This holiday season, I finally broke out my 1 Dough, 100 Cookies cookbook to try out a few recipes. While I love making cookies, I generally need an excuse to make mass quantities of them, and the holidays provided me with such an excuse. Each recipe in this book is based on a very simple dough recipe, which is similar to a shortbread cookie.
This year, one of my teaching partners gave me a wonderful Christmas present of herbal products from Common Folk Farm in Naples, Maine.
It’s been about a year an a half since I started this blog, and I’ve officially been tracking my traffic for one year using Google Analytics. In the time I have been tracking, I’ve had visitors from 862 different cities across sixty-four countries. Within the United States, I’ve had visitors from every state except for Montana… So that made me curious to learn a bit about the popular foods and recipes of Montana. Since I don’t know anyone from Montana, I had to rely on the web, which isn’t always the best option, but it’s something.
Most of the websites I found highlighted farm-raised meats and game meats including elk, bison, and deer. I also found a variety of recipes for huckleberries and choke cherries, as well as a variety of hearty stew recipes. Assuming that people in Montana eat these items all the time is probably like assuming Mainers live off of lobsters and blueberries, so I dug a little further and found a cookie recipe since I was sort of in a cookie mood anyway.
I don’t know how authentic this recipe is to Montana. Could it be to Montana what the Whoopie Pie is to Maine? I have no idea, but these “Montana Monster Cookies” are some of the best oatmeal peanut butter cookies I’ve tried. This recipe is a keeper, and can be found at Cooks.com. I made a half recipe using one egg, and omitted the raisins. The cookies are about an inch thick, and over three inches in diameter–Cookie Monster approved!
This rich pudding has become a family favorite during the holiday season. Flummery has an interesting history, and I will honestly say that if I had read the Wikipedia definition prior to trying it, I would have been turned off by the idea of it as it is described as bland and boring. My mom’s recipe, which can be found at the end of this blog post, calls for a drizzle of Drambuie, though my parents now serve it with a few fresh raspberries and Framboise raspberry dessert wine. This twist makes it a simple, yet elegant, dessert.
These spinach squares are a nice alternative to quiche as they are heavier on the spinach and lighter on the eggs. They make a great snack, hors d’oeuvre, or brunch buffet item. I like to make them for pot lucks and holiday gatherings since they’re easy to make.
This risotto makes an easy one dish meal with lots of flavor. It is fairly simple to make, though it does take a little time for the rice to cook and the liquid to absorb and reduce.
After seeing Community Little Theater’s production of A Christmas Carol, my parents joined us for a scampi dinner at our house. They surprised us with lobster meat to add to the scampi, making for a fancier-than-planned-on, yet easy-to-make dinner.
After reading a blog post written by my friend at Blame it on the Food, I was inspired to try her recipe for squash risotto. This batch of risotto definitely had a unique combination of flavors: sweet, savory, spicy and tart all in one dish.
Inspired by a forgotten ball of fresh mozzarella that was a week past its sell by date, I searched online for recipe ideas, which led me to a blog called The Flotilla Diaspora. There I found a recipe that sounded simple enough, which would also make for a crispy and filling side dish to serve with homemade soup.
Lately I have been making a lot of homemade granola bars. This time around, I wanted to try something different, while still creating a healthful snack.
