TWD: Three for the price of one! My Favorite Pecan Pie, Low and Lucious Chocolate Cheesecake and Pumpkin Pie with a Gingersnap Crust (Oprah Mag)

I know Tuesdays with Dorie is supposed to post on a Tuesday but I made these pies for Christmas so I couldn't make them till Thursday afternoon. I made these pies for Christmas. Brina of Someone's in the Kitchen with Brina picked My Favorite Pecan Pie. It might just turn into mine as well. It was simple and delicious. I wimped out and used a crust from the grocery store, but it was still fabulous. I think the chocolate cuts the sticky sweetness of the pecans and the coffee adds a little dorie-esque depth of flavor. Visit her blog for the entire recipe.

Next, I made the Low and Lush(ious) Chocolate Cheesecake selected by the brilliant mind of Tea and Scones. Visit her blog for the entire recipe. I made two tiny sized cheesecakes because my muffin-top overfloweth these days. I used cinnamon graham crackers for the crust and served it with crushed Mo's Bacon Chocolate bar on top. It was great-easy to assemble and light and fluffy. The only problem with the recipe was that it had to sit in the fridge for 8 hours and I wanted to dig in right away.

Finally, I made the Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Cranberry Glaze and Sugared Cranberries from the November 2009 issue of Oprah Magazine. Click here for the entire recipe and please note that my pie looks exactly like the one in the picture :). It was visually amazing and the cranberry glaze (which was super easy to put together and was basically cranberries/OJ/sugar/water heated through a strainer) added an extra cool touch. It was hard to compete with the mountains of chocolate and christmas cookies at my parents' house and I think when I make it again I will serve it at Thanksgiving so it can shine on its own. Bake on TWDers!

Chocolate Crack or English Toffee Bark for the Cultured among us

I like to keep some mystery in my life. No one should know who is wearing Spanx to the office holiday party or who drank the last of the milk out of the carton late last night. I recnetly brought this offering to the annual holiday cookie swap and was just asked for the recipe. Chocolate Bark is the perfect treat- inexpensive, pantry staples, very little prep time. I am almost embarassed to write it out because it is so easy and might ruin my cool culinary reputation in town. Deb- This is for you....make it,enjoy...but don't tell anyone it is so easy.

My four year old can make this almost by himself. It doesn't involve the food processor, double boiler, cookie press or candy thermometer. This is one of those oldies but goodies that can be switched up depending on what you have in the house. I have made it with matzoh bread during passover, with saltines, club crackers, and graham crackers too. My sister is the queen of crack and makes this for her co-teachers often. She will put it out around 7am when she gets to work and says it is often gone before 10. Those teachers are smart people.
I don't know how long it can be stored because it never lasts more than a day in my house.

Chocolate Crack/ Also known as English Toffee Bark

1 package of graham crackers (or saltines, or Keebler Club Crackers, or matzoh during Passover) 1 cup of butter
1 cup of light brown sugar
12 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup of chopped pecans (sometimes I substitute leftover mixed cocktail nuts, chopped toasted walnuts, sliced almonds, or grey salt depending on the crowd)


Preheat oven to 400F. Line a rimmed 17x11 cookie pan with aluminum foil, then butter or spray with cooking spray. Make a single layer of crackers to cover the bottom of the pan. Melt together butter and brown sugar in a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour over crackers, covering evenly. Bake for 5-7 minutes. Mixture will be hot and bubbling. Remove from heat and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Let melt and then spread evenly. Sprinkle pecans over and press in gently. Refrigerate until solid. Break into pieces.

Let it snow...let it snow...let it snow...

18 inches. Yup, you read right. 18 inches. I live along the Connecticut shore so usually snow is more of the fluffy, Hallmark card, scenic variety, but this Storm Albert dared to give us 18 inches. What does one do in that much snow? Sit around in pajamas all morning? Watch four episodes of Jersey Shore and feel the brain cells floating out of your body? Build a snow man that is over 5 feet high? Go sledding until your children are popsicles? Make yet another version of the classic NY Style coffee cake? Check yes to all of the above. This cinnamon streusel coffee cake was featured on the King Arthur website recently and is the basic high crumb to cake ratio that makes us our tummies dance and sing. This one was good but really sweet. I am not going to throw it away, but it is not as good as the Foster's Market Classic Sour Cream Cake or Ina Garten's classic coffee cake. I think that sour cream makes coffee cakes more dense and cake-like...I will have to do more eating, err...scientific experiments, with other recipes to unravel this mystery.

CEIMB: Maple-Mustard Chicken Thighs

Big apologies to Tessa from Handle the Heat - She chose the Maple-Mustard Chicken Thighs. They look great and I can't wait to make them and post about it....this weekend. I can't wait to see what everyone else thought of them!

TWD: Cafe Volcano Cookies

These cookies win the award for "baked goods most likely to resemble animal waste so that everyone will pass by them in the cookie jar of life and there will be more left for you because they are in fact secretly, wonderfully delicious." This week's Tuesdays with Dorie pick was the Cafe Volcano Cookie, chosen by The Lonely Sidecar. I love reading her blog. It is entertaining, informative, chock full of her dry sense of humor, and reminds me of when I was living in Boston and dating my (now) husband. (Confessional to TLS: I can write this freely because my husband has NEVER read my blog that I, too, am a laundry sniffer. There must be some strange genetic pull that draws us towards people who smell great to us...hmmm...I see a PhD thesis here...)

Anyway, I digress-back to the food. These cookies are ridiculously easy...sugar, egg whites, walnuts, almonds and espresso powder....hmmm....lovely? No. Pretty? No. Good for a cookie swap? No. Good for travel? Definitely not. What they are great for is a cold and rainy afternoon at home where you can snack on them continuously with family and smell the toasted walnut/almonds for hours in your kitchen. The espresso powder bakes out so they aren't too coffee-ish ( I recommend King Arthur brand espresso powder after trying about ten different brands) and I bet they would be good with cocoa powder instead of espresso powder if you are an avowed coffee-hater. Thanks for a great pick and see you next week at TWD!

Sables and me, a love story

Easy, peasy, lemon-squeezy. Although the directions for this week's sables (i.e. french butter cookies for you non-foodies) span two long pages, they are easy as pie to assemble and should be in everyone's rotation. I love how they are light, flaky, buttery and sandy all at the same time. They require ingredients that are already in your pantry (butter, sugar, eggs, confectioner's sugar, salt, flour).

Bungalow Barbara, you rock. Thank you for adding great comments to our blogs and choosing a life-changingly cool recipe that I will make all the time. The only teensy tiny problems I had with the recipe were that mine cooked in about 12 minutes (not 17) so the first batch burned, my dad ate the entire second batch in three minutes hot out of the oven and didn't share, and I ate a batch all by myself while cleaning the dishes. Minor complaints, I know. I photographed my blue-sprinkle covered beauties next to some of my Christmas decor. It makes me so happy to look at it that I just might keep it up all year long. Visit Barbara's blog for the entire recipe and stay tuned next week as Tuesdays with Dorie tackles more cookies for the holiday season.

Dorie in my hood....

I am not a stalker. I just live on the shoreline and frequent cool places. Today, I went to the Chester Winter Farmer's Market and got some food from The River Tavern truck. If you are in the area on a Sunday afternoon before Christmas, check it out. There is wonderful cheese, bread, potatoes and greens and you just might bump into the 'D' in TWD :).

The best top secret macaroni and cheese recipe EVER

Thank you Vivien. You are the best. From east to west. Go Vivien!

I hosted a shower a few weeks ago for my younger sister Meg. I decided to serve all of Meg's favorite foods in the meal, from fried chicken, to macaroni and cheese with cupcakes and chocolate covered pretzels for dessert. Besides, she is adorablly pregnant, so she should eat whatever she wants and we all just have to go along for the cream-cheese cupcake ride. I looked at a few different recipes and made several different macaroni and cheese variations before the shower but nothing was working well. So, I bypassed the 'effort' button and emailed my friend Stephanie for her mom Vivien's fabulous mac and cheese recipe. She has served it before at family events where I have been lucky enough to score an invite, and it is hip with gruyere cheese, yet crowd-friendly and easy to assemble. It calls for the traditional buttered fresh bread crumbs but it would work well with crushed flavored melba toasts too. I like it hot out of the oven with sriracha chili sauce on it. I like it cold the next day with Old Bay seasoning on it. Macaroni and cheese is sort of like pizza..there are many roads, but all lead to deliciousness.

Macaroni and Cheese

Serves 12
You can easily divide this recipe in half; Use a one-and a -half quart casserole instead of the 3 quart.

8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for the dish.
6 slices of good white bread, crust removed, to make crumbs.
5 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
4 1/2 cups grated sharp white cheddar (about 18 ounces)
2 cups grated Gruyere cheese (about 8 ounces) or 1 1/4 cups Pecorino Romano cheese (about 5 ounces)
1 pound elbow macaroni (Vivien uses DeCecco cavatappi because it holds more cheese)

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 3 quart casserole dish; set aside. Place bread crumbs in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Pour butter into the bowl with the crumbs, and toss. Set bread crumbs aside.

2. In a medium saucepan set over medium heat, heat milk. Melt remaining 6 tablespoons butter in a in a high sided skillet over medium heat. When butter bubbles, add flour. Cook, whisking, 1 minute.

3. While whisking, slowly pour in hot milk. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick.

4. Remove pan from heat. Stir in Salt, nutmeg, black pepper, cayenne pepper, 3 cups of cheddar cheese and 1 1/2 cups Gruyere or 1 cup Pecorino Romano; set cheese sauce aside.

5. Fill a large saucepan with water; bring to a boil. Add macaroni; cook 2-minutes less than manufacturer's directions, until the outside of the pasta is cooked and the inside is underdone. Transfer the macaroni to a colander; rinse under cold running water, and drain well. Stir macaroni into the reserved cheese sauce.

6. Pour mixture into prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining 1 1/2 cups Gruyere or 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano, mix and bread crumbs over the lightly, and sprinkle bread crumbs over top. Bake until browned on top, about 30 minutes. transfer dish to a wire rack to cool 5 minutes; serve hot.

ENJOY!

CEIMB: Confetti Chili

Yum. Simple. Healthy. Delicious. Yum. This week's Craving Ellie in my Belly was great.

Lauren of I'll Eat You chose the Confetti Chili. Take your basic beef chili and Ellie-cize it by adding three kinds of beans, carrots, onions, and peppers. I like how the chipotle chile in adobo sauce add flavor and a little kick of heat. It was really similar to regular old-high fat beef chili and definitely didn't taste too-too healthy. I would definitely make this quick dinner again. It is a good make-ahead dinner and perfect for the fall. I served it with Cheddar Cheese Cornbread from the new obsession, the cookbook Mad Hungry. Click here for a recent news article featuring the recipe and giving more information about the author and book.

Click here for the chili recipe on Food Network or here on I'll Eat You. See you next week CEIMB!

BAKED: Lemon Drop Cake

OK, make a list of your friends. Rank them in order of importance from best to worst. Who would lend you their umbrella in a rain storm so your hair stays poker straight? Which one will watch all of your depressing yet award winning films with you? Who listens to your endless soliliquies about the joys of Kirk Herbstreit? Would you buy a dorky cake carrier for this individual's celebration? Well, lop off the top four or five people on the list, because those are the only ones who are worthy of the Baked, Lemony Lemon Drop Cake.

My friend Katy's birthday was last week and I let her choose her own birthday cake. She said she likes lemon best (OK, I love this girl to pieces, but who willingly chooses lemon over chocolate????!!!!!) and wanted this cake. A Singleton in the Kitchen made it a few months ago, and I had bookmarked her blog entry, waiting to make it myself at some point. I gave it the old college try and made it this weekend. It is lemon cake, with homemade lemon curd, and lemon buttercream frosting. While it is a pain in the butt to put together in terms of time requirements, it is well worth it. I made the cake and lemon curd one day and the buttercream the next. It is light, fluffy, and completely delicious. It walks the line between sweet and tart and reminds me of a summer garden party sort of dessert with ladies wearing fussy hats while sipping tea in real china cups and gossiping. I would make this again...next year for Katy... but other than that, I am going to fake culinary amnesia and tell other friends I don't know how to make this. I think once you try homemade lemon curd, you can never go back. Check out Singleton's blog for the entire recipe and a cute story about her grandfather's love of fried chicken. Happy Birthday K!

TWD: Alternative :)...Cranberry Upside-Downer

Sorry to Lauren of I'll Eat You...she chose the Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tart and it looked SO good. I was trying to decorate for Christmas (yes, stamp the N for nerd on my forehead) and didn't have time for cream and pastry dough this post thanksgiving weekend. I will definitely make it soon though.

Instead, I tried to use up some of the fresh Cape Cod cranberries my parents brought me from their house and I made the Cranberry Upside-Downer featured on The Dorie's blog. Click here for the recipe. It was super easy to assemble and really really delicious. I substituted raspberry jam for the red currant jelly but I think any jam would work fine.