I love shortbread.  Dad always enjoyed butter cookies, especially during Christmas, so perhaps my love of shortbread is thanks to him.   I found this recipe for “Elfin Shortbread Bites” in the “Holiday Treats & Gifts” section of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook a few Christmases ago.  I made the little bites for Christmas gifts that year, and everyone enjoyed them.  Since then I’ve used the recipe to make shortbread cookies as well.  It’s less labor intensive to make larger shortbread cookies, but it’s fun to eat the the bite-sized ones – they’re so addicting!

Elfin Shortbread Bites

• 1 ¼ c. all-purpose flour
• 3 T sugar
• ½ c. butter
• 2 T colored sprinkles (optional, but lots of fun!)

In a medium bowl stir together flour and sugar.  using a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs and starts to cling.  Stir in sprinkles.  Form mixture into a ball and knead until smooth.

Roll or pat dough on an ungreased cookie sheet into an 8×5-inch rectangle.  Cut into ½-inch squares.  Separate the squares on the cookie sheet. (I rolled mine out on the counter, cut, and transferred them to the cookie sheet; it was easier to roll them out and I didn’t have to worry about the knife leaving marks on the cookie sheet.)

Bake at 325º for 12-14 minutes or until the bottoms just start to brown.  Transfer cookies to wire racks covered with waxed paper and let cool.

I recently found a wonderful granola bar recipe.  We’ve enjoyed loose granola quite a lot recently and have found room in our hearts to embrace some delicious homemade granola bars too.

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and we’ve shared some of our granola bars with several people now and they’ve been thoroughly enjoyed by all.  (I used her suggestion, and took some with us recently when were were house guests)

Both times I’ve made these, I doubled the recipe, and I’ve found that they hold together the best when the entire doubled recipe is baked in a 9×13 dish.

Granola Bars

Makes 12 to 16 granola bars

• (4) 2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
• ( 2) 1 cup sliced almonds
• ( 2) 1 cup shredded coconut, loosely packed (I used unsweetened)
  • I already had sweetened coconut, so that’s what I used, but I think it would be better with unsweetened coconut; it seemed a little too sweet for my taste.
• (1) 1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
• (1 1/3) 2/3 cup honey
• (3) 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (my teaspoons were a little overflowing)
• (1/2) 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• (2) 1 1/2 cup dried fruit, or a mix of dried fruit (I used chopped apricots, cranberries and raisins) (I know 2 is not 1 1/2 doubled, but the first time I put in three cups, the granola was very sweet and didn’t hold together at all.  The second time, I put in less fruit and the bars held together and it was still plenty sweet for us.)
• (2) 1 tablespoon flax seed (this wasn’t in the recipe, but since it’s so good for you, I threw in a little more than two tablespoons of flax seed for a doubled recipe.)
  

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Butter an 8×12-inch baking dish (lacking this, I used a 9×13-inch) and line it with parchment paper. (I didn’t have parchment paper, so I just used a buttered dish and it worked fine.)

Toss the oatmeal, almonds, and coconut together on a sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. (Both times it took closer to 20-30 minutes in our oven.) Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the wheat germ. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F.

While the mixture is still warm, stir in the honey, vanilla and salt until the mixture is well coated, then the dried fruit. Pour the mixture into your prepared baking dish and press, press, press it in (wet fingers and/or a silicon spatula work great for this) until the mixture is packed as tightly as possible.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool for 2 to 3 hours (I let it sit overnight) before cutting into squares — your best serrated knife is great for this.

You can store these in an airtight container at room temperature for a week or two, as you would cookies, however, I prefer to store mine in the freezer. I find that they stay the most crisp this way as all granola tends to soften at room temperature after a day or more.

Smitten Kitchen did not include 1/4 cup brown sugar (not needed at all, in our opinion) and 3 tablespoons of melted butter, which were in the original recipe that she was using.

I found this recipe for granola on a friend’s blog, thank you!  I made a great big double-batch of this in the spring, April maybe, and we’ve been enjoying it every since.  But we’re running low and soon we’ll be in need of more.  Hopefully in the next week or two I can make another batch.  I also want to give these granola bars a try too.

Granola

8 c. rolled oats
4 c. nuts or seeds (We used almonds, some chopped some whole, and sunflower seeds)
3/4 c. honey
1/4 c. oil
cinnamon and vanilla

Mix above ingredients in a large bowl (warm the honey and oil in the microwave first). Spread evenly on a cookie sheet and bake for 30-45 minutes at 325, checking/stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from oven when golden brown. While still warm, stir in:

1 c. dried fruit (We just did dried cranberries, but I’d like to try raisins and apricots too)

This is another recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks! She also has it here, on her new recipes sharing website, Tasty Kitchen.  These noodles were easy to make, we had everything on hand, and they were very tasty; Z had seconds or thirds?  I don’t remember exactly.  I think these may become a regular “quick, cheap dinner” around here.  Those recipes are always good to keep on hand.

Simple Sesame Noodles

12 ounces thin noodles, cooked and drained (angel hair, thin spaghetti, or Asian style) (Next time I think I’ll just cook the full 17 oz. package of spaghetti; it seemed like there would have been enough dressing or the dressing could have easily been increased a little if needed)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 to 3 tablespoons pure sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon hot chile oil (more to taste) (omitted)
4 to 5 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons hot water
3 to 4 green onions, sliced thin

Whisk all ingredients (except noodles and green onions) together in a bowl. Taste and adjust ingredients as needed.
Pour sauce over warm noodles and toss to coat.
Sprinkle with green onions and toss.
Serve in a bowl with chopsticks. Yummy!

Thank you, Pioneer Woman, for another great recipe!

It’s been hot this week, and we live above a garage – without air conditioning.  At 4pm today it was 90º inside, and today’s a cooler than it has been for a while.  SO, we’ve not only been eating outside, but only cooking meals that can be “cooked” on the grill because the last thing we want to do right now is use the stove.  And the oven?  Since our apartment spends most of the day being an oven, we can hardly even imagine turning the actual oven on – but when I do imagine it, the picture I see is the paint actually melting off our walls.

This weekend we found a delicious way to make pizza using the grill (we also found a definite way not to make pizza on the grill, but that’s another, much sadder, story.)  I got the idea here.  For the dough, I used my artisan bread dough, with a little whole wheat flour.  I’ll share my pizza since Z’s pizza involves the sadder story already mentioned.

• I put some olive oil in the bottom of a disposable cake pan, just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan.
• I broke off ½ pound of the dough and rolled it out to fit in the pan.
• Once the dough was in the pan,  I spread some crushed garlic over the dough, and then started in on my toppings:
  • basil leaves, grown on our patio
  • chopped prosciutto
  • sliced kalamata olives (made one with and one without, both were good)
  • slices of fresh tomato
  • topped with Brie goat cheese from Trader Joe’s – yummy and lactose-intolerant-friendly.
• Then I drizzled the top with olive oil and let it sit in the hot apartment for 20-30 minutes

Our grill gets very hot, changing the setting from “high” to “low” doesn’t seem to effect the flame at all – it’s just hot everywhere these days.  So I didn’t pre-heat our grill much before sliding the pie pan right onto the grill.  Even though it was set on low, it cooked in about 15 minutes.   And when I slid it out of the pan, I had a deep-dish-focaccia-style pizza.  One edge was a little blackened on the bottom, so next time I’m going to try to turn the pan once or twice while it’s cooking.  I’d also like to try the olive oil dough recipe the next time around.

It was a delicious pizza, and we’re happy that we don’t have to give up our weekly pizza because of the heat. Yay!

This delicious salad recipe is from a church cookbook that has been misplaced.  Thankfully we gave some of our favorite recipes to my sister and her husband when they got married, and she was sweet enough to e-mail it to me with the kind suggestion that maybe I should just put it on my blog.  Smart girl.
Curried Chicken Salad

My aunt Nancy found this recipe, passed it on to my mom, and she passed it on to me.  It’s so easy, can be made ahead and easily kept warm until it’s time to eat.  I recently made it for a church lunch, and we ran out people liked it so much!
Mexican Chili

Last night we tried a new recipe that’s going to be perfect for summer.  I found this Chickpea Salad recipe at Noodle Nights and Muffin Mornings. This was quick, easy, affordable, and wonderfully delicious, especially for someone who loves that fresh garlic-fresh lemon zing!  It reminded us of the curried hummus we frequently enjoy.  We had it on Trader Joe’s garlic naan bread, with fresh corn on the side.  Fresh, uncooked, white corn from the farmer’s market.  Mom encouraged us recently to give “raw” fresh corn a try – two thumbs up.  Yummy and so much easier to get ready.

Since we live in a tiny studio above a garage without air conditioning, Z has been planning meals (he took over meal planning for the summer) that involve no cooking or grill cooking so that when we get home and it’s between 94º and 107º inside we can grab the stuff we need for dinner and head outside to the patio for the evening.  So this chickpea salad recipe is perfect for the summer.

Chickpea Salad:

• 1 can chickpeas, drained and washed
• 1 clove garlic, pressed, minced or grated
• 1 1/2-2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/3 cup kalamata olives, coarsely chopped (I would put in a little more next time, I love kalamata olives!)
• 1/3 cup roasted red peppers, chopped (omitted)
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 1/2 tsp. lemon zest(zest of 1/2 medium-sized lemon)
• 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped

Pour washed chickpeas in a medium bowl and add or grate garlic into bowl.

Add 1 1/2 tbsp. of olive oil and using a potato masher, coarsely mash chickpeas (do not over mash- you want a coarse chop as opposed to a paste.)

Add kalamata olives, roasted peppers, lemon juice, zest and parsley. Mix to combine, adding more olive oil if needed.

Let rest for a few minutes before serving to let the flavors blend.

Serve cold or at room temperature on crusty bread, crackers or as is.

Can be stored in the refrigerator in tightly sealed container for two days.

Late birthday present from my sister:

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

This is the book that the Artisan Bread recipe I posted earlier came from.  I’m looking forward to trying more of the recipes!

I’ve joined the artisan bread bandwagon, kind of.  Back in January I started reading about a cookbook, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  Since then it’s been on my Amazon wish list.  In February I found this blog.  She has a version of artisan bread that I’ve had a lot of success with.  In fact, we can no longer get together with Z’s family for a meal without bringing this bread.  I love this bread recipe and we make it a lot, but there’s still a special place in my heart for Jackie’s French Bread.  Of all the thinks I bake and cook, bread is my favorite.  I genuinely enjoy the process of making bread – kneading warm bread dough is so relaxing.  And I love eating bread, so  the work is always worth the results.

• 3 cups of warm water (110º-115º)
• 1½  tablespoons of yeast
• 1½ tablespoons of salt
• 6½ cups of flour. (She said that she uses 1 cup of whole wheat flour, 1½ cups of bread flour, and 4 cups of all-purpose.  I’ve made this with just all-purpose and a combination of bread flour and all-purpose.   I would like to try it with whole wheat, but I haven’t yet, maybe next time.)

Mix the ingredients in something with a lid, or in a covered bowl, and put the dough in the fridge overnight.  She says they dough will keep for up to a week or two.   I think I’ve waited a few days to bake the bread, but I haven’t waited two weeks.

When it’s time to bake the bread, pull out all of the dough, or half if you want a smaller loaf. If I’m just making it for Z and myself, I only bake half. Form it into a ball and place it on a floured cutting board (those plastic flexible ones work great) with the smooth side of the ball up.   Cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rise for about 2 hours.

When the bread is almost done rising, put a dutch oven, cast iron pot, or other oven safe pan with a lid into the oven and preheat the oven to 450º.

When you’re ready to bake the bread, remove the preheated pan from the preheated oven and carefully flip the bread into the hot pan. (the smooth side of the dough will now be on the bottom and the uneven side will be on top, but that’s okay – it means a yummy crunchy top!)

Bake the bread in the pot with the lid on for 30 minutes.  Then remove the lid and bake for an additional 20 minutes.  Jackie once told me that any bread is done when the internal temperature is 190º.  So I always take the temperature of my bread, and call it done when it’s 190º and that’s always worked deliciously for me.

When the bread is done, turn it out of the pot and cool on a wire rack.  Slice into it and enjoy.  Z loves his with a little butter, which is good, but I usually just eat it as is, because that’s just so good too.