Writing Our History in Cookies

(CBS)  Cookies come in so many shapes and sizes, there's no way anybody could keep track of all the possible recipes. Still, Martha Teichner knows some people who have tried:


There's a cookie from each of the 68 years Gourmet Magazine existed.

From 2007, Trios: "This was special because there's three different jams and we attached them together, so you would have three different tastes in one cookie," said executive chef Sara Moulton.

And then there are lemon glitter cookies. "These were on the cover in 2008," Moulton said.

To Check Out Our Cookie Recipes See Below

Out just in time for the holiday baking season, "The Gourmet Cookie Book" is like our history in cookies.

"You can really see how recipe writing evolved over the years," said Moulton. "You look at the first one, the Cajun macaroons."

The United States was about to enter World War II when the Cajun macaroons appeared in 1941. Recipes were written out in paragraph form then - no easy-to-follow lists of ingredients.

And then there was wartime rationing: "Sugar rationing - we have a honey cookie that's in the book in that decade because of the whole sugar rationing, the idea being that was a better alternative because you can't get sugar," said Moulton.

"So you use honey instead?" asked Teichner.

"You do. And also, you'll notice in the first decade, there aren't a lot of cookies. When we did talk about them, it was sort of like, 'Make cookies for our men overseas and here's a nice selection.'"

Conde Nast closed the magazine in the fall of 2009, but Gourmet lives on in everything from the cookie book to iPhone apps, which tap into an archive that is truly a chronicle, decade by decade, of America's changing tastes and moods.

"You get a sense of where people are traveling," Moulton explained. "First it was France, and then Italy becomes very big. And then you see a lot of the other European countries creeping into the cookies."

Chocolate cookies don't make an appearance until 1950.

"In the beginning you don't really see much chocolate," Moulton said. "But by the '80s and the '90s, wow, there is so much chocolate! And not just old fashioned chocolate - designer chocolate, you know? It's amazing how it revved up."

Did it ever! From maybe one cookie recipe a year in Gourmet, by the 1980s it was a dozen or more.

In 1993, December's magazine became the cookie issue.

By that time the recipes had become a lot more elaborate.

"I think what's happened in this country for a whole bunch of reasons, including celebrity chefs and TV, is that people know more about food," Moulton said. "They have access to more ingredients, and they want more excitement. So a good old-fashioned butter cookie, although it brings back memories of mom and grandmom, maybe some people are like, 'Nah, not enough for me. I need more.' And this would be more, because it's got all the spices in it and it's got the interesting ingredients."

These are pains d'epices, named after a holiday spiced bread from France. They're glazed with grand marnier and dusted with edible gold. And they have a telling back story about cookies and our times . . .

It began in February 2009 when food stylist Paul Grimes presented his ideas for what would have been that year's cookie issue.

"What I was envisioning was dotting it with candied orange peel and that would be the gem-like quality," Grimes said.

Gemlike, for a reason: with the economy in terrible shape, Gourmet wanted to offer readers a little edible opulence. The theme of the issue was to have been jewels.

The pains d'epices made it past the concept stage to the test kitchen.

Editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl and her senior staff liked them: "I'll be making those," she said.

Creative director Richard Ferretti oversaw the transformation of the cookies from the test kitchen into what for all the world looked like lavish priceless jewelry.

Like magic, they were cookies no more . . . camouflaged in razzle dazzle, sumptuous to behold.

Teichner said it was as if the cookies were playing dress up. "They are," said Ferretti. "They're being dressed up. The cookies have gone to another place. They're, like, at a party."

In tough times, delicious make-believe created - Gourmet's editors knew - out of practically nothing..

"You're dealing with butter, basically - butter, sugar, flour. It's not expensive stuff," said editor Kemp Minifie. "You can have some fun. And we all need some fun right now."

Go ahead. Because, after all, 'tis the season.

Seasonal Pear Salad

INGREDIENTS
2 pears
1 bag mixed greens
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup crumbled bleu cheese
1 cup apple cider
2 tbs vegetable oil
2 tbs apple cider vinegar
1 shallot (optional)
cracked black pepper
METHOD
Use a small stainless steel pot to reduce 1 cup of apple cider down to about 1/4 cup. Once the cider is going along, take a minute to finely mince the shallot and add that to the apple cider.
Once the apple cider has reduced down to 1/4 cup, take it off the heat and add it to a mixing bowl to cool down for 5-6 minutes. After it has cooled down a bit, add 2 tbs vegetable oil and 2 tbs apple cider vinegar, add a crack of black pepper and whisk it up.
Once the dressing is good to go, core and slice 1-2 ripe pears and toss that with mixed greens and the vinaigrette.
Finally, divide the salads onto individual plates and finish with crumbled bleu cheese and chopped walnuts.
TIP
You'll need to plan ahead a little bit and make the vinaigrette before assembling the salad. It also helps to toast the walnuts for more depth of flavor.


thanks!!!!

REcipe For d' future....

Chocolate chip cookies, the Toll House recipe

Story has it that the chocolate chip cookie recipe was created by American Ruth Graves Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn, in 1933. She later sold the recipe to Nestle. Nestle’s bags of chocolate morsels carry the Toll House recipe.
Question: Can a recipe that is promoted to work with a particular brand of chocolate morsels work just as well using another brand?
Answer: A qualified yes. I just baked a batch of chocolate cookies this morning using the Nestle Toll House recipe but with Van Houten chocolate chips. And the cookies are fantastic.

Note, however, that substitutions don’t always work with all products and with all brands. Take, for instance, dessicated coconut. I have a macaroons recipe that works with some but not all brands of dessicated coconut. Why? Quality and formula. The coconuts used by some brands may be more mature than others; the drying formula may be different too.
It’s the same thing with chocolates. So, please don’t ask if the Toll House chocolate chip recipe will work using some other brand of chocolate morsels. That’s something you will have to find out for yourself if you decide on some other substitute.
Makes 20 2-1/2 inch cookies.

Ingredients:

 
1 and 1/8 c. of all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. of baking soda
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/2 of a 250 g. block of butter, very soft
1/2 and 1/8 c. of white sugar
1/2 and 1/8 c. of firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 12 oz. pack of chocolate morsels
Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
In a large mixing bowl, beat the very soft butter with the sugars and vanilla extract. Add the egg and beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture and stir until blended. The dough will be soft and sticky. Fold in the chocolate morsels.

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Corned Beef Hash Recipe

A recipe for an autumn nights supper, on a budget.

 
This is a recipe for those of us really feeling the pinch of the recession. But don't worry if your pockets are a little light, you can make a decent meal on any budget.
Even if you take out a few of the ingredients you don’t lose that much flavour. But it is a good stodgy winter’s night’s supper for two.

Corned Beef Hash Recipe

 

You will need all of the following:

• One tin of good quality corned beef.
• Five or six decent potatoes.
• One onion
• Half a pack of decent sized closed cap mushrooms. Or about eight.
• Two peppers, any colour (I use red and green for contrast)
• One ball of Mozarella, any supermarket brand will do.
• One small jar of hot salsa sauce (alternatively you can make your own)
• Worcestershire sauce
• Paprika
• Ground black pepper
• You need one boiling pan and one large frying pan or wok, and two earthenware baking dishes of medium size.

Directions:

1. Firstly chop your potatoes into quarters and boil in a pan of water until soft. Don’t peel them, the skin is the best bit and it is full of vitamins Chop your onions, peppers and mushrooms finely or coarsely, as you prefer and fry in a pan until the onions are brown and everything is soft.
2. Open the corned beef (taking caution not to cut yourself) and add to the wok. Using a spatula hack it down to small chunks. Stir it into the vegetables.
3. Set your oven at 180 c and allow it five minutes or longer to heat up.
4. By now the potatoes should be just soft enough so drain the water through a colander and add the potatoes to the wok. Again use the spatula to hack them down to small pieces and stir or ‘fold’ the mixture.
5. Add two heaped tablespoons of salsa sauce and one of worcestershire sauce. Continue to stir and taste occasionally. Add black pepper if you feel it needs it. Reduce heat of the cooking ring.
6. Then use a serving spoon to transfer the mix to two thick single-serve oven dishes.
7. Open the Mozarella, drain the water from the packet and slice as thinly as possible. Place the slices (about three each) over the mix and sprinkle with a little paprika.
8. As an alternative to the Mozarella you can use a poached egg as a topping, a la Momma Cherri
9. Place in the oven and cook for 7-10 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. It will keep for up to three days, beef is a fairly safe foodstuff.

enjoy!!!

mmmmm...."Yummy Green Smoothie" Recipe

I am so not a veggie lover.  I could never eat all the veggies in a day that I’m suppose to so instead I’ve figured out a way to get around that.  I drink them!
The idea of green smoothies first came to me after reading many blogs on the subject.  I had already been making myself a fruit smoothie everyday to get my required fruits in, so it really appealed to me that I could add some veggies at the same time and be done with it.  So that’s what I do.
Every day for lunch I make myself a big tall glass of yummy green smoothie otherwise known as hulk juice to my kids.  They are absolutely delicious and believe it or not I actually crave them now if I don’t have one.  You can’t really taste the spinach at all and the fruit adds a nice touch of sweetness.  This is how I make mine but there are many different varieties and combinations you could try.
Org Junkie’s Daily Green Smoothie
One blender full of baby spinach (or a combination of any type of greens)
Approx 1 1/2 cups of cold water

Pulse and puree first two ingredients for a couple of minutes until well blended
(Note: because I don’t have a fancy blender, blending the spinach and water FIRST is the one step that made the biggest difference for me towards creating a green smoothie that was nice and creamy instead of thick and pasty)
Add to blender two to three cups of frozen fruit (any kind you like, I usually use the mixed fruit from M&M’s)

One banana
Blend until mixed and creamy
Add a couple of tablespoons of ground flax
Blend again

Drink up and enjoy!
(equals two servings)
Now if you are a bit reluctant to go all in at first you might want to start with a higher ratio of fruit to greens until you get use to it.  There really are no rules.  It’s just such a great way to get in a whole bunch of fruits and veggies in a really easy and delicious way.

If you have trouble eating your veggies, drinking them is a great alternative!

give credit to laura

Mediterranean chicken casserole recipe

Mediterranean chicken casserole recipe


Mediterranean chicken casserole Recipe
This was a great tasting chicken dish. I used chicken tenders cut inti chunks and it was very easy.

Ingredients of Mediterranean chicken casserole Recipe
2 tsp olive oil
8 chicken lovely legs
1 large brown onion, halved, thinly sliced
3 celery sticks, trimmed, cut into 2cm-thick slices
2 garlic cloves, crushed
200g button mushrooms, thickly sliced
2 x 400g cans diced Italian tomatoes
1 chicken stock cube (Massel brand)
150g (1 cup) frozen broad beans, thawed, peeled
1 tbs fresh thyme leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
200g dried spiral pasta, optional, to serve

Description of Mediterranean chicken casserole Recipe
Preheat oven to 180°C. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook, turning occasionally, for 5 minutes or until brown all over. Transfer chicken to a 2L (8-cup) capacity ovenproof casserole dish.

Add onion and celery to the frying pan and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add garlic and mushroom and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until mushroom is tender. Add tomato and stock cube and bring to the boil. Remove from heat. Add to casserole dish with the chicken.

Cover the casserole dish with a tight-fitting lid or foil. Bake in oven for 35 minutes or until chicken is tender. Add broad beans and half the thyme and cook for a further 10 minutes or until broad beans are tender. Remove from oven. Taste and season with pepper.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water following packet directions or until al dente. Drain well.
Spoon casserole into a large serving bowl. Sprinkle with remaining thyme and serve with pasta, if desired.

Mediterranean chicken casserole Recipe
Preparation Time 30 minutes/Cooking Time 60 minutes/serves 4

Source - Taste.com.au