Amy's Favorite Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

Given the sad state of our recent postings over the past month—nonexistence—we are very grateful that two of our guest bloggers came through this week. Amy Friedman offers her recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies below, and later this week we'll feature a foolproof bread recipe courtesy of Ro Ann Redlin. 


As we love, love, LERVE oatmeal raisin cookies, we can't wait to try this recipe. Thanks, Amy! 


In the past, when I've contributed to this blog, it's been a recipe I made up myself. This time, at Ruth's request, I'd like to offer my very favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipe.

The recipe comes from Gifts from Your Kitchen, a 1988 Sunset book. The Sunset books, which focused on the domestic arts (recipes, household organization, woodworking and the like) were incredibly popular back in the day, especially for do-it-yourselfers. I have a small collection of them (so do we!—R&T), and this one is a particular favorite—so well-thumbed that the pages are all loose from the binding! But I digress . . . 

Anyway, as oatmeal cookie recipes go, this one is a little different from most. It's one of the few that doesn't include vanilla but does include lemon juice. It's flexible: you can halve it (I do so frequently), subtract the nuts for allergic friends, use light brown instead of dark brown sugar, throw in a little ginger or cinnamon, leave out the raisins or put in chocolate chips instead. No matter what, it works fine. 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies


1 c. (1/2 pound, or two sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature 
2 c. firmly packed brown sugar (light or dark—your preference)
2 eggs
3 T lemon juice (RealLemon OK)
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 t salt 
1 t baking soda
3 c. quick-cooking oats
1 1/4 c. raisins
1 c. chopped walnuts

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar till creamy. Add eggs and lemon juice. (I use a handheld mixer.)


2. In another bowl, stir the flour, salt and baking soda. Gradually add these dry ingredients to the wet, and blend well. Add the oats, raisins and walnuts, mixing well after each addition. , 

3. Drop dough onto ungreased baking sheets. (I roll the dough into little balls, about one inch in diameter, and place them on the sheets. Don't worry about not greasing the sheets—you won't need it. Promise.) 


4. Bake cookies in a preheated 350 oven for 12 to 14 minutes. (Check after 12 minutes: the edges of the cookies should just be browning, and they should smell GOOOOOOD.)


5. Take the cookies out of the oven, and let them sit for about five minutes (they'll bake a little more, from the heat of the cookie sheets). Loosen cookies from the sheets with a metal spatula, and place on a plate to cool.  I store them in a Ziploc bag. And no, they don't last long! 

A few notes:

*  I sometimes substitute craisins for the raisins or put in a mix of the two. 
* You can use margarine instead of butter.
* If you use salted butter, omit (or reduce) the salt.
* If you forget to take the butter out to soften the night before, just put the stick(s) of butter on top of the stove when you're preheating - by the time the oven is at the right temperature, the butter should be usable. (I tend to keep my butter in the freezer till ready to use, and this method works even with frozen butter. It won't be soft, but will be usable.)
* Half the recipe will produce about 3 dozen 1 1/2 inch wide cookies.

Herb Sugars Add Flavor to Summer Dishes and Drinks

By mid-June our herb garden is bursting with basil, thyme, rosemary, sage, and (of course) mint, and we take full advantage, mixing and matching the leaves to liven up whatever we're cooking. But we've just discovered how great herb-infused sugar can be.

Sprinkled over cut melon or strawberries, mixed into black tea or lemonade, or used to rim a cocktail glass (mojitos or Liberators, anyone?), these simple herb-and-sugar mixtures provide a powerful flavor boost. And they could not be easier to make. 

Most recipes call for large amounts of both herbs and sugar—a cup of sugar, half a cup or more of herbs—but unless you're planning on using a large amount right away, you could end up with depressingly blackened herbs. Basil, for one, does not like hanging around after it's been cut. Given how easy it is to make a batch of herb sugar, why not whip up smaller portions you can easily use? Say, a couple of tablespoons of minced basil, cilantro, or mint combined with a quarter-cup of sugar. 

Some recipes call for pounding the herbs with a mortar and pestle to release more of the flavor, but a food processor works very well. Just add your herbs, add your sugar, pulse a few times, and you're ready to go. 

If you know of other uses for this amazingly easy and delicious ingredient, please let us know. 

Cool Off with Aguas Frescas

Here in Northern Virginia, summer arrived with its usual wallop on Memorial Day weekend, complete with lung-crushing humidity and sledgehammer sunlight. We love summer, but the sudden change in weather made us crave cooling food and drinks.

We had just bought a nice watermelon, so we decided to try making aguas frescas. These refreshing Mexican fruit drinks are a great alternative to sugary sodas and very easy to make. Watermelon and cantaloupe are excellent; so's pineapple. It's good to have a sweet piece of fruit, but if the fruit isn't sweet enough for you, you can add sugar or agave syrup to get the sweetness the way you want it.

Watermelon Agua Fresca

4 cups seedless watermelon chunks
4 cups water
2 T. sugar or agave syrup
2 T. lime juice

1. Put two cups of watermelon chunks in a blender and whir until liquified. Strain.

2. Mix the liquified watermelon juice with the water, sweetener, and lime juice.

3. Finely chop the remaining two cups of watermelon, and add the fruit to the liquid mix.

4. Let sit for one hour, then enjoy. For extra coolness, garnish your glass with a sprig of mint or a wedge of lime.

This drink is the perfect reward for a bout of lawn mowing or gardening.

Holiday Cookie Ideas: Are These the 10 Best?

This is our favorite cookie all year around. Our version of the chocolate chip classic. But cooking.com is suggesting 10 other cookies for the holidays.

Cooking.com sent its daily eLetter to us this morning. Its topic was "The 10 Best Holiday Cookies." We would differ with its choices of cookies, but if you are looking for some quick ideas for cookies to make for the upcoming holidays, here are 10 you might want to try.

Summer's Over — Time for Soup!

Fall not only means the onset of cool weather—sweet relief to those of us who broiled in a summer heat wave—but truckloads of ripe vegetables. The harvest is in, the leaves are turning, the nights are chilly, and it's time to make soup. 

RoAnn Redlin offers this simple but delicious menu for a fall dinner, using classic seasonal ingredients. 
She says: "I had a great dinner last night. I made the quiche lorraine from the New York Times Cookbook and a new soup: cream of carrot/parsnip. I had to make a dessert out of what I had on hand, so I sautéed some apples in butter and brown sugar. Then I threw the leftover pastry from the quiche on top of the apples with cinnamon sugar. Voilà! A great meal. I loved the soup." 

Cream of Carrot Soup

4 T butter
1 package baby carrots, chopped
1 pound of parsnips, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 32-ounce boxes of chicken stock
1/3 c. uncooked rice*
1/3 c. half-and-half
Sage leaves (optional)

1. Sauté first butter, carrots, parsnips, and onions for 15 to 20 minutes. 

2. Add the broth, and bring to a simmer. After about 40 minutes, add the rice. 

3. Once the vegetables are soft and the rice is cooked, purée the whole thing with a hand blender or in a food processor. Add warm half-and-half. Garnish with chopped sage leaves. 

* All I had was wild rice, and it added an exotic flavor.

Peach Cobbler: The Internets to the Rescue

It's been a glorious peach season, but now we're starting to encounter dubious peaches—mushy and mealy despite their exterior perfection. The season is coming to an end. What better time to make peach cobbler, a dish that turns questionable fruit into a wonderful end-of-summer dessert?

We've tried many recipes for cobbler over the years but have always particularly loved a recipe from an old Sunset magazine that used a rolled-out cream-cheese crust. Alas, when we looked for it yesterday, we realized that the recipe had been inadvertently purged during our move last year.

Surely we'd be able to find it online, we thought. But it was nowhere to be found—not even in the Sunset recipe archives. There were lots of cobbler recipes online that mixed cream cheese with the peaches before baking, but that wasn't what we wanted.

Finally, we came upon a recipe with a wacky-sounding crust that featured boiling water in place of  the usual milk or buttermilk. We might have rejected it out of hand, but it was overwhelmingly popular with the readers of AllRecipes.com; in fact, an astonishing 22,000 people had saved it. So we decided to try it.

The resulting cobbler was delicious: fruit-heavy, the way we like it, with a sweet but not cloying crust. We would definitely make it again . . . even though we're still going to search for that elusive recipe for the cream-cheese crust.

Too Much Zucchini? Try This Brownie Recipe!

Zucchini growers are always looking for new recipes, for obvious reasons (see photo). Most of you probably have a reliable recipe for zucchini bread, but did you know that you can make zucchini brownies? Ro Ann Redlin once more comes to the rescue of Eat Well, Eat Cheap readers, with a delicious suggestion for using up extra squash.

Ro Ann notes, "I feel guilty about this not being healthier! But if your readers need something to do with all those zucchinis pouring in from their gardens, here is a perfect baking recipe. (Another way to use up the squash and make your spaghetti healthier: grate two cups of unpeeled zucchini into your favorite spaghetti sauce recipe. It cooks down right away and adds no taste other than as a complement to the tomato.)"

Zucchini Brownies

1/2 c. margarine or butter
1/2 c. oil
1 3/4 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. sour cream
1/4 c. cocoa
2 1/2 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
2 c. grated zucchini
1/2 c. chocolate chips

1. Cream margarine/butter, oil, and sugar. 

2. Add eggs, vanilla, sour cream, cocoa, flour, baking power, baking soda, and salt. Stir in zucchini.

3.  Pour into a 9-by-13-inch baking pan. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. 

4. Bake at 325 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. Cool before cutting. 

If anybody else has good suggestions for using up zucchini—particularly those club-size vegetables that too often end up in the compost bin—please send them along!

Another Quick Summer Treat: Strawberry-Rhubarb Pops

On the same day that we were posting the easy ice cream recipe, NPR ran a story about two guys in Washington, DC, who started a popsicle company called Pleasant Pops (because Popsicle is a trade name). Their pops are decidedly different, with fruit and herbs mixed to bring about great taste. Imagine Watermelon-Black Pepper or Peach-Ginger.

They revealed one of their easy recipes: Strawberry-Rhubarb pops that can be made in the freezer. No machines needed.

How to Make Ice Cream Without a Machine

No, you don't need one of those old-fashioned crank things, either. According to this article in today's Washington Post (hold your nose and submit to the registration process; it's worth it), all you need are a couple of plastic bags and some ice. Even though we have a machine, we hardly use it, and the simplicity of this process appeals to us. We'll try it soon and report back  . . .

Thrifty, Light, and Wonderful: Pavlova

Because we make a lot of Caesar salads, we end up with a lot of leftover egg whites. We can't stand to waste them, so we put them in a bag in the freezer, and when we have four or more saved up, we make one of our favorite desserts: Pavlova.

This fruit-topped meringue is easy, cheap, and great in the summertime, because it's light as air. We don't know anybody who doesn't love it.

There are many good recipes for Pavlova, including Fine Cooking's fine recipe for a six-egg-white version, but we tend to use a variation of Nigella Lawson's simply because it's so easy:

Pavlova with Fresh Fruit

4 egg whites at room temperature
1/4 t. cream of tartar
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
2 t. cornstarch
1 t. white vinegar (you can also use cider vinegar)
1 t. vanilla
whipped cream
fresh fruit*

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

3. Using a mixer, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until satiny peaks form. Beat in the sugar, a third at a time, until the meringue is shiny and stiff.

4. Sprinkle the cornstarch, vinegar, and vanilla over the meringue, and briefly mix to combine.

5. Mound the meringue on the baking sheet, forming a rough circle, and flatten to about an inch and a half in height. Place in the oven, and immediately reduce the heat to 300 degrees. Bake for one hour.

6. When the hour is up, turn off the oven, but leave the Pavlova in until the oven has cooled.

7. Place the cooked Pavlova on a big plate, top with whipped cream—this is a matter of taste, but we find that just a light layer works best—and pureed or sliced fruit.

* Any fruit works: strawberries, raspberries, mango, kiwi, passion fruit. We often thaw a bag of frozen raspberries and use that. For the photo above, we didn't have whipping cream, so we mixed fresh strawberries with half-and-half and a little sugar, and that also was good.

Guest Blog: Prasad, an Indo-Caribbean Treat

Guest blogger and photographer JP Vellotti thought for sure that prasad would be served at the end of the Diwali parade in Richmond Hill, Queens, NYC last weekend. At least, that was the promise that his wife Ramin made to him in exchange for his photo services at the event. But prasad was not served for a very simple reason -- Diwali this year is actually on Saturday, Oct. 17th and the parade was a week early for traffic control reasons. Luckily, Ramin promised she would make prasad for Diwali, and you can too by following Ramin's recipe.

The recipe is from Ramin Ganeshram's, "Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad and Tobago," (Hippocrene Books, 2006). Although the first edition is sold out, a second edition with an updated and expanded recipe section is slated for February 2010.

Prasad

8 servings

When I was a child visiting Trinidad, the only way my father could persuade me to go to the many Hindu prayer meetings was with the promise of prasad, a sweet dessert that is given to guests at the end of a Hindu religious ceremony. The basic “pudding” is garnished with coconut, raisins, and nuts, which are collectively called panjaree. It’s generally accepted that panjaree is only for actual religious functions although plain prasad—called mohan bohg—can be served any time.

2 cups ghee (clarified butter)

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups farina

2 cups whole milk

3 (12-ounce) cans evaporated milk

2 pounds sugar

1 teaspoon peeled and grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

Raisins, grated fresh coconut, coarsely chopped almonds, and a few cooked chickpeas, for garnish

1. Heat all but 2 teaspoons of the ghee in a large, deep frying pan. Add the raisins and fry over medium-low heat until they plump. Add the flour 1/4 cup at a time, stirring constantly, until it becomes light brown.

In a separate pan, combine the whole milk, evaporated milk, sugar, ginger, and cardamom. Bring just to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, until the prasad forms semi moist clumps. Remove from the heat. Garnish with grated coconut, almonds, and raisins. Place a few chickpeas on top.

How to Get Invited to Parties

[NOTE: We enthusiastically testify to the deliciousness of this recipe from guest blogger Kevin Ireton — R&T]

My mother started making ice cream pie 40 years ago. I don’t know what prompted it. We didn’t have the Food Network back then to show us how easy things are. And ice cream pie probably wasn’t covered in her well-worn copy of The Joy of Cooking. But in any case, she started making it and eventually taught me how. It is nearly as easy as opening a carton of ice cream, but you’d think you'd labored over a soufflé from the raves it invariably draws. And I’m convinced that it’s my habit of bringing an ice cream pie that gets me invited to parties.

The problem with most ice cream pies served in restaurants is that the proportions are wrong: too much ice cream, too little crust, and too little topping. When you make your own, this problem is easily avoided. Obviously, you can alter the ingredients to suit your taste, but here’s my mom’s traditional recipe.

Start by making a graham-cracker crust. This is the only real baking involved—if you can call mixing crumbs, sugar, and butter baking. You can buy a premade crust, but it won’t taste as good. Once the crust cools, fill it with Breyers butter-pecan ice cream that’s been sitting out on the counter long enough to soften. I generally get most of a half-gallon carton into the pie crust, leaving only a scoop or two for me to eat directly out of the carton. (I’m certain my mother never did this.)

Next, smooth the ice cream with a knife and cover it with Mrs. Richardson’s Hot Fudge, the whole 16-ounce jar. This is the trickiest part of the operation because the ice cream has to be just firm enough and the fudge just soft enough; otherwise the congealed topping slides off like a bad toupee. To temper the mating parts properly, I often use some combination of sticking the pie crust with ice cream back in the freezer and heating the fudge in a microwave (but not too much).

Once the topping is in place, cover it with pecan halves, resisting the temptation to create a decorative pattern or spell out something. Then put the whole thing  back in the freezer, and you’re done. Remember to let the pie sit out for ten minutes or so before serving.

I have tried making the whole thing with a chocolate-cookie-crumb crust and coffee ice cream, which was good, too. But it’s the recipe above that gets me the party invites. 

A Lucky Mistake

When we first started putting the "fine" in our cooking, we relied on a few classic cookbooks.

We started off with the Irma Rombauer Joy of Cooking that Tim's mother gave him, and the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook that Ruth's college roommate gave her as a graduation present. Eventually, we added The New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and The Master Cooking Course by Claiborne and Pierre Franey. 

But the most intimidating volume was our 1961 edition of the first volume of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Whenever we wanted to make a special meal, we pulled out our copy of Julia or Craig & Pierre and threw a dart at something that sounded delicious.

When Tim's dessert-loving mother came to visit in the early 1980s,  Tim made Julia's chocolate mousse ( p. 604). The recipe was a bit fussy, but the mousse tasted terrific—especially the crunchy bits of ground coffee, which added complexity and texture.

Only when we made the mousse a second time some months later did Tim realize that the recipe's "4T of strong coffee" called for brewed coffee rather than ground coffee. It was a novice mistake, made in the stress of preparing a grand meal in a small Washington apartment.

But it worked. To this day, we like the contrast of the tiny granules of coffee beans and the soft mousse, and the strong flavor they provide. Not all of our mistakes have ended so happily—sometime we'll share the story of Ruth's tofu apricot mousse—but this one was a keeper.

The Simple and Easy Secret to Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

It always makes us laugh when famous chefs or food magazines make a convoluted and difficult task out of chocolate chip cookies.

When Tim was in the Army and a package of chocolate chip cookies came in the mail, everybody on the squad gathered around and begged to be treated to some of his mother's cookies. Now, we all think our mothers are great cooks (well almost all of us), but when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, Ella's always got rave reviews.

Her secret was so simple, you're gonna laugh and then say, "it can't make that much of a difference." But her secret makes great and perfect chocolate chip cookies, and she passed it on to Tim. We have a neighbor who won't let us come to dinner unless Tim brings his chocolate chip cookies for dessert. We're not kidding, people love these cookies.

Here's the secret: Use the recipe on the Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate chip bag for Toll House Cookies, but make one major ingredient change. Instead of the 1 cup (16 Tbs.) of butter, substitute the same amount of Crisco Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening Sticks (1 stick).

You're probably thinking: Why substitute something not quite natural for something good like butter? Well, first it has a lot less saturated fat — 50% less — and no trans fats. But more importantly, it makes for a more substantial, and better tasting, cookie.

Butter tends to be greasy, and the cookies flatten too much. With the Crisco sticks, the cookies stay puffy and by watching the time in the oven, you can make them ultra-chewy or crisp and very crunchy.

We also don't over chop the nuts. We leave them on the big side, and we make fewer cookies per batch by making them bigger — 2 heaping Tablespoons per cookie. So you get about 20-24 cookies per recipe.

For chewy cookies, take them out of the oven at 12 minutes while they still look just a bit too soft. For crisp, crunchy cookies, leave them in another two or three minutes, but don't let the bottoms burn.

Serve these perfect chocolate chip cookies hot and you'll have friends and family begging you to make more.

Easy Summer Pie

Strawberry-peach pie is an easy, quick, tasty, and almost low-cal way to use abundant summer fruit.

This time of year you might find yourself with too many strawberries, either because you've got a prolific garden or because you bought the super-jumbo 64-ounce package at the food warehouse.

As summer moves along, the supermarkets will be brimming with specials on all kinds of fruit.

Here's a dessert  that's quick, easy, and refreshing, but not too sweet and not too caloric. 

(If you're good at making pie crusts, more power to you. Go for it. We've never mastered the art, and today's supermarkets have frozen crusts that are much closer to homemade, so that's what we tend to use.)

We learned this from our friend Cynthia, who has a peach tree that provides more than enough fruit for her family, her freezer, and her friends.

Fruit Pie

One pie crust

4 cups of raw fruit, cut into large, 1-inch-by-1-inch pieces

Sugar

Cornstarch

1. Preheat the oven, and a baking sheet, to 350 degrees.

2. Thaw the frozen crust for 15 minutes or take out the homemade one and pierce the bottom and sides many times with a fork. Bake the empty crust on the baking sheet for about 15 minutes. Let cool. (By preheating the baking sheet and leaving the crust on it to cool, you'll get a slightly crisper crust.)

3. Meanwhile, put the cut-up fruit in a saucepan and bring to a boil. You want to end up with about 4 cups of filling, so mix enough peaches and strawberries, or strawberries and rhubarb, or anything you like, to give you that amount. The heat will draw liquid out of the fruit, so before it boils, taste it for sweetness. Add sugar, but be stingy. For the strawberry-peach pie in the photo, we used about a third of a cup of sugar. If you're using rhubarb or another tart fruit, you'll need a little more sugar. If your fruit is ripe and sweet, you'll probably only need a quarter cup.

4. As the fruit begins to boil, put in cornstarch. We usually end up putting in about 3 tablespoons, but we like our pies a little bit runny. You can add more cornstarch to thicken the pie, but the more cornstarch you use, the cloudier the pie looks. It won't affect the taste.

5. Let the fruit thicken a bit and make sure that all of the cornstarch is mixed in.

Remove from heat and let cool.

6. When both the fruit and the crust are cool, pour the fruit into the crust and put the pie in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

Both whipped cream and ice cream are good with this. So is dessert wine.