For various reasons there was no farmers’ market for us this weekend, but we did eat our weight in ice cream sandwiches, so it wasn’t a total wash.

Who cares if the ice cream was store-bought? Just sandwich some Haagen-Dazs vanilla between homemade spicy molasses cookies and call it a party.

Like I did with the popovers, I subbed Jules Gluten-Free Flour in place of the AP flour in the recipe and the cookies came out great. It’s been my experience that gluten-free cookies spread a bit more than regular, so I used a smaller amount of dough per cookie and they were absolutely perfect. Next time, I’ll try using coconut oil instead of the butter to see if that firms them up a little bit. (There’s less moisture in the cookies from the original recipe because it calls for shortening instead of butter, but man, that stuff gives me the willies.)

recipe after the jump

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Time passed, and it was decreed that cook eat FRET needed a little root work, and thus made her pilgrimage to New York. She’s the outgoing sort who has food-blogger friends from all over the country (world, at this point?), so Gil and I met up with her, Zen Can Cook and Colloquial Cooking for dinner at Del Posto Friday night. Thursday Night Smackdown was unable to make it, so we feasted on her portion of the lardo that came around with the bread basket, and I’ll blame her when my skinny jeans no longer fit.

Our dinner companions were everything you could ask for — friendly, smart and talented, and honestly just lovely people, all-around. I’ll leave a review of the food to them, but must put in a plug for my dessert, the Sfera di Caprino, Celery & Fig Agrodolce & Celery Sorbetto, as the menu so mouthwateringly puts it. Delicious and unusual. Probably not something I’ll try to duplicate even in the slightest, but if someone out there would like to do the honors, I would not complain if you got back to me with your recipe.

Grazie!

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It has been brought to my attention (though it hadn’t really escaped my notice) that I don’t post often enough. But that’s not entirely true; just check my guest post at TNS for evidence.

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But I do have a couple of things from last weekend that are sitting in my drafts folder collecting pixel-dust, so maybe the criticism is justified. It’s really a shame, because this meal could only have been better if I’d caught the trout myself minutes before firing up the (brand new) grill. But without access to decent trout streams here, I thought Whole Foods would be an acceptable substitute. I stuffed the fish with thin lemon slices and sprigs of thyme just before grilling — simple preparations are perfect with fresh trout. Dinner was on the table about 15 minutes later, served with an avocado, tomato and red onion salad, and grilled asparagus on the side. It’s that time of year, after all.

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Hey Cecily, you asked what I could do with limes…does this work?

Cornmeal cookies with lime glaze, inspired by the same at Amy’s Bread. These were a little crispier and less cakey than the originals, but were still just my kind of cookie — crumbly, crunchy, sweet/tart and completely lacking in chocolate.

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And just for you, Claire — more Rufus pictures:

The thing about a greyhound is, it’s really hard to get the nose and eyes in focus at the same time if your camera isn’t on a tripod.

But the boy really knows how to relax.

And I could learn a thing or two about patience from him.

recipe after the jump

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Be nice to Santa, ok? He’s a busy guy tonight.

For the 2007 Advent Calendar, click here.

recipe after the jump

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Oh, my — soft, spicy molasses cookies. I’ll bet these would be amazing sandwiched around ice cream.

For the 2007 Advent Calendar, click here.

recipe after the jump

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Mmmmmmadeleines … pristine, snowy, pillowy, brown buttery madeleines.

I know it’s supposed to be the season of giving, but … you can’t have them. They’re all miiiiiiiine. (Moo-hooo-haaa-haaaaa-haaaaaaah!)

For the 2007 Advent Calendar, click here.

recipe after the jump

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Keep it traditional with these Vintage Jam Tarts. They’re a little schlumpy and imprecise (at least the way I make them), but that only adds to their charm. And the jammy filling complements the cornmeal cookies beautifully.

For the 2007 Advent Calendar, click here.

recipe after the jump

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Welcome to the 2nd annual Minimally Invasive Advent Calendar! Like last year, I’ll be bringing you a daily photo entry with related recipe until Christmas.

To start things off, we’ve got what might just be my new favorite cookie of the season — chocolate crinkles. I’ve seen them everywhere, but somehow managed to resist their charms until now. Rich and deeply chocolatey, they’re more like bite-sized brownies than cookies (especially when served warm from the oven), which earns them extra points in my book.

For the 2007 Advent Calendar, click here.

recipe after the jump

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We finally gave in to temptation this weekend and made those chocolate chip cookies. Oh, don’t play coy with me — you know the ones. They’ve been everywhere since the NY Times article ran in July, but we’ve somehow managed to avoid making them until now. This, as it turns out, was a very wise decision, for these cookies are not kind to the waistline.

The ne plus ultra of chocolate chip cookies, they live up to the hype and then some, though I’m not sure if resting the dough mattered quite as much as the sheer size of these delicious monsters. I mean, they weighed in at nearly a quarter pound apiece. When you have that much goodness going on, you get the best of all possible worlds in one cookie — crispy edges and soft, pillowy centers shot through with large hunks of chocolate.

But the addition of sea salt (coarse grind) elevated the whole recipe to something otherwordly. I even added extra to later batches because I wanted a bit of salty crunch with every single bite.

I hate to run, but I really need to sample another cookie, just for quality control purposes. I wouldn’t want my co-workers to experience anything less than the best, after all.

Recipe here.

Sweet treats
A little something for my co-workers.

For all Advent Calendar posts, click here.

recipe after the jump

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Because of my need to give homemade food gifts for the holidays, this is traditionally the weekend I atone for my lack of baking throughout the year — all at once. But instead of saying two dozen Hail Marys and 10 Our Fathers, my personal penance was making THREE batches of pralines, a few POUNDS of spiced nuts, and TWO types of cookies. Oh, my friends, I’m on a sugar high that would do Beavis proud. (What? You’ve never heard of quality assurance?)

For the pralines, I dug out my dad’s recipe which adulterates the traditional praline with marshmallows, but you’ve never tasted anything like them; they’re really creamy instead of gritty the way straight-sugar pralines can sometimes be. Gil would chime in to agree, only he’s shoving broken praline bits into his mouth and banging his head on the wall in the kitchen. Don’t worry — he’s wearing a bucket for protection. The sugar crash is going to be ugly.

But the real surprise of the weekend were the cookies, primarily surprising for the fact that I baked them and did not burn even one. I normally bring in savory treats for my co-workers (last year — bacon brittle and gougères), but I suspect people appreciate the sweet stuff a little bit more, so I was willing to go that extra mile for them. And we weren’t disappointed; I really hope they won’t be, either.

Here’s the really soft and sticky sugar cookie dough, cut and ready to be moved (CAREFULLY) to the parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

As it turns out, I didn’t really need to be SO careful because these cookies s-p-r-e-a-d in the oven.

But dressed up with chocolate and nut toupées, they turned very suave, indeed.

So I’m really looking forward to a well-deserved break from baking this week. Maybe I’ll be chained to my desk at work, but at least I won’t be in the kitchen, forced to bake and sample delicious sweets!

Are those tiny violins I hear in the distance?

Incidentally, how sad is it that this is the only brandy we have in the house? I had to break into our kitschy Eiffel Tower stash to flavor the cookies.

recipe after the jump

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