Tea Cookies with Herbs

If you've been following my blog you know that this inquisitive housewife loves to combine ingredients that are not typically together.  In the past I've loved it when I've had herbs that have been mixed into jams and other sweets so I decided to come up with my own flavor combinations. Don't be shy! Try these recipes and you'll be a believer too.   

Lemon Cranberry Basil Cookies

1 C Unsalted Butter

¾ C Powdered Sugar

1 T Vanilla

2 C Flour

½ t Salt

½ C Dried Cranberries

Zest of 1 Lemon

1 Sprig of Fresh Basil, Chopped

Beat butter, sugar, and vanilla. All flour and salt until combined.  Add cranberries, zest, and basil.

Shape into 2 logs, wrap tightly in plastic, chill for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Unwrap the dough and slice into ¼ inch slices.  Bake on a cookie sheet for 15-17 minutes. Cool and serve.

Lavender Orange Shortbread

2 C Flour

1 ¼ t Salt

1 C Unsalted Butter

½ t Vanilla Extract

1 C Lavender Sugar

3 T Candied Orange Peel (or orange zest)

Mix together flour and salt.  In a separate bowl, beat the butter for about 2 minutes and then add the sugar. Mix in the flour.  Mold into a ball, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Lightly roll out the dough to about ¾ inch thickness, trying to keep a rectangular form.  Cut it into squares and lightly prick the tops with a fork. Bake on a cookie sheet for about 25 minutes or until lightly brown. Cool and serve.

*Lavender sugar can be made by mixing 1 of cup of sugar and ¼ cup of dried lavender buds in a tightly sealed container. Ideally this should be made at least 1 month in advance.

Apricot Rosemary Jam Cookies

8 Oz Cream Cheese, Softened

½ C Unsalted Butter

2 C Flour

½ t Salt

1/3 C Sugar

2 t Vanilla

1 C Apricot Jam (or any other jam) 

2 Sprigs Rosemary, Chopped

2 Egg Yolks + 1 T Cold Water

*Mix jam and rosemary preferably 1 day ahead of time

Beat cream cheese, butter and sugar for about 2 minutes. Add the flour, vanilla and salt. Mold into 2 separate balls, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll out the dough onto a floured surface. Either cut into 2 ½ X 2 ½ inch squares or with a large star cookie cutter.  Put onto a cookie sheet and spoon about 1 t of jam into the center. Fold over the pointed ends and brush with the egg wash. Bake immediately or put it back in the refrigerator until ready to bake.  Bake about 17-20 minutes.  Cool and serve.

Lavender Honey Almond Cookies

2 ½ C Flour

½ t Salt

¾ C Sliced Almonds

1 C Butter

¼ C Sugar

2/3 C Honey (use 1/3 C in the dough, remaining s for drizzling)

1 T Dried Lavender Buds

In a food processor, finely chop the almonds. 

Beat the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes.  Add the almonds, honey, lavender and flour.  Shape into 2 logs, wrap tightly in plastic, chill for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Unwrap the dough and slice into ¼ inch slices.  Bake on a cookie sheet for 12-15 minutes. Brush or drizzle with remaining honey while cooling.

Valentine's Sweets for your Sweetie

Valentine Heart Boxes

Like many of my do it yourself craft projects, I leave a lot of the imagination up to you.  Below are the different items that you my use to decorate these boxes.  Vintage Valentine’s cards can be found in antique stores.  Of course it’s best to find your supplies around Valentine’s Day.  Start by painting the boxes, inside and out before you decorate them.

You Will Need:

Heart shaped boxes

Paints (I like the metallic ones)

Old Valentines or scrap papers

Glitter and glue

Heart scraps and Dresden’s

This box had some decorative indentions in it.  I decided to paint it pink and then lightly follow the pattern with gold paint.  I decorated cherub scrap paper with glitter and then glue it to the lid.  Then I glued a small gold star shaped Dresden’s to the sides and then jewels in the center of each one.

By using heart shapes that are larger than the box, this style closely resembles a chocolate candy box.   I cut out red cardstock in the shape of a foil heart doily and then glued them together.  Then glued one as the base and one on top of the lid.  Then I decorated it with a heart shaped foil Dresden and a flower scrap paper.  Glittering flower scraps are difficult so I just glittered the edges.

This box uses an old Valentine that I embellished with glitter.  I glued it to a gold foil heart doily and then to the lid.  I happened to have a long gold foil border which is a long strip.  I trimmed up the bottom and glued it on.

Chocolate Truffles

There are so many ways to flavor truffles.  I’m always trying to come up with new flavors.  When “inventing” a new flavor, use extracts, dried fruits, citrus peels, and spices.  You don’t want to add a lot of liquid, so think concentrated. Coat them in cocoa, chopped nuts, sprinkles, etc.  When choosing your chocolate, don’t be cheap.  I won’t name names, but there is a very popular “chocolate morsel” that I do not recommend for anything unless it’s chocolate chip cookies.  You don’t have to spend a lot, but use the better chocolate chips at your local grocery store. Semi-sweet chocolate is traditionally 35% chocolate liquor and 12% milk solids. Below is my basic truffle base.

Basic Truffle Base

1/3 C Heavy Whipping Cream

6 T Unsalted Butter

2 C Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Cocoa Powder, Approx. ¾ C

Over  double boiler (pot of light boiling water with a metal bowl over it), heat the cream and the butter.  Stir in the chocolate.

*at this point you would add your flavoring

Let it cool in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour and scoop them out.  Roll them into a   ball and then in the cocoa powder (or nuts, sprinkles).

*I find this to be very messy as this point.  My tips are to use a small ice cream scoop and to roll them lightly and quickly and put them into the cocoa in approximately multiples of 6 at a time. The heat from your hands will melt them. 

Clean and dry your hands, and then roll it in the cocoa.  I recommend storing them in the refrigerator until about 30 minutes before serving but refrigeration is not necessary.

My Most Inquisitive Flavors:

Dried cherries with chopped pistachios

Crystalized ginger with fresh orange zest, rolled in white and black sesame seeds

Crispy bacon with maple syrup and cracked pepper (substitute the butter for the rendered bacon fat)

Dried cranberries rolled in pecans

Port reduction with almonds

Nutella rolled in chopped hazelnuts

Chocolate Marzipan Candies

Marzipan is traditionally made by grinding whole almonds with sugar or sugar syrup and drying it into a paste.  It is popular in European deserts including cake icing, stollen, fruit cake, chocolate candies and rolled into figurines of animals, fruits, and vegetables. The recipe below is best with baking marzipan which is a slightly finer paste.

Melt semi sweet chocolate in a double boiler or slowly in the microwave.  Fill chocolate molds slightly less than half way. Pick up the mold into the air and carefully rotate it so that the chocolate coats the entire mold.  Refrigerate for bout 2-5 minutes.

Take the marzipan and roll it into small balls.  Put them into the molds and then cover with chocolate to the top.  Let them cool completely and then pop them out of the container. Serve as is or in small baking cups.

Sweet & Tangy Meyer Lemons

Meyer Lemons are a cross between a lemon and mandarin orange.  They are sweeter than typical lemons and the rind is very flavorful. They originated in China but came to the US be grown in California in the 1900's.  In the 40's they developed a bad virus only to go away and come back again in the 70's.  This is one complicated lemon!  The winter season is the best time to purchase these deep yellow lemons but they are available year round.

I highly recommend purchasing a Microplane zesting tool.  Citrus zest is highly concentrated and also it is a great alternative when you don’t want to add liquid (juice) to a recipe.

Pan Fried Shrimp Cakes with Creamy Meyer Lemon Sauce

Serves 4

For the Shrimp Cake:

2 Scallions         

½ of a Small Red Pepper

¾ Pounds of Raw Peeled and Deveined Shrimp

2/3 C Panko Bread Crumbs plus approx. ½ C for Coating

½ Cup Mayonnaise

Pinch of Salt

Pinch of Cayenne Pepper

1T Butter

For the Sauce:

4 Oz Cream Cheese

1T Chopped Cilantro

Juice from 2 Meyer Lemons, Zest from 1

For the Micro Green Salad (Optional):

1.5 Oz Mixed Micro Greens

Juice from ½ of 1 Meyer Lemon

1t Olive Oil

Pinch of Salt & Pepper

Finely chop scallions, red pepper, and the shrimp or stick them into a food processor.  Put it into a bowl and add the remaining ingredients except the butter.  Form into 4 patties (or more if you want to make mini cakes) and lightly coat in bread crumbs.

Preheat a sauté pan and add butter.  Once melted, add the cakes and pan fry them.  Once the first side of the cake is brown, flip it over and brown the other side.

In a separate sauté pan over low heat, melt the cream cheese.  Once it starts to thin out a little, whisk in the remaining ingredients.  Spoon out onto plates.

Mix the micro greens in a bowl with all of the ingredients.

Once the cakes are cooked, arrange them on the plates and garnish with a tall micro green salad. If you make the cakes too thick and are afraid that they are browning too fast and not cooked all the way, finish them in the oven.

*Do you know what deveined shrimp are and why it’s important? Along the back side of the shrimp is a long light orange or black vein that goes from the top down to the tail.  Basically it’s a really long piece of crap that I like to refer to as the “poopy vein”.  Eating shrimp poop won’t kill you but it’s not very lady-like.  Once peeled, run your knife lightly down the center of the vein and pull it out.  Some people like to then rinse the shrimp off under cold water.  If you’re not into touching shrimp crap, ask your seafood shop to do it for you or buy it already deveined.

Micro Greens

Micro Greens are like the caviar of vegetables, literally.  Have you ever started seeds to plant in the spring?  The seed gets planted into the soil and a small bud starts to grow up towards the sun.  If you would cut the buds down, you would have micro greens.  The varieties can be greens like cabbage or kale, or herbs like cilantro or basil. So what’s so great about micro greens?  They taste like salad greens, but they are light in flavor and have a nice crunchy texture.  And the obvious reason to use them is because it will definitely up the score & make you look like a culinary genius. 

Avocado Grapefruit Salad with Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette

Serves 2

For the Vinaigrette:

Juice & Zest from 2 Meyer Lemons

1/2 C Olive Oil

1T Chopped Chives

2t Agave Nectar (or Honey)

Salt & Pepper

For the Salad:

1 Red Grapefruit

1 Ripe Avocado

6 Oz Any Mixed Lettuce Greens

¼ C Sliced Almonds

For the vinaigrette, put the lemon juice, chives, agave nectar and a pinch of salt and pepper into a bowl.  Slowly pour in the oil and whisk quickly.  Toss the dressing with the lettuces.

Cut the peel off of the grapefruit and slice it into segments.  Be careful to look for seeds.  Peel and cut the avocado into slices.  Lightly toss the grapefruit, avocado, and almonds with the greens and arrange it on a plate.

*if you want to use this vinaigrette for other things or in larger batches, I recommend using the blender.  When you whisk the oil into a dressing, you run the risk of it separating.  What you want to do is create an emulsion which keeps the dressing well blended.  For an emulsion you need to have the acid part of the dressing whisking or blending at very fast pace while you slowly pour in the oil.

 

Greek Yogurt “Cheese” Spreads

Greek yogurt is strained so it’s almost like the consistency of cream cheese.  The “cheese” spread recipes below are greet for crackers, breads, veggies, fruits, and sandwich spreads. Make up your own variations using dried fruits, herbs, citrus zests, etc.

Meyer Lemon Fig “Cheese” Spread

1 Meyer Lemon, Zested

6 Oz Plain Greek Yogurt

Dash of Nutmeg

2t Honey

Mix all of the ingredients together. You’re done

Pesto “Cheese” Spread

1 Sprig Basil, Chopped

1 Clove of Garlic, Minced

1T Walnuts, Minced (optional)

Pinch of Salt & Pepper

Mix all of the ingredients together.