Full disclosure: This recipe used pretty much exactly from HalfBaked Harvest because it sounded so good!
Second peanut butter recipe in as many weeks, which is really unusual for me, as I am not really a PB fan. Well, ok, not a peanut butter on bread with jam (or anything else for that matter) fan, but once you pair it with chocolate … well, I am all over that, which is why I like this recipe. Super yummy. It is, however, really rich, so maybe just eat one piece at a time. OK, maybe two.
The atypical traditional German Zwiebelkuchen (Onion Tart). OK, that sounds rather contradictory, eh? Here is the thing: the recipe is traditional. Onions, Speck, Paprika and Nutmeg. And yes, while it looks a little like a quiche, it only has one egg in it. In Swabia (the Southwestern part of Germany nearest to the French and Swiss borders), this Zwiebelkuchen is often eaten in the fall and is a great accompaniment to new wines.
But why atypical? Well, my presentation, actually. While it certainly is possible that a cast iron pan was used at some point in the history of Zwiebelkuchen-making, it is more often made in a tart pan with a removable bottom or even as a square on a regular Backblech. Also, I am quite sure that no one bothers to cut out many little leaves, cut patterns in them and then glue them to the edge. So there. Typical German recipe. Typical me presentation. All good. Well, would have been better if that one side of the crust didn’t decide to take a nose dive into the filling, but imperfection is perfection.
It’s January, so who would think that lemons are the ingredient to use, but it is Meyer Lemon season, and I made some fresh lemon curd which led to making these little cookies. Who doesn’t love that whole lemon poppy seed combination! Even the cookies themselves as quite fresh and clean tasting thanks to lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract. A quadruple dose of vitamin c (to keep that scurvy at bay!)
Been a few weeks since I made cookies. Probably because I spent the entire month of November making cookies — for 115 hours! — so that I didn’t want to even see any for a while. But we’re back and these are a cute little surprise for January. Buttons! And peanut butter! I like peanut butter, but don’ *love* peanut butter (that is likely the German in me — not a big thing in Germany) but the peanut butter is more like frosting in this case so lighter and fluffier. Sort of like an oreo, only a million times better.
And yet another lucky foodie idea: eating fish on New Year’s Eve/Day. I’ve heard many different reasons why fish is supposed to be lucky — everything from that the scales look like coins (wealth), that they swim in schools (abundance) and that they swim forwards (moving ahead). New Englanders (and people in Scandinavia, Italy, Brazil, etc) are known to eat the (sacred) cod … more on cod some other time. Some people advocate that is it because of cod that the world is what it is today — bit of a stretch in my opinion, but whatever. In Germany, there is the tradition of Silvesterkarpfen (New Years Carp), but also herring (also a Polish tradition) is an option.
Me? Well, I don’t have any carp or herring, but I love smoked salmon, so here we have a quick appetizer of smoked salmon with dill mascapone, on homemade knekkebrod. The Knekkebrod is a cracker like bread (no fat or leavening) with sunflower, sesame and flax seeds. Yummy like this or even just with a schmear of cream cheese.