Snickerdoodles...more cookies from the past

Here's that cook book I mentioned in my post about Russian Tea cakes. My mom had a copy and I loved to look through it. Snickerdoodles were another of those cookies I loved to make.
They travel well and can be shipped easily, if they last that long :-)

Makes three dozen 3 to 4-inch cookies. Your mileage will vary by the size scoop you use.

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 stick  butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs

Rolling mixture: 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon,


Preheat the oven to 400° if you are not going to chill the dough, with one rack in top third and one rack in bottom third of oven.

Line baking sheets parchment paper; set aside.

Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Scrape down sides of bowl. Add eggs, and beat to combine.
Add dry ingredients, and beat to combine.

At this point,you can chill the dough for an hour (or overnight) before scooping it, or if it isn't too difficult to scoop into balls and roll make them now.

Once dough has chilled, in a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the ground cinnamon.
Use a small ice-cream scoop or spoon to form balls of the dough, and roll in cinnamon sugar.
Place about two inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake until the cookies are set in center and begin to crack (they will not brown), about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after five minutes.
Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool about five minutes before transferring the cookies to the rack.

In theory, they can be stored in an airtight container up to one week, but I say good luck with that.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

I didn't feel like canning tomato sauce today but I had purchased 40 pounds of organic tomatoes and needed to process them in some way. I filled my dehydrator with some, made and froze tomato juice with some of them and decided to roast the rest. Bob hates to peel tomatoes so all these methods only required him to core them and slice them.

Preheat the oven to 450 F.
For roasting, I start by covering a cookie sheet with foil, then spraying it with olive oil.
Core then cut the tomatoes in half, placing them on the cookie sheet cut side up.
Spray them again with olive oil and sprinkle them with salt.
I also like to add 4-6  peeled cloves of garlic, you could add a chopped onion too.

Cook the tomatoes until they begin to caramelize, some may turn blackish. You can reduce the heat after the first 20 minutes if you don't want them to blacken. It  takes about an hour.

You could freeze them like this but I decided to make them into sauce instead.
Into the food processor they go, with another spoonful of salt, you could also add fresh herbs.

 Pulse it a few times...

I like to measure it into 2 cup portions. Pour it into labeled freezer bags, remove as much air as possible and freeze on a cookie sheet.

You can use this as a pasta sauce, pizza sauce, for soup, stew, or as a base for barbeque sauce, salsa...anything you can think of.

Presto Pesto

It's basil season at our farmer's market and I recently mentioned on Facebook that I made pesto for dinner. Just as I figured someone asked me for my recipe, normally that wouldn't be a problem but it has been years since I have used a recipe to make my pesto.

Usually I just gather the ingredients.

Grated Parmesan cheese, fresh garlic, fresh basil and olive oil, those are my basics. It's fun to add nuts, pine nuts are traditional but expensive. I sometimes use walnuts, but I was out this time and tried pumpkin seeds.

 

So you have washed and removed your basil leaves from the stems, peeled your garlic and grated your cheese. Time to get out the food processor, you can use a blender but it usually will burn them out quickly.

I like to start with the garlic, and nuts, then the fresh basil.

 Now begin to add the olive oil until it makes a nice liquid sauce, toss in the grated cheese.

I like my pesto fairly loose. If it seems too stiff add more oil.

You can add a bit of salt now, and if you are feeling adventuresome, try some lemon juice or if you are feeling decadent try adding a tablespoon of butter. 

Finish blending it and serve on pasta or place in containers and freeze.

For those who want a true recipe try this one from the Food Network.

• 2 cups packed fresh basil leaves 
• 2 cloves garlic ( personally I would double that ;-)
• 1/4 cup pine nuts or other nuts
• 2/3 cup olive oil 
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Saving Strawberries

We are lucky to still have lots of beautiful strawberries at our farmer's markets.
When my brother brought me some strawberries he had dried, I was amazed at how tasty they were. We immediately went to our farmer's market and bought a flat.
We dried half of them and froze the rest.

To dry them we simply cut them in half and laid them on the trays cut side up.

They took about a day to dry and made the house smell heavenly !!
It's surprising how much they shrink.

The dried ones are great as a snack, in hot cereal, granola, baked goods, trail mix.

To freeze the rest I line a baking sheet with waxed paper and cut them in half and then in half again. I cover them with another piece of waxed paper and freeze them over night. Then move them into a zip lock freezer bag for easy storage.
I use them in jams, desserts and smoothies.

This is great way to take advantage of fruit in season !!

Russian Tea Cakes

 

I have been making these yummy treats since I was a teenager. I loved looking through my mom's old Betty Crocker cookbook, the color photos of all those cookies, cakes and other  foods delighted me. We used to make these only around Christmas. Now they are legal any time of year !! They are a great cookie to make if you have no eggs in your fridge and you owe your daughter a batch of cookies.

Russian Tea Cakes

Ingredients

1 cup butter  softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts, pecans or almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
More powdered sugar for dipping the warm cookies.
 

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Yield about 2 to 3 dozen cookies.c v

Mix butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in large bowl.
Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not brown.
Remove from cookie sheet. Cool slightly.
Roll warm cookies in powdered sugar; cool .

 Roll in powdered sugar again.

What I had for dinner in a motel in Green River, Utah.

 

 Today on our way to Green River, Utah, we stopped for lunch in the middle of nowhere

( Bob's favorite) and ate the leftover from our Italian dinner in  Elko, Nevada. It was a lot of pasta.

When we arrived at our motel this evening we weren't very hungry. I wanted a salad and had lots of veggies from home in my cooler and a baguette from a great bakery in Davis, CA. I had picked up on Tuesday morning. I remembered this cool salad idea that I am sure has a real name that I don't know.
Here's what I did, I broke the baguette into small pieces, it was three days old which is perfect. Then I layered chopped tomatoes, slivers of green bell pepper and applied some olive oil ( yes I bring olive oil with me).
I added thinly sliced cucumbers, radishes and carrots, and some avocado chunks. I sprinkled on some balsamic vinegar (hey, I come well prepared) and a dash of salt.

I did all my prep on the tippy little table in our motel with a vintage Buck knife.

It was so amazingly good, I plan to do it again tomorrow with the bread and veggies I have left.