For June 16

This was a week with no chocolate.  I don't know how that happened, exactly, but it did.  We survived - luckily these non-chocolate cookies managed to suffice:

Cherry Pistachio Biscotti, from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Cornmeal Thyme Cookies, from Martha Stewart Cookies

This is the first time I have made this particular biscotti recipe, and it was really great.  The recipe comes from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, which has an entire chapter on biscotti.  The way they set the chapter up, there are two basic recipes, an Italian biscotti recipe, and then an American biscotti recipe.  They are similar, except the American recipe makes a biscotti that is not quite as, well, hard and demanding that it be dunked in order to be eaten.  (I always make my biscotti using the American base recipe, which I find much more enjoyable and, since we have them without milk, coffee or vin santo to dunk them in, it is good that they are easier to eat.)  After those two base recipes, there are lots of variations in the form of flavorings and ingredients that you can add to them.  For anyone interested in playing around with recipes, this is a great chapter, since it talks about variations using nut flours, nuts, flavorings, and all sorts of other things, each of which gives you a slightly different result but almost always delicious.

Anyway, as a general rule, I am not a huge fan of either pistachio or cherry as flavors, which explains why this is one of the last recipe variations that I have not made.  But it goes to show me that having a not-knowing mind can be a good thing, because it ended up being a wonderful flavor combination, and the actual texture of the biscotti was very nice.  In the end, I think this is one of my favorite biscotti recipes!  These are a perfect biscotti for eating on their own, but even better (like so many biscotti) dipped in milk or coffee.  And the red cherries and green pistachios give them some unusual visual appeal, as the photo may show.

The second recipe was one I have made before, but not for a while (a search of the blog tells me it was October 2009).  I originally found this recipe in a Martha Stewart holiday baking magazine that I picked up on the way to Yosemite for Thanksgiving the first year I started this baking thing - 2005.  They are an interesting cookie because these two main ingredients are so interesting.  The cornmeal gives the cookies an unusual texture, while the thyme gives them an unusual flavor.  There is not a huge amount of thyme in them, so it is a somewhat subtle flavor, but the savory is definitely there along with the sweet, so it is a cookie that asks you for some attention.

These cookies also have currants in them - quite a few, actually.  This is the second week in a row that I have made cookies that prominently include currants, but where the currants are not included in the cookie name.  Last week it was the peanut butter (and currant) cookies, this week it is the cornmeal thyme (and currant) cookies.  Obviously, currants do not have a good agent, the poor things.  In both of these recipes, they are a key ingredient, so it is funny that they don't get mentioned.  I think we need an "ode to the currant" to make things right.  Volunteers?