random thoughts from the kitchen

I put together the chicken stew last night that is the base for our Chicken Pot Pie, and it occurred to me that type and quality of ingredients will make a big difference. For example, those little finger-sized orange things they call baby carrots? They're fine if you're looking for an innocuous snack, but when you toss them into a stew, they have virtually no flavor. Now, I know some people might say that's a good thing, but in my stew, foods are added not merely for ornament.

Get the real thing. Buy a package of actual carrots, scrub them well, chop them into bite-sized chunks, and let them soak up the flavor of the stock, the onions, etc. while imparting theirs to the rest of the meal.

In fact, if you can get darker-colored, such as red carrots, go wild! I'm requesting that Pop plant a seed packet or two of these, this year. I even asked nicely, as he scooped up his second bowl of stew...

And, amazingly, when making stew, the cheapest cuts of meat (while requiring some extra work and plenty of cooking time) make the most flavorful dishes. I like to make my chicken stock using giblets -- this week, I had some leftover bones from roasted chicken breasts, and tossed them in with a little celery, half an onion (chopped, of course), a few mushrooms, a pair of bay leaves, Old Bay Seasoning, salt, pepper, and a pound of gizzards and hearts, letting it all simmer for a couple of days. The meat was amazingly tender after all that time....

Same holds true for making chili without ground beef. I like chunks of chuck steak or roast, and let it cook slowly and over low heat (yes, you can use a slow cooker, once you brown the meat). Worried about all that fat? To heck with that! just strain it out after the meat is browned.

And one thing I learned this week: low cholesterol butter-flavored sprays and spreads do not serve well to grease a cooking or baking surface. I was playing with phyllo, making various sizes and styles of cups -- with a certain person's dietary restrictions in mind --, and the ones using the "heart-healthy" sprays between the layers before baking, while they browned up prettily, tasted rich and were tender as any others, stuck fast even to the nonstick forms. Next time, I might use the butter-flavored spray between outer layers (the ones farthest away from the form, that is), but inner 2-3 layers will get, at the very least, olive oil (not Olive Oyl, though).

On another track, Greek yogurt is awesome, but can be rather expensive. There are places online (here's a good one) where you can learn to make your own, from a tub of regular yogurt. If you use cheesecloth or a coffee filter, you're not likely to be able to re-use it, so take that into account when working your budget. On the other hand, a good cotton kitchen towel can be washed and re-used all you want... as long as you rinse out all the detergent after each wash, and line dry rather than tumble dry (nobody I know likes the flavor of fabric softener).

One more thing: I consider myself beyond merely fortunate to live in a place where I am called "poor", and still have access to the variety and quality of foods I play with (and the opportunity to play). My thoughts -- and agnostic's prayers -- go to those who, for various reasons, have not.

Fish Cake Muffins

This being the first Friday in Lent, some of my compadres worry over my immortal soul (such as it is), so I thought I'd move in a friendly direction, tonight. I was planning to fix a single recipe for the Bat, the Geezer, and a couple of our extended family-ish regulars, but events conspired to set me up with a full house, so I improvised a bit or two.

First, some of us are allergic to shellfish and crabs, and still crave crab cakes. In the good old days, before anaphylaxis became a recognized and feared word in our house, the discovery of those precious jewels of salt water chefs was a source of its own near-religious experience. Now, somebody has decided that taking such a risk is a really bad idea. I won't name names, but... well... pass the Benadryl, willya? I'm going in! almost.

Also, rather than spatter the kitchen with a lot of grease from frying them up, I tried a suggestion I stumbled across in a magazine, and baked them in a well-greased muffin pan. It meant less fat, better for the heart, or so they say. They wound up pretty tasty, & folks went back for seconds (& one went back for thirds)

No crab, though. Dagnabbit.

Not that we missed it that much.

Fish Cake Muffins

Ingredients:

2 lbs. mild white fish, shredded or finely flaked

4 c. fresh whole wheat bread crumbs

1 medium-large red bell pepper, seeds removed and minced

8 scallions, finely sliced

4 large eggs, beaten

2 medium or large egg whites, lightly beaten

1 1/2 tsp. Tabasco or other good hot sauce

1 1/2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning*

1 tsp ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450ºF.

Heavily grease non-stick muffin pans.

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients (I generally find mixing by clean, bare hand is best -- it's not too different from making meat loaf, in that regard). Scoop out in equal portions to fill 24 muffin cups. Place in middle rack of oven, bake 20 - 25 minutes, or until golden-browned.

Serve hot.

It does nicely with a zesty tartar sauce or seafood cocktail sauce, or sprinkled with a little fresh lemon juice and garnished with lemon wedges.

* 1 1/4 tsp of celery salt & 1/4 tsp paprika may be used as reasonable facsimile of Old Bay Seasoning, if you're desperate. ;-)

Apple-Cabbage Slaw

Tonight's menu had quite a bit of savory to it -- we had fish cakes (using a variation on a crab cake recipe I'd found intriguing), sweet-and-savory sweet potatoes, and needed something with crunch and zest and sweetness to complete the platter. When one serves seafood, often the best option is either some form of picallily or a traditional cole slaw. I wanted neither of these, and when I'm in one of these moods, it's best to just humor me and let me do the cooking...

So. Cole slaw not cutting it? Add something different. Usually, during the summer, we'll slice a few fresh tomatoes into it, bump up the mustard content to a mayonnaise dressing, and go wild that way. Or, Mom has discovered she likes the cheat of a half bottle of peppercorn ranch dressing instead of sour cream/mayo varieties.

I had a nifty handful of apples. And stuff. So here is what I tossed together for an army, tonight.

Apple-Cabbage Slaw

Ingredients:

4 medium-sized tart apples (Granny smiths are very nice, I had not-quite-so-tart Braeburns and Galas), peeled, cored, and coarsely grated

2 Tbs. cider vinegar

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

1/2 head (approx. 8 c.) cabbage, shredded

1 1/2 or 2 Tbs. granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp. celery seed

1/2 c. greek yogurt

1/2 c. light mayonnaise

1 c. sour cream

1/2 tsp. ground mustard powder

directions:

Peel apples, then coarsely grate them into a small bowl. Add vinegar and lemon juice. Set aside.

Cut cabbage head in half, put one half back into sealed container in refrigerator. You won't need that. The remaining half of the cabbage, cut in half again along the line of the core. Cut out the core and discard (unless you're a little crazy like me, and want to nibble on the strongly-flavored bit of crunchy while working on the rest of the project). Slice both quarters of the cabbage into thin strips, then chop strips into approximately one-inch lengths. Put into LARGE bowl. You will have at least 8 cups of vegetable matter, and will need room to add the remaining ingredients.

Add sugar to cabbage. Let stand at least 10 minutes (refrigeration is advised, but not mandatory at this stage).

Stir in apple mixture, celery seed. Go ahead, use the same small bowl you just emptied to mix yogurt, sour cream, mayonnaise, and mustard powder. Add to cabbage mix, stir well, refrigerate until ready to serve.

Serves at least 15.

Frogs' Eyes in Mud

Some people can't stand tapioca pudding. My father is one of those people. The only way Pop will touch tapioca is if it's buried in a fruit pie, as a thickening agent. On the other hand, my mother is not a tapioca-hater. In fact, she, like me, is rather too fond of such sweets (I have the greater sin, there, though. The Bat can walk away from a fresh bowl waved in front of her. My impulse control is precisely zilch. I will even eat the cheap store-bought stuff).

Still, the battle between tapioca or no began early in our home. The Bat fixed us kids a nice batch of pudding 'way back in the mid-1960s, when the elder of my sisters was still in diapers, and Pop, trying to persuade us that this stuff was as disgusting as he thought it was, told us it was a big bowl of frogs' eyes. I am told that normal youngsters find this sort of label off-putting.

Obviously, he had raised somewhat twisted children. We asked for seconds.

The years have gone by, and tastes may have changed for some, but I still love my frogs' eyes. Recently, I had a severe craving for them, but when I looked in the refrigerator for ingredients to make the stuff, I found I had no fresh whole milk. I don't know about you all, but pudding from skim milk is just an insult to the world of desserts, and using canned milk is... well, the gods of food would have had me char-broiled in an instant for such a blasphemy.

I did have a half-gallon of Vitamin-D-enhanced chocolate-laced whole milk, though. It was a start. But using that alone, the flavor of the chocolate was lost, and the pudding became grey. Not quite what one wants, is it? So I added a little here, a little there, and suddenly I had destroyed my resolve to avoid adding to my waistline (and I may have broken my father's heart). Foolish me, I tossed in a large portion of a brick of Scharffenberger extra bitter chocolate. Not only did it improve the look and flavor, I was now wholly unwilling to share my concoction.

I have since had occasion when I have wanted to make this, and, instead of being out of whole milk, I've had no chocolate milk. No big. It's actually rather fun, to make your own chocolate milk in advance -- and I've even done so with Ovaltine (the malt gives the pudding an entertaining kick, but you really have to be in the mood for it). You just have to make sure no solids get dribbled into the pudding pan. Other than that, go wild!

Here's my lunch, today (I made a double batch, to share with a friend):

Frogs' Eyes in Mud

Ingredients:
1/3 cup small pearl quick tapioca (I like Bob's Red Mill, but Minute Tapioca will serve, as well)
3/4 cup water
2 1/4 cups whole chocolate milk
1 bar (approximately 3.5 oz.) good dark chocolate, grated or finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar
2-3 Tablespoons good cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
In a double boiler, pre-soak tapioca in water, according to the package instructions (Bob's says about 3 1/2 minutes). Do not drain. (Now is the time to turn on heat to bring water in bottom pan to a boil.)

Stir in chocolate milk, grated chocolate, and salt. Continue to stir until chocolate solids are mostly dissolved.

Beat egg yolks, stir in. Stir constantly until mixture thickens noticeably (it usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes).

Remove double boiler from heat.

In a separate dry bowl, beat egg whites with sugar and cocoa powder until light and fluffy (but do not go so long that they form peaks). Fold in a few tablespoons of the hot chocolate mixture, gently mixing (you do this to pre-heat the whites a bit, so they don't suffer heat shock and become lumpy fried eggs in your pudding). Repeat once. Gently fold in the rest of the chocolate mixture, mixing well.

At this point, you can either put it into individual serving dishes or just leave it in the big bowl. Refrigerate immediately. Serve cold.

Makes about 3 1/2 cups.

You can get fancy with this, if you so desire, by topping it with real whipped cream and decorating with shaved chocolate, or simply grating more good chocolate onto the top of each individual portion. I find that such actions take too long, with all that yummy chocolate pudding calling out my name the entire time... I sometimes even eat this stuff warm from the pan.

Dang it, now I'm all hungry, and lunch isn't for another... three minutes! GTG!

Graham Cracker Fudge (aka nutty fudge nougat)

It's a cross between a candy and a no-bake bar cookie. And it's a sin not to nibble.

Some years back (possibly even before I was born), the Bat caved to impulse and picked up one of those little booklets of recipes they put in the racks by the cash registers at the supermarket. We don't usually cave to the allure of candies, or to the wild and woolly displays of the tabloids, but recipes -- well, that's quite another thing. And when the Pillsbury prize-winning ones come out, heck, that's like catnip to us. We don't always have to try every one of them, but we has to has, my precious... That's where this one comes from, originally, with slight variations.

Best made near Christmas, so you can justify making lots of it, and taste-testing every last batch.

When we make a batch, it usually disappears in short order. You can probably imagine why.

They're very rich, and in no wise carb-neutral, but they're butter-and-chocolate heaven. And they can be made wheat-free!

So I went a little nuts…

 

Graham Cracker Fudge

Ingredients:

4 c. sugar

1 c. butter

1 can Milnot (or plain evaporated milk)

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour*

2 c. graham cracker crumbs*

1 1/2 c. chopped nuts (optional)†

2 tsp vanilla
 pecan halves (optional)

Directions:

Combine sugar, butter, milk product in 3-quart (or larger) saucepan, bring to a boil stirring constantly.

Once in full rolling boil, allow to continue for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat, stir in remaining ingredients until well-mixed.

Spread into a greased jelly roll pan. Allow to cool (may be refrigerated to speed the setting-up process). Cut into 1-inch squares. Top with nut halves, if desired.

* if you need to prepare this for someone on a gluten-free diet, of course you should substitute 1:1 gluten free all-purpose flour for the regular flour (I have, most recently, been using Pamela's, easily available for subscription via Amazon), and, instead of graham cracker crumbs, use almond meal (almond flour). In the depicted batch, I used the unblanched meal, but there's no set rule on this one. I have discovered that, in fact, using the almond flour instead of graham crumbs makes these more tender. There's a fine line (the difference of less than a teaspoon), in using graham cracker crumbs, when these things go from delightful to dry. That doesn't seem to happen with the nut flour.


†Recently, I experimented with adding coarsely-chopped dried tart cherries, along with the chopped pecans. It was pretty darned spiffy. But these goodies need no embellishment. They're just decadent and sinful all by themselves...

Green Bean Casserole

The holiday feast seasons have long had the tradition that the table must hold a dish of green beans in a thick, mushroomy gravy, usually built from a can of your favorite brand of cream of mushroom soup, undiluted.

Unfortunately for some of us, there's entirely too much sodium in those canned soups -- even the "reduced sodium" varieties. Therefore, we have to make the great sacrifice, and start from scratch. Sigh. (wink, wink)

Scratch is not exactly easy to find, on the shelves around here. I have a friend who admits that, when she was newly married, she had to go to the manager of the neighborhood market to ask where he stocked the scratch.... true story. She's a magnificent cook, today.

But I digress.

So anyway, my green beans this year started in Pop's garden. You don't have to go that far. If you don't have a garden large enough to accommodate a few bean poles, just get a bag or two of frozen green beans cut in your favorite style. The Bat likes julienne, I like mine hearty and thick -- something to do with squeaky teeth if they're slightly undercooked, I think. Anyway, I take what Pop gives us, and he seems to favor the lighter effort of just chopping off their stringy heads, blanching them & freezing them whole (or mostly so).

So, from the fresh green beans from the garden, the next stage is, I suppose, to go to the store and stock up on the rest of the stuff... unless you're an even more ambitious gardener than Pop is.

(Also, if you don't like the sodium content of the pre-fab fried onion stuff in a can, you might opt for making your own onion rings, by slicing a sweet onion thinly and separating the rings, dipping them first into buttermilk or soured milk, then into your favorite bread crumb mix, and last, gently arranging them atop the casserole... I found some unbreaded, crisp onion bits at Aldi last year, & have used them often, since. Those, though, you really only want to sprinkle on top of your dish and pop into the oven for a maximum of ten minutes, or you'll have lumps of coal for the kiddies...)

And from there, it's straight prep and eating.

No Soup Green Bean Casserole

Ingredients:

1 Tbs butter

1 lb mushrooms, sliced (if you use button mushrooms, get them as they're slightly darkening, for fuller flavor)

1 medium sweet onion, chopped finely (minced)

1 tsp ground thyme

1 1/2 tsp sea salt

2 Tbs celery leaf (fresh is better... if you're chopping celery for, say, turkey stuffing, hold out half the leaves from there & add them here)

ground pepper to taste

1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 c. milk

your choice of onion topping

Directions:

Over medium-high heat, spray a large pan (I use a wok) with your preferred non-stick spray,* drop in & melt butter, then stir in mushrooms, onion, thyme, salt, celery, and pepper. Stir regularly until mushrooms produce lots of liquid.

Sprinkle in flour, stirring constantly, cook for about one minute.

Gradually add in milk, stirring constantly until well-mixed with flour. It will begin to thicken.

Add in green beans, bring to simmer. Transfer all this to an oven-safe dish. Top with onions to your heart's delight.

Pop in hot oven (400ºF) for five to ten minutes, until onions are crisped nicely. Serve hot....

* Many cooking supply stores carry empty spray containers designed to be filled with your own supply of oil for just this purpose. The Bat & I use extra virgin olive oil.

Pumpkin Pie, Woolworth's style

The Bat's best friend Jackie is married to the son of a long-retired Woolworth's manager. Somehow, in the course of the years, their family acquired what they proudly refer to as "the REAL Woolworth pumpkin pie recipe". It seems that this particular recipe is for the favorite pie served at every top five-and-dime where there was a lunch counter.

For the past few years, when we have had family holiday gatherings (and our families, while not linked by any law known to man, have been joined into one big mob for almost forty years, now), Jackie has made these pies, while others struggled with the double-crust fruit varieties.

Well, this year, Jackie had good reason for being unable to roll out pie crust and lift heavy bowls of liquids, so for Thanksgiving dinner, my seester managed to acquire the recipe and put a couple of them together, just so we'd not be deprived of the greatest pumpkin pie of all time. It worked. The pie was exactly as it needed to be -- light, tasty, and grown-up. Unlike so many others' pumpkin concoctions, this one doesn't overpower one with pounds of ginger and/or cinnamon/nutmeg/mace/what-have-you. I ate more than my fair share of it, and wanted more. I got more, the next morning at breakfast. It was great.

And even better still, I have permission to share this family secret with anybody else who likes a pumpkin pie with a lovely, delicate blend of aromatic seasonings in a not-too-fussy pumpkin-y custard base.

The custard is a dense, not fluffy one, in which the egg white remains somewhat intact. If you find this disturbing, this is not the recipe for you.

Woolworth's official pumpkin pie

(makes two deep 9 1/2" pies)

Ingredients:

1 #2 1/2 can (3 1/2 cups) pumpkin

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp salt

4 eggs, separated

3 cups milk

2 9 1/2-inch pie shells, unbaked

Directions:

In large mixing bowl, place pumpkin (if using stand mixer, use paddle, not whisk). Sift together sugar and spices. Add to pumpkin. Mix on low speed for 2 minutes. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl, mix an additional 1/2 minute.

Separate eggs, stirring yolks together lightly. Do not stir or mix egg whites, but set aside. With mixer on low speed, add egg yolks to pumpkin in slow stream over 1/2 minute period. Add milk in slow stream over 1/2 minute period. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl, then mix for three minutes.

Stir in (do NOT beat) unbeaten egg whites.

Allow to stand (refrigerated) at least 3 hours (overnight is preferred).

Preheat oven to 450º F. When ready, place 2 UNBAKED pie shells (in their respective pie dishes) on rack in oven.* Pour filling into shells, bake 10-15 minutes, then reduce oven temp to 350ºF, continue to bake for 45 more minutes, or until the outer edge of the pie filling (about an inch and a half or so) has become firm, and the center is still a little jiggly, but a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Refrigerate (or at least allow to cool thoroughly) before serving. Is great with real whipped cream. 

* It is also possible to put those crusts on the counter, fill them there, then carry the very-full-of-liquid dishes over to the oven and place them on the rack, et cetera, et cetera, but I've found that having the liquid in a container with a pour spout and the crusts on the rack already, to be filled in situ, reduces the likelihood that I, Captain Coordination, might see great pools of uncooked pumpkin custard suddenly appear on Mom's lovely hardwood kitchen floor. And her walls. And shoes. Not that the cats would object.

Update: Photos were taken at Thanksgiving dinner, 2014.

Update 2: This recipe can also be used to make custard without pie crust. for this, you will want to thoroughly butter your custard cups, place them in a walled baking dish, pour water to surround the cups to slightly past the halfway point, and then fill the cups. Bake at 450º F for 10 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 350º F for approximately another 25 minutes, or, until a sharp, thin knife inserted into the center of a custard comes out clean. Allow to cool completely – you can garnish with toasted pecans or whipped cream (or both) at the time of serving.

Update 3: in honor of annus horribilis 2020 and the joys of social distancing (/sarc), here's a one-pie version of the ingredients:

1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree
3/4 plus 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 3/4 teaspoons ground ginger

3/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs, separated

1 unbaked pie shell

Directions remain the same.

Asteroidae says that pie cries out for whipped cream and a side of cranberry relish, but even without all that, it's her favorite.

Grandma Heitmann's Pfeffernusse

Back-breaking labor. Farm wives and daughters know this in the kitchen, as well as in the out-buildings and fields. Most of the time, that hard work is for the survival of the family farm. But then, holidays happen every year, and with each of those comes a particular variety of hard work for the womenfolks -- particularly satisfying variety of hard work, at that.

One of the favorite results of great physical efforts is this Christmas cookie. It's not particularly an aesthetically pleasing treat, the way, say, gingerbread men and frosted sugar cookies can be. Pfeffernusse, an old German dunking cookie, was one of Mom's favorites, as made by her mother's mother. "Little rocks," Mom labeled them, and they truly did require either dunking in coffee or special steel-rebar-reinforced dental work in order to bite into them.

This recipe has all the flavor, but a little less of the jawbreaker quality, mostly, Mom says, by cutting back on the flour just a little. She also says that, as she's been making these little blighters today, it's just a little easier to stir the large batch of dough, this way.

Personally, I think the dough tasty no matter how dense it gets. But if you are a little more risk-averse than I am, I'd suggest that, if you want to eat dough, you should invest in pasteurized eggs or egg-substitute stuff before you stuff your face with this gooey holiday joy.

Grandma Heitmann's Pfeffernusse

ingredients:

1 qt dark Karo brand syrup

1 lb granulated sugar (approx. 2 cups)

1 lb butter

2 Tbs baking soda dissolved in boiling water or coffee(just enough liquefy the soda -- about 2 Tbs or so

3 eggs, beaten

2 tsp allspice

grated rind one lemon

1 1/2 or 2 cups finely chopped pecans

5 lbs all-purpose flour (approx. 20 cups)*

directions:

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

In a very large mixing bowl, cream syrup, granulated sugar, and butter.

Add baking soda solution, eggs, allspice.

Add in flour, a cup or two at a time. Unless you have a heavy-duty industrial-strength mixer, you will need to stir in the last two or three cups gradually, by hand, with a strong spoon.

Form into balls using a 1-inch scoop or a teaspoon, and drop onto cookie sheet.

Bake 10-11 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Cool on a rack, serve with coffee or hot cider.

*You can prepare them for a lighter-density cookie, and Mom often does this for the sake of her "poor aging frame" (it's been aging like this for about... well, forty years, I'd guess). For the tender generations who can't wield a war hammer, use only 16 cups flour.

Her Grandma Heitmann used to roll out some of the dough and cut shapes -- mostly reindeer -- for the kids on the farm. Those got sprinkled with a trace of extra sugar before they were baked.

These are not the usual kiddie cookies to be slathered with icing and candy decorations. Yes, most kids will like them, but they're aimed for adult tastes.

My own memories are of Mom once -- and only once -- rolling the dense balls of dough in sugar before baking them into glittery, yummy hockey pucks... it was a case of gilding fine gold. And then, there was the year that she used this dough to make a "gingerbread" house with a fondant-style frosting as cement. It took some doing to Hänsel-and-Gretel it to death.

Mice in the Kitchen!

AAAAAAAAuuuuughhhhh!

Oh. it's just candy mices.

.

KittyMaus won't be allowed to nibble these mousies...

Still hot from the pot!

Dark chocolate kisses for the head. Sliced almonds for the ears. Holding it by the stem, dip a maraschino cherry into melted chocolate, & you have the body. It's all held together by that melted chocolate.

And they won't be stirring, on the night before Christmas. They'll have vanished entirely.

(HT: an old friend who sent me one of these years ago... and helped me discover that plenty of dark chocolate makes the sickeningly-sweet cherries more palatable. The sincerest form of flattery in the kitchen is theft of recipe. **Kisses**)

What a Maroon's Macaroons

Dark chocolate bottoms, dried cherries or pecans on top... the best of all worlds!

Bugs Bunny gave us the label. I reckon it fits, most days. I'm too often the slow, dim one when I set to work (I like to believe it's the result of medications, but, then, when everybody else in the family is comfortably qualified to join Mensa, and I just barely scraped by on the exams -- due to neglect of math -- it's probably not just the drugs speaking).

So, when I bake, I don't want to have to pretend I'm a Ph.D. in chemistry. Keep It Simple, Stupid, is the motto I've tried to live by as mush as possible. So, to the macaroons.

A few things to consider: we don't have a really good baking supplier in our region -- the nearest one is more than an hour's drive away. So, when I want finely shredded coconut, instead of those long, pretty strands that make such nice birds' nests for Easter, I have to toss my long shreds into a blender or food processor & turn them to near-dust. It's not an onerous task, but it does add an extra step to the otherwise brainless activity. And, of course, if you like chocolate, you may want to melt a pound or two in a double-boiler, so you can dip these puppies. I prefer semi-sweet or dark chocolate on my own, but I know a lot of milk choccie lovers, so go there if you must.

The Macaroons

Ingredients:

1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk

1 bag (14 oz.) finely shredded sweetened coconut flakes

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (preferably powdered, but any good variety will do)

Your preferred toppings (I have chosen tart dried cherries and pecan halves)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325ºF.

In a medium or large mixing bowl, combine condensed milk, coconut, and vanilla.

Using a small cookie scoop or a nice, rounded teaspoon, drop onto parchment-covered cookie sheet. (I usually spray the cookie sheet with a little oil to prevent slippage as I'm setting up.) Try to keep them as neat as possible.

If you want to go all fancy, top each one with a bit of your favorite not-too-sweet fruit or nut.

Pop those babies in the oven for about ten minutes, or, until they start turning golden-brown.

Allow to cool.

At this point, you can also dip them in chocolate, if you so desire. I found that, when one makes the cookies larger, they tend to go all floppy in your hands, so, to make them more manageable, I "painted" some chocolate onto their bottoms using a small spoon, and then let them completely cool on parchment before serving.

Then, if you want to keep a few to send out for Christmas, you'd probably be wise to hide them from Pop.