Almond, Oat and Flax Thumbprint Cookies

I live in Nova Scotia, a place where practically summery hot days can occur just after a snowstorm.  Spring is more of a concept here than a reality, a very short season bridging winter and summer.  This spring has been s-l-o-w to get going, with really not a lot of dependable lovely sunshine.  Anyway, I'm not complaining, in two weeks the Union Street kitchen will be 40 degrees and sweltering.  
You can well imagine my excitement when my friend Stephanie told me on Saturday that fresh local strawberries had been spotted!   One of the Union Street girls just had a beautiful baby boy and I wanted to bring her strawberry something, but it was not to be: my favourite roadside stand just had a big "sold out" sign on it.  Oh well.  I made up these really good thumbprint cookies instead.  They are nutty with ground almonds and oats and whole wheat flour (sub in light spelt if you like).  I filled the pits of them with blueberry jam that I made last summer and some cinnamon-y apple butter that my good friend Melissa gave me.  You know when you're baking/cooking/creating something and it turns out exactly as good as you'd hoped?  Maybe better, even?  Then you keep looking/admiring/eating it, thinking, wow, that's really good. I can't believe that I made that.  So here you go, and welcome to the world, sweet little Joseph.

Almond, Oat and Flax Thumbprint Cookies
1 C. Roasted Almonds
1 C. Oatmeal
1 1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 C. Flax Meal (or grind flax seeds in a coffee grinder)
2 t. Baking Powder
1/4 t. Salt

1/4 C. Butter
1/4 C. Canola Oil
1/2 C. Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
2 t. Vanilla
Jam, Jelly, Apple Butter (it's fun and pretty to make different kinds)


Preheat oven to 350° and butter a large baking sheet or two.  In a food processor, grind the almonds until very finely chopped.  Tip into a bowl, then grind the oatmeal until it is a fine powder.  Add the oat flour to the bowl along with the whole wheat flour, baking powder and salt.  In a large bowl, cream the butter, canola oil and brown sugar.  Add the eggs and vanilla, beat until smooth, then add the flour mixture.  Stir (or mix with your hands) until combined.  Roll mixture into 1" balls and place about 3" apart on the cookie sheet.  Using your thumb, make a well in the middle of the cookie and fill it with jam.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, until puffed and firm.  Cool and enjoy.  These are great in your lunchbox (or so the kids told me!)

Daisy, how'd you get in there?

Merry Christmas Cookie!!!

On Sunday, my friend Stephanie hosted a cookie exchange. We've talked about it for years, but she took the bull by the horns last Christmas and now I hope it's here to stay. The idea is simple: everyone bakes 6 dozen cookies, then we get together for a potluck brunch and lay all the goodies out on the table to be admired. On their way out the door, each of us loads up a box with a variety of beautiful handmade cookies. There were chocolate orange stars and trees, iced snowflakes, sugar cookies with sprinkles, and Santa shortbreads. There were gingery molasses thins, pecan cakes dipped in powdered sugar and nut bars with dark and white chocolate (I brought those). There were buttery cookies with M&Ms! There are two kinds I can't name 'cause I haven't tasted them yet, but that's really only a matter of time. Minutes, actually. 

Women used to spend the better part of December baking. I remember my grandmother, Peg Osburn, mailing carefully packed handmade cookies from Pennsylvania at Christmas. The box contained at least a dozen varieties, one of which was the time consuming but much appreciated springerle, an anise-flavoured cookie that was imprinted with a special mold. No wonder I have a hard time with keeping things simple: in my family, the more complicated the effort, the more love is being demonstrated. Unless the sheer enormity of all those cookies to roll, cut, and bake, and the pile of dishes and the mess that results turns you into a complete bitch. 

Therefore, let's get real: find a few friends with good family recipes, make a simple cookie (bar cookies are the easiest) and get swapping!

Caramel Nut Bars with Cranberries and Chocolate

This recipe came out of tinkering with a Gourmet magazine pecan pie bar recipe.

 

3/4 C. Butter

2 C. Flour

1/2 C. Brown Sugar

1/2 t.  Salt

2 C. Mixed Salted Nuts

 1 C. Dried Cranberries

1/2 C. Butter

1 C. Brown Sugar

1/3 cup Honey

 2 T. Cream

1 oz. Dark Chocolate

1 oz. White Chocolate

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Cut 3/4 C. butter into 1/2-inch pieces. In a food processor process all ingredients until mixture begins to form small lumps. Sprinkle mixture into a 9x13 pan and press evenly onto bottom. Bake shortbread until golden, about 20 minutes.

In a heavy saucepan melt 1/2 C. butter and stir in brown sugar, honey, and cream. Simmer mixture, stirring occasionally, 1 minute and stir in nuts and cranberries. Pour nut mixture over hot shortbread and spread evenly. Bake in middle of oven until bubbling, about 20 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Melt the chocolates separately and use a spoon to drizzle each over the bars. Cool completely in pan and cut into 32 bars.

Merry Christmas!

Down at the Cranberry Bog

Cranberry Acres (and Acres!)

Folded into lemony muffins, baked into stuffing, stirred into freshly toasted granola and garnishing a spinach salad: we have come up with many uses for the tasty little cranberry. It's all for good reason. Cranberries are beautiful, nutritious and, around here, plentiful. In fact, cranberries grow wild around Nova Scotian brooks and streams and have become an important crop in the Annapolis Valley since at least the 1940s, when the first commercial harvest was made near Aylesford. Cranberries have been produced commercially in Nova Scotia since the late 1800s!

I had a chance to visit my friend Louise's Cranberry Acres last Tuesday. I was amazed at the complex machinery, their acres of irrigated fields, and a complex system of irrigation ponds and ditches designed to flood the cranberry fields on demand (most cranberries are harvested underwater: they float to the surface and are collected). Theirs is one of the largest of several cranberry farms in Nova Scotia, with more than 30 fields under cultivation and five different varieties being grown including Stevens and Pilgrim. On the day I visited, frozen cranberries were being packed in forty pound boxes destined for Russia! Our cranberries are exported all over the world and are renowned for their gorgeous colour: Louise told me that Nova Scotian cranberries are by far the reddest. 

The Red, Red Nova Scotia Cranberry

We've been buying fresh and frozen SunValley cranberries for years. For a time, they also supplied us with dried cranberries, but have since discontinued that line. However, we were thrilled to discover an almost-local source of dried cranberries and cranberry juice at Terra Beata Farms in Lunenburg. They also dry and juice Nova Scotia cherries and blueberries!

The cranberry harvest will be over soon, but cranberries last for weeks in your refrigerator and longer when frozen. There's no need for fancy preparation, just throw the whole bag into your freezer and they will be separate and intact when you're ready to use them. Don't bother to defrost them either, just be prepared to add a few extra minutes' cooking time to your recipe.

Cranberry Chutney

This is our spicier, thicker version of cranberry sauce. At the Union Street Cafe, we serve this chutney alongside our North Mountain Free Rangin' Hot Chicken Sandwich and our version of Duck Confit. It's also great mixed with an equal part of mayo and slathered on a turkey sandwich. This chutney keeps at least a week in the refrigerator.

1 medium Onion, diced

1 ½ C. Sugar

1 C. Water

4 C. Cranberries, fresh or frozen

1 t. Chinese 5-Spice or Garam Masala

Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring from time to time. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes, until berries have broken down somewhat.  Let cool, then refrigerate.

Roasted Cranberry Vinaigrette

Serve this beautiful dressing on emerald Spinach leaves or mixed greens with Roasted Pears, Dragon's Breath Blue Cheese and Toasted Pecans as a celebration of the colder months of the year!

The Cranberry in its Natural Habitat!

2 C. Fresh or Frozen Cranberries

1/3 C. Sugar

½ t. Salt

2/3 C. Olive Oil
1 T. Balsamic Vinegar

1 t. Dry Mustard

Freshly Ground Pepper

Red Wine Vinegar, optional

Preheat the oven to 350°. Toss the cranberries, sugar and salt together on a baking sheet and roast for about 15-20 minutes, until the cranberries begin to shrivel. Let cool, then scrape into a medium bowl and whisk in the olive oil, dry mustard and a few grinds of pepper. Taste and add a splash of balsamic vinegar if you like and thin with a spoonful of water if it's too thick. If you prefer, puree it in a blender for a smooth result.  This is very pretty spooned over greens.

Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies

This is a tweak on Michael Smith's Chef at Home Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe!

3 C. Flour

2 t. Baking Powder

1/2 t. Salt

1 C. Butter

2 C. Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2 t. Vanilla

1 C. Dried Cranberries

1 C. White Chocolate, chopped (I use 1 Just Us! white chocolate bar)

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter a large baking sheet or line with parchment.  Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.  Cream butter with brown sugar in a large bowl until fluffy, then beat in eggs and vanilla.  Add flour mixture, cranberries and white chocolate and stir until just combined.  Using a 1/4 C. measure, scoop dough onto baking sheet, spacing them out (cookies will spread).  Bake for about 15 minutes, until browning around the edges.

 A little piece of Cranberry field

I read this morning that at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever", John Lennon repeats the words "cranberry sauce".  
According to the Pacific Coast Cranberry website, "he stated it was a kind of icing on the cake of the weirdness of song, where anything he might have imagined saying would have been appropriate." 

Veggies at Keji

Lyss at our Kejimkujik Kitchen

We went camping last week. That's why I've been missing. We left for Kejimkujik National Park on Saturday and didn't return until Thursday afternoon. That's a lot of advance food planning, and a long time to keep a cooler cold. Camping at Keji has been a longstanding tradition with my family, my parents taking my sister and I nearly every year when we were kids. As I've told you, my mom is an excellent and adventurous cook, and cooking over a campstove in the middle of the woods with no running water is not going to deter her from making exactly what she wants, be it Coconut Curry with Cauliflower and Dhal, or Hodge Podge, or fresh Guacomole. This, after all, is the woman who has made risotto (for the first time!) during a power outage caused by a snow storm raging outside, using the same stove and hoping for the best as far as carbon monoxide goes.

I'm my mother's daughter, so I had to have a few essentials: Pepper Grinder, Homemade Granola Bars, Lobster, Pesto, Chocolate, Fresh Dates, Blueberries, Raspberries, Kale, Swiss Chard, New Potatoes, many Zucchini, Fresh Basil, Cilantro, Peanut Ginger Baked Tofu, Curry Sauce from the Cafe, Tomatoes, Lemons, Toasted Almonds and Cashews, a Baguette, some Pesto Hummus (my new invention), Roasted Eggplant, Mango Chutney, Bananas, Garlic, and of course, Sweet Thai Chili Sauce. And some hot dogs. I didn't panic when I discovered that I forgot the Parmagiano and a little cheese grater, because I knew my mother would show up with both.
My cousin Melyssa and my sister Meagan were among my camping companions, along with husbands, children, and an ever-changing roster of dear friends new and old. We did a little advance planning to cooperate on meals and Melyssa and I spent a few hours preparing some of the longer-cooking, more complicated menu items at home. My garden was exploding, so I did my best to hold it at bay by cramming many more vegetables than we could possibly eat into our cooler.

That first night, we enjoyed my Chicken and Vegetable Curry with Melyssa's Dhal and some Naan bread that she toasted over the flames, along with amazing Samosas my friend Melissa brought along. The meals all week continued in the same way. Every evening at dinner time, we laughed at ourselves for being so ridiculous, but also felt gratitude for being in the company of others who find such pleasure in these small luxuries. After all, we've got to eat! Might as well make it good.

Peanut Ginger Baked Tofu

Wrap this up with veggies, basil and cilantro and Thai Chili Sauce for a wonderful wrap, or serve it with steamed vegetables and rice. The tofu keeps for a week or two in the fridge, or forever in the freezer.

2 lb. Tofu (if you live here, use Acadiana!)
2 T. Peanut Butter
3 inch piece of Ginger
8 cloves Garlic
½ C. Soy Sauce
½ C. Canola Oil
½ C. Sugar
1 T. Sesame Oil
Blend everything except the tofu in the food processor. Cut the tofu in 1x2 inch pieces, and place on a baking sheet. Pour marinade over and bake at 350 until crispy...but not burned, about 25 minutes.


Granola Bars that are Good for You

This is a very flexible recipe-the last 7 ingredients can be changed up as you see fit. Try dried apricots, figs, dates, dried cherries or dried blueberries for the fruit. Cashews, peanuts, hazelnuts, really anything goes for the nuts. Just do not omit the chocolate. My daughter insists it is key to the success of this recipe.

1/2 C. Peanut Butter (or half Peanut and half Almond Butter)
1/2 C. Brown Sugar
1/2 C. Milk or Soy Milk
1/2 C. Honey
2 T. Oil
2 t. Vanilla
3/4 C. Whole Wheat Flour
3/4 C. Plain Soy Protein Powder (Look in the health food section or substitute whole wheat flour)
1 1/2 C. Oatmeal
1 t. Baking Soda
1/2 t. Salt
1/2 C. Raisins
1/2 C. Dried Cranberries (Terra Beata uses NS Fruit)
1 C. Chocolate Chips
1/2 C. Chopped Almonds
1/2 C. Ground Flax Seed or Sesame Seeds
1/2 C. Sunflower Seeds
1/2 C. Coconut

Grease a standard size cookie sheet with canola oil. Combine everything in a large bowl and mix well, then pack evenly into the pan. Use wet hands to smooth it down, then bake at 325 for 20 minutes. Cool for about half an hour, then cut into 32 bars. Freeze in an airtight container. These are great straight from the freezer, so hide them well. They will also keep for at least a week on your next camping trip, or in the glove box, or your gym bag.


Pesto Hummus

This is way easy if you have pesto, and really yummy, too!

1 Can Chick Peas, drained
2 T. Lemon Juice
1/4 C. Pesto

Throw this all in the food processor and blend, adding water as necessary, until smooth. Scrape it into a serving dish, or divide into 1 Cup plastic containers and freeze. The top will discolour quickly from the pesto, but stir it up just before serving and you will find it deelish!

PS My Mom and Dad wrote a great song about camping at Kejimkujik with deluxe food and the company of raccoons. They are famously clever at Keji and they always manage to get something, no matter how careful you are! Here are the lyrics, as my special bonus to you. Sing it to any tune you want, or buy a copy of the Lustre Brothers CD Live at the Whittle at the Cafe.


RACCOON BLUES
© Anna & Don Osburn 1994

Raccoon raid on our camp last night
Raccoons came, took everything in sight
Took my fresh-made pesto and a cheesecake, too
But they left the avocado, guess they didn’t know what to do

CHORUS:
With the avocado, the tequila, and the lime
I think they would’ve figured it out, if they only had the time
Well, the scene bordered on the bizarre
Some might say it was sublime
I saw `em feastin’ in the moonlight
Gettin’ mellow on my wine.

We had a merry little band of masked marauders
Every one one of them a sophisticated robber
Broke into the cooler with skill and ease
Solved a combination lock, and absconded with the cheese....

CHORUS:
But they left the avocado.... etc.


Breakfast this morning was kind of lean,
`Cause the raccoons left us with low cuisine
No bagels, no bacon, took the brandied jam
Now guacamole and a shot glass are lookin’ like the plan....

CHORUS:
`Cause they left the avocado.... etc