A doesn’t really like lentils. And although he’s quite the champ about trying everything I make, eating one serving without complaint even if he doesn’t care for it, comforting me if I'm disappointed in the product of my labors, and enduring my barrage of requests for reassurance (“Do you like it? It’s good, right? You’d have it again?”—being the companion of a food blogger is a burden sometimes, I imagine), I can always tell whether he really likes something based on how much he eats the leftovers. And the last time I made lentil soup, I had to slog my way solo through all four remaining bowls, which dampened my enthusiasm for it a bit.

So when I saw this bacon- and sausage-studded lentil stew at Simply Recipes, I thought (a) “That looks delicious!” and (b) “That might be a good way to get A to enjoy lentil soup!” (If you haven't noticed by now, "bacon" is pretty much the magic word where A is concerned.) Besides the addition of meat, the recipe isn’t too different from my old one, only without the tomatoes and with some additional seasonings. I went easy on the cumin, not wanting my soup to taste like tacos, but in the end it wasn’t too assertive and paired well with the flavor of the lentils. And I downright loved the hit of vinegar stirred in just before serving—I didn’t have sherry vinegar, and while the recipe suggested cider vinegar as a substitute, I went with balsamic, one my secret ingredients for pizza sauce, and was not sorry.

But alas, all this deliciousness did not win A over to the lentil-eating team. He didn’t hate the soup, but he ended up picking out all of the meat and leaving about a quarter of a bowlful of lentils behind, and once again I was left with all the leftovers (and there were a lot of them; the recipe claimed to serve 4-5, but I got 7 bowlsful out of it). The difference was that this time, I devoured them eagerly. Paired with brown bread, this was a perfect soup for our recent rainy winter days, zesty and hearty, and the extra herbs and spices and the smoky undertones from the meat made this a marked improvement over my older, simpler recipe (which is still quite worthy and delicious, I hasten to add, particularly if you want something cheap and vegetarian). So it was a qualified success.

I found the recipe to be straightforward and self-explanatory. It takes a bit of time, but most of that is hands-off simmering time. For the sausage, I used spicy chicken andouille from Trader Joe's, which is not only delicious but also precooked, enabling me to skip the sausage-browning step of the recipe. I liked the heat and peppery smokiness they added to the soup, but really, you can use just about any type of sausage you enjoy here.

⅓ pound of bacon (about 5 thick slices), diced
1 medium-large yellow or white onion, chopped (about 1¼ cups)
2–3 large carrots, diced (⅔ cup)
2–3 large ribs celery, diced (⅔ cup)
½–1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons)
1 pound brown or green dry lentils, rinsed and picked over to remove any debris
3 cups water
3 cups chicken stock
½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
½ pound Italian sausage (mild, sweet, or spicy, your choice) or smoked sausage, in links (about 2–3 links)
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar (can sub cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar)
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley, with a little extra for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat a large, thick-bottomed pot (6 to 8 quarts) on medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until much of the fat has rendered and the bacon is browned and cooked through, about 10 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove bacon from pan to a paper-towel-lined dish and set aside. Remove (and discard or reserve for another use) all but 2 tablespoons of bacon fat from the pot.

2. Heat the remaining fat on medium high and add the carrots, onions, celery, and cumin. Cook until softened, about 5–7 minutes, stirring frequently and scraping up the browned bits at the bottom of the pan. Add the garlic and cook a minute more, until fragrant.

3. Add back in the cooked bacon, rinsed lentils, stock, water, thyme, and bay leaf. At this point, add a teaspoon of salt and some pepper. You will season more to taste later. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook partially covered until lentils are tender, about 40 minutes.

4. While the lentils are cooking, heat a frying pan on medium heat. Add the Italian sausage links. Gently cook, browning on all sides, until just cooked through. Remove from pan and let cool enough to handle. (All this can be skipped if your sausages are precooked.) Slice sausage and add to stew for the last 10 minutes of cooking.

5. Add vinegar and parsley to stew. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Serves: 6–8
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Leftover potential: High

SPICY SPAGHETTI WITH FENNEL

So it’s official: We like fennel! Fresh on the heels of our delicious fennel pizza comes this delectable pasta from Bon Appetit, which I first spotted at The Kitchen Illiterate while searching for something else—what, I can’t remember, because it completely slipped my mind as soon as the words “fennel,” “pasta,” “bacon,” “red pepper flakes,” and “cheese” registered. (It turns out that the original recipe relies on red jalapenos for its spiciness, but I followed The Kitchen Illiterate's lead in using red pepper flakes, because I so dearly love them in pastas. I don’t set too much store in the original recipe anyway, because it’s inexplicably called “Spicy Spaghetti With Fennel and Herbs,” even though parsley is the only herb in evidence. I also copied The Kitchen Illiterate in using bacon instead of pancetta, and was quite pleased by that decision.)

While I was cooking, A kept asking me what this was going to taste like and whether he would like it. My best guess at what it would taste like was “Italian sausage without the meat,” and that was a pretty darn fine prediction. There’s garlic, spice, savoriness from the cheese and broth, saltiness from the bacon, and a double hit of fennel flavor from both the bulb and the seed, with a zip of freshness from the lemon and parsley. We both loved it. My only caveat is that I wish I’d sliced the fennel more thinly; I followed the recipe’s instructions to cut it into “thin wedges,” but maybe I misunderstood what that meant, because it took forever (longer than 20 minutes, anyway) to get tender, and even though it tasted good, it never achieved the melting softness and sweetness of the caramelized fennel from my first fennel experience. (Great band name: The Fennel Experience.) So I’m saying to slice it thinly instead, but of course you can do what you like. I’m not the boss of you. But if I were, I’d tell you to get yourself on the fennel bandwagon already and make this recipe immediately, and then share some of it with me (well, I guess I still have some leftovers at home, but I’m currently stuck at work, with four rainy train rides separating me from that pasta).

3 ounces pancetta or bacon, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, chopped
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 large fennel bulbs, stalks trimmed, sliced thinly
1½ cups low-salt chicken broth
4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Italian parsley, divided
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1½ teaspoons crushed fennel seeds
1 pound spaghetti
½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for garnish

1. Sauté pancetta or bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Using a slotted spoon, transfer pancetta/bacon to paper towels.

2. Add 1 tablespoon oil to drippings in skillet. Add garlic and red pepper flakes; sauté over medium heat 1 minute. Add fennel; cook until beginning to soften, 5 minutes. Mix in broth, 2 tablespoons parsley, lemon juice, and fennel seeds. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until fennel is very tender, 20 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking liquid, then drain.

4. Just before pasta is done, uncover skillet with fennel mixture and return to medium-high heat. Cook until almost all liquid is absorbed, about 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add pasta, 2 tablespoons oil, ½ cup cheese, and pancetta/bacon to skillet. Toss well, adding cooking liquid by ¼ cupfuls if dry. Transfer to serving bowls. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons parsley and additional cheese to taste.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Very good.

POTATO-LEEK SOUP WITH CHEDDAR, DILL, AND DIJON

My old standby recipe for potato-leek soup with plenty of dill and lemon is among my favorites, but it verges on the plain, and apparently I’m a sucker for potato-leek anything, so when I saw this recipe on Food52 (via Last Night’s Dinner), I was intrigued. Cheddar is hands down my favorite cheese, and I’ve been gradually coming around to Dijon—which used to gross me out—through its use in the dressings of a few of my recent favorite salads. I may have slightly overestimated the zip these two ingredients would give an otherwise simple soup, because even though the finished product tasted perfectly delicious, I was ever-so-slightly underwhelmed; it was still, after all, potato-leek soup, and it didn’t taste wildly different than my usual version. In particular, I wanted more cheddar flavor (this could be my own fault; I used my refrigerator staple, Tillamook Sharp, but this may have been an occasion to try something sharper and more aged). Still, this is a great recipe, and I think my initial reaction was mainly a product of my own overexcited expectations (not to mention the fact that I may have oversalted the soup a little in the heat of the moment). The leftovers have been lovely (especially last weekend when I was suffering through a cold), A was pleased, and I’d certainly make this again.

¼ cup unsalted butter
2 cups sliced leeks (white and pale green parts, only)
Coarse kosher or sea salt
1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock, preferably homemade
4 cups peeled, cubed red or Yukon Gold potatoes
2 tablespoons sharp Dijon mustard
1 cup firmly packed grated sharp Cheddar cheese
¼ cup chopped fresh dill, plus additional for garnish

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot.

2. Add the leeks and a generous pinch of salt, and cook over medium heat until soft.

3. Sprinkle the flour over the leeks and stir until coated. Cook for a few minutes, then add the stock, potatoes, and mustard, stirring until the mustard dissolves into the soup.

4. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook until the potatoes are very tender when pierced with a fork.

5. Turn off the heat and puree the soup with an immersion blender (or in batches in a blender or food processor).

6. Turn the heat back on low and add the cheese, stirring well until it melts into the soup.

7. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the dill, stirring it through. Sprinkle additional dill on top of each serving.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: High; improves over the course of a few days and can easily be frozen

MOM’S SPRITZ

I said that coconut-apricot cookies are my favorite holiday treat that I make, but I am a good Scandinavian, and there’s no doubt that spritz are my favorite cookies that my mom makes. It wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

A few years ago, A’s mother handed down her family’s cookie press to me, and I eagerly set about trying it. But I made one misstep: I decided to use Carole Walter’s spritz recipe from Great Cookies instead of my mom’s. Before you go pointing your fingers at me and hissing, “Ungrateful daughter! Ungrateful daughter!”, keep in mind that since I already knew my mom would be making her spritz for Christmas, there was no point in my making the exact same recipe; plus, it would be fun to try something new, and Walter’s recipes are always impeccable, so maybe it would even be a fancy improvement. But of course, even though there was nothing wrong with the recipe, it wasn’t the spritz I craved. It was more like your standard butter cookie. So I relearned my lesson: mother knows best.

Even though my mom takes care of the spritz-making for our family, I still make spritz every Christmas for my friends in California and for A’s family—I figure that since I’ve been entrusted with the family cookie press, I should repay the kindness in cookies, because no one (at least, no one Swedish) should have to endure a spritz-less holiday. And I stick with the old recipe. The thing that seems to make it unique among the recipes I’ve compared it to—Walter’s and the one in the Betty Crocker Cooky Book—is that it uses powdered sugar instead of regular granulated. Maybe that’s what gives it such a perfect tender texture. That’s the big attraction for me, along with the almond flavor.

I think spritz tend to be underrated. They’re a regular feature of the holiday cookie plate, at least in Minnesota, most of the time the emphasis tends to be on form rather than flavor. They’re just sugar cookies that have been colored and shaped. I made the mistake of bringing some in for my office’s holiday cookie exchange one year, and I had an embarrassing amount of leftovers. A convinced me that people have just been conditioned to expect bad spritz, so few people even tried mine. Or maybe I just love spritz more than the average person. Anyway, I now bring a sexier (usually chocolate-based) cookie to the exchange and save the spritz for myself and others who appreciate them. But if you think spritz are nothing special, do try these and see if they change your mind.

These are really easy to make. The dough is really basic, and dying it with food coloring and sprinkling colored sugar on top is technically optional, though I recommend it for the full just-like-mom’s experience. Using the cookie press is really the only thing that requires a little expertise, or at least finesse, and even that’s not complex—it’s basically just a grown-up version of that device that used to force the Play-Do into different shapes, like star-shaped ropes or spaghetti strands . I’ve heard that if you buy a good-quality new one, like Wilton’s, you don’t need to swear at it quite so much, but I sort of enjoy having to do a bit of wrangling. It makes me that much prouder of the finished product. And luckily, even the deformed spritz taste good. (Although I do recommend sticking to the larger, rounder shapes, like the wreath and the tree or holly leaf or whatever that triangular thing is—it helps keep the cookies from overbrowning.)

1 cup butter, softened
1¼ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2½ cups flour
⅛ teaspoon salt
Red and green food coloring
Granulated sugar or sanding sugar

1. Stir together the flour and the salt in a medium bowl.

2. Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and the sugar in a large bowl. Mix in the almond and vanilla extracts and the egg. Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix until blended.

3. Divide the dough in half and place each half in a separate bowl. Add a few drops of red food coloring to one bowl and a few drops of green to the other. Mix each one (I use my hands for this) until the color is distributed throughout, adding more coloring if necessary to achieve your desired hue.

4. Wrap each dough ball in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 and remove dough from refrigerator.

6. Press dough through a cookie press onto ungreased baking sheets.

7. Put a spoonful or two of granulated or sanding sugar into each of two bowls. Put a few drops of red food coloring into one bowl and green food coloring into the other, and stir each bowl until the color is distributed throughout the sugar. Sprinkle a pinch of colored sugar atop each cookie.

8. Bake for 6–8 minutes until firm but not browned, being careful not to overbake.

Yield: Maybe 4 dozen?
Time: 1½ hours, plus 1 hour chilling time
Leftover potential: Good; these keep well in the freezer.

LEMON GARLIC CHICKEN

It was the photo that lured me into making this recipe from The Kitchn (go and look at it, because my picture sucks with a suckiness I can only attribute to the distractingly mouthwatering aroma emanating from the plate, demanding that I sit down and eat, or possibly also the second night of the 24 season premiere, with Jack Bauer demanding that I sit down and eat), although I’m also unable to resist the keywords “lemon” and “garlic” and I continue to be on the lookout for easy weeknight main dishes I can pair with more complicated side dishes, like my favorite salad. (Which I wanted to make last week because A’s mom gave me walnut oil for Christmas. The recipe calls for walnut oil in the dressing, but I’d always used olive oil in the past because walnut is expensive. It turns out walnut oil is really, really tasty, and I’ve been using it in most of our salad dressings for the past month. Thanks, B!)

When I started cooking, I suddenly realized that this was basically just a simplified version of a recipe that’s already in my repertoire, but with garlic instead of potatoes and asparagus. Thus, I assumed it wouldn’t be a keeper. I mean, I figured it would make a fine dinner, but nothing special. So I was surprised when this easy, breezy little toss-it-into-a-pan-and-bake concoction turned out to be exceedingly delicious, worthy of celebration in its own right and not just as a quick-and-dirty desperation dinner. It yields moist, flavorful chicken with little effort (and, unusually, no added fat), and we enjoyed it so much that A mentioned it several times in the following days (“You know, that chicken we had the other night was really good…”).

So it turns out that this is, after all, a keeper. It was great with The Salad, but I found myself wishing for a side dish of potatoes (maybe these), the better to soak up extra super-lemony, super-garlicky juices.

8 pieces bone-in, skin-on chicken (1 whole cut-up chicken, or 4 halved breasts, or 4 thighs and 4 drumsticks)
3 lemons
15 cloves garlic, peeled
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Wash the lemons, slice them in half, and juice them. Place the lemon halves and juice in a 9-by-12-inch baking dish with the garlic cloves. Arrange the chicken pieces in the dish, skin side down, and sprinkle with salt and pepper and half of the thyme. Turn the pieces over so that they are skin side up, and sprinkle with salt and pepper and the remaining thyme.

3. Put the dish in the oven and bake the chicken for 30 to 40 minutes, basting every 10 minutes. When the skin gets crispy and the meat is cooked through, it’s done.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good

COCONUT-APRICOT COOKIES

Of all the treats I routinely make for Christmas, these may be my favorite—and they don’t even have chocolate in them. Almost every recipe I’ve tried from Carole Walter’s Great Cookies has been spectacular, but this is the most delicious and unique of the lot, and has earned an ardent following among those who’ve tasted the result.

It’s hard for me to detail what makes these cookies so fantastic without wanting to run to the kitchen and bake a batch for inspiration, but I’ll try to break it down for you from memory:

1. They’re a coconut lover’s dream—not only is coconut mixed into the dough and then rolled onto the outside of the cookies, but coconut extract also adds a megahit of flavor. They’re like coconut macaroons that have ascended to a higher plane.
2. Excellent use of apricots. I don’t especially like dried fruit in cookies, but the apricots taste great with the coconut and look so prettily stained-glass-like when the roll of dough is sliced.
3. The texture: moist, tender, buttery, and a little chewy inside, surrounded by a crisp shell of browned coconut.
4. The unusual egg yolk/milk wash that’s painted on the cookies just before baking gives them a sunny yellow color that makes me think of Easter.

Come to think of it, there’s nothing particularly Christmasy about these cookies; Christmas just happens to be the time when I’m in the mood to put a little more effort into my baking. And these do require more effort than your traditional drop cookie; you’ve got to divide the dough, roll it into logs, paint them with egg white, roll them in coconut, chill them, slice them, and then paint them with the egg yolk. But this technique is what makes them so special, and besides, having to chill the dough means you can divide the work over multiple days if you want to—I mixed it up and formed the logs one weekend, stuck them in the freezer, and then sliced and baked the next weekend.

1 10-ounce package sweetened, flaked coconut
2¼ cups all-purpose flour, spooned in and leveled
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (6 ounces) dried apricots, chopped into ⅛-inch pieces
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly firm
¾ cup sugar
1 large egg
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon coconut extract
1 large egg white
2 teaspoons water
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon half-and-half or milk

1. Place the coconut in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse five or six times, then process until finely chopped. Set aside.

2. Strain together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Remove 2 tablespoons of the dry ingredients and toss with the apricots in a second small bowl. Set aside.

3. In the large bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter on medium-low speed. Pour in the sugar in a steady stream, and mix for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the egg and mix for 1 minute longer, scraping down the bowl as needed. Mix in the extracts.

4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and blend in 1¾ cups of coconut. Add the dry ingredients in 2 additions, mixing only to combine after each addition. Using a large rubber spatula, mix in the apricots.

5. Shape the dough into three logs, each measuring about 8 inches long and 1½ inches in diameter. Place the remaining coconut on a 15-inch sheet of wax paper. Whisk together the egg white and the water in a small bowl. Brush one log of dough with the egg wash, then place the log on the coconut, positioning it so that the length of the log is parallel to the short sides of the wax paper. Grasp each side of the wax paper, lift the paper off the counter, and, moving your hands up and down, roll the log to coat it with the coconut. Wrap the log in plastic, twisting the ends of the wrap tightly to secure. Repeat with the remaining two logs, and then refrigerate all three for at least 1 hour or until firm. (This dough will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or may be frozen for 1 month.)

6. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

7. Using a sharp knife with a thin blade, slice each log of dough into ⅜-inch-thick slices, turning the log every two or three cuts to maintain the shape, and place on ungreased baking sheets about 2 inches apart. If the dough tears when slicing, press it back together.

8. Using a fork, mix the egg yolk and the half-and-half or milk in a shallow bowl, then lightly brush the tops of the cookies with the glaze.

9. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges (to ensure even browning, rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom and back to front near the end of the baking time). Do not overbake. Remove from the oven and let stand for 1 minute before loosening with a thin metal spatula. Transfer to cooling racks.

Yields: 6 dozen 2-inch cookies
Time: 1¼ hours, plus 1 hour chilling
Leftover potential: High; can be frozen

PIZZA WITH KALE PESTO, CARAMELIZED FENNEL, AND SAUSAGE

Even though I consider myself a major vegetable fan, I hadn’t really tried fennel before (the bulb, I mean; my father loves fennel seed and instilled an appreciation for it in me, even though I don’t really care for other licorice-flavored items). I’m pleased to report that it is delicious, at least when caramelized and heaped onto pizza. Also delicious: kale pesto! If you’re unsure about trying kale, kale pesto is a good gateway drug. Although it tastes quite different from basil pesto, it’s not especially kale-like, just garlicky and green (if you gave it to me in a blind taste test, I might have guessed that it was spinach pesto, although in my opinion it also had a certain ineffable something that made it tastier than spinach). It’s a genius way to get your winter veggies, or to use up any extra kale that you might have lying around, and I imagine it tastes great in any context where you might use pesto (on pasta, bread, etc.).

I also love sausage and needed to make a new batch of pizza sausage anyway, so this recipe from Eggs on Sunday was an all-around win for me, heaped with bold, hearty, wintry flavors that complimented each other tremendously well. It was a bit more labor-intensive than my other pizza recipes, but having premade my own sausage cut down on the work, and there’s no reason you couldn’t make the pesto or caramelize the fennel ahead of time, too. But even if it took hours I’d still be panting to make it again—and you can bet I’ll be bookmarking more fennel recipes posthaste.

(You may notice that I rearranged the order of the items in the title, and that's because when I told someone I was making “pizza with sausage, caramelized fennel, and kale pesto,” they thought that meant that all three items were ground up together in the pesto, which...is less appetizing-sounding.)

2 cups (packed) trimmed kale
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic
Salt to taste
¼ cup + 1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large fennel bulb (or 2 smaller ones), thinly sliced
1 pinch sugar
½ pound hot Italian sausage
1 pound pizza dough
1–2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add fennel, a pinch of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until soft and caramelized.

2. Meanwhile, remove casings from sausage and brown in a skillet over medium heat, crumbling with the back of a spoon. (Or you can use 8 ounces of ’Atsa Spicy Pizza Sausage and skip this step.)

3. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the kale for 2 minutes. Drain and squeeze out excess water. Add kale, Parmesan, garlic, and salt to the bowl of a blender or food processor and puree until fairly smooth. Add the olive oil and process until a smooth, loose paste forms.

4. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Roll out the pizza dough and place on a cornmeal-dusted baking sheet. Spread the kale pesto over the dough, then top with shredded mozzarella, caramelized fennel, and sausage.

5. Bake until the crust is golden and cheese is bubbly, about 8 minutes.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Good, especially if reheated in the oven

CURRY COOKIES

Aaaaand…we’re back to cookies. Spice cookies (gingerbread, pfeffernusse, etc.) are traditional at Christmas, but I can never muster up much enthusiasm for them—especially when I could be having chocolate instead. Still, when planning my holiday assortment, I feel compelled to add the quintessential wintry flavors to the mix, and Carole Walter’s Madras Cookies (from Great Cookies) fit the bill perfectly. They’re festively redolent of spice and orange zest, but the curry powder defies the usual ginger/cinnamon hegemony, and coconut and almond—two tastes I find it hard to resist—play major supporting roles. The cookies have a complex flavor, but they’re still subtle enough to be crowd-pleasers. In other words, you don’t bite into them and say, “Oh, curry”; it just adds a certain je ne sais quoi. These are just basically just a spice cookie with a twist, but it’s a good one.

I won’t lie; Carole Walter is always a demanding mistress (I appreciate the careful specificity of her instructions, down to precisely how many minutes to run the stand mixer at each stage, but occasionally while making one of her recipes I find myself rolling my eyes at some of the hoops she wants me to jump through, even though I’m sure they do make the cookies better), and this recipe is a bit fussy, what with needing to toast the curry powder and grind the almonds and chop the coconut and everything, but I assure you that in this case, all the steps are important. I once substituted almond meal for grinding the almonds myself, and the cookies just weren’t the same—the nubbly texture I achieved in my wimpy mini food processor gave them so much more character. So put your trust in Carole.

2 teaspoons mild curry powder
2½ cups all-purpose flour, spooned in and leveled
1 cup plus about 50 (scant ½ cup) unblanched whole almonds, toasted
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly firm
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
⅔ cup granulated sugar
⅔ cup lightly packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut (Carole likes you to chop your coconut in a food processor ahead of time; I don’t always do this, but I admit that it does improve the texture of the cookies by eliminating long, troublesome strands)

1. Heat the curry powder in a small, heavy skillet over low heat for 15 to 30 seconds until fragrant. Set aside to cool.

2. Place the flour, 1 cup of almonds, toasted curry powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a food processor bowl fitted with the steel blade. Pulse 10 to 12 times, then process for 1 minute or until the mixture is finely chopped and cakey. Set aside.

3. In the large bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and orange zest on medium-low speed until creamy and lightened in color. Add the granulated sugar in a steady stream, then add the brown sugar and mix for about 1 minute. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each, then add the vanilla, scraping the bowl as needed. Add the dry ingredients in three additions, mixing just until blended after each addition. Using a large wooden spoon, fold in the coconut.

4. Chill the dough for 20 to 30 minutes, or until firm enough to roll into balls.

5. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and moderately butter your baking sheets.

6. Roll the dough in the palms of your hands to form 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches part on the baking sheets. Gently press a whole almond into the center of each cookie. Using the heel of your hand, flatten the cookie into a 1½-inch disk.

7. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown (toward the end of the baking time, rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back). Remove from oven and let stand 2 to 3 minutes before loosening with a thin metal spatula. Transfer to cooling racks.

Yields: 50 2-inch cookies
Time: 1½ hours, plus 30 minutes chilling
Leftover potential: High; can be frozen

BROCCOLI SALAD WITH BACON, CHIVES, AND TOMATO

We interrupt Cookiefest to bring you a salad break—and I’m sure we could all use one, right? This recipe from Jamie Oliver (via Serious Eats) is a real winner, jazzing up barely-blanched broccoli (cooked just enough to lose that raw bitterness, but not enough to sacrifice crunch) with bacon and an addictive bacony-vinegary-mustardy-garlicky dressing that seeps into every little crevice of the broccoli. Tomatoes add nice color and acidity and the chives a subtle oniony flavor, but the real star is the broccoli. Even if you never envisioned yourself downing the green stuff by the bowlful, this might change your ways. Both A and I loved it, and although I served it on the side of some salmon, in the summer it could make a fine main dish on its own.

This most exciting thing about making this recipe was that I got to use my brand-new cast-iron skillet for frying the bacon, woohoo! There’s not too much else to note; I followed all directions as written, except that I decreased the olive oil from 6 tablespoons to 4, both because that seemed like a lot of fat for a dressing that already included bacon grease and because I could see that we weren’t going to need all that dressing anyway (I don’t like my salad drowning in dressing, so I didn’t use the whole bowl). Besides, I prefer an acidic dressing (I make my usual one with about half lemon juice and half oil). I also subbed in cherry tomatoes, because I like them so much in salads and they’re better this time of year than Romas, When summer comes, a mix of red and yellow cherry tomatoes will be so pretty against the green of the broccoli.

2 heads of broccoli, about 1½ pounds
4 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into matchsticks
2 roma tomatoes, halved, seeded, and finely chopped (or about a cup of cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered)
1 bunch fresh chives (15 to 20), finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced or pressed
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
4–6 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Meanwhile, trim the woody ends from the broccoli and trim the heads up into small florets of about equal size. When the water comes to a boil, blanch the broccoli for 1–2 minutes, until they are starting to get tender but still have bite in the middle. Drain in a colander and spread out on a kitchen towel to steam dry, about 15 minutes.

2. In the meantime, cook the bacon in a large skillet with a splash of olive oil over medium-low heat until the fat renders into the pan and the bacon is crisp but still slightly chewy.

3. Drain the fat collected in the bacon pan into a bowl and add the garlic, dijon, and vinegar. Whisk well to combine into an emulsion, then add the olive oil slowly in a stream, whisking constantly. Season to taste with salt and pepper and taste also for acidity, adding more vinegar or oil if needed.

4. Toss the broccoli with the tomatoes, bacon, chives, and dressing.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: OK if eaten within a few days

CHOCOLATE PEPPERMINT BARK COOKIES

Even though my favorite way to celebrate Christmas is by making, giving, receiving, and eating homemade goodies, one of my most beloved holiday treats is a storebought product: Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s, the limited-edition version of Trader Joe’s take on Oreos. Ordinary Joe-Joe’s are plenty good too, by the way, made without preservatives and with a far superior texture than Oreos and actual vanilla-bean flecks in the filling, but I can still resist them most of the time in favor of my homemade fare. When Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s appear on the shelves, however, I must buy them and hoard them (I currently have one stashed in my freezer, awaiting the time when my post-holiday healthy eating kick wears away and I can fulfill my longtime plan of making Candy Cane Joe-Joe cookies-and-cream ice cream). They’re like Thin Mints on crack, or possibly made with crack, featuring a strong but not toothpastey peppermint flavor and a nice crunch from real bits of candy canes in the filling. They have become my gold standard for all things chocolate-peppermint, a combo I always crave when December rolls around.

I have longed to share the joy of Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s with my loved ones, but handing out $2.99 boxes of prepacked cookies at the holidays seems gauche. Yet I’d never considered trying to make my own chocolate-peppermint treats until I saw this recipe for peppermint bark chocolate cookies a couple of years ago. Perhaps it would capture the Candy Cane Joe-Joe's magic in a homemade form? I made them last Christmas, and they were…fine, but not what I was hoping for. The chocolate flavor wasn’t very intense, and the texture was uninspiring (I think I overbaked them a bit, which didn’t help). So this year I decided to try subbing peppermint bark into Carole Walter’s recipe for chocolate chocolate-chip cookies. I hadn’t tried this exact cookie before, but nearly everything in Great Cookies is, well, great, and having sampled some of her other chocolate-cookie recipes, I knew the chocolate flavor would be there.

The result? Much improved, definitely chocolatey, and complimented by many who tasted it, but still not the chocolate-peppermint cookie of my dreams. Maybe I should have put some peppermint extract in the cookie itself? Or maybe I should just make peppermint bark next year and skip the cookie entirely, which would be much less labor-intensive and equally enjoyable to eat? Besides, maybe there’s a classy way I can give away Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s, after all: This year I spotted a fancy new version of them for sale, dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with crushed candy canes. Purely for research purposes, I bought and sampled them, and they were indeed delicious, but it was verging on highway robbery—the package cost more than a box of the unadorned cookies and was half the size. It would be a simple and much more affordable matter to dip them in melted chocolate and decorate with candy cane pieces myself! Hmmm…

In the meantime, however, if you love chocolate and peppermint and don’t live near a Trader Joe’s, or have to wait 11 months before Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s season arrives again, these cookies are an excellent choice. And if for some reason you hate peppermint with chocolate, you can revert to the original recipe by substituting 12 ounces of good-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chunks or chips for the peppermint bark and have yourself some darn fine chocolate chocolate chip cookies.

8 ounces good-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned in and leveled
2 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, slightly firm
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons hot water
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
12 ounces peppermint bark, cut into ¼- to ½-inch chunks

1. In a medium bowl over a pot of simmering water on low heat, slowly melt the 8 ounces of chocolate and keep warm.

2. Strain together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

3. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter on medium-low speed until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the granulated sugar, then the brown sugar, and mix until well blended and lightened in color 2 to three minutes. Add the eggs, mixing until well combined, scraping the bowl as needed. Blend in the warm melted chocolate, then the hot water and vanilla extract.

4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and blend in the dry ingredients in two additions, mixing until just combined. Using a large rubber spatula, fold in the peppermint bark chunks.

5. Chill the dough for 1 hour.

6. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and moderately butter your baking sheets.

7. Drop 1½-inch mounds of dough from the tip of a tablespoon onto baking sheets, placing them about 3 inches apart. Scrape down the side of the bowl occasionally to endure even distribution of peppermint bark.

8. Bake for 10 to 11 minutes, rotating the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back towards the end of the baking time. The cookies will look underdone, but they will firm up as they cool. Remove from oven and let stand for 1 or 2 minutes, then loosen with a thin metal spatula. When firm enough to handle, transfer to cooling racks.

Yield: About 4 dozen
Time: 1 hour, plus 1 hour of chilling
Leftover potential: High; can be frozen