Ameretti Cookies

Ever since we recently had our Jura Espresso Machine serviced, we have been indulging in an espresso after lunch. We stock our coffee maker with decaffeinated espresso coffee beans so we’re not worried about being kept up at night with caffeine. Every time I have an espresso in the afternoon, I always feel like a little something to have with it, a biscotti (like this, this or this) or in most recent times, an amaretti cookie. Having just the right amount of ground almonds on hand, I decided to whip up these traditional but super easy cookies for our afternoon espresso.

Did you know that the first amaretti were made with crushed apricot kernels and almonds? You can read the story here.

They are deliciously almondy.

Amaretti Cookies

Original recipe may be found here, I had to modify it because the cookies were flattening too much with the original proportions.

Makes about 44 cookies

Ingredients

• 410 g ground almonds
• 410 g granulated sugar
• 4 egg whites
• 1 tsp almond flavouring
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 44 whole almonds, skin on

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 325° F  (163° C).
2. In small portions, add the ground almonds, granulated sugar and lemon zest to the small container of your NutriBullet and using your milling blade, grind to a fine consistency. Run through a coarse sieve to avoid the almond bits sticking together.
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry, add the almond flavouring and mix well.
4. Add the sugar and almond mixture to the beaten egg whites and gently combine. It should have the consistency of a thick paste.
5. Spoon by generous teaspoons onto a parchment-lined baking sheet about 5 cm (2 inches) apart and top each cookie with a whole almond, pressed gently into it. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool slightly on the sheet and gently remove to a wire cooling rack. Store in an air-tight container separating rows with parchment paper. Or freeze.

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Lemony Sandwich Cookies

 

Recently we travelled to Arizona to visit our very dear friends Paul and T at their new home where they plan to spend the winter every year. I always like to arrive with a little thoughtful, but useful gift. Of course, folks our age have everything we could ever want, and if we don’t, we simply go out and get it. So buying a gift for their new home is becoming increasingly more difficult so I usually default to baking. After all, who doesn’t love home baked goods?

Our national grocery chain Loblaws’ private label brand PC (President’s Choice) has many great products in their lineup (you may be familiar with PC Chocolate Chip Cookies — I know that particular product was distributed nationwide in the U.S. Did they capture the market in the UK, Europe and Australia too?) and one particularly wonderful product was a Lemon Sandwich Cookie. Sadly this cookie has not been available for some time now (years, really) and our dear friend Paul LOVES them. Like, he really, really LOVES them. What set this cookie apart was its strong lemony flavour, in both the sugar biscuit and the creamy butter icing, sandwiched in the middle.

My usual MO is to make a couple of baked goods that are favourites below the 49th, but just like my Christmas baking, this list can get out of control over time. Cue JT to roll his eyes.

Now this one came about quite innocently, at least, to me it did (but then again, I can justify virtually anything!). You see, I was at Dollarama, picking up a few little things (never food) and I spotted the Wilton Sandwich Cookie Pan. Oh dear.

• I did not go over and touch it.
• I did not stop to look at it.
• I did not even spend more than a split second thinking about it.
• I simply passed by it and went on my merry way.

Of course, the memory of this specialty cookie pan tucked itself into a far corner of my brain, only to exert itself in the wee hours of the night as I was desperately trying to sleep. By the morning, I had already decided to go back and purchase one. They were only $3 so I got two and that way I could bake in tandem, my logic is that it uses less electricity if I could have a tray ready to go in the oven when the other comes out. You see? That’s justification! Cue JT to roll his eyes, again. But in all honesty, $3 is really quite reasonable for a quality Wilton product, particularly when it’s on their website for $8.99!
I used the Wilton recipe for the cookie that is on the packaging because I figured it must be tried and true and, for the most part, it worked out well. The only thing I would suggest is to add a bit of lemon zest to the cookie dough and not spray the pan with non-stick spray because the pan is already non-stick and I had no issues with the cookies releasing easily.

 

Makes 24 sandwich cookies.

Lemon Sandwich Sugar biscuit ingredients:

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp natural lemon extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/3 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
• a very small bit of yellow gel food colouring (optional)

Lemon Butter Cream Ingredients:

• 94 g butter, room temperature
• 360 g icing sugar
• 2 tsp natural lemon extract
• 3 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 lemons, freshly grated zest
• a very small bit of yellow gel food colouring (optional)

Lemon Cookie Batter Directions:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the oil and egg and beat until combined.
2. Add the extracts, sugar and salt and beat for 1 minute.
3. Add the flour a bit at a time, beating well to incorporate.
4. Add the colouring a bit at a time until the desired colour is achieved.
5. Create little round balls about 8 grams or 1/2 teaspoon each and put into the centre of each form (no need to spray with non-stick spray), press down evenly (I used a press like this cookie stamp without the silicon bit, make sure you press the bottom into flour first! You could also use an espresso tamper).
6. Bake for 9 minutes or until no longer soft in the centre but not beginning to brown. Allow cookies to cool in the pan for a few minutes then gently coax out. Cool cookies completely before filling.

Lemon Butter Cream Filling Directions:

1. Beat the butter until fluffy. Add the icing sugar a little each time, beating well.
2. About half-way through the sugar, add the flavouring and lemon zest.
3. Continue to add the sugar and beat until a desired consistency is achieved.
4. Freeze unused buttercream in an airtight container. To use, defrost in the refrigerator. When ready to use, whip for a few minutes to ensure it is consistent.

Assembly:

1. Using a Wilton #12 tip, fill a piping bag with the creamy filling and pipe onto one cookie at a time about half-way to the edge. Place a similarly sized cookie on top and gently squeeze. Repeat until you have 24 sandwiched cookies. In the unlikely occurrence that they are not consumed in one sitting, store in an airtight container for a day or two, or freeze for longer periods of storage. Frozen cookies have been known to be consumed quite happily, we’re not picky!!!

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Unfried Potato Chips (Crisps)

A crispy unfried chip

Did I just hear you loudly gasp an incredulous “WHAT?” Yes indeed dear reader, that post title is correct and the unthinkable has happened: potato chips (or crisps, depending on which side of the pond you reside) that are not deep fried. And they are delicious!

I first saw vegetable chips on my friend Kelly’s blog over at Inspired Edibles, she’s a Dietician who posts incredible and tasty recipes. Kelly’s chips were gorgeous but sadly mine did not work out, perhaps they were just too thick and they shrunk so much I hardly had a chip left, so we didn’t pursue them. And then almost rubbing salt in the wound, Charles over at Five Euro Foods made a wonderful batch here. I thought all had been lost but recently I was at  a Winners (TJ-Max for our American brothers and sisters) and spotted this cool gizmo for less than $10, so I got it thinking it would make great chips…

The first batch turned out OK but the chips stuck together (couldn’t be helped because of the size of the device); then it got a bit worse which only made it a challenge to figure out how I could get perfectly unfried chips just like the photos on the package. And after about an hour of experimentation it got a lot worse: my microwave shut down…for good. Yup, I killed it! In all fairness it was older than most of my lovely readers so it owed me nothing, but my $6.99 potato chip maker now ended up costing a whopping $145! Don’t you hate it when that happens? Lesson learned. Or maybe not.

Fast forward a week later we purchased our third microwave of our lives and I’m back at it making chips to take to the cottage (no mw up there). This time I let the microwave sit between ‘bakings’ to cool down. The result? Perfectly unfried potato chips.

Note about the Joie Healthy-Microwave Potato Chip Cooker: I purchased this product after reading a few reviews I instantly googled on my iPhone. Even though it was only $6.99 I hate throwing money away and the google reviews were not bad, in fact they were more good than bad so I decided to purchase it. I should have realized that I was simply trying to justify the purchase and we all know that you can literally justify any purchase you want to make (logical or not) and so my new found wisdom I must tell you it’s just not worth it!

Here is my complete review: It comes in 4 pieces, a bowl, a mandolin top, a hand protector and a cooking rack; it’s plastic but reasonably well made. You remove the cooking rack and replace the mandolin top to make the cutter. The mandolin does cut thinner slices than my regular mandolin (you really need less than 0.5 mm or 1/16″ thick) but there is a design flaw in that the blade is too close to the edge and the slices end up cramming at one end (solution: open and remove potato slices frequently). All in all you really don’t need this gizmo, just a super thin slicer and some paper towel!

Deliciously thin and crispy. They even look like they’ve been deep fried. But they haven’t!

 

5-6 people, allowing about  1/2 potato per serving

Ingredients:

• 2 good size white or red skin potatoes (large diameter)
• 3 tbsp sea salt (more if you prefer a saltier chip)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (to prevent oxidation)
• 2-3 L very cold water for soaking

Directions:

1. Wash potatoes skins well. 
2. Dissolve the sea salt in very cold water (I used an immersion blender to help dissolve the salt in 1 cup of hot water). Pour into a large bowl of very cold water, add lemon juice and stir.
3. Working on 1 potato at a time, cut 1 potato in half diagonally; using a wafer thin mandolin slicer, slice from the cut end of each potato tossing the cut slices into the cold salt water bath and allow to sit for 2-4 minutes.
4. Remove slices from water and lay in one in a single layer on a clean linen cloth (allow to sit for 15 minutes if you have time).
5. You may spray with some good quality EVOO or leave them plain like I did. 
6. Lay two layers of clean, unprinted paper towel in the microwave and layer potato slices on the paper towel so they do not touch each other. Microwave on 100% for 2 minutes or until some get a bit of colour. Open the microwave door and allow the hot humid air at escape for 1-2 minutes (and the machine to cool down). Then cook for an additional minute on high, watching carefully as they burn quite easily. I found the slices I placed in the centre of the turntable cooked faster than the outside slices so I moved my larger slices into the centre. The slices will continue to cook a little after you remove them so don’t worry if they are a wee bit wobbly, but they shouldn’t be overly wobbly.
7. Remove from paper towel and cool completely before putting into an air-tight container. Repeat slicing, soaking, drying and cooking until all slices are used up.
8. When totally cool, store chips in a air tight container.
9. Serve with your favourite home made dip.

Chip tower

 

 

Chip tower down. Mayday. Mayday.

 

Notes:

• We bought the Panasonic NNST652W Mid-Size Inverter® Microwave Oven from Walmart for $119 (white because it sits in a cupboard so I didn’t care if it was stainless ($179)).
• Microwave ovens cook food by exciting water and sugar molecules within the food with high frequency electromagnetic waves. The only power setting on a microwave is high, therefore to achieve lower settings the microwave pulses these waves intermittently. That’s why the power setting is described as a percentage and not a temperature; 50% means it’s pulsing 50% of the full pulse rate! An Inverter Modulates the power so it delivers a steady stream of power at the percentage required, thereby being able to cook food more evenly. If you want to read a good article on our microwave, click here

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Cheez-what-itz? A delicious recipe from Ann

We’re winding down at work, but just getting started for the holidays. Our plans to spend a few days away in New York fell through; but we’ve decided to do something we’ve not done before, we will be sampling a different restaurant every day, and I’ll be blogging about it. We will alternate with Lunch and Dinner each day — I’m actually very excited about it. Plus one day I’m going to treck out to Gilda’s a huge kitchen store in Mississauga (like a kid in a candy store).

My blogging buddy Ann at Cooking Healthy for me posted this recipe the other day and as soon as I read it, I knew it was for me! I could not resist the cheesiness that she expounded. It was like cheese on steroids, super cheese, super duper cheese…well, you get the gist!

Since I wasn’t familiar with the brand that I’m sure she was duplicating, I decided to make my crackers out of scalloped rounds and squares. They shrunk quite a bit but it didn’t bother me because they sure are cheesy (started out about 1.25″ and ended about the size of a gold fish, yes that other cheesy goodness). Although they have no egg or any kind of leavening, they puff up quite a bit, and they don’t fall back down! Other than making sure you don’t overbake them, you really need not worry about them … well, with the exception of  “evaporation” (you know, the same “evaporation” that affected my block chocolate?)

I can only say, THANK YOU Ann. I am definitely adding this recipe to my appetizer/snack repertoire. They are sure to be a family favourite for years to come. Cheez-itz Recipe.

Crispy and cheesy

If you get a chance, check out Katherine’s recipe at Rufus’ Food and Spirit, she whipped up an amazing peppercorn martini that would be divine with these little bites.

OMG! Who invited him? Not me that's for sure.

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