Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!  I'll see you again after January 1st :-)

Cranberry-Chocolate Cookies

Using my recipe for Lemon-Macadamia Nut Cookies as a start, I worked up a way to make our Cranberry-White Chocolate Cookies a bit softer and chewier.  I love what the cream cheese does to the base of these cookies.  Both recipes are good, but personally I like this one a bit more than our old standby.

I used dark chocolate chips for this batch, but you could use white or milk if you'd prefer.  White chocolate with cranberries is a really good mix.
 

Cranberry-Chocolate Cookies
(makes about 3 dozen)

2 c flour
1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt 
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c butter, soft
4 oz cream cheese, soft
1 egg
1 1/2 t almond extract
1 c chocolate chips, white, dark, or milk
1/2 c dried cranberries

Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.  Preheat oven to 300.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour through the salt.  In a large bowl, mix together the sugars, and then beat in the butter and cream cheese until thoroughly combined.  Add the egg and extract, and beat until all ingredients are smoothly combined.  Add the flour mixture, chips, and cranberries.  Blend together with a wooden spoon until just combined.

Using a 1-1/2 inch scoop, dip out portions that are not completely rounded.  Drop onto cookie sheets, about 12 per sheet.  Flatten the balls and bake for about 20 minutes, turning the sheets half way through.  Remove immediately to a cooling rack.

Butternut-cider squash soup

I love adding butternut squash to many different stews and soups that I routinely make during the late fall and winter, and several of our favorite recipes feature it very prominently, so why would we need yet another?  Because this one is like no other!  The recipe for Cider-Infused Butternut Squash Soup comes from Hannaford's Fresh magazine, and the only change I made was to use some of my own vegetable stock rather than water plus boullion.

Our other two favorite squash /soup stew recipes are these:
Simple Butternut Squash Soup
Beef and Squash Stew

Be very careful how you word things...

Pumpkin blondies

These autumn-inspired blondies were a bit too gooey for me, even though I baked them longer than the recipe called for.  Everyone else loved them, though, so what do I know?  I guess I'm just one of those people who prefers blondies and brownies that are a little cakier  :-)  See Pumpkin Brownies with Pecans at Baking Bites.

Cauliflower soup

Back when I very first started cooking for myself, I was a vegetarian and was totally in love with creamy vegetable soups.  Most of the time all I did was steam the vegetables soft and then process them with some water or veggie broth and add milk.  It was bland, but I didn't know any different.

Then I learned about browning things in just a bit of fat.  What a revelation!  Even though most of my other vegetable soups got markedly better, I could never quite get the hang of making a really good Cauliflower Soup.  I didn't like browning the veggies...the soup would end up nut brown and too sulfurous.  So I finally just set my dream aside.

Until the September issue of Cook's Illustrated.  It seems that the trick with cauliflower is to cook it in two batches, one for 30 minutes and the other for 15.  The 15 minute batch has the cabbagey sulfurous taste, and the 30 minute batch is mellow, nutty, and sweet.  Too much longer and all taste is lost.  Who knew?  And don't bother to brown it either...just add it to (also unbrowned) leeks and onions along with the water.  Give it a whirl with an immersion blender at the end and skip the milk.

Your best pal