Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Chip Cookies

 One of my favourite guru cooks is Nigella Lawson. Her cookbooks read like  award winning novels. This is a pretty good chocolate chip cookie recipe....I still like my other recipe best.....but  good to try. Doesn't make a great deal. You may want to double recipe.

INGREDIENTS: 1 1/2 cups butter, 5/8 cup brown suar, 1/3cup white sugar, 2 tsps vanilla, 1 egg, 1 egg yolk, 2 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 cup or 2 of chocolate  chips.. ( I always throw in more)

              Beat softened butter with the sugars and vanilla, throw in the 1 egg. Beat well.

 Separate 2nd egg, and toss in egg yolk Fingers make a great sieve, by the way. Egg will feel goopy. Beat up well.

 To this mix add flour, baking soda and chocolate chips. Beat till smooth and incorporated well.

 Take large tablespoons and plop onto cookie sheet....lined with parchment or Silpat liners. Bake t 350 degrees about 10-11 minutes....

Add a small sprinkle of chocolate chips on top of cookie at the very last. Put back into oven and let melt slightly.  Nice. NOTE: You can always freeze the discarded egg white from the single yolk ingredent to use at a later date. Egg whites can freeze for about 3 months. Must use within 24 hours of defrosting.

Devilish Cupcakes

The best cupcake....sinful....sonorously sly...

I'm not always a big fan of Martha Stewart recipes. But this this one takes the cake ( I know, bad pun...can't help it) . The cake is tender, the buttercream frosting is creamy, not sugary and holds its shape, exactly what the recipe promised.   Such a treat. You will want to lick the bowl.......trust me.....

 Cupcakes: 3/4 cocoa mixed into 1/4 hot water. Combine all dry ingredients: 3 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, pinch coarse salt. Combine all wet ingredients: 1 1/2 cups butter, 2 1/4 cups sugar, 4 large eggs, 1 tablespoon vanilla, 1 cup sour cream. Alternate wet and dry ingredients till beaten well. Plop into paper lined cupcake tins. Fill 3/4. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Let cool. Then frost with Devilsh Buttercream.

Buttercream: 1/4 cup plus t tablespoons cocoa powder mixed into 1/ cup hot water. Softened 1 12 cups margarine or butter. Add 1/2 cp icing sugar, pinch of salt. Beat till glossy and smooth. Wonderful stuf.....be suure to save enough to pile onto the cupcakes.

Hole in the Wall Lunch

 Discovered this amazing, hole-in-the-wall kind of place for lunch. In a seedy strip mall in Willow Point...well, not that seedy, but very non-descript. "Sundance Java Bar", with a facade that so orange it could have been an orange...... Inside, cozy sofas, wood chairs, everything mis-matched. A beta swamin a tall cylinder filled with bright beas and a bamboo stalk. Everything on the menu was homemade, the kind of homemade that makes you feel warm and  fuzzy.
    The sandwiches were made of long caraway seed studded bread, stuffed,, and I mean liberally stuffed with everything from shredded carrot to pea pods, julienned peppers and hand sliced cheese. Fresh, fresh, fresh.

And then there was the Pea Soup. Not salty, not greasy....just about the best pea soup. Thick and rich and  hot. You could sense it in the store....smell it bubbling and burbling in it's big black pot on the counter...... this is the pea soup my friend, Jane, would make. I met her at Cornwallis, a few years ago. She used to make her own bread every week, and then soup. It would go something like this:

"Put a quart of dried peas into five quarts of water; boil for a couple of hours; then add an onion, two heads of celery, a few carrots, two turnips, all cut up rather fine. Season with salt and pepper. Boil two hours longer, and if the soup becomes too thic add more water. Strain through a colander and stir in a tablespoonful of cold butter. Serve piping hot with with small pieces of toasted bread in bottom of bowl. Will feed  large crowd. Good for freezing."

White Queen Fruitcake

I love making frruitcake when it's not Christmas. More of a treat. This is a wonderful cake. If you do not like fruitcake, you will, after this.....

WHITE FRUITCAKE ( 1997 from Shirley Moore, Fredericton, New Brunswick. This is  a  lovely, light , pretty cake. )

 COMBINE IN BOWL:                             BATTER:                                               

3 cups light raisins                                            1 pound butter

2 cups glazed /dried fruit ( your choice)           2 cups white sugar

6 candied pineapples, cut up                              10 large eggs

1/3 cups orange peel                                          1/3 cup lemon juice

1 cup green cherries                                           1 tsp. almond extract

1 cup red cherries                                              1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ cups chopped almonds                                    3 cups flour

1 ½ cups pecan halves                                          pinch of coarse salt

1 cup flour for dusting fruit                                1 tsp baking powder

1 cup of Grand Marnier( or orange juice)

    (but the Grand Marnier is best)

1. Line  small loaf pans with greased parchment paper. You can find loaf pans in the section of the grocery store where they sell foil and cling wrap.

2. Put all ingredients for “Combine in Bowl” into a large bowl and mix together. Let sit for a day to let the flavours mellow. If you don’t want to use Grand Marnier you can use orange juice, but it’s not quite the same.

3.From BATTER List, cream butter with sugar, add eggs 1 at a time. Add the remaining ingredients.  When the batter is ready, pour in the fruit that has been standing for 1 day. Mix with hands ( clean hands).

4.Divide batter between pans. The small loaf tins work so well as they freeze great and are the perfect size for gift giving.

5.Bake at 275 degrees for about 1 hour. I kind of guesstimate the time, and check after 40 minutes by testing the centre.  You do not want to over bake the little loaf pans , so check often.

****Once cooled, you can slip each loaf, right in its foil pan, into a plastic freezer bag. Tie with a gold ribbon, label , and freeze till it’s time to give away. Perfect Christmas cake.

Apple Cider Making

 Apple Cider from the apples we collected last fall. Sort of forgot about it, till we got the call from Willows Point Winery asking us to  bottle it up. Made over 50 bottles..................yikes, that is a lot of cider.

                          rown glass, Clear, Green for bottling. Ooodles of glass ware.............

 Sploosh......into the bottle it spits..............

 Filling up ......goes very quickly.................

                                                            Fizzies at the top..........can hear them popping.

                                                            A case of clear bottles...........

Big bottles on the rack....what in the world are we going to do with all of this cider? We don't drink.....isn't that a hoot? Only time a bottle is opened is if company comes. So, this  lot will have to be given away as gifts........also will take some for the auction coming up.......hmmm.....now where else should it go?.....................