No nuts in a Haystack

I was recently chatting with a friend and recalling the un-sophisticated palette of childhood - boil bag rice with butter, fried bologna sandwiches, StoveTop stuffing, potato bread by the fistful. Who's the sick twisted soul that thought, 'How can we get more carbs into a piece of white bread? I know! POTATO!'

Anyway, this conversation gave me a powerful hankering for Haystacks. Super simple, super delicious, these definitely bring back tons of memories for me. I phoned up my mom and got the recipe. I didn't realize it but the recipe actually comes from her mother! I think there's something really adorable about keeping a 60-year old recipe going in the family.


Ingredients.

• 3 cups oats


• 1 cup coconut


• 1 cup nuts


• 1/2 cup margarine/butter


• 1/2 cup milk


• 1 cup sugar


• 1 large package semi-sweet chocolate chips(16 oz)

Steps.
- Mix dry ingredients
- Bring to boil milk, sugar and butter
- Pour wet ingredients over dry and mix until chocolate melts
- Drop onto parchment paper and let set in fridge (two hour minimum)

My mother has always detested nuts in any sort of dessert (she firmly believes they have no place in baked goods and shouldn't come in to contact with sugar ever). Point being I've never had haystacks with nuts, so I always go heavy on the oats and coconut. I didn't remember just how decedent and rich these could be! Next time, I think I'm going to go easy on the sugar...

Lemony Snickets

I really thought I had posted about this recipe before. Apparently I haven't, as I discovered this past Friday as I was desperately trying to find the recipe to bake up some cookies for my friend Morgan and my printed copy was MIA.

Fortunately I did email myself the recipe one day (anticipating something like this) so I was able to bake the cookies.

This is a recipe I got off of livejournal one day. I wasn't a huge fan of the cookies the first time I made them. Not sure what it was, but they just didn't impress me. But Morgan liked them and requested them around Christmas when I on a baking frenzy. So I made them and the entire office went nuts over this little lemony delights. The second batch was definitely better than the first and I got loads of requests for the recipe. In fact, if I did lose my printed version I could just go to anybody else in the office now and copy theirs since everyone has it now.

The trick to this recipe I think is to be generous with the lemon. I use the juice of one whole lemon and the zest of two lemons. I also go a little easier on the flour. Roll in sugar before baking  or dust with powdered sugar right out of the oven. Whatever tickles your fancy.

1/2 butter (softened)
1 1/6 cup sugar
1 large egg
3 tsp lemon juice (one whole lemon)
1 tsp lemon zest (two lemons)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 1/2 + 1/3 cup flour

bake 11-13 minutes at 375 until golden brown and delicious..

Sorry, no pictures this time. I will take pictures next time I make them. Who knows whenever that will be seein' as the oven is broken now. (TRAGIC!)

When it snows...I bake.

One of my favorite things about snow is that it gives me a good excuse to stay home and bake and cook my little heart out. Last weekend was those fabulous chocolate chip cookies, and this weekend I've been busy making pizza from scratch, eggs benedict (a post to come on that later) and White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies. Later today I'm planning on making Mocha Coffee Coffee Cake but this post isn't about that. This post is about the cookies.

I'll be honest. White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies aren't my favorite. (They're not even in my top 5) I'm a chocolate chip girl through and through. But Kevin requested them since they are his favorite and since I do like him I made up a batch using Joy the Baker's recipe.

As you can see, they're pretty delicious looking.



I followed the recipe as directed. Including browning the butter and making little brown bits. I have to say for a kind of cookie I'm not entirely fond of, they're pretty damn good. Kev's words were "That's some good shit!" so I think that means he approves.They're really sweet, but nice and soft and chewy. Great texture. I probably won't make them as often as I make chocolate chip cookies, but this recipe will definitely go into my cookie bank to be used for social occasions and holiday baking.