It’s a cookie in bar form! Not brownie but a blondie! In essence, you can use the exact same recipe to make cookies, but I was in the mood to make bars, so here we are. These are easy to make, flavorful and easily substitutable — in other words, don’t like dried cranberries or pistachios or white chocolate, swap out for raisins, walnuts and semi-sweet chips. Lots of options!
Winter Salad — although frankly, this is pretty good for a summer picnic too (no mayo!): Wild Rice, Corn + Sprout Salad, with Hot Smoked Salmon. Simple to put together, healthy and is a spectacular lunch. While I think that the smoked salmon is integral, I can see that without it, it would also be very nice (somehow, a totally different salad).
Back to the usual weekly sourdough experiments, Up this week, another bread on the sweet side: a Maple Cinnamon Sourdough Breakfast Bread, with Raisins and Pecans. I know that raisins can be a controversial baking subject, so the nice thing is that you can just omit them, with no harm done. Delicious bread, great toasted with a bit of melty butter.
Here is my annual Cake Day cake. I mention this every year, but I don’t make cakes all that often — I’m not very good at decorating / frosting, and even more so in the days of a global pandemic, making cupcakes as not to share food is better anyway. That said, one day out of the year, I do make a cake, so this year is no different. I love the combination of coconut and chocolate so this celebratory has both cake types and frosting types, in addition to garnet-colored sugar flowers as they are the January birthstone color. Here’s to being 50, I guess!
Trying something different for a “one pot” meal — or a one pan meal, as it were. And this was so easy to do. Shrimp with Blistered Cherry Tomatoes, Olives + Feta. Took just about 30 minutes and would be easy enough to double to feed a crowd. The shrimp were super flavorful and juicy, combined with the just-warm olives and feta, and the cherry toms bursting with juiciness. Definitely a repeat. You could likely also do this (in this short of a time) with small pieces of fish as well.