For October 29

Dinner:

Corn, Bean and Pumpkin Stew, from Deborah Madison, The Greens Cookbook

Arugula with Pecorino Romano and Roasted Walnuts

Corn-Cheese Muffins
both from Deborah Madison, Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone

During the Practice Period, we have Thursday night Sangha dinners at ZCLA. I signed up to cook this week, and based on tonight's prep and cooking, I was obviously completely crazy at the time I did this - or was I just crazy in putting together this "simple" menu? All of the recipes are from Deborah Madison, who is wonderful, and whose cookbooks are my standard references. On the other hand, while she has a cookbook that is designed for simple and quick cooking, none of these recipes are from that book! Anyway, two of these are among our very favorite recipes. The Corn, Bean and Pumpkin Stew is an annual Thanksgiving weekend recipe that I make. It is a wonderful, low fat, high fiber stew brimming with good stuff - corn hand cut off the cob, pinto beans, chunks of sugar pie pumpkin cut and cooked, a home made spice melange...yum. I am making some cheese-corn muffins to go with it, which is a new recipe. And the arugula salad is a specialty of Andrew's - a really good salad with grated romano and roasted walnuts. The vinaigrette uses walnut oil, diced shallots, sherry vinegar and a little dijon mustard. Wonderful!

This was a labor intensive prep and cooking tonight, and it would not have been possible without Andrew being here to help. He is usually not at home now on Wednesday nights, but this week he was, and I am very lucky for that!

Now, on to the desserts....

Chocolate Cupcakes, from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts via the New York Times food blogs

Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies, from Martha Stewart's Cookies

There is quite a difference between these two desserts this week. The cookies are very homey - you could almost call them homely. They are big, irregular, none too pretty. But they are very flavorful! They have very little fat in them - not much butter at all, with most of the moisture coming instead from the applesauce. This is an organic applesauce from a small producer. The recipe calls for the cookies to be iced, but that just wasn't happening this week. And I think we'll all survive.

The chocolate cupcakes are quite straightforward: chocolate cake, with a chocolate ganache for icing. The ganache is nice, because it has a lot of chocolate intensity, but is quite thin and doesn't pack a huge, overwhelming sugar wallop like you get on many cupcakes these days where an inch of buttercream frosting can leave you with a horrible sugar high. The recipe is from an old, 1970s classic cookbook, but was recently resurrected in a blog post at the New York Times web site.

Well, it's after 12:40 a.m., so time to sign off. Ciao!

For October 24

Vermont Maple Cookies, from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

This week, ZCLA was engaged in the annual autumn sesshin or meditation retreat. So there were no cookies on Thursday night. However, on Saturday night we had a ceremony in the Zendo called Honsaku Gyocha, for which I made these cookies. The sesshin marks the end of a year of training for the Head Trainee at the Center. For the final six months of her training period, she works on a koan, and on the final day of the retreat she presents the koan, gives a talk on it, and then challenges those present to test her understanding in a ritual called Dharma Combat. Very dramatic and beautiful. That all occurred on Sunday morning, but on Saturday night, the night before, we have Honsaku Gyocha, which is a ceremony where the koan is presented, the abbot gives a few remarks, and then everyone has tea and a cookie. I was asked to make the cookies. In the end, since I was doing the sesshin, it proved a bit of a challenge time-wise, but Andrew jumped in and helped immeasurably by making the cookie dough on Friday afternoon. I baked the cookies late Friday night, was back in the Zendo at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, and iced them later on Saturday. Because the kitchen was full of people prepping for the lunch and dinner for the retreat participants, I iced in the library. The cookies and icing had a very intense maple flavor, and it lingered on long afterwards!

Anyway, this is a wonderful autumn cookie. It incarnates maple. There is a large amount of maple sugar and maple flavor in the cookie itself, and then they are iced with an icing that involves both maple syrup and maple flavor (and, of course, cream). Quite sweet, but wonderful. The cookies have a slightly crisp exterior, but a soft, almost cakey interior. The icing is not necessary, but really reinforces the maple flavor - these are a cookie where the flavors in the cooked cookie are significantly toned down from the uncooked dough, so the maple icing has a real function. Without the icing, they reminded me of a kind of maple snickerdoodle. King Arthur Flour is located in Vermont, and they know how to make a maple cookie! Kudos!

For October 15

Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Mary Bergin, Spago Desserts

Maple Walnut Bars, from The King Arthur Flour Baking Company

The chocolate chip cookies are a repeat. This is a nice recipe - very straightforward. This particular recipe calls for the dough to refrigerate for several hours before baking. From what I have been reading, this is now considered a better thing with many cookie recipes because it allows the fat from the butter to fully absorb with the flour. I hand cut the chocolate rather than use chips. I also used a natural brown sugar, which is much more rich and intense than the normal brown sugar, which is really just white sugar that has had molasses added back into it. The recipe calls for baking them a bit longer (apparently Wolfgang Puck likes his cookies crisp) but I shortened it because I prefer a softer, chewier cookie.

The second recipe is another nod to autumn. On the King Arthur Flour web site these are called maple walnut brownies, but that seemed such a misnomer I have changed it. More like blondies, since there is no chocolate to be found in the recipe. These have both maple syrup and maple flavoring in them, but when I baked them the maple flavor was a bit muted. Isn't it interesting how there can be these transformations between how it tastes as a dough versus as a cookie? Anyway, I then amped up the maple in the glaze, so I think that there will be no mistaking the maple aspect as a finished cookie.

It rained here in Los Angeles today - hurrah!

For October 8

Autumn has finally arrived in Los Angeles, hurrah!

This week's cookies:

Applesauce Spice Bars, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours
Cornmeal Thyme Cookies, from Martha Stewart's Cookies.

Both of these are repeats, but not for a while. The applesauce bars are an autumnal nod - they have lots of applesauce, raisins, chopped apples, pecans and spices, and are topped with a light brown sugar glaze. If you ate these anytime other than in the fall, your brain would have so much cognitive dissonance you would either go into shock or have an enlightenment experience. I'm afraid to see which it would be.

People have really enjoyed the cornmeal thyme cookies. They are a very interesting cookie, because they are quite simple and the flavors of the cornmeal, thyme and currants come through strongly. (There is not even any vanilla in them.) I am a bit ambivalent about them myself, because I often find the coarse cornmeal somewhat irritating. This time, I used 1/2 of the amount of cornmeal and then used corn flour - a very finely ground cornmeal - for the other half. This gives a more delicate consistency to the cookies, but they retain their flavor. Anyway, we'll see....

Roshi just emailed to say that I would have competition from her home grown watermelon. Harrumph. My applesauce bars sneer at her watermelon - respectfully, and bowing, of course, but sneer just the same.

As for the movie last week (benefit screening of Where The Wild Things Are), wow.

LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!!!!!

Publish Post

For October 1

Two recipes from an old source this week:

Chocolate Mint Snaps

Rosemary Pine Nut Currant Biscotti

both from/adapted from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

I won't be at the Center on Thursday, because Andrew and I are going to see a fundraiser screening of the new movie Where The Wild Things Are. I am looking forward to it a lot, but I am sorry I won't be able to hear Sensei Ryodo's talk. Happily it will at least be recorded!

Anyway, busy week this week, since Tuesday was my birthday and there was no baking that night. So a busy baking night tonight. For some reason I had it in my head that I wanted to do something with rosemary (I swear I had this idea before we had rosemary cookies at Pizzeria Mozza last night, really) so I have adapted a biscotti recipe that called for fennel and replaced it with rosemary. I think it is a subtle flavor, but Andrew's response to that was that it was subtle just like as if you were gnawing on a branch of rosemary. Ha ha. Anyway, it is an interesting flavor addition to the biscotti - I think it works.

I also for some reason think that the mint in the chocolate mint snaps is rather understated. I think Andrew actually snorted in response. Oh, well, maybe my taste buds are not working tonight. Anyway, I was amazed when I found this recipe tonight, since Andrew is a huge chocolate-mint fan, and I had no idea that I had not made all the chocolate mint recipes that were in this book. But noooo, at least one remained. ("No," said Yoda, "There is another." But I digress.) Anyway, these are a very thin, crisp cookie. They are really nice - they do cry out for a glass of milk, though. I don't know if tea will do. Oh, dear - but what do I care, I won't be there, anyway. Ha ha!

OK, it is midnight, and I am obviously overtired. Night night!

For September 24

Oh yeah, that was two days ago! Oops.

So Andy was out of town from Wed. through today, and I had a big brief due on Friday, so it has been a bit hectic. So I did do the baking, but the blogging has been delayed. But here it is, Saturday night, and I am lying in bed typing on a computer. Something is very, very wrong.

OK, anyway, on to this week's recipes:

Salt and Black Pepper Cocoa Shortbread Cookies

Bi-rownies (aka Chipster Topped Brownies)

Both from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours

Who knew there were still a few cookie recipes that I hadn't made out of this cookbook of Dorie's, but here are two of them. These are very different recipes - the shortbread cookies are very delicate, and the salt and pepper cut the sugar quite effectively. The bi-rownies are just a bomb of chocolate and sugar.

Speaking of bombs - I had a bit of a problem making the shortbread cookies, and the next morning Andrew said it looked like a chocolate bomb had gone off in our kitchen. (Sheepish grin.) These were a bit more of a challenge than I was expecting. This is a recipe where you make your dough, then you collect it into a cylinder, and then refrigerate it for a few hours or more before slicing and baking. Well, I don't know if it was because of the heat spell we've been having or what, but when this dough was made, it was waaaaay too soft to form into a cylinder to refrigerate. I tried. (Chocolate bomb.) Anyway, so I just threw the bowl into the refrigerator, and went to bed. The next morning, I had a meeting downtown, so I got up extra early and marched into the kitchen for round 2 with this dough. I took it out of the refrigerator and eventually managed to form the cylinders from the now very hard dough. But this dough has a very high amount of butter in it, so that when you handle it, the outer parts soften up very quickly. So here I was, breaking portions of the hard dough off and then trying to form it into cylinders, but while the interior is this hard lump, the exterior was quickly softening up to goop. (Chocolate bomb #2.) Anyway, with a lot of chocolate on my hands (and other places), I finally managed to make my cylinders and shove it back into the refrigerator to firm up again. It ends up being a wonderful cookie - very delicate, and very sophisticated. Was it worth it? I'll try it again in the dead of winter and we'll see how that turns out....

The other recipe was one that I had seen and thought about a lot, because it is so decadent. Dorie's name for it is "chipster topped brownies" but I am not in love with the name. So I have rechristened them bi-rownies. Here's the deal. First, you make a brownie batter with walnuts, and spread it in a 9x13 pan. Then, you make a chocolate chip cookie (i.e., blondie) dough, and you cover the brownie matter with it and then bake it. So it is both a blondie and a brownie in one - hence my bi-rownie. Nothing particularly subtle about this recipe, just pure deliciousness.

OK, enough about last week. Now, on to next week....

Actually, next week I will be baking, but I won't be at the Center on Thursday. Andrew and I are going instead to a benefit screening of the new movie "Where The Wild Things Are" and then a party afterwards. I am excited to see the movie, and really looking forward to this event. But somehow we'll still figure out a way to get the cookies to those in need...

Take good care.

For September 17

Back from Tassajara! Sigh. We had some good food, and good desserts and cookies (and one that falls in the "really?" category, but never mind about that...) Anyway, this Thursday, David Green will be receiving jukai on Thursday night, so our usual schedule is set aside - except for the tea and cookies (uh, sweets) part. And tonight one of our members is giving a recital at USC, so I had to do all my baking last night, which explains why this is being written at 11:50 a.m. rather than 11:50 p.m. Anyway, enough chatter, here is this week's lineup:

Sugar Cookies, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My House to Yours
Almond Cake, from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert

I am not sure I have, from the beginning, made a cookie that was simply called a sugar cookie. And I have been feeling recently like I have neglected them and wanted to make some. So here is a simple sugar cookie. Well, since I had a lemon on hand, I did grate the zest and add it to the sugar to give it a subtle lemon flavor, but it was 1 lemon for around 85 cookies, so it is just there in the background. These are a simple cookie - a bit on the crunch side, not soft and chewy (I'll have to do those next, since that is my preference). For those who like simple sugar cookies, this one is a nice recipe.

The cake is a change of pace. This cake has been whispering to me since I bought this cookbook last year. There is a photo of it that is so beautiful....it just says "make me!" Since we are celebrating a jukai this week, I decided to take the plunge and make it. This is an intense cake, not a light and fluffy cake like the birthday cake of our childhood. This is like a torte - rather flat and just packed with almond flavor. This variation on the recipe involves a crunchy almond crust - this is spread on the bottom of the pan and, after the cake is baked, the pan is inverted and removed - leading to a moment of terror as it is inverted and the question of whether the cake is going to come out cleanly hangs there. This time, the cakes came out fairly cleanly. Phew!

For September 10

Andrew and I will be out of town again this week - going to Tassajara for the last weekend of guest season, which is an old tradition for us by now - so there has been a lot of busy baking in advance, amid a week where Andrew has been sick and I have been super busy at work. Anyway, here is this week's line-up:

Hazelnut whole wheat sables

New bittersweet brownies

both from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert

I think that both of these are probably repeats at this point, but they are worth doing again. As I have said before, the cookbook these come from, Pure Dessert, is a wonderful book. The idea of the book is to pare back all the extra flavors and ingredients in desserts to allow intense flavors to shine through. So the recipes tend to have limited numbers of ingredients, and as a result they really do have an intensity of flavor that is great - very "Zen" baking!

The brownies are intense - two-thirds 70% Scharffen Berger chocolate mixed with one-third 66% Valrhona. In the basic recipe, it calls for 8 oz of chocolate and only 1.2 oz of flour, so while not flourless brownies, the flour is there just to hold it together. (With so little flour, do these qualify as low-carb? Probably not.) There are just 7 ingredients in this recipe, including the salt and vanilla. No nuts to get in the way of the chocolate. Very intense.

The sables are a contrast. These are a type of butter cookie. The focus here in on some earthiness, with whole wheat flour and roasted hazelnuts providing the flavor profile. Again, only 7 ingredients, including the salt and vanilla. Alice Medrich's sable recipes are just amazing, and these fully live up to those I have made before.

Enjoy!

For August 27

Back from Hawaii! Andrew and I were gone for 10 days on vacation. Now back. Sigh. A very hard landing on return. Anyway, amid the 100-degree heat, I was in the kitchen baking last night, and here are the items I made:

Cranberry Oatmeal Bars, from Nick Malgieri
Macademia Shortbread Brownies, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet

Both bar-type cookies this week - I didn't get home until 8 p.m. last night, and we still haven't unpacked from our trip, which called for relatively simple recipes this week. The cranberry oatmeal bars are what they sound like - lots of oats, with some cranberries and pecans. The sweetness comes from a combination of dark brown sugar and unsweetened applesauce. Not much fat in these at all. While it is in the high 90s here today, these are clearing the way out for fall to arrive (please!).

The brownie recipe is rather interesting. First, you make a shortbread layer at the bottom of your pan, and add nuts to it - in this case, macadamia nuts, in a nod to the recent trip to Hawaii. After that bakes, you add pour a brownie batter on top, and then bake it again. So it ends up being a brownie on top of a thin macadamia shortbread crust. I made this recipe some time ago, except I used hazelnuts instead of macadamia nuts. There are also two different brownie recipes you can use for the brownie layer; I used the "Best Cocoa Brownies" recipe, which I made recently and was well received. This is a nice contrast of the intense, fudgy brownie atop the shortbread crust, with the macadamia adding an almost ethereal element to the mix.

Next week, the Center is on recess, so we will be taking the week off. However, I just received two dessert cookbooks from Flo Braker in the mail yesterday, so I will use the time off to peruse and plan...

Oh, and I have been doing the "blog" thing now for a year!!! Wow! Happy Birthday to me!

For August 13

Two interesting recipes this week, both involving almonds:

Lemony Almond Bars, from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Chocolate Spice Quickies, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours

This is the second week in a row I am doing a chocolate cookie recipe from Dorie Greenspan. In terms of technique, these are rather similar to the World Peace Cookies that I did last week, but they are also quite different in result. Here, the cookies are a bit softer, and have a slightly elusive quality. They have both allspice and ground almonds in them, which is probably why. Dorie calls them quickies, and they are and aren't - they are because this is a fairly quick dough to make, and they aren't because the dough then needs to be refrigerated for at least 4 hours before slicing and baking. I like these a lot, and I think they are a bit more complex than the World Peace Cookies (I just asked Andrew, who says it is a close call but thinks the World Peace Cookies edge these out; so much for world peace).

The lemony almond bars are unusual. They won't win any awards for looks, but they are really good. Lemon and almond are not a natural flavor combination, but here it works nicely. These bars involve three steps. First, you make a crust layer, which you bake. While it is baking, you make a topping layer, which is basically eggs, brown sugar and almonds. Put the topping on, bake for 20 minutes. While that is baking, you make a glaze, which involves fresh lemon juice, lemon zest and powdered sugar; when the bars come out of the oven, while still hot you pour the glaze over them, and the glaze is absorbed into the bars. As I said, these are very plain bars, but that makes the big lemon flavor a real surprise. These are a really nice, interesting bar. As far as I know, I haven't made either of these recipes before, and both are good, solid recipes.

Andrew and I leave on vacation on Saturday, so no cookies from us next week - we will be playing in Hawaii for 10 days. But we'll be back for the 27th!

Dharma-Joy