Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

This year I had intended to make chai-spiced sugar cookies for my friends' annual holiday cookie swap. Then I changed my mind when I got to the grocery store and realized that the spices I needed were going to cost me $20. We've been trying to stick to a grocery budget since we bought our house, and somehow it didn't seem fair to purchase expensive spices when I won't let John buy his $4-per-can San Marzano tomatoes anymore (o, the sacrifices we've made). Luckily, I had just about everything I needed for these cookies already in my pantry.

Mexican hot chocolate has cinnamon in it, and often some chile pepper to add an extra kick. The chile powder is optional in this recipe, but if you do want to add some heat, make sure you're using chile (with an "e") and not chili (with an "i") powder. It's an important distinction. I omitted the chile powder, but I thought the cinnamon added nice warmth to these cookies without being overpowering. They're basically chocolate snickerdoodles.

Give these a try--they'll make a nice addition to your holiday cookie plate. If you're looking for other cookie recipes, check out last year's Christmas cookie posts:

Holiday Cookie Madness
Cookie Dough Truffles

English Cottage Pie

We're back! We're no longer above the little Italian restaurant, but I can't say that we miss it. It's been quite a busy month, but we're (mostly) unpacked and loving our new house. After about a week of eating take out, we graduated to familiar, low-effort dinners. Now I'm finally getting my groove back in the kitchen and trying out some new recipes.

This cottage pie recipe from Cooking Light seemed like the perfect dinner for a chilly night. I made a shepherd's pie last winter, but we much preferred this one-it was easier to make and the flavors were a little more traditional (I say that like I have some authority on traditional English cuisine. Just play along. Jolly good then.).

I only made minor changes to the original recipe. Cooking Light often instructs you to saute your veggies in cooking spray. I think this is stupid, so I ignore them and use vegetable oil instead. I also used 1 teaspoon of dried thyme in place of a tablespoon of fresh. For the low-fat cheese called for, I really like Cabot 50% reduced fat cheddar. If there's anything I like more than a mashed potato crust, it's a cheesy mashed potato crust. Yum.

A Year of Blogging... and Some News!

We're moving!!

 It's hard to believe we've been blogging from our little apartment above an Italian restaurant for a whole year. I'm here to report that we won't be blogging from here for much longer... we'll be blogging from our new kitchen... in our new house! A few people have asked us if we're going to change the name of the blog now, but that seems like too much effort: the name stays!

We probably won't be doing too much blogging for awhile, so I'm going to list some of my favorite things we've posted over the past year (speaking of favorite things, did anyone see the Sound of Music cast reunite on Oprah this week?? Ah-mazing!). It was hard to choose, since I don't put anything on this blog if I don't genuinely enjoy it, but I've narrowed it down as best I could.

Bec's favorite things:

Salad:
Pear, Walnut, and Feta Salad

Appetizer:
Roasted Garlic Hummus

Soup:
Italian Sausage Soup

Italian dish:
John's Homemade Ravioli

Indian dish:
Chicken Tikka Masala

Chicken dish:
Chicken with Israeli Couscous, Spinach, and Feta

Pork dish:
Indoor BBQ Pulled Pork

Vegetarian dish:
Eggplant Rollatini

Cookie:
Caramel Filled Chocolate Cookies

Dessert:
Salted Caramel Ice Cream


Thanks for reading our little blog! I hope you've enjoyed our first year. Once we've moved (and unpacked the kitchen), we'll be back with lots of great recipes.
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Cheddar Corn Muffins

 For approximately five years now, my friend Stacie and I have been saying that we should take one of the cooking classes offered at Whole Foods. Last month, we finally made this happen and took a muffin-making class. The woman teaching the class shared some excellent recipes, including this one for cheddar corn muffins. The main thing we learned was not to overmix the muffin batter. I'd heard this before, but it helped to have someone demonstrate when exactly to stop mixing. I always have to mix until I can't see any spots of flour, but apparently I was over-mixing. When everything is just barely incorporated... stop! And you'll end up with fluffy, tender, delicious muffins.

We had some special guests for dinner last night: John's aunt Linda and uncle Mike. Linda is a faithful reader and commenter here on our blog, so we wanted to make a nice dinner for her. We made these to go along with our fabulous barbeque pulled pork. The muffins have an awesome crispy crust on the top, due to a generous sprinkling of cheddar before they go in the oven. There is more cheddar in the batter, along with some oregano and cayenne. The end result is a really tasty, savory muffin... I'll definitely be making these next time we have chili!

Pasta with Tomato and Almond Pesto (Pesto alla Trapanese)

Can I interest you in a fresh-tasting pasta sauce that requires no more effort than throwing a bunch of stuff in your food processor? I made a double batch of the pesto and froze half of it, which I would definitely recommend doing-it doesn't require any extra work, and you'll be glad you have it sitting in your freezer for the next time you need an easy dinner.

Pork Tenderloin with Pears and Shallots

Just when you've had it with summer and the f%#$*# air conditioning that barely works... bam, you suddenly find yourself having to wear a sweater when you go out at night. Ah, fall, how I've missed you. John's parents came over for dinner last weekend, and we wanted to cook something appropriate for the changing of the seasons. But before we get to that, allow me to introduce our newest (and tiniest) kitchen assistant, Penny:

Penny fits nicely in my apron pocket, and she looooves to eat. And now back to the cooking...

The finished dish looks pretty elegant, but it was relatively simple to prepare. You brown the pork tenderloin and then pop it in the oven while you prepare the pears and the sauce. The sauce contains pear nectar (find it in the International Foods aisle with the other Goya stuff), which adds just enough sweetness. We served this with some rice pilaf, roasted tomatoes and green beans, and my favorite fall dessert, apple squares.

Peach Sangria

My sangria is why I get invited to parties what people always ask me to bring to their parties. I brought this to my friends' Labor Day BBQ last weekend. I actually have special portable sangria pitchers for such occasions. I am serious about my wine cocktails, ok?

I also make a lovely red sangria, which we'll get to one of these days, but let's hang onto summer a little longer and talk about the peach sangria. This sangria is a bit sweeter than a red, and people who don't really even like wine that much (weirdos) love this. I was able to get a few end-of-season peaches at our farmer's market which I pulverized into peach puree using a stick blender. If you can't get good peaches, I've also used peach nectar (Goya makes this; it's usually in the International Foods aisle at the supermarket).