At last, Lemon Cookies!

I have a fond memory from several years ago of cookie baking at Christmas with a fellow catering coworker. We each chose several goodies that we wanted to bake for gifts, then baked in quantity, and split up the results so we each had some of everything. We made some great stuff! One of my favorite things was a lemon cookie recipe that I got from an old cookbook that belongs to my stepmother. The book came from her grandmother, and had many wonderful old-fashioned cookie recipes to draw from. The recipe that I'm referring to is a lemon cookie that is meant for rolling out and cutting. I remember that I made lovely small bite sized diamond shaped cookies with scalloped edges, and iced them with a simple powdered sugar/ fresh lemon juice combination.


Lemon Snaps

2 1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2/3 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg + 1 extra yolk
2 T lemon juice
2 tsp. lemon zest

Icing:

2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup powdered sugar


To make the cookies:

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Cream butter and sugar, add egg and extra yolk and beat until fluffy. Add lemon juice and zest, and mix. Add dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Chill until firm, roll, cut and bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until lightly browned on the bottom (lift one gently with a spatula to check doneness.) Again, I'll guess that these cookies will take about 8-10 minutes, but always watch them carefully and check for doneness. This type of cookie is easy to overbake. Of course, it will be delicious regardless, but it is at its best both in lemony taste and pretty appearance if not allowed to brown up too much.

To make the icing:

Put lemon juice in a bowl, add powdered sugar, and stir until smooth and a bit creamy. Adjust the thickness/ thinness of icing by adding small amounts of either juice or sugar. You may need to try it on a cookie or two to judge whether it needs adjusting at all. ( This icing is also good on the Basic Rolled Cookie. I plan to post a more detailed discussion of icing recipes and methods.)


When thinking about how to shape lemon cookies, the obvious choice is, of course, a lemon.


Actually, I've already done a lemon shaped cookie in the kale soup recipe. It is more fun to know that the cookie will taste like a lemon as well as look like one! To truly qualify as a Strange Cookie, however, one needs to exercise a little more imagination. My next obvious choice was a can of furniture polish.


The Ford Edsel was a popular suggestion from the peanut gallery, but my featured strange cookie is a Volkswagon Rabbit modeled after an ex- boyfriend's car that haunted my life for several years in the late 80's- early 90's.


I think people either loved their Rabbits, or hated them. I'm not sure why the boyfriend who owned the Rabbit I'm speaking of loved his so much, but his love inspired the sinking of many paychecks into the Rabbit's cause, with very little return. Oh yeah, some of this inspiration was fueled by the Repair Your Own (enter name of Volkswagon product here) literature available for starry- eyed wanna-be weekend mechanics. Sadly, these projects seldom ended well at our place.

Apparently, Volkswagon has a new Rabbit to offer the world. I doubt that the floorboards will rust out as readily as those in the older models were purported to do, but who knows? I do know that I enjoyed eating this cookie. All the lines were drawn with a chocolate/ lemon buttercream, mmmmmmmmmm!.

I'm currently testing my bread recipe before sharing it. I'd love it if anyone wants to try these recipes and leave comments-- anyone can.

Kale and Cannelini soup with Fennel

Although I live in a small apartment, I manage to be an active gardener. I have some small borders of perennial flowers in the front and back of the building, and a container garden that stretches about 2/3 the length of the yard in the back. I've mulched around the containers for a couple of years, and last year decided to plant in the ground surrounding the containers. I ended up with an interesting, multilevel collection of flowers and vegetable plants that I harvested and then let go to seed. As I watched the volunteer seedlings just starting to come up early in the spring, as well as planting the beginnings of this year's attempt at a crop of salad greens and peas, I also happily admired the robust development of a lone kale plant. I harvested a healthy bunch of it one Sunday and made a large pot of soup. Like this:

Kale and Cannelini soup with Fennel

2 onions, one large and one small
3 stalks celery
4 carrots
1 whole head of garlic
2 fennel bulbs (finocchio, or often called anise)

1 pound of cannelini beans, dried
(sort, rinse, cover with water, boil for 2 min. then turn off heat and soak one hour. Drain, rinse if you like, cook until done. The cannellinis cooked pretty fast, half an hour or so.)

1 bunch of kale (lacking this, swiss chard would be lovely)

juice of 1 lemon

3 quarts HOT liquid ( you could use hot stock, maybe toss in some wine--if you do, cook off the alcohol first, then add it hot. I used plain boiling water and then added about 1/2 cup? of Bragg's liquid aminos. An unromantically named product which makes soup delicious and nutritious with little or no need for extra salt. Like vegetarian bouillon in a bottle. Definitely better than it sounds...)

To begin, chop all of the vegetables. Heat some olive oil in a large cast iron skillet if you have one, or in the soup pot itself if the bottom is heavy enough to let you slowly cook the onions and the basic soup vegetables without scorching or browning too much. I usually use my cast iron skillet to begin, and then transfer the contents to a soup pot, adding the hot liquid, cooked beans and or grains, and any tender vegetables like leafy greens or green beans. That said, begin with the onions, and saute over a medium heat until soft and translucent. Add the celery, and cook until it's heated through, and the color begins to deepen. Adjust the heat as necessary to keep the pan of vegetables cooking through the addition of cold vegetable ingredients, but not so high as to scorch them. Our goal is an even sort of medium sautee, active cooking but slow enough to soften and carmelize our vegetables a bit, particularly the onion, celery, carrot combo. Add the carrots, heat through, then add the fennel bulb. Cook until the carrots and fennel are softening.

"But what do we do with the garlic?", you ask. Well, I feel that it can be added at any stage in the sauteeing process that you prefer. When I made this soup, I added it after the celery so it would have time to sautee in the oil, but wouldn't stick and burn while the onions carmelize. That's what I do.



So, at this point, do what I described earlier, and have your stock/ liquids hot and standing by, preferably in your large soup pot! Combine sauteed vegetables, cooked beans, and chopped kale, then bring to a simmer. You only need to simmer it to combine the ingredients and make sure everything is thoroughly cooked. Don't boil the soup if you can avoid it, but it really won't be the end of the world if you do.

Add the lemon juice (more to taste if you like), check the salt, and add some black pepper. Eat it now or later, or now AND later, more likely. It will be good now, and better later. That's the nature of soup.



This soup would be great with a variety of vegetable and bean substitutions: swiss chard and navy beans; spinach and chickpeas; collard greens and white northern beans! Try zucchini added at the end of the sautee process, or pole beans, or both. If you lack the fennel bulb, increase the celery and carrots. A person could spin this basic light brothy soup into a variety of summer and fall soups. Use potatoes instead of beans! Toss in a bay leaf or two with the onions at the beginning, and a handful of fresh basil at the end. The possibilities are truly endless........


Our featured Strange Cookie: the fennel bulb. These are made from whole wheat sugar cookie dough (see Basic Rolled Cookie recipe). I really like the minimalist approach with the icing. I'm very fond of this batch of cookies. Oh yeah, and they were delicious!

A Whopping Great Tater

I would like to tell the tale of the Huge Potato. Once upon a time, ok a couple of weeks ago, I received a couple of potatoes from a friend of mine. Not unusual, I am often the recipient of extraneous vegetables. I love it. These two potatoes were truly the largest that I have ever had in my possession. The biggest of these is pictured here.


My boyfriend Ken suggested that I make a twice-baked potato out of it. I thought it a grand idea, and set out to do just that. First, I baked it for about an hour at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, then cooled it, and put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I assembled the ingredients pictured here: some red onion, garlic, parsley, nice plain yogurt, cheddar cheese, salt and pepper. I put the onion, garlic, and parsley in the food processor, chopped it a bit, and followed it with the potato, yogurt, cubed cheese, salt and pepper. I processed it until properly amalgamated, and returned it to the potato shells. I then tossed it in the refrigerator and went to work.


In the evening, I put the Colossal potato back in the oven at 375 degrees F. Again, I think it was about an hour, and I turned up the heat for about the last 10 minutes to 400 degrees to get that good browned quality that brings such joy to the senses.


We demolished the potato.If you're curious about the liquid refreshment we chose to accompany our potato, click here.

Of course, a person could easily substitute normal sized baking potatoes, and the recipe would work fine. But........... why?

Basic Rolled Cookie Dough

This is the same recipe I've used since I was a kid for those occasional fun holiday cut-out cookies. I've now made both a regular unbleached all purpose flour and a whole wheat version. Both work well. I think I like the whole wheat better for taste and aroma. (It makes the butter even more buttery!) I like the way the paler unbleached white flour makes the milk bottle cookie pictured here so, well, milky looking! There is also a whole white wheat flour more readily available these days that is good to use for pastries. I'll be trying that, also. And now, on to our regularly scheduled recipe...

Basic Sugar Cookies

Cream: 1/2 c. unsalted butter
3/4 c. sugar

Add: 1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Beat well.

Add: 1 T cream or milk

Sift together: 1 1/2 c flour (unbleached All-Purpose, Whole Wheat, or any mixture thereof)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Optional: nutmeg, cinnamon, or other sweet spice (not pictured)

Stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Wrap up and chill until firm. (Make ahead for the next day-- great.)

When it's time to bake, set the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, roll out dough, cut into desired shapes, place on lightly greased pan, or pan lined with baking parchment. Bake until golden (look at the bottom of the cookie if you can to determine doneness.) My recipe says about 8 min. but I'll be honest that I haven't done a good job of timing this. I suspect it may be a little longer, but be sure to keep a close eye on them. I'll amend this with a more proper baking time later.








COMING SOON-- The Lemon Cookie and the Chocolate cookie



Also upcoming:



a Monstrous Potato