This shortbread-like cookie recipe comes from Gourmet.  Here is the link.  I didn’t change a thing about this recipe.  The resulting cookies were so deliciously buttery, crunchy, sweet and just the perfect touch salty.  I’m sad that they are almost gone.

The only tricky thing is browning the butter without burning it.  Just keep the heat moderate, stir consistently and take the pot off the heat when you start to get more and more browned bits.  Once the bits begin to brown the process speeds up, so watch it closely.  Just don’t let it burn or you’ll have to start over.  After you’ve browned the butter, let it cool in the fridge until it is solid, mine took about an hour and a half.  It doesn’t have to be hard like the stick of butter you took from the fridge, just not liquidy.  Does that make sense?

I liked the crunchy sugar on the edges of the cookies, but if you don’t have raw sugar on hand you can leave it out.  If you are going to use the sugar, cut about 1/3 of the log of raw dough, roll it in the sugar, pressing firmly.  Then slice into pieces for baking.  I found it was easier to roll parts of the log instead of the whole thing.  While a batch is baking, keep the rest of the dough refrigerated so it remains easy to slice.

Brown Butter Ice Box Cookies

From Gourmet.com

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup raw sugar

Directions

1. Cook butter in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it has a nutty fragrance and flecks on bottom of pan turn golden, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer butter to a bowl and chill until just firm, about an hour and a half.
2. Beat together butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in vanilla, then mix in flour and salt at low speed until just combined. Transfer dough to a sheet of wax paper or parchment and form into a 12-inch log, 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Chill, wrapped in wax paper, until firm, at least 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Roll dough in raw sugar.  Slice dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, arranging 1 1/2 inches apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake until surface is dry and edges are slightly darker, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Photo from kimberlybelle.com

This started me thinking about things I’d like to make from scratch at least once, just to see if it’s as good as store bought and worth the effort.  Of course I know that fresh pasta is probably better than the dry stuff, but I don’t know many people who make their own.  I think it’s just too much work, and possibly not worth the trouble.  Some people I know disagree with me…like old Italian grandmothers.

So, by the end of the summer, since many of these things are summer foods, I will conquer and report back to you the good, the bad and the ugly about making your own of the following foods.  Most of the foods I’m listing below are things I almost always buy at the grocery store, with little to no fuss, and ready to go.  Some of them are things I’ve just always wanted to make but never had the motivation to make.  If anyone has any other suggestions, tips, recipes, etc. please send them my way as I am always glad to get helpful advice!

• Pickles (Dill and Bread + Butter)
• Pickled Beets
• Flour Tortillas
• Gnocchi
• Ravioli
• White Sandwich Bread
• Hamburger Buns
• Ketchup
• Mayonnaise
• Mustard
• Pretzels
• Flaky Dinner Rolls
• Croissants
• Baguettes
• Beef Brisket
• Soufflé (Savory and Sweet)

I am going to stop there.  I don’t want to get ahead of myself and then abandon this idea entirely when I become overwhelmed.  There will be no rhyme or reason in how I approach this, so don’t expect the order in which I make anything to make any kind of sense whatsoever.  Check back for the first “You Can Make Your Own…” post, which might just happen to be pickles…or might just happen to be something else.  Can you tell I haven’t totally thought this through?

I am by no means a gardener, but I’ve been attempting to learn more about plants and gardening since having a yard I can work in.  If you’ve been to my house and seen my yard you are currently thinking, “She was working on that yard?”  Did I say I was successful?  Anyway, I really do want to be a good gardener.  I want to grow vegetables that I can cook with, and flowers that I can cut and arrange in a vase in my house, I want to sit and have a cup of coffee out among my lush and flourishing foliage.  But I should be realistic, I am no Ina Garten, and I live in Texas.

One of the things I really, really want is a functional herb garden.  I have managed to grow rosemary and so I never have to buy it from the grocery store.  I just head out back and snip a few sprigs.  It makes me happy.  Basil?  No luck.  Mint? I have some out back, and it’s doing well so far.  We shall see.  In my dream herb garden I want these.

Isn’t this a lovely idea?  Fresh herbs are such a great ingredient and garnish to savory and sweet things, and they are even greater when you can have the satisfaction of getting them from your own yard!  Here is a how-to from Bunny Hill Blog on making your own.  I may try this myself when we get to our new home…whenever and wherever that is.  I saw some already made on this Etsy page.  That may end up being the route I go if I get too lazy to search for old spoons, hammer them flat and then stamp them.

I always thought I wanted a clean white kitchen, but then I came across this while searching for kitchen chandeliers.  I want to put a tiny one above my kitchen sink.

It looks like that’s a 6 burner stove…no, wait…I am pretty sure it’s 8!  The backsplash behind the stove is lovely.  I think that there’s a wine fridge under what appears to be a microwave.

The butcher block island is enormous!  Oh, the prep work I could accomplish there.

The sink has one of those pull down sprayers.  I might even start to like washing dishes with that.

High ceilings, white chandeliers, clean lines, a wall of windows, plenty of room for mingling, glass front cabinets.  I want this kitchen.

I can think of some creative people in my life (and you know who you are) who could really do great things with these.  My creativity would get me about as far as using more than one color to write someone’s name.  $33 for a set of 4 here.  I think these would make a fun hostess gift.

I do wonder how they stand up to actually being used as place mats.  Can they stand up to drips of grease?  Condensation?  Tomato sauce?  The sticky fingers of little children?  Even if they did only make their way through a few parties I think they would be a fun enough addition to be worth it.

We would need to have quite a few outdoor parties this summer in order for one of these to be necessary.  I like the idea of a dispenser with a faucet instead of a pitcher and I like that you can see the contents.  Even plain ice water with slices of lemon, lime and orange would be beautiful in this.  Margaritas or sangria would be more fun.

I just really love this one.  I love all of the aprons from Anthropologie, but this one looks like a sweet little dress complete with sweet little ruffles.  And it’s called tea and crumpets.  Adorable.  This one comes in yellow and blue.  Check out all their aprons here.

I made some changes, some of which I wish I hadn’t.  Sometimes you can get away with taking liberties with a recipe, but sometimes you can’t.  It’s probably wise to make it the way it’s supposed to be made the first time.  Lesson learned.

When I consider the ingredient list and the way my house smelled while making this dish, I would have expected this to be crazy good.  But Ben and I both found it to be missing something…it was a little bland.  I left out the red wine…mistake.  It would have added some nice flavor.  I skimped on the butter and milk in the pasta mixture, but that didn’t seem to make the pasta less flavorful or too dry.  Since my pan wasn’t big enough, I couldn’t add all of the bechamel sauce…maybe that was part of the problem?  I’d also use Kalamata olives next time.

The pastitsio was good, just not the best.  I would try it again, making a half recipe and being more true to the original ingredients.  If you make a full pan and plan to freeze it, make sure to give the casserole at least a full 24 hours to thaw in the fridge.  Bake at 350 covered for about an hour, and uncovered for 30 minutes.  With a half recipe, I’d still use the long thaw time, and bake a little less.  More freezer meal updates to come!

This recipe is from Lick my Spoon who adapted it from Bon Appetit.  Looking at the Bon Appetit recipe, I think I would have chosen to use the chipotle chiles.  We did not make the cilantro lime yogurt.  Instead I topped the soup with sour cream, cheese, chopped cilantro and a lime wedge.

Canned beans are what I usually find myself using in recipes.  I’d never used dried beans before.  It always seemed too time consuming and daunting.  This recipe called for a bag of dry beans that require soaking and a long cooking time.  My mother-in-law assured me it wasn’t all that bad…and it wasn’t!  The beans had more texture and so the soup tasted much more substantial.  If you’re short on time, canned beans would be a fine short cut.  But if, like me, you’ve always been scared of dried beans I encourage you to face your fears and go for it.

This soup, while not the most attractive one, is quite good.  Paired with a green salad, this makes for a lovely light dinner.  Enjoy!

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

• 1 pound dried black beans (approximately 2 cups)
• 6 cups water
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 medium-size red onions, chopped
• 1 medium-size red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 medium-size green bell pepper, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder (add more if you want it spicy)
• Juice of 1 lime (reserve 1 tablespoon for yogurt topping)
• 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

1. Soak beans in water overnight. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat olive oil in a large, thick-bottomed pot over medium-high heat until the oil is hot, but not smoking. Add onions and both bell peppers and sauté until beginning to brown, about 15-20 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, chili powder, and salt; stir a few more minutes.
3. Add 6 cups water, beans, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a low simmer. Cover and let cook for about 1 hour 30 minutes, until beans are tender.
4. Transfer 4 cups of the soup (about half of it) to a blender. Purée until smooth and return to the pot of soup. (You may need to purée the soup in smaller batches — don’t fill the blender more than half way at a time and hold the lid while blending so that it doesn’t splatter up and burn you.) Stir in lime juice, and salt & pepper to taste.
5. Ladle soup into bowls and top with your choice of sour cream, cilantro, cheese, chips, etc.

I found this recipe hidden in Fine Cooking from August of 2010.  It is the “Letter from the Editor” section that I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t seen the recipe in the index.  The other fruit pies in this edition are so beautiful, but more time consuming since you make your own dough.

For me, this was a perfect dessert for our Sunday night dinner guests.  I made them earlier in the day and stored them in the fridge until time to bake.  I stuck them in the oven when we sat down to dinner, and they were done at the perfect time to enjoy them.

The recipe below is changed slightly from the original.  The original recipe calls for creme de cassis, which I do not have on hand these days, and so I substituted almond extract with good results.  I used low fat cream cheese, and cut smaller circles to make smaller pies.  Unintentionally, I did not cut vents in my pastries.  This probably caused more of the gooey insides to leak out, but they were still delicious.  I served these with vanilla ice cream.  The crunchy sugary tops are wonderful, and the combination of blueberry and cream cheese in the center reminds me of a grown up Toaster Strudel.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Pastries

Ingredients

• 2 17.3 ounce packages frozen puff pastry, thawed
• 4 ounces cream cheese (low-fat is fine) softened
• 7 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs yolks
• 1 cup blueberries
• 2 teaspoons cornstartch
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F
2. In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese, 4 tablespoons sugar, vanilla extract, and 1 egg yolk and mix until well combined.
3. Combine the blueberries, 2 tablespoons sugar, cornstarch, almond extract and salt and mix gently.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out individual puff pastry sheets into a 10 by 10 inch square.
5. Using a round cutter (3 1/2 inches to 4 inches) cut out 4-6 rounds from the pastry depending on the size of your cutter.  Arrange the circles on a parchment lined baking sheet. (You will need 2 or 3 sheets)
6. In a small bowl, beat 1 egg yolk with 1 teaspoon water.  Brush the outer edges of each dough round with egg wash.
7. Dollop about 1/2 tablespoons cream cheese mixture in the center of the round, then top with about 1 tablespoon of blueberries.
8. Fold in half to form a half moon and pinch edges to seal.  You may use  the tines of a fork to seal as well.
9. Lightly brush each pastry with egg wash and sprinkle with remaining sugar.  Cut a small steam vent in the top of each pastry.
10. Bake until golden brown, 20-25 minutes.
11. Cool slightly, then remove from the baking sheet.
12. Serve warm or at room temperature, sprinkled with powdered sugar.