For December 18

Ginger-Jazzed Brownies, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking:  From My Home to Yours

Chocolate Oatmeal Drops, also from Baking.

So much for holiday spirit!  I started out thinking I would make gingerbread, but I took a strange side road and ended up with gingery brownies.  Well, Betsy, ginger and chocolate - this one's for you!

This is the last regular Thursday night talk of the year - next week it is Christmas Eve, and then we are in sesshin until Dec. 31.  And January is a bare-bones month at ZCLA, with no Thursday night talks.  So my baking responsibility will be on hiatus until February.  But don't worry, between now and then I hope to use the time to post a few recipes and explore a few different areas so that we come roaring into 2009 with new and exciting treats.  If you have any requests (for recipes of areas of food exploration) let me know!

Take good care,

Dharma-Joy

Recipe: Chocolate Mint Squares

This is one of the most popular things I have ever made. It is embarrassing to post the recipe and show how simple it is to make! Anyway, for all the fans who can't wait until December rolls around for me to make it, here is the recipe for this wonderful treat. And really, who says that peppermint is a flavoring reserved for Christmas-time?

Chocolate Mint Squares
Adapted from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Dough
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs (preferably at room temperature)
1/2 cup unbleached flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or chopped pecans
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract or peppermint oil*

Frosting
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract or peppermint oil*
1 tablespoon milk

Glaze
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate
1 tablespoon butter

*This is the amount to use if you're using Boyajian peppermint oil. Other peppermint oils may vary in strength; add them judiciously, tasting as you go.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Dough: In a double boiler, or in a microwave, melt together the chocolate and butter or margarine. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat together the sugar, salt and eggs. Add the chocolate mixture, stirring to combine, then the flour, nuts and peppermint, mixing till well-blended.

Pour the batter into a lightly greased 9 x 9-inch pan. Bake the squares for 25 minutes. Remove them from the oven, and cool to room temperature.

Frosting: In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, melted butter or margarine, peppermint and milk. Spread the frosting over the cooled squares in a thin layer.

Glaze: In a double boiler, or in a microwave, melt together the chocolate and butter or margarine. Drizzle this over the frosted squares. Refrigerate the squares to set the glaze. To serve, cut into 1 1/2-inch squares.

Yield: About 36 small squares.

Recipe: Corn Pudding with Dill and Parsley

Here is a recipe that I have made the last two Thanskgivings, and people have liked it quite a lot. It is a recipe from The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison and Edward Espe Brown, two of my favorite cooks. This is best the same day it is made, but keeps OK for a couple of days - the starches in the corn will develop and the taste and texture will change as time passes.

Corn Pudding with Dill and Parsley

6 ears white or yellow sweet corn
1/2 cup milk
4 or 5 eggs
3/4 cup cream, warmed
3 oz. jack or muenster cheese, grated
1 T fresh dill, finely chopped
1 T parsley, finely chopped
1/2 t salt white or black pepper
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Shave kernels from cobs with a knife. Scrape the cobs with an inverted teaspoon to catch the milky bits; put (put in a blender jar). Set aside one cup of the kernels and place the rest in a blender with the milk. Cover and puree until smooth – this should take around two minutes, which will feel like a long time to have the blender running.

In large mixing bowl, beat the eggs well with a whisk, then stir in the corn mixture, reserved kernels, cream, grated cheese, dill and parsley. Season with salt and several grindings of pepper.

Butter a large baking dish or one-cup ramekins and line liberally with bread crumbs. Add the corn custard and set the baking dish(es) in a larg pan on the middle oven rack. Add hot water to come halfway up the sides of the baking dish(es). Carefully, push the rack in and close oven door.

Bake at 325 degrees for up to an hour and 10 minutes in a large dish, or 50 to 55 minutes in ramekins. When the top is firm and slightly browned, remove the pudding from the oven and let it rest for a few minutes. Serve in baking dish or unmold ramekins and serve it bottoms up.

Recipe: Corn, Bean and Pumpkin Stew

Here is a brief diversion from baking to include the recipe for the corn, bean and pumpkin stew that has become a post-Thanksgiving tradition for us. I am very grateful to Deborah Madison for this recipe, which comes from the Greens Cookbook, one of the great basic vegetarian cookbooks.

Corn, Bean and Pumpkin Stew (adapted from The Greens Cookbook)

This delicious, low-fat and high-fiber autumnal stew has become a traditional family day-after-Thanksgiving meal eaten after a day of hiking in the mountains, and is a pleasant change from turkey (or tofurkey) leftovers. It tastes even better after a day or two, so I often make it the night before. You can make it hotter, if you like, with ground ancho chilies or chili powder.

1 cup pinto beans or cranberry beans, soaked overnight and drained
Salt
1 pound tomatoes, fresh or canned, peeled, seeded, and chopped; juice reserved (extra is OK - I often use a 28 oz can of Muir Glen diced tomatoes)
corn kernels cut from 3 ears corn (about 1 1/2 cups kernels)
1 teaspoons cumin seeds (NOT ground cumin)
1 teaspoon oregano
1-inch piece cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
4 tablespoons corn oil, light sesame oil, or light olive oil
1 large onion, cut into a medium dice
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon paprika
2 cups bean broth (at least)
3 cups pumpkin or winter squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 or 2 serrano chilies, seeded and finely chopped (be careful in cutting them! use gloves, and don't wipe your eyes; believe me, don't wipe your eyes)
Cilantro or parsley, chopped, for garnish

If you have not pre-soaked the beans, clean them, rinse them well, cover them with boiling water, and let them soak for 1 hour. Drain them, cover them with fresh water, and bring to a boil. Make sure you use an ample amount of water, because it will be used to thin the stew later on. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook about 1 1/2 hours, or until the beans are tender. [I find it takes a lot less time than this, so watch carefully!] Drain the beans, and reserve the cooking liquid.

Warm a small heavy skillet and toast the cumin seeds until their fragrance emerges; then add the oregano, stir for 5 seconds, and quickly transfer the spices to a plate or bowl so they don’t burn. Combine them with the cinnamon and the cloves, and grind to a powder in an electric spice mill. [I use an old coffee grinder.]

Heat the oil in a wide skillet and saute the onion briskly over high heat for 1 minute; then lower the heat to medium. Add the garlic, the ground spices, the paprika, and 1 teaspoon salt. Stir well to combine; then add 1/2 cup reserved bean broth and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft. Next add the tomatoes and cook 5 minutes. Then add the pumpkin or winter squash along with another cup of bean broth. After 20 to 30 minutes, or when the pumpkin is about half-cooked – soft but still too firm to eat – add the corn, the beans, and the fresh chilies. Thin with the reserved tomato juice, adding more broth or stock as necessary. Cook until the pumpkin is tender. Check the seasoning, and add more salt if necessary. Serve garnished with the chopped cilantro or parsley.

Even though there is corn in the stew, corn bread or tortillas make a good accompaniment. Serves four to six.

For December 4

We have arrived at December.  Our treats this week (not cookies) match the season:

Chocolate Mint Squares, from The King Arthur Baking Companion

All in One Holiday Bundt Cake, Dorie Greenspan, Baking:  From My Home to Yours

This is the third year I have made the chocolate mint squares.  It is a very nice recipe - these are basically a gussied up brownie, but with less flour to get in the way.  They consist of a brownie layer with peppermint flavor, then a white frosting (lots of peppermint), and then a drizzle of chocolate on top.  If you like peppermint and chocolate, these are for you.  And if you don't....what planet are you from?

The Bundt cake is from a cookbook that is one of my favorites.  I made Dorie's Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie recipe for Thanksgiving, and it was yummy.  She even convinced me to make my own crust - and we all survived.  Anyway, this Bundt cake is quite good, and the name is well deserved - it has pumpkin, cranberries, apples, pecans, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg all rolled into one little pan.  If you don't think you are seeing snow outside after eating this, then you need to eat a little more.

Take good care.

For November 20

Maple Walnut Crisps, The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Nibby Nut and Raisin Cookies, Alice Medrich, Bittersweet

Continuing two different themes this week.  First, my "yes, it's autumn" theme with maple walnut cookies from a cookbook written in Vermont.  Indeed, these use Vermont Maple Syrup and also Maple Sugar that I ordered from the King Arthur Flour store in Norwich, VT.  Because I don't have any maple extract or maple flavor right now, the  maple flavoring is not as strong as in the biscotti a few weeks ago; indeed, with the toasted walnuts (and there are a lot of them in this recipe), the walnut flavor is quite prominent.  But a nice autumn cookie nonetheless.

Second, I am still working through some of Alice Medrich's cookies that reflect her love affair with cacao nibs.  Cacao nibs are a precursor to chocolate, and have an intense flavor but not the sugar sweetness of chocolate.  These particular cookies have cacao nibs, pecans and raisins in about equal measure.  Probably a little more "grown up" than the first cookies, but also quite nice.

Next week, of course is Thanksgiving.  I will be up in Yosemite, which has become a tradition for us.  A different combination of people this year, so we have yet to figure out the cooking for our Thanksgiving "pot luck" dinner.  I will probably do a pumpkin pie or tart, and who knows what else.  And tradition dictates that I make my usual corn, bean and pumpkin stew, which we eat for the days after Thanksgiving, and is a delicious, flavorful, and very healthy way to compensate for the excess of Thanksgiving while also filling your stomach with good stuff after a day of hiking in the forests of Yosemite.

For November 13

Oy, it's late.

OK, back from China.  They don't have very good cookies in China.  And not nearly enough chocolate.  Here are some cookies and some chocolate.  Can you say autumn???

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies with Brown-Butter Icing, from Martha Stewart's Cookies

Applesauce Spice Bars, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking

In the first recipe, the chocolate chips are my addition - the recipe is for plain pumpkin cookies with icing.  I realized rather late in the day that I didn't have any chocolate in my recipes this week, and decided to add the chocolate chips at the last minute.  Andy does not approve, since he thinks that pumpkin and chocolate are not flavors that go together; however, there are a million recipes that say "au contraire".  As he pointed out, it will not keep him from eating 1 or 2 (dozen).  I made these cookies around 2 years ago, for the tea and cookies before Faith-Mind's shuso hossen ceremony.  I think I made the applesauce bars before also, but I really have no memory of them.  They also have an icing, so this was a complicated cookie week, 2 varieties each with its own icing.

OK, now to bed.

[Belated] For October 23

At 1:40 a.m. on October 23, I left for China with a group from ZCLA.  However, even though I got married the Saturday before and then had to deal with packing, etc., I still managed to bake some cookies for the Thursday night talk and for the China pilgrims.  Here is what I made:

Maple Walnut Biscotti, from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Nibby Buckwheat Cookies, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet.

For October 16

It is late, it has been an intense day.  So here is the lineup for tomorrow night:

Nibby Pecan Cookies, Alice Medrich, Bittersweet - these are cookies with chopped pecans and cacao nibs, the precursor to chocolate.  

Pumpkin Cake Bars with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting, from the King Arthur Flour web site.  King Arthur Flour is the best mass-produced flour in the United States, and they are headquartered in Vermont.  I wanted an autumn item this week, and have been looking for a pumpkin bar to make.  Between the pumpkin bars and the maple frosting, this is about as much of an autumn cliche as you can get.  Bring it on!!!

For October 2

It is very late, so this is very short.

For this week, something old, something new:

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti, from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake (yep, that's the recipe name) from Dorie Greenspan, Baking.

Chocolate hazelnut biscotti are one of my favorite flavor combinations.  I haven't made biscotti for a while, so it was nice to resume with this recipe.

As for the bundt cake, I have made many of the recipes from Dorie Greenspan's book, and all have been very good.  For this one, however, the cake stuck in the bundt pan and did not come out cleanly, so the cake is not very pretty.  Oh, well.  Luckily, we cover with confectioners sugar before serving, and so this one will have a LOT of sugar on top.  But from my tasting of the bits that stuck to the pan (professional obligation to taste it, you know) - YUM!

For September 25

Hi everyone,

wow, what a crazy week.  We were in Boulder over the weekend for a wedding; what a great town.  So beautiful!  I wish we had had an additional day to spend and just to check out the town, but this was a quick in and out, and it has been busy for me since getting back.  Andrew and I are getting married in, gulp, three and a half weeks and there is a lot left to do - a whole lot!  And work is busy busy.  Oy.  Anyway, two new recipes this week, including one from a new cookbook.  Here is the lineup:

Nut-Chocolate Bars "Unsurpassed," from Tassajara Cooking

Oatmeal Currant Cookies, from Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food

I can't believe I made oatmeal cookies with Roshi out of town.  They are her favorite.  Alas.  These are an interesting oatmeal cookie, because you take the oats and you basically grind them in the food processor into almost a flour.  So there is a definite taste of oats (there are 1 1/2 cups of oats to the 1/2 cup of flour in the recipe) but not the standard texture.  This recipe made a very soft cookie - a bit crisp around the edges, but definitely soft and chewy in the center.  They remind me of the big old oatmeal cookies that you could buy in the store when I was young, the texture is very similar.  Many of the recent cookies have been a crisp style, so this is a nice change of pace.  The nut-chocolate bars from Tassajara are quite good - I think they are basically chocolate chip cookie bars.  Yum.  A very different execution than what we had last week with Sherry Yard's chocolate chip cookies, but the ingredients are almost the same.

OK, it's late, and I have a court hearing at 8:30 tomorrow morning.  Take good care!

D-J

For September 18

This week, the recipes are from two new cookbooks, but the authors are two I admire greatly:

Hazelnut Shortbread Brownies, from Bittersweet, by Alice Medrich

Quintessential Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Desserts by the Yard, by Sherry Yard

Alice Medrich is also the author of Pure Dessert, which I have been baking from for the past few weeks.  This cookbook is an earlier one, devoted solely to chocolate recipes.  The recipe involves making a shortbread crust with lots of chopped hazelnuts as a bottom layer, and then baking the brownies on top of the shortbread.  OK, so it sounds a little decadent, I thought we could use a little variation on the usual brownies.

Sherry Yard is the pastry chef at Spago Beverly Hills, and also the author of The Secrets of Baking, which has been a very influential book for me in terms of technique.  The chocolate chip cookies are rather crisp - Sherry says that Wolfgang Puck likes his chocolate chip cookies crisp, so hers are crisp.  Not my favorite style, but they aren't going in the trash (certainly not with so much Scharffen Berger chocolate in them!)

For September 11

I will not be in town on Thursday night; instead, I will be at Tassajara again. This is the last weekend of guest season, and it has become something of a tradition for me to go this weekend. I think this is the 5th year I have been there for the ending weekend. Three of those years I have been in a workshop titled "Cooking with Big Mind" (sound familiar?) but this year they moved the workshop to June and I could not attend. The workshop participants take over the kitchen and make the last dinner of guest season. The last two years, I was assigned to make the dessert, which was a chocolate hazelnut cake. It is a lot of work, but actually pretty fun, to make 22 cakes to serve 88 people! (Well, rubbing the skins off of so many hazlenuts was not much fun, but that isn't even fun when it is for a cake that serves 4.) Any recipe that starts with melting 7 1/2 lbs of chocolate is just fun! This year, no class, just relaxing.

Anyway, given a fairly hectic schedule this week, I started my cooking early, and will finish it tonight (thanks to the assistance of my partner Andrew, who will probably take care of slicing the dough and baking the cookies that are chilling right now).

Here's the Thursday night lineup:

Golden Kamut Pound Cake
Extra Bittersweet Chocolate Wafers

Both from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert.

This is my first time cooking with kamut. Kamut (pronounced like you were French Canadian, "ca-moot") is an ancient grain, apparently a precursor to modern wheat. The word kamut is from the ancient egyptian, and was their word for wheat. This is also the first time in decades that I have made a pound cake recipe other than my standard one. So we'll see how it goes.

For September 4

Chocolate Chews, from the Tassajara Cookbook

Sesame Coins, from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert

Here is the recipe for the chocolate chews.  These are really good.  The cookbook is frustrating, so this is my adaptation.

Chocolate Chews

(makes approx. 4 dozen cookies)

1/2 pound semisweet chocolate

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

3/4 t instant espresso powder

3 eggs

1 cup brown sugar (I use dark brown to intensify the flavor, but light brown is OK, too)

1 cup unbleached white flour

1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

2 t vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

(Note:  use the best chocolate you can find and afford.  It is the principal ingredient in this recipe.  If you can find real brown sugar, try to use that, too.  The quality shows.)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Place your oven racks in top and bottom third of oven.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  Coarsely chop the semisweet and unsweetened chocolate and place them in a metal bowl or the top of a double boiler.  Add the butter, cut into 4 or 5 pieces,  and the espresso powder, and then place the bowl over a simmering pot of water (the water should not touch the bottom of the bowl) and heat until melted, stirring occasionally.  Once it is melted, remove it from the heat and let it cool slightly.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs and brown sugar together until light in color and thick.  This will take several minutes.  Be patient and you will see the change.  (If you use dark brown sugar, it will be "lighter" in color and thick.)  If you have a stand mixer, this is the time to use it, because it makes this part very easy.  Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and whisk them together.

After the chocolate mixture has cooled slightly, mix it into the egg mixture and stir, scraping the sides to make sure it is well mixed.  Stir in the vanilla.  Gently fold the flour mixture in.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  If the mixture seems too wet, let it stand for a few minutes, and it will thicken.

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets.  Place one sheet on top rack, the other on bottom rack.  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating top to bottom, front to back, half-way through.  Remove and let cool briefly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Back from Tassajara

The Center is on summer (fall?) recess, so there were no cookies last week.  In a stroke of completely lucky timing, Andrew and I were at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center for several days last week, so I didn't have to pass the cookie job off to anyone else.

Tassajara was a wonderful, hot, relaxing experience.  However, Tassajara was in the center of the forest fires that raged around Big Sur in July, and while Tassajara itself survived (mostly) intact, all of the hills and mountains around it are charred - truly charred.  There is one point on the drive in when you can just see for miles and miles, mountains on end, and all of them are gray and burned, with the skeletal remains of blackened trees looking like so many troops of the Angel of Death marching up the mountainsides, storming the ridges.  While Tassajara has survived the fire, in the end the rains and the mudslides this fall and winter will hold a much bigger danger - while Tassajara could fend off the fire, there is much less ability to control the outcome when you are looking up at a couple of thousand feet of mountainside with nothing but dirt and ash looming above you.  So this story is still going on.  Keep chanting...

Of course, at lunchtime at Tassajara they serve cookies every day, so it is always a treat to check it out from a "professional" perspective.  (This same line permits me to buy and eat any cookie I see; probably the best part of this whole gig.)  For the four days we were there, the cookies  included:  Cappuccino Coins, Chocolate Chews, Lemon Bars and Date Bars.  We have made the Chocolate Chews before - I made them sometime last year for a Thursday night talk, and they were one of the cookies that a crew at ZCLA made to give to families for the holidays last year.  The name is apt - there are three types of chocolate in these, and they are quite intense!  This time, they were quite different because they were served as bars instead of cookies.  (According to Ed Brown, the first tenzo at Tassajara in the SFZC era, he never used to make individual cookies because it required too much work; instead he always made bars and cut them.  Since they usually have 70-80 guests, I can certainly understand that logic.)  I am not sure if they were actually the Chocolate Chews recipe or a last minute brownie substitute, but either way they were rich and delicious.  (I think I am going to make the Chocolate Chews this week to compare.)  The lemon bars were also good, but quite unusual.  Having just made lemon bars for the first time in quite a while, I was quite interested to see Tassajara's take on these.  The lemon filling was quite voluminous - a lot thicker than the usual svelte (in size, if not caloric content) lemon bars most people know, and rather challenging to eat with your fingers.  (I managed, fear not; the things I do in the name of science.)  I have a recipe from Tassajara for lemon bars, and I am going to have to check it out (not this week) to see if it gives me results like what we had there.

Yesterday was a day for cooking, rather than baking - I went to the farmer's market on Sunday and then spent Monday cooking up all the goods.  The tomatoes right now are so wonderful, plentiful and varied, it is difficult to exercise restraint.  And getting an enormous bunch of basil for $1.50 (the equivalent at Whole Foods would cost at least $25), how can I say no?  So yesterday I spent a lot of time (with the help of my wonderful fiancee Andrew) making Fresh Tomato Sauce (Greens Cookbook), pesto (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone) and Tomato and White Bean Soup (Greens Cookbook again; Deborah Madison, I love you!).  I was going to make shortbread to have with the berries I bought, but we ended up not having anyone over for dinner and decided simply to thaw a pound cake I made and froze a while ago and had the fresh strawberries on that, drizzled with some milk.

Tonight I have a bit of planning and prep to do for this week's offerings.  I bought some lemon verbena at the farmer's market, with the thought of experimenting with it to make some sort of cookie (like the lavender cookies I have been making), but now I have my eye on something else that I may make instead.  The lemon verbena may wait.  Come on Thursday night and find out how I resolve this horrible conundrum...lemon verbena cookies or ??????

D-J

For August 21

Hazelnut Whole Wheat Sables

Very Tangy Lime Bars

Both from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert.

Dreaming Lemons

Last week, one of the recipes was for some really wonderful toasted almond lemon bars. I have recently bought a few new baking books, and last week's recipes were from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book; both were very good, and I am looking forward to making more and sharing my results. (This week's recipes are coming from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert, which conceptually has me totally jazzed.) While many people liked the brownie recipe (which was adapted from Julia Child, so come on...) the lemon bars were a big hit - they had toasted almonds in the crust and then a very tart lemon filling, so the complementary flavors of lemon and almond came through nicely. I usually don't like lemon bars because they are too much, the filling has a gummy texture, etc., but these had a focused intensity that really worked.

Anyway, on Monday night I had a dream in which I was composing poetry. I guess the lemon bars had an impact on me, because here is the poem that I composed in the dream:

Mouth filling with lemon-
Where did the thoughts go?
Thwack!

The first brownie recipe

Here is the brownie recipe I used for that first, eventful Thursday night back in October 2005.  I have modified it slightly, but the results should be much more reliable.  As you will see, brownies from scratch are very simple - one of the wonders of brownies is that the results can be so wonderful with so little effort required to get there.  It is a shame that people use a boxed mix so full of chemicals and preservatives when there is so little added work needed to make brownies from scratch.

Our Basic Brownie Recipe

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate (quality matters; if you are going to cook from scratch, don't get cheap with your core ingredient)

2 cups sugar

4 eggs (room temperature if you have planned in advance, but don't fret it)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans, preferably toasted - see the note below)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 13x9x2 inch baking pan.

Put the butter and chocolate in a metal bowl, and place it over a pot of simmering water to melt.  Stir occasionally until the mixture is smooth.  Remove it from the heat.  Let cool slightly. Stir in the sugar, then add the eggs one at a time, making sure to fully incorporate each before adding the next.  Stir in the flour, vanilla and salt.  Add the nuts, if desired.

Spread the mixture into the prepared pan.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Do not overbake!  Remove from oven, and cool completely before cutting.  Brownies are MUCH easier to cut at room temperature than not - my impatience to test the results has taught me this repeatedly!

NOTE:  I am a strong advocate for toasting nuts.  It adds little to the overall time needed and the added benefit is well worth the effort.  For walnuts or pecans, place the nuts on a baking sheet, and place them in a preheated oven (important that it is preheated) on 325 degrees for 10-15 minutes.  Given the pan a shake mid-way through to allow them to toast evenly.  They should be highly fragrant when you remove them; if they aren't, have faith and let them go a little longer.  (Just make sure you have a timer going to remind you to take them out; burnt nuts have a distinctive (read:  unpleasant and permeating) taste.)

A little background to start off...

Back in October 2005, I received an email indicating that Zen Center of Los Angeles, where I am a member, was looking for someone to take over the job of providing the cookies that we have after the talks that are usually offered on Thursday evenings.  Having nothing else to do with myself (lol), I volunteered to take over this responsibility.  Either because I sit at a computer all day and was the first to respond, or because no one else wanted to come within 50 feet of this kind of responsibility, I was the lucky winner...

Now, historically, this job has consisted of bringing a couple of tubs of cookies from Trader Joe's.  For that first week, though, I decided to make some brownies from scratch.  And, being concerned about people perhaps having nut allergies, I decided to make two pans, one with nuts, and the other without.  Well, people really liked having home-cooked treats, which I guess have become a rarity nowadays - at least for many people living in Los Angeles.  People were amazed that, not only had I baked them myself, but they had been made from scratch, and not from a box.

Anyway, after that first week, I decided to continue with the baking, and I have been baking cookies or other types of treats weekly since then.  For the first two years, I was following a rule that I would not repeat any recipe (although, when pressed for time, variations were OK); in the last year, I have relaxed that rule and now repeat a recipe now and again (when I can remember which ones I've made before).  At this point, I'm probably up past 200+ recipes.

Not being the most organized person, I did not track what recipes I was cooking, how they came out, what people thought, etc.  I mean, after all, who knew where this was going?  Now, almost three years in, I thought maybe it was time to start a blog to track the cookie baking craziness of my life (I can't tell you how many people have asked where I find the time for this; it helps to have no life) and whatever else comes up.  So let's start this exploration together.

As for the title, Dogen writes, in his "Instructions to the Cook" of the three minds a mature person, those being vast mind, caring mind, and joyful mind.  I like to think that cookie baking falls within the joyful mind part of the equation.  Where would blogging fit?

Dharma-Joy