French Friday with Dorie: Speculoos and Sweet and Spicy Coctail Nuts

NUTS AND COOKIES READY TO MAIL

This has been a wonderful holiday week at our house!  There has been the usual baking, Christmas caroling, friends dropping by with their Christmas greetings and special gifts, Christmas stories and music, shopping, wrapping, service projects, Christmas movies, kids taking their college finals, year end work, making crafts, decorating, putting up the tree, raking the leaves (yes, about mid-December in Arizona, some of our trees lose their leaves for a month or two), family time, and best of all, my sweet daughter #3 gave birth to her firstborn, a healthy son.  He was 2 weeks early, just  6 1/4 pounds, 18" long, with a healthy appetite, a great set of lungs, and he is the sweetest and best gift to our family during this season of joy and love.  We are so blessed!

 

CREAM THEE WET

SIFT THE DRY

MIX IT ALL TOGETHER

My terrific son-in-law is taking great care of his little family way up in cold and snowy northern Idaho where they are in school.  He is taking his final exams and will have a couple of weeks off before school resumes in January.  I plan to travel up to help them and to meet my new grandson the first week of January (if I can wait that long?); after a couple of family birthday parties, a family outing to the Charles Dickens play,  The Christmas Carol, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve,  New Year’s Day, house guests, and a 1/1/11 wedding for my almost daughter, a lovely young woman who we brought here from Eastern Europe on a student visa who helped us with the adoption of two of our daughters 6 years ago.  Never a dull moment at our house!

WRAP THE DOUGH FOR REFRIGERATION

THE TOOLS

SPRINKLE WITH POWDERED SUGAR = NO STICK

The Speculoo Cookies were fun to make.  I tried a shape similar to Dorie’s, and then found some mini Christmas shapes that also worked well.  Hubby loved them...reminded him of an old fashioned Christmas...brought back childhood memories for him.  He was excited that I would make lots to sent to his brother, Jimmy as a special holiday treat.

For easy roll out, I used powdered sugar instead of flour.  The sprinkling of sugar took away the stickiness and very little is absorbed into the dough...and what does just added a little sweetness and that is OK with me!   I had planned to do some fun things with some of these cookies, like dip them in chocolate, etc...like I saw another blogger do...but they just all got mailed away in their simple goodness.  I will definitely be making more.

CUT THE COOKIES OUT WITH PRETTY SHAPES

It was fun and actually helpful for our gift-giving to work on a couple of Dorie’s recipes this week:   1. Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts and  2. Speculoos.

CUT CHRISTMAS SHAPE COOKIES

JUST FOR FUN

THEIR AROMA FILLS THE HOUSE--AHHHHHH!

It was my Dad’s birthday this week and he loves nuts.  Since he lives in another state we wanted to make some yummy treats for him that would survive the mail...the FFwD nuts are perfect!  We also have Uncle Jimmy who never married and is alone for the holidays.  We traditionally mail him a nice Christmas box with lots of goodies and fun packages.  We made several flavors of the nuts and made a 4 X batch of the cookies, packaged them up in little bags, enclosed them in bubble wrap, and both my Dad and Jimmy should have received their packages today or at least by tomorrow.  And...Uncle Jimmy who graduated from Culinary Arts school in Baltimore  has been a chef on Hilton Head Island at a fancy resort for the past 25 years...so sending him our foods can be a little scary, but I know he will like these treats...they are great!!!   

AN EXPERIMENT:  ROLL DOUGH INTO LOG, REFRIGERATE, SLICE

AND BAKE

AND DUST WITH POWDERED SUGAR--HEAVEN!

For the nuts, I followed Dorie’s recipe exactly except for one change...so that is not exactly.  But after reading many fellow FfwD  posts about the nuts and shaking the egg whites off each one or posts about “mess” , etc., I decided to add more nuts...enough to use up the egg white without any excess.  I added about 2/3 cup more nuts to each recipe which means that there was just enough egg white to coat the nuts with no excess and yet the spices stuck to the nuts really well.   Then all I had to do was spread the nuts on the silicone mats and roast them.  I did add more spice/sugar amounts to compensate for the extra nuts.  Also, I read some posts complaining about the mess left on the baking mats...there was none.  A couple of batches needed an extra 5 minutes of roasting time, but at that point there was no gooey mess left behind and the silpat mats clean up with just a quick wipe.  Totally easy.

NUTS:  ALMONDS, PECANS, WALNUTS

SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE!

I also roasted the cardamom recipe...and I tried another with cardamom, cinnamon and cayenne...and I just kept playing with other yummy flavors.  All the combinations I tried were great.  The trouble:  just keeping hands out of the nuts so that I would have nuts to mail away...these nuts were getting eaten by everyone in the house, including neighbors who came to bring their Christmas gifts ..they seemed to smell the nuts from blocks away and after tasting they just all had to take home their own little bags of spiced nuts.  Made me totally happy!  I made 15 batches (kept 2 ovens going) while watching the old Alastair Sim’s version of the Christmas Carol movie.

USED ALL THE EGG WHITE TO COAT THE NUTS

SPRINKLED ON THE SUGAR AND SPICES JUST A LITTLE AT A TIME, THEN MIXED ALL TOGETHER

ROASTING IN THE OVEN

HOT AND SPICY COCKTAIL NUTS

SNEAKY...JUST CAN'T KEEP HANDS OUT!  WAY TOO YUMMY!!!

15 BATCHES OF NUTS--AND I NEED MORE!

SUGAR AND SWEET SPICE NUTS

ALL PACKAGED UP AND READY TO MAIL--I WOULD ENJOY RECEIVING SUCH A GIFT

And, yes, Arizona does allow me to have roses blooming in my yard all winter.

I have the carrots remaining for this month.  I have enjoyed all the other December recipes and will make them all again.  I am especially fond of these two that I tried this week...they are just perfect for the holidays.  Thanks, Dorie, for 2 more great recipes that I will add to my permanent baking repertoire. 

Merry Christmas to all my Cyber Friends!   See you next time around when I post my carrots.

Oh, you want to see my new grandson?  Well, ok...he is absolutely adorable!

ONLY AN HOUR OLD---CAN'T WAIT TO GIVE HIM A HUG!  

French Friday with Dorie: Leek and Potato Soup, Smooth or Chunky, Hot or Cold

My Bowl of Leek and Potato Soup Garnished with Cheese and Fresh Parsley

This week we have a house guest from Singapore who is accustomed to eating only Chinese food every day. I love americanized Chinese food and would gladly cook it for him, however, one of the fun things about staying with other people is attempting to fit into their culture and trying new things, including new foods.  I decided  to prepare an “assignment” from Dorie, thinking that telling him about our Dorie-food-blogging-group would also be a fun topic of conversation.  I know that he eats very little sweets, in fact, fruit is a dessert. And, with all my family daily drop-ins, it is nice to have a pot of soup in the fridge for any hungry bodies.  I chose to make the Leek and Potato Soup which would have no strong flavors for our guest to get used to, and yet it would stretch him culturally...potatoes instead of rice; such a new concept for many.    With potatoes, butter, and milk even a simple soup would be that stretch for him.  I doubled the recipe and found a few mix-ins  that added color and brought interesting flavors to the pot.

Onions and Garlic Added to Melted Butter

Our sunny AZ temperatures kissed 80^ today, so I felt like visiting my garden for some fresh herbs...and I  found, instead, some very appealing, exceptionally flavorful, small, sweet red peppers.  I decided on the peppers instead of the herbs, as the herbs might take some getting used to for our guest (some o f  my kids can taste each one I add to a recipe), and I decided to add just a little parsley as a garnish.

While the Potatoes Simmer I will Ready My Additions

 Leeks Sauteed in Butter Before Adding to Soup

Sweet Red Peppers from my Garden

Looks Like Christmas with the Addition of Red Peppers to the Leeks

With Christmas music in the background, I first sauteed, in butter, diced onion with minced garlic until they sparkled.  The aroma quickly filled the house and excited me to continue (before Dorie, I would have  used olive oil, not butter).  I chose a tasty chicken stock and whole milk  over water which I added with my diced potatoes to the onion mixture.  While that was heating, I  sauteed leeks, and added my minced red garden peppers, and the color was beautiful...just like Christmas.  Then I found some ham that just begged to be used.  While the soup gently simmered, hubby and I untangled Christmas lights and put up a few strands decorating the front of our house...we are the last ones on our street to get our lights up this year...Did all of you cyber friends get your lights up almost before the Thanksgiving turkey was cleaned up and the dishes were done?  I am still wondering what happened to Thanksgiving this year.  With Black Friday beginning on Thanksgiving afternoon and continuing through the following week, and with all the neighborhood getting their decorations up on Thanksgiving afternoon...well, I feel like I was cheated out of a portion of that very special day.

I Used the End from our Thanksgiving Spiral Cut Ham

Diced Ham Added to Leeks and Red Peppers

One of my daughters dropped in and asked for a cheese garnish.  With that in mind, I just could not help myself from adding about a pound of grated cheese to my soup....who am I to argue with a cheese suggestion?  Cheese is almost up there with chocolate (well, not really).  Between the two of them, they can fit into just about any common recipe.  I had thought about putting my add-ins into separate little bowls on the table so each person could choose their own garnish, but they kept jumping into the pot, just like magic.

A Pound of Grated Cheese

By now the whole house is really smelling great and hubby cannot refrain from stirring my soup...and, he is extremely interested in what I am cooking as our guest is his very special friend...and Hubby worries that he should go out and find some Chinese food to please his guest...but I am not concerned.  The soup is beautiful, the aroma that fills my house is delicious, the Christmas decorations are getting up, the house is clean, and a batch of freshly baked cookies is on the table...if our guest does not need sweets, by this point, I do! 

Hubby Can't Resist Stirring the Pot as the Cheese Continues to Melt into the Broth

It was all quite irresistible.  Hubby could not wait. All that pot stirring was more than he could take.   I had planned to make the croutons and  some dinner rolls, and I thought about picking some fresh chives to snip as a garnish.  But he was starving and just had to eat.   The verdict: He loved the soup! especially with all my add-ins.

Well, gotta go...our guest has just arrived.  Talk to you all again next week.  Happy Holidays!

NOTE:  I was sidetracked a bit during this cooking experience...the Cub Scouts came to the door, singing Christmas Carols with gusto, and then asked me for a can of soup for their charitable food drive.  I went to the pantry and dug out every can of soup I could find...and there were many...and gave the scouts every can.  No more canned soup in this house.  There are too many easy and wonderful soups that can be cooked with very little effort...and I always have ingredients needing to be used.  The flavor of this wonderful soup and last weeks "Daube", and my use-up-the-turkey-noodle-soup from about a week ago have all convinced me that I will never again buy a can of soup.  Period!