Tuesdays with Dorie: FRESH GINGER & CHOCOLATE GINGERBREAD

Sherry Trifle picked this weeks TWD posting: Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread. I love ginger and chocolate so this was an automatic hit. The recipe has a frosting but after tasting the first piece straight out of the oven I decided not to dress it up anymore. Instead, I ate it as a lovely, sweet-indulging breakfast 'bread' to really start the day off right. I love the chocolate chips in it - they're surprising little bites of chocolate nestled inside!

Tuesdays with Dorie: SAVORY CORN & PEPPER MUFFINS

These muffins came out quite spicey from the organic cayenne I mixed in. Yummy with a slathering of butter. Very moist in the middle. Pretty with the peeps of red pepper and yellow corn.

Tuesdays with Dorie: FRENCH PEAR TART

My French Pear Tart comes sans the crust. So really it's not a tart at all I suppose. But it's definitely yummy, rich, and buttery. I can't wait to heat some up and put it over (or under) a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream.

ARK OF TASTE - SLOW FOOD USA

The other day I stumbled upon Slow Food USA's website and found the coolest thing - a list of endangered foods. Not just any endangered food, but that which is deemed tasty, tasty enough to keep around, at least by the determining that be powers at Slow Food. This Ark of Taste (http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/details/ark_of_taste/) is pretty neat and allows all sorts of levels of advocation and engagment. For example, moved by the fact that Amish Deer Tongue Lettuce is endanger of being forgotten...link to a store to buy seeds or a produce market that sells it. It makes it simple. Which is necessary for people like me.

The thing that really makes me keep clicking on the links are the names...Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet...Roy's Calais flint corn...Geoduck...Elephant Heart Plum...Pixie Tangerine of Ojai Valley...Gallberry Honey...True Red Cranberry Bean...ah, beautiful.

I would like to see them arranged by state or geographic area. It would make things easier to find. But still, it's an awesome, inspirational movement.

Tuesdays with Dorie: TALL & CREAMY CHEESECAKE

This post would not be made possible without the help of my Mom. Who graciously turned the oven off and propped the door open as I ran around stuffing Christmas presents into my carry-on bag, who patiently waited for the cheesecake to cool in the refrigerator while I caught my flight back to Miami, who wrangled the sides of the springfoam pan off without mishap, who showed self-restraint in digging in to take pictures for my blog. For all this and more, thanks Mom! I owe you...one big cheesecake with coconut and almonds and chocolate crust...enjoy! (And please, one more thing, freeze me a piece to try.)

So now to the cheesecake! Creamy on a chocolate graham cracker crust with lots of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, a shake of ginger, and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Dreamy with coconut and chopped almonds baked inside. Brown with a...brown? is the cheesecake top supposed to be brown? that brown? or was I suppose to move the rack down?

CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Every Christmas my Mom, sister, and I make sugar cookies - the same recipe baked by the sheetful and slathered with colorful butter cream frosting. It is one among many traditions that my Mom has instilled in our holiday, although it is the only one I know that pre-dates the arrival of her kids, and the only one with a necessity I have never really questioned.

When my Mom was about 16, she decided to bake sugar cookies. I can just see my Granny looking on with a look of quiet observance, as if she would neither be surprised nor moved if the cookies turned out to be the best in the world or if they caught fire in the oven. My Mom continued to bake the same recipe every year, giving them to the multitude of relatives and friends that comprised her small town. One year, so the story goes, she doled out 150 cookies. It may have been the first thing my Mom did in the kitchen that was hers - without help, without guidance, without it being her father's favorite or her grandmother's best dish. Unlike my maternal great-grandmother, my sister, and myself, my Mom was never a culinary spirit. She doesn't particularly enjoy preparing or creating food. Her enthusiasm about these cookies is unrivaled. My sister and I picked up on this at an early age, and have since always tried to display equal enthusiasm, even in teen years on a pertual diet or miles away in China where my sister missed out on the cookies this year but was with us in spirit saying that I should write about them on my blog.
SUGAR COOKIES (makes about 40-50 cookies)

2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon milk

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together. Cream shortening and sugar together, adding eggs and vanilla. Then add sifted ingredients and milk. Mix with a spoon. Roll and cut.

Cook 300 for 10 minutes.

BUTTER FROSTING

4 tablespoons softened butter
3 tablespoons milk
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Work butter with spoon until very soft. Add sugar gradually, thinning with milk. Beat well. Add vanilla.

As a child, I didn't touch the cookies without the rich butter cream frosting. I also liked to make the colors as deep and psychedelic as possible. I'm still crazy with the food coloring paste but also like the cookies bare.

Tuesdays with Dorie: BUTTERY JAM COOKIES

My Buttery Jam Cookies look a lot like my sugar cookies from last week, thanks to the watermelon sprinkles! The taste is a whole lot different though.

In addition to the apricot jam the recipe called for, I threw in a couple of handfuls of walnuts and topped them with cinnamon and sugar. Yum!

I also experimented with popping the dough in the freezer between bakes to facilitate a nice, lovely, round shape. It worked pretty well although I think I just need to get a melon scooper.