Honey Pecan Granola

Honey Pecan Granola
From Martha Stewart 

I have a love-hate relationship with Martha Stewart.  On the one hand I want to be her (minus the divorce, then I'd have to change the name of my blog! jk).  She makes everything look perfect and effortless.  She makes you think things like "why wouldn't you give beautiful homemade gifts to everyone on your Christmas list??"  So true, Martha!  I'm on it!  I saw her show about homemade granola a few weeks ago and was immediately compelled to do what she was suggesting - make a massive batch and put it in adorable jars and give it to everyone I know.  Great idea!

But following every great Martha idea comes the inevitable moment when I hate her guts for causing me such grief.  This time that moment came in the form of a Ball Jar wild goose chase.  I'd decided to use Ball Jars with special storage caps to package my granola because they are cheap and I have been seeing them in every grocery store for months now.  Little did I know, the "months" I had been seeing them are also known as "summer."  Since Illinois is not one for a December harvest, the canning season officially ended about a month ago.  So after driving to 3 city grocery stores during rush hour 4 days before Christmas, I was about ready to compose some hate mail to one Ms. Martha Stewart.  In a last resort I started calling every grocery store in the city (side note, most customer service people have never heard of a Ball Jar and a few almost hung up on me for what they thought was a prank call...), I finally located the ONE store that still had some in stock.

Long story short, anyone who doesn't read this blog and received this granola was probably very impressed and will forever think that I am that much closer to being Martha Stewart.  As for the rest of you, you'll always be able to imagine me wearing sweats and glasses in a fit of rage at my 3rd grocery store, seriously contemplating punching the bell ringing Santa guy and/or bursting into tears...  At least the granola itself is easy to make!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!


Ingredients

• Pam or other nonstick cooking spray
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 cups rolled oats (there's a million kinds of oats out there, make sure you buy ROLLED OATS)
• 2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
• 1 1/2 cup dried fruit (any kind you like)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees and place racks far enough apart to allow 2 baking sheets at the same time.
2. Lightly coat two baking sheets with cooking spray.  Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, combine oil, sugar, honey, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and salt.
4. In a large bowl toss oats and pecans to combine.
5. Pour liquid mixture over oats and pecans, scraping the small bowl to get all the liquid out.  Stir until thoroughly combined.
6. Spread mixture out on baking sheets.
7. Bake for 27-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
8. Remove from oven and immediately add fruit and toss.  It will seem a little soft, but don't worry, it hardens before you know it.
9. Allow to sit 10 minutes or until granola is cooled and crunchy.
10. Store in airtight containers for up to 3 weeks, or freeze.

Makes about 7 cups of very addicting granola.

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Molasses Cookies

Molasses Cookies
From Framed Cooks 

Holy smokes, these are some delicious cookies.  I've been following the Framed Cooks food blog for about a year now, and have been meaning to make these cookies for nearly as long.  But as I mentioned earlier this month, I try to not make cookies very often, in order to avoid eating cookies too often.  However, I have a few girlfriends coming over for dinner tomorrow night, and having a batch of cookies on hand seemed appropriate.  I'm not sure if molasses cookies really count as Christmas cookies, but I don't see any reason why they couldn't be.  Obviously gingerbread really steals the show in the spiced holiday cookie category, but my mom and I tried a different recipe every year when I was a kid and they never came out quite right.  These, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure are fool proof.


Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup sugar, plus more for rolling cookies
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preparation

1. Place butter, 1 cup sugar, molasses, and egg in a large bowl, stirring until combined.
2. Place flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk to sift together.
3. Add flour mixture to butter mixture, stirring until combined.
4. Refrigerate batter until it is hardened.
5. Scoop dough and roll into 1-inch balls (a sturdy ice cream scoop works well).
6. Roll each ball in additional sugar and place on a cookie sheet or a baking sheet lined with parchment.  (I like using parchment because these cookies come out of the oven pretty soft and it allows you transfer them all to a wire cooling rack in one fell swoop).  Space cookies well apart, with about 12 to a sheet.
7. Use your thumb to lightly press down the center of each ball.
8. Bake for 9-10 minutes.  Transfer to a cookie rack immediately to cool.

Makes 3 dozen.

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Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
From John's Family

The month of December is special for a number of reasons, not the least of which is my sudden willingness to make batch after batch of cookies.  Don't get me wrong, I have a desire to make cookies year-round.  But in the interest of my waistline, I generally only cave to this desire when I can use "'tis the season!" as my excuse for all culinary indiscretions.  Sure, I have space in my diet for the occasional year-round cookie, but in the honeymoon kitchen, a whole batch of cookies for the household = a whole batch of cookies minus two for Tera.  For example, this is how last Saturday played out:

Tera and John bake Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies together.  Tera offers John one of the mixer whisks with cookie dough on it.  John proclaims he doesn't like raw cookie dough.  Tera licks both whisks.  And the bowl.  Batch one of three comes out.  Tera tests a cookie, you know, just to check.  John takes a bite of one and sets it back on the rack.  The minute he turns his back Tera eats the remainder.  He doesn't even notice.  Batch two comes out.  Tera tests it to check for "discrepancies between the two different cookie sheets used."  They taste the same.  Aka still really good.  John is bored so he leaves the kitchen to do other stuff.  Tera sticks around to "supervise the oven"...eats 3 more cookies out of boredom.  Final batch comes out, taste test says all three cookie sheets worked marvolously.  John's mom and sister stop by.  Tera shoves as many cookies as she can fit into some tupperware and begs them to take it away.  About 2 dozen cookies remain on the counter.  You get the picture.  (Speaking of, I obviously had to take a bite of another one for the sake of the above picture...and then eat the rest to reward myself for getting a good shot.)

So in the name of all things merry, enjoy the first of a few Christmas cookie recipes this season, and then don't expect any more until next year!  Happy December!


Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cups vegetable oil
• 1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 10 oz bag mint chocolate morsels (here's the deal, back in the day when John's family made this recipe a Christmas tradition, Nestle made these wonderful mint chocolate chips...in the past year or two they discontinued them and now sell a bag that's a mix of chocolate chips and minty chips...not nearly as good...this year I found bags of Andes mint crumbles and it turns out they work really well) (UPDATE: apparently Ghiradelli makes a good option too, so be on the lookout people, and don't be afraid to stock up!)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.
3. In a large bowl combine vegetable oil and 1 cup sugar.  Mix well.
4. Beat eggs and vanilla extract into oil mixture.
5. Gradually beat in flour mixture.
6. Stir in mint chocolate chip morsels.
7. Shape into small balls (a little smaller than a ping pong ball).  Roll each ball in remaining sugar and place on ungreased cookie sheets.
8. Bake for 8-10 minutes.  Cool completely on wire racks.

Makes 4-5 dozen, depending on how big you rolled them.

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Salted Toffee Squares

Salted Toffee Squares
From Martha Stewart 

I LOVE my book club.  I can't think of any other institution that affords me an excuse to read a great book, enjoy fabulous company, drink copious amounts of wine mid-week, and gorge on special occasion party food - all on a monthly basis!  And once or twice a year it even gives me a chance to play hostess and finally make all the appetizer and dessert recipes I tend save without purpose.

This month marked my fourth book club hostessing experience, and the very first to take place in the new house.  True to Honeymoon Kitchen form John helped me prep most of the goodies the day before, but then he wisely headed out of town for work before 8 wine-drunk ladies descended on the house.

Since this book club is nothing if not decadent, I'm starting this series of posts by serving up dessert first.  And speaking of desserts, I'll be the first to admit I'm a pretty lousy baker.  Not a lot of blog-worthy desserts are likely to come out of the Honeymoon Kitchen.  But THESE, I can do.  I can do them well.  Like crave-worthy, can't stop eating them well.  But it's not because I'm good, it's because they are that easy, and because the genius that is Martha Stewart created them, and because they contain 2 sticks of butter and a half cup of sugar.  Yeah, that last one is probably the key...

Ingredients

• 16 graham crackers
• 1 8-oz bag toffee bits (it has to be pure toffee bits, not chocolate and toffee bits mixed together - Heath Bits 'O Brickle Toffee Bits is what I always use - it can be hard to find, so I stock up when I do)
• 1 cup coarsely chopped almonds, toasted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1 tsp coarse salt

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Thoroughly line a baking sheet with foil.
3. Break graham crackers into squares and arrange them on the baking sheet in a single layer.  I try to get the absolute most out of this recipe, so I may break some of the graham crackers into the smaller, quarter segments to make sure I can fill the whole baking sheet.  I usually end up using about 16 full sized crackers, broken into squares or quarter strips.
4. Sprinkle toffee bits and almonds over graham crackers.
5. Place sugar and butter in a small sauce pan.  Bring to a boil.
6. Reduce heat and cook at a rapid simmer for 2 minutes, swirling the pan occasionally, until the mixture is syrupy.
7. Immediately pour butter mixture evenly over the graham crackers.
8. Bake for 10 minutes.
9. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips and salt over graham crackers.  Return to oven for 2 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and cool completely. 
11. Break into squares and prepare to eat WAY too many in one sitting.
12. If there's any left (doubtful) store them in an airtight container for up to a week.

Makes about 30 squares.

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