Almond Nut Butter Cookies with Dark Chocolate Chunks and Cherries

Almonds, dark chocolate, and dried cherries are super stars in flavor, seeming to have an affinity towards each other. They are also powerhouses in nutrition, being packed with antioxidents and vitamin E. Delicious in their natural form as trail mix, the threesome also play a star role in our cookies, Almond Nut Butter Cookies, a modification of got milk? the cookie book's recipe "Peanut Butter CCCs." Our adapted form has MaraNatha All Natural Roasted Almond Butter Creamy, chunks of dark chocolate chopped from a large Hershey's special dark chocolate bar, and dried cherries. These cookies pack a powerful nut flavor, but look like chocolate chip cookies with a soft, chewy texture from the chocolate and dried fruit and with crunchy edges. Add dried apricots, dry-roasted peanuts or almonds, and milk-chocolate to create a different personality to almond butter cookies. These cookies hollar for a cold glass of almond milk or beckon to be snacks during a long bike ride or hike.

Make the dough ahead of time and refrigerate before baking the cookies to allow the ingredients time to combine and enchance the flavor. You can go ahead and bake all the dough and have cookies ready to go in your freezer. Just toast the cookies in the toaster oven for a minute for a freshly-baked taste. Or, you can save the dough in the freezer and bake small batches at your whim and make your house frequently emit the tentalizing aroma of warm-baked cookies. To cool off our house from the heat of the oven doubled with the Florida summer temperatures, we keep our windows and balcony door wide open, so our neighbors pause, sniff the air, and come knocking on our door, begging for some treats. Dare we say, we've become the most popular neighbors in town!

Almond Nut Butter Cookies with Dark Chocolate Chunks and Dried Cherries
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup creamy almond butter
3/4 cup packed ark brown sugar
1/4 cup grandualted sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/3cups dark chocolate chunks or chips
1/2 cup dried cherries
(optional additions are dry-roasted peanuts and almonds, coarsely chopped, dried apricots, and milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate morsels)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter, almond butter, sugars, and vanilla until well combined. Beat in the egg. Scrape down the bowl using a rubber spatula and beat for a few more seconds.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. Add the dry ingredietns to the wet mixture and mix on low speed just until absorbed. Combine the chocolate chunks and dried cherries in a small bowl and stir into the dough.
4. Using about 1 Tablespoon of dough for each cookie, gently shape the dough into bowls and drop them about 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Using a 1 1/2inch diameter ice-cream scoop and leviling the dough off across the top before dropping onto the baking sheets makes perfectly uniform cookies. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the cookies begin to color. Do not overbake. Let sit 2 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Pumpkin Pie in the Middle of Summer

Pumpkin pie? In the middle of summer? Yes, we love pumpkin all times of year. We keep a can in the refrigerator for a favorite snack of pumpkin spooned into a bowl, sweetened with sweetener and cinnamon, and then chilled almond breeze poured on top. But today we were craving pumpkin pie. Inspired by the ease and low-calorie option offered by Hungry Girl, we adapted an easier version with fewer ingredients. We used real sugar instead of Splenda and used 1 egg instead of Egg Beaters. We used half the amount of maple syrup as well. Oh and the most dramatic change- we went crustless (HG's recipe calls for ground up FiberOne cereal and butter). A most fabulous pumpkin pie-like custard emerged from the oven after 45 minutes. After an impatient wait for the pie to cool and firm up in the refrig, we were delighted with yummy, creamy pumpkin pie. A long squirt of Reddi Whip adds to the drama with the color contrast with white decorating the orange pie and texture differences with the cream even lighter than the velvety pumpkin.

Pumpkin Pie-Custard

1 can (16 oz) pumpkin
1 can (16 oz) evaporated skim milk
1 egg
3/4 c. sugar
2 Tbsp sugar-free maple syrup
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Mix all ingredients until smooth. Pour into a glass pyrex dish.
3. Bake 40-45 minutes until just set in the middle.
4. Chill 4-5 hours.
5. To serve, cut into slices or spoon into bowls. Add a generous amount of Reddi-Whip or Whip Cream. Add a last dusting of cinnamon.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Gorp Spread

I was so inspired from watching Tyler Florence from the Food Network "The Best Thing I Ever Ate: Nutty" clip and his ravings about the hand-crafted organic white-chocolate peanut butter pretzel from the Spread restaurant in San Diego that my wheels spun on how to make my own version. Looking in my pantry, I pulled out Planter's crunchy peanut butter as a base. Then, courtesy of a recent Delta airlines trip, I found mini pretzels, mini salted peanuts, and Biscoff cookies (ginger graham cookies). Wanting an extra sweetness and slight chew, I brought out large yogurt raisins. I tossed all the ingredients together in the food processor, gave it a whirl, and then tasted it with gleeful delight. The crunch is immense with the salt and crunch from the peanuts and pretzels, the sweet from the cookies, the chew from the raisins, and the emulsifying texture of the peanut butter blended to make a delicious Peanut Butter Pretzel Gorp spread. Delicious by the spoon, on fruit, toast, teddy grahams, pancakes.... Yum! Next Snickers with a creamy peanut butter...

Peanut Butter Pretzel Gorp Spread
1/4 c. peanut butter, crunchy
1 bag mini pretzels
1 bag salted peanuts
1 Biscoff cookie pack
2 Tbsp yogurt covered raisins

Whirl together in a food processor, stopping every 5 second intervals to push the ingredients down and blend more evenly. Stop when the mixture is blended well but still has large pieces. (Really up to your preference.)

Banana Scones with dried figs and peaches

Wind and rain beating down on our windows makes staying inside and playing house very enticing. Living in sunny Florida, also brings hurricane-like weather, typically starting in November but can also happen earlier like today, the end of May. With four overly ripe bananas begging attention, we started to comtemplate baking ideas. One of our favorites is banana bread, but already had a half-consumed loaf in the freezer, so we started thinking of cookies, muffins, pie, and then scones came to mind. Ah ha! We had not experimented with scones much and never scones with bananas. Usually the extra time to roll out the dough prevented us from making scones, but with the inclement weather, we were more relaxed and patient. We found on the blog Heather's Dish her Banana Scone recipe, which we've adapted here with only 2 Tbsp of butter instead of a stick and added 3 Tbsp cream cheese. Our bananas were frozen, so we used them straight from the freezer. For extra texture, we added chopped dried figs and peaches.

Banana Scones with Dried Figs and Peaches (adapted from Heather's Dish)
2 Tbsp butter, very cold and cut into cubes
3 Tbsp cream cheese, very cold and cut into cubes
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 Tbsp sugar, plus more for dusting
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 frozen banana, cut into rough cubes
1/4 c dried fruit, chopped

Preheat oven to 400. In a food processor combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and spices. Add the butter and cream cheese and pulse until the chunks are roughly pea-sized. Add the milk and pulse a few more times until it starts to come together. Add the bananas and pulse until the dough comes together, adding a little more flour if the dough is too wet from the bananas. Add the chopped dried fruit. Remove the dough onto a floured surface and pat into an 8-inch circle. Cut into 8ths, sprinkle with sugar, and place the scones on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 400.

Stuffed Lemon Sugar Cookies

We were pondering what kind of cookies to make next when we spotted a box of Girl Scout Lemon Chalet Creme cookies hiding in the back of our pantry. Ah ha we thought! We'll make sugar cookies stuffed with a girl scout cookie. We first experimented with stuffed cookies with a peanut-butter patty version where we made a chocolate chip cookie dough and wrapped it around a full-sized peanut-butter patty cookie. They were so delicious that we decided to try it again but with a sugar cookie dough around lemon cookies. The Girl Scout Lemon Chalet Creme cookies are a vanilla cookie sandwich with a bright lemon creme filling, so we added lemon extract to the sugar cookie dough to heighten the lemony flavor. We adapted the Snappy Sugar Cookies recipe from Got Milk? book by halving the recipe. Refrigerating the dough for an hour makes it easier to form balls and wrap around the cookies. Double stuffed cookies add pizzazz to a normal sugar cookie and revitalize year-old (gasp!) Girl Scout cookies. Try your own variation!

Stuffed Lemon Sugar Cookies

Carrot Pie

Looking into the refrig the other day, we see a limpy set of carrots lounging in their plastic bag still packaged up from when we bought them a week ago.  The best way to restore old veggies is to cook them. Pondering cooking options such as roasting, steaming, frying, baking, we turn to veggie-expert and vegetarian-cookbook pioneer Mollie Katzen of Moosewood Cookbook (1977) and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest (1982). There in her Enchanted Broccoli cookbook we found "Russian Carrot Pie" which is a unique casserole-type of dish with chopped carrots, cottage cheese, and a small amount of flour and bread crumbs as thickeners. The recipe also calls for fresh dill and mint, which we happily picked from our herb garden pots on our balcony. We substituted chives for the dill, which provided a nice oniony-flavor and is typically paired with carrots as well. Caution with the mint- we were a bit ambitious and added too much...

Russian Carrot Pie adapted from Mollie Katzen, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, p. 131
1 Tbs. butter
1 c. finely minced onion (we had celery instead, which worked great)
1 lb. carrots
2 cloves garlic, minced (we don't like garlic, so didn't use)
1 Tbs. unbleached white flour (we bumped up the ratio to 3 Tbs. whole wheat and omitted the bread crumbs)
3 Tbsp fine bread crumbs (we omitted and used more flour)
1 1/2 c cottage cheese
1 egg
freshly ground pepper and salt
3 Tbs minced fresh dill (we used chives)
2 Tbs. minced fresh mint

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mollie suggests sauteeing the onion, but since we had celery instead, we pureed the celery and carrots together. Add the cottage cheese, egg, flour, and herbs into the food processor with the vegetables. Puree until just combined- some texture in the cottage cheese keeps it cheesy.
3. Spoon into a lightly-sprayed 9" glass pyrex dish. Molly tops it with a nut crust, but we didn't want to go to the trouble. Crushed saltines would work as well.
4. Bake for 30 minutes. Serve warm or cold. Great as a side dish for dinner or a light lunch with salad and toast. Or even as a change-up to the traditional picnic carrot-raisin salad.

Mocha-Almond French Toast

Mother's Day always conjures breakfast in bed for me, which is funny since we grew up in a family that never ate breakfast in bed. Sitting at the kitchen table already washed and dressed for the day, I'd (Kl) wonder dreamily over the lucky kids who could linger longer in bed, slurping on their cereal. The clang of the spoon on the table brought my attention to reality and off my sister and I'd go to catch the school bus. Mother's Day evokes "special" breakfasts like french toast with maple syrup, waffles piled high with strawberries and whipped cream, or egg souffles rising loftily to the special occasion. Our dad, usually the griller or margarita-maker, would make weekend treats of pancakes or waffles. French toast was a rare appearance, and to make up for it, my sister and I make our own mocha-almond version a regular dish.
Mocha-Almond French Toast
1 egg
1/3c almond breeze
1 sweetener
1/3c coffee, flavored (I love the berry-flavored coffee)
4 slices of bread
Heat a griddle pan, whisk the wet ingredients, and quickly submerge bread slices in the mixture. Fry bread slices on each side about 4 minutes, serve at once with a dash of cinnamon.