Today, I had to say goodbye to some dear friends. OK, so it isn’t a real goodbye as I am positive that I will see then again and through the powers of this Internet thing, I am quite sure that we will be in touch all the time, but today these two friends stopped being co-tenants. They moved into the building we shared within weeks of me, and it’s been a decade of living here, so ten years of waves and smiles when we were in a hurry, gossip about other neighbors, the parking, the laundry, the snow — god, the snow of 2015! — Italy, Harvard, Germany, our respective families and cats. They have always gotten my foodie experiments, and I remember telling Erin about CSPS a few weeks after I went down this path and she trying my Roasted Salsa Black Bean Soup (March 2011). In exchange, I always received extras from their Crop Share (thank you again, guys!). So a fare-ye-well from me always involves food. So I made these Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie Cupcakes with Butter Pecan Frosting for them to take on their drive down to their new home.
nuts
For once, a truly healthy recipe! These are my standard granola bars, ones that I have made with both dried apricots and cranberries and are very much my “go to” thing when I want to make a healthy snack. They are super easy, last a few weeks in an airtight container (if you don’t eat all them straight away) and well … are healthy. This time I went with maple and date as the flavorings, but again, those can be substituted to whatever flavors you like.
A couple of years ago, I made these Almond Butter Cookies, which turned out great, so I thought I would revisit the recipe and throw it for a twist and add chocolate. They turned out really well too and aren’t too sweet, which is my favorite kind of cookie. Sort of like biscotti (though not nearly as hard), these go great dunking in coffee. Also, if you don’t have a funky cookie stamp, just use a fork to make a little pattern on the top, but definitely remember to chill them before baking, otherwise the pattern completely disappears.
This week I learned that it is possible to make cookies without flour, sugar, eggs or butter. Neat trick, eh? Yes, I thought so. But these super simple to make Almond Joy Cookies have none of those four ingredients, thought there is sugar in the chocolate chips and sweetened shredded coconut, and the binder is condensed milk, so I can’t say that they are vegan. The nuts? Well that makes them Almond Joy cookies instead of Mounds cookies, right? Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t … you can finish the jingle. 🙂













