Breakfast: leftover Sri Lankan eggplant, slice of herb toast with butter, carrot slices, half grapefruit, grape tomatoes, clementine, small dish of roasted peanuts. Glass of homemade "ginger ale."
Lunch: Dish of mixed green raisins, roasted peanuts, and chocolate chips. Fruit, protein, fat: a balanced meal.
My afternoon project was Deb Perelman's chocolate hazelnut linzer cookies. I'd considered making these as a big batch of Christmas cookies, so considered this a trial run. The cookies came out beautifully, just gorgeous and festive, as well as tasty with a toasty hazelnut flavor. Each cookie was so hearty and satisfying that eating just one was enough. However. I will not be making a triple or quadruple batch of these as Christmas cookies because they are a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS. The dough was extremely sticky-- I hoped it would harden up during chilling-- and it did, somewhat, but still required constant flour dusting during rolling and yet stuck to the rolling pin anyway, over and over and over. Cutting, baking, spreading of Nutella, etc., were relatively incident-free, but it is a many-step, time-consuming process. Just not gonna happen in the week before Christmas. (Later note: everyone who ate these cookies were tremendously impressed with them. So, if you are looking for some serious baking cred, and don't have too many mouths to feed, I still recommend them.)
Lunch: Dish of mixed green raisins, roasted peanuts, and chocolate chips. Fruit, protein, fat: a balanced meal.
My afternoon project was Deb Perelman's chocolate hazelnut linzer cookies. I'd considered making these as a big batch of Christmas cookies, so considered this a trial run. The cookies came out beautifully, just gorgeous and festive, as well as tasty with a toasty hazelnut flavor. Each cookie was so hearty and satisfying that eating just one was enough. However. I will not be making a triple or quadruple batch of these as Christmas cookies because they are a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS. The dough was extremely sticky-- I hoped it would harden up during chilling-- and it did, somewhat, but still required constant flour dusting during rolling and yet stuck to the rolling pin anyway, over and over and over. Cutting, baking, spreading of Nutella, etc., were relatively incident-free, but it is a many-step, time-consuming process. Just not gonna happen in the week before Christmas. (Later note: everyone who ate these cookies were tremendously impressed with them. So, if you are looking for some serious baking cred, and don't have too many mouths to feed, I still recommend them.)
Dinner was somewhat involved as well. I made the Bitter Greens with Sauteed Corn and Shallots from the August issue of Bon Appetit, as well as toasted coconut muffins and the last of the homemade sausage I froze from Jennifer Reese's recipe. I'm not sure whether there was an error in the salad recipe, because 4 c. of corn kernels seems like a lot to add to a salad dressing. However, I used all 4 cups, and the salad tasted good. About half its volume just consisted of this tasty mixture of corn kernels, browned shallots, and pancetta. Dumped on and around some dandelion greens. While this may or may not have been what was intended (the photos in the magazine and online show a much leafier salad) , I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the one coconut muffin that I ate, but I came home from work the next day to find the muffins all gone. My husband had stayed home sick from work and I guess he ate them all? As I have commented before, I found the sausage icky and cloying. But I eat it anyway because I am a responsible non-waster of food.
We ate chocolate hazelnut linzer cookies for dessert while watching Survivor.
Snacks: 4 cups coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half, plus a little more at work. A small lump of baked hazelnut cookie dough that was left over after cookie cutting.
We ate chocolate hazelnut linzer cookies for dessert while watching Survivor.
Snacks: 4 cups coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half, plus a little more at work. A small lump of baked hazelnut cookie dough that was left over after cookie cutting.