Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies and milk. It’s the snack we got when we came home from school. My mother, who started to work when I entered the 4th grade, somehow found the time to bake cookies three or four times a week.

There were no other snacks during the day. It’s not as if my parents were depriving us or trying to get us to eat less junk. It’s just the way it was for us, and as far as I knew, for everyone else. When I went to a friend’s house I also got cookies and milk, maybe not homemade cookies but Oreos or sugar wafers, sometimes Vienna Fingers (all three with a goodly amount of white icing).

Today is National Junk Food Day, which a lot of people use as an excuse to eat … a lot of junk. But do we really need to set aside a day to do what so many of us already do?

Btw, it’s not really a national holiday. That takes an act of Congress and, no matter what you think about our government, no one in his or her right mind would propose a national day on which we should eat (and have our children eat) junk.

First Lady Michelle Obama is actually trying to take a critical look at childhood obesity (the Let’s Move campaign). Maybe there’s a way to keep the kids, and ourselves, from getting fatter and fatter.

I say, let’s start by having only one snack a day. I say cookies and milk. How about Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies? Here’s an easy recipe:

Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 cups quick cooking oats

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons (1-1/2 sticks) butter

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup apple juice, orange juice or water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet (or two). Combine the oats, flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. Place the butter, white sugar and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer (or a large bowl) and beat on medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until creamy and well blended (or use a hand mixer). Add the egg, juice and vanilla extract and blend them in thoroughly. Add the oat-flour mixture and blend it in thoroughly. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop the dough (a mounded tablespoon worth)  onto the cookie sheet, leaving room for the cookies to spread. Bake for about 10 minutes or until set and lightly browned. Let cool slightly, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. Makes about 4 dozen

For more about National Junk Food Day see: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/food/article/Healthy-ways-to-celebrate-Junk-Food-Day-577270.php

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Shakshouka - Peppers n' Eggs for Meatless Monday

Just because there’s a Meatless Monday doesn’t mean your only alternative at dinner is a plateful of boring steamed vegetables.

The idea of eating “meatless” for an entire day started in World War 1 and continued through the Second World War as an effort to ration meat to make it available to the troops. Anyone growing up just after WW11 has heard about the ration stamps; my Mom always talked about how difficult it was to get meat back then. But she was a creative and good cook so she’d make macaroni and cheese, spaghetti and tomato sauce, potato omelets and other wonderful dinners when she couldn’t buy meat.

She continued those meals occasionally even through the 1950s and 60s. No one complained. When food tastes good you don’t complain whether there’s meat in it or not. In fact, you don’t miss the meat.

Today we’ve latched onto the Meatless Monday idea as a health matter. Americans typically eat too much meat so giving it up for a day could make us healthier.

Still, for people who love to eat well, the best reason to cook any dish is because it tastes delicious. Try this meatless recipe for Peppers and Eggs. It’s from my book, Hip Kosher. It’s a quickie version of Shakshouka, an Israeli dish that has stewed tomatoes and peppers and then you cook an egg right on top of the vegetables, in the same pan. This dish is spicy, filling and easy to cook. Add a piece of pita or chunk of bread and you’re done with dinner. It could be preceded by cold soup or with a salad.

The recipe calls for zatar as a final seasoning; zatar is a Middle Eastern spice mixture. You can make Shakshouka without it, but zatar is so tasty, why not get a jar and use it for vinaigrette dressing or on top of chicken and so on and so on?

Peppers and Eggs

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, deseeded and chopped

2 small habanero or other chili peppers, deseeded and chopped

1 large clove garlic, chopped

6-8 plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

8 large eggs

3/4 teaspoon zatar

Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and peppers. Cook for 4-5 minutes or until softened. Add the garlic and cook briefly. Add the tomatoes, basil and lemon juice, stir, cover the pan, turn the heat to low and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the vegetables are very soft and sauce-like. Crack the eggs into a bowl one at a time (to make sure they are okay), then transfer each one to the pan over the vegetables. Cover the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes or until the eggs are set but are still slightly runny. Sprinkle with zatar. Serve each person 2 eggs with some of the vegetables. Makes 4 servings

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Peach Macaroon Ice Cream

Succulent summer peaches plus crumbled macaroons — two terrific additions that transform plain vanilla ice cream into something special.

Don’t get me wrong. I love vanilla ice cream. I spent my childhood defending my preference for “boring!” to a cousin who insisted that real ice cream eaters eat only chocolate and that those little specks in the vanilla ice cream were, in fact, dirt.

But while good vanilla ice cream remains unsurpassed, at least in my opinion, sometimes you just want something different for a change. Peaches are ripe and ready now. Macaroons are the cookies of the moment. So — put them together and make ice cream. Here’s a recipe — it’s easy because there aren’t any eggs to beat and cook:

Peach Macaroon Ice Cream

2-3/4 cups half and half

3/4 cup apricot nectar

3/4 cup sugar

6 ripe peaches, peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 cup crushed macaroons

1 teaspoon almond extract

Combine the cream, apricot nectar and sugar in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves and small bubbles form around the edges of the pan. Remove from the heat and refrigerate the mixture until cold. Combine the peaches and lemon juice and stir into the cold cream mixture. Place in an ice cream maker and mix according to manufacturer’s directions. When the mixture is partially frozen, add the macaroons and almond extract. Continue mixing until the desired consistency has been reached. Makes about one quart

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Peaches and Cream

The peaches this season have been trickle-down-your-arm juicy. I’ve been eating them for breakfast all week, cut up with yogurt. Greek yogurt. I’m especially fond of Chobani 0%, which is thick but light and creamy, like sour cream.

Which got me thinking about sour cream, which was a staple at our house when I was growing up. Forget yogurt. No one I knew ate any. Sour cream was the thing. It was full fat, thick and smooth. In the summer my mother would serve it with cut up peaches mixed in. She sprinkled the top with sugar and told me to wait a couple of minutes for the sugar to melt. You could see the crystals clinging to the surface of the cream, but little by little they would change from white to clear and then you knew it was time to dig in.

The first bite was a cold, blissful rush, both tangy and sweet fruit, the melting sugar crystals still slightly crunchy to the teeth.

That dish, plus bread and butter, was dinner on a sweltering night.

I miss it. Peaches and yogurt makes a good breakfast, but it isn’t quite up to the dish with the sour cream and sugar on top, even with great peaches.

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Ketchup, the new condiment. Really?

Really. There were all sorts at New York’s Fancy Food Show a few weeks ago. Curry. Chili. Etc.

I guess ketchup will finally hit its stride and take a proud place among the other bottles of sauces, salsas, oils and chutneys that line the shelves of upscale food shops. Critics have always cast aspersions on the stuff but Americans never cared. We are unabashed ketchup lovers (during the Reagan administration the USDA declared ketchup a vegetable, suitable for school lunch. That decision was later reversed.).

My neighbor growing up splashed ketchup on the usual burgers and fries. Also scrambled eggs and chicken soup. Millions of Americans have found astonishing uses for the condiment.

Ketchup is not new of course. It was invented centuries ago, but it wasn’t tomato ketchup then. It started out as a salty fish-based sauce that English sailors brought back from their travels to China. Some clever cook then substituted mushrooms for the fish and the first vegetable ketchup was born. In the old days there was cranberry ketchup, and grape, walnut, cucumber and so on.

Tomato ketchup is a relative newcomer, invented sometime in the 1700s. But it wasn’t an iconic ingredient in the culinary establishment until the 19th century, when sugar became cheap and easy to process.

So now are we coming full circle?

I can’t say what’s in store for the store shelves. But if you’d like to take a crack at a new kind of ketchup here’s one for Plum Ketchup. You’re in luck — red plums are gloriously in season now so you’ll find plenty of them.

Plum Ketchup

4 pounds ripe red plums, pitted

2 medium onions, finely chopped

1 cup white sugar

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1-1/2 teaspoons grund cinnamon

1-1/2 teaspoons powdered mustard

3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1-3/4 cups cider vinegar

Place the plums and onions in a large, non-reactive saucepan. Cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes or until the ingredients are tender. Drain. Return the cooked plums and onions to the pan. Add the white sugar, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, mustard, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and vinegar. Stir to blend ingredients. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is very thick. Let cool. Keep refrigerated (you can bottle this using jars, lids, etc.; process according to manufacturer’s instructions). Makes about one quart

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Happy Bastille Day

A French Apple Omelette could be the most delicious way to celebrate. Have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s fast, easy and good.

I first served Omelette aux Pommes at a brunch. I got those looks — the kind of monkey faces kids usually give you when you serve them something new — from two of my guests. They didn’t get the idea of a sweet omelet and said their last memory of one was the grape jelly omelet they got at camp.

But tasting is believing. They are now believers. Because a French fruit omelet combines a salty-sweet sensation that beguiles your palate. You’ll try it again, next time with strawberries or peaches because it’s too good not to.

Omelette aux Pommes

2 medium tart apples (such as Granny Smith)

3-1/2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons whipping cream or half and half

1 tablespoon brandy, preferably apple brandy

4-5 large eggs, beaten

salt to taste

confectioner’s sugar

Preheat the oven broiler. Peel, core and cut the apples into thin slices. Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter in an omelet pan or other skillet with rounded sides. When the butter has melted and looks foamy, add the apples and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes. Sprinkle the apples with the sugar and continue to cook, stirring frequently, for several minutes or until the apples begin to caramelize to a light brown. Stir in the cream and brandy, cook for a few seconds and remove the mixture to a bowl. Set aside. Wipe out the pan with paper towels. Heat the remaining butter in the pan over medium heat. When the butter has melted and looks foamy, pour in the eggs. After a few seconds, stir the mixture using a fork and continue to cook the eggs, tilting the pan occasionally and moving cooked egg portions with a fork, to allow uncooked eggs to get to the bottom of the pan. When the eggs are nearly set, but still moist, spoon the apple mixture on top. Remove the pan from the heat. Fold the omelet in half or thirds. Sprinkle with some confectioner’s sugar. Place the pan under the broiler for a few seconds until the confectioner’s sugar melts and browns lightly, giving a glazed and crispy finish to the eggs. Place the omelet on a serving platter and serve. Makes 4 servings

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Peach Ice Cream Redux: French Fries

Made a mistake — it’s not National Peach Ice Cream Day! That’s not until the 17th. Today is French Fry Day.

My niece once came to visit and when she went home she reported the good news about staying at our house: “Aunt Ronnie makes French fries with a potato!”

She thought all french fries came from a box.

Here are the most important tips to making good french fries:

Use russet potatoes

Make sure you wipe the strips dry before you fry them

Make sure the cooking oil is hot before you immerse the potatoes (throw in a crumb of bread and see it sizzle)

Don’t add too many strips of potato at one time (that will cool down the oil too much and the fries will be greasy)

Fry the strips halfway. Remove them with a big basket or skimmer above the oil for a few seconds, then return them to the oil. That lets them cook inside without burning outside.

Drain on paper towels.

Try them without ketchup. I know that sounds like heresy but good french fries only need salt.

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National Peach Ice Cream Day

The biggest fan of peach ice cream I ever knew was my Uncle Irving. He was tall and handsome and blessed with thick, auburn hair, a baseball enthusiast and not given to rhapsodizing about food. But his one real culinary passion was fresh peach ice cream. You could only buy it during the summer, he told me and his daughter, my best friend and cousin Leslie. So, sometime around the middle of July he would walk down the street to the local grocer and buy a carton of Breyer’s. “The first of the season,” he would tell us, with authority.

"You can’t get fresh peach ice cream any other time and it wouldn’t be worth eating anyway, even if you could" he also insisted.

I remember how he showed us the chunks of real Georgia (he said) peaches. Not just peach flavor or flecks of peach. It had real pieces of peach in a vanilla base. It was creamy and it tasted like good peaches, with that floral smell that lets you know summer is ripe and will be for many more weeks.

Today may be National Peach Ice Cream Day, but peach ice cream is a treat that’s summer-long. I learned that many many years ago from my uncle.

Peach ice cream is the kind of thing you eat by itself. It’s too delicate for fudge sauce, sprinkles or marshmallow fluff. If you have an ice cream making machine it’s also easy to make at home and you can add nice size chunks of fruit, just like in the old days.

Homemade Peach Ice Cream

• 6 medium ripe peaches, peeled, pit removed
• 1 cup sugar, preferably superfine sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2-inch piece vanilla bean
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 5 large egg yolks
• pinch of salt
• 2 cups whole milk

Chop the peaches into small chunks. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the sugar and the lemon juice. Toss the ingredients and set aside for at least 30 minutes. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise, place it in a saucepan with the whipping cream and cook over medium heat for a few minutes until hot, and bubbles form around the sides of the pan (do not boil). Remove the pan from the heat and set aside for 10 minutes. In a larger saucepan, place the egg yolks, remaining sugar and salt and beat using a hand mixer at medium speed for 4-5 minutes, or until the mixture is thick and pale in color. Remove the vanilla bean from the hot cream. Gradually pour the hot cream into the egg-sugar mixture and stir (use a wooden spoon or other similar utensil, not a whisk or beater) until the mixture is well blended. Return the saucepan to the cooktop and cook over low-medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 12-15 minutes or until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat. Stir in the milk. Chill in the refrigerator. Stir in the peach mixture. Place in an ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Makes about 1-1/2 quarts

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Pecan Pie - or is it?

For some reason today is National Pecan Pie Day. Somehow I always associate Pecan Pie with Thanksgiving, but who cares. Pecan Pie is a wonder of sugar and nuts and the kind of sweet-tooth satisfier that you can eat anytime.

Unfortunately, we can’t at my house. My daughter is extremely allergic to pecans, so over the years I have made Pecan Pie without the pecans.

We’ve had Cashew pie. Almond Pie. Macadamia, Peanut, Hazelnut.

As the ancient philosopher philosophized: necessity is the Mother of invention.

So, for National Pecan Pie Day, here’s a recipe for Honey Hazelnut Pie.

Honey Hazelnut Pie

2/3 cup honey

1/3 cup sugar

3 large eggs

3 tablespoons melted butter

1-1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped dried apricots

1 cup chopped hazelnuts

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust

Preheat the oven the 350 degrees. Combine the honey, sugar, eggs and melted butter in a bowl and whisk the ingredients until well blended. Stir in the flour, ginger, salt and vanilla extract and blend in thoroughly. Stir in the apricots and hazelnuts. Pour the mixture into the pie crust. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the top is richly brown and crunchy. Makes one pie

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Gazpacho!

I made this today for the World Cup.  I have to admit, I was worried when I saw how it looked with just the bread, etc. processed, but it’s delicious!  Go Spain…

submitted by http://jacquirobbins.com/