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Sweet, fried dough? Made to conveniently fit in you hand?  There are so many reasons to love this treat. And we in the US are not the only lovers of this decadent, delicious deep fried dough. From Zeppole in Southern Italy to Paczki in Poland, it’s really an international favorite.

Just when I think I will never paint another doughnut, one comes along that  I can’t seem to resist. It’s not only that very memorable flavor, doughnuts also possess a powerful and compelling art allure.  They are commonly “round”, one of the building block shapes of drawing.  You can hold them, like a brush or pencil.  Plus they can be any color represented on the color wheel, and are often multi-colored.  After all, from my perspective, sprinkles and coconut are just small pieces of color.

Come to think of it, I wonder why I even considered I may never paint another doughnut…..I’m sure there will be many more doughnuts on my canvas, panel or paper in the future. I’ll just have to have this conversation with myself all over again.

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I am practicing small. Small is my new temporary approach to all activities, including kitchen happenings. Just as I am fitting into my “petite making” space, so I am adjusting to my new petite baking space.

My temporary kitchen is 10 feet long by 2 feet deep. The appliances, storage, and work surface form a complete unit on one wall.  So when I finally decide to take on the challenge of baking, I begin small with ‘melt-a-ways’. These little  butter cookies not only melt in your mouth as the name promises, but they are easy to make and require few ingredients while offering great reward, which is they are delicious.

I finished mine with icing tinted pink, and used a sprinkle of sanding sugar for a little sparkle. But these little buttery bites are a blank canvas for your choice of icing and color, and perfect for the small space kitchen.

Melt-A-Ways

Heat oven to 325º.

Cookie:

3/4 cup butter, softened (if using unsalted add 3/4 tsp salt)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup unbleached flour

In a large bowl, combine butter and powdered sugar. Blend thoroughly without over mixing.

Stir in cornstarch and flour, without over mixing. If dough is soft, chill for 30 minutes for easier handling.

Shape dough into 3/4″ balls.

Place 2 inches apart on ungreased and unlined cookie sheet.

Bake 10-15  minutes or until very lightly browned around edges.

Cool completely.

Icing:

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tablespoon butter, softened (if using unsalted, add a pinch of salt to taste)
1  1/2 tablespoons milk
food coloring -optional

In a small bowl combine all icing ingredients except food coloring. If needed add a few more drops of milk to make a desired consistency.

After combined, tint as desired with food coloring.

Dip the tops of the cookies in the icing, or spoon over the cookie.

Allow icing to set before storing.

These freeze well, although they rarely last that long……

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Hasn’t it been a long hiatus? It feels as if I have been floating above ground and there have been no feet with which to land.

After finishing a 15 year restoration on the bungalow where Art On The Menu lived, cooked and created, the time had come to get the very last project off the list. I should add this was the very biggest project: the kitchen. Then the long term goals of finishing the restoration, selling the house, and moving could be completed. And the destination? A Northwest city with a thriving art and food culture.

So here we are. Art On The Menu is currently in an apartment while looking for a house to call home. The apartment is compact, but efficient, as is the current studio space. The ‘studio’ is on one 10ft wall, with rotating bins of cardboard lining the second wall. The office is on the opposite wall, and a shelf of miscellaneous studio equipment on the last wall of this small room. It’s working as long as the work itself is of a certain modest size! But I will save that for another post.

Now that the studio is organized I will begin to complete my promised commissions, and thank all my dear clients that graciously wanted me to wait on completing their commissions while the move was in progress. And, I can begin some new work I have been thinking about for months.

And landing on your feet? I can see mine again.

What is it about Holiday baking?

It’s the indefinable scent of sugar, butter and spices wafting from the oven and falling like a soft cloud of sweetness, covering every nook and cranny of your home. And, it’s the childhood memory of anticipating that first buttery bite as the object of fondness finds its way through the creative cycle of mixing, baking and decorating.

Growing up I always found the intersection of art and food so thrilling this time of year. And that magic of transforming ingredients into beautiful, edible works of art continues to inform my baking. Every year I pour over hundreds of cookie recipes, carefully choosing the year’s selection by balancing flavors, shapes and colors to create a final canvas of artfully assembled sweet delicacies, always hoping to reflect the magic of Season.

My theme  this year was fruit and nuts, and I have included a delicious cranberry cookie recipe below. The dried cranberries and coconut make this a welcomed gift anytime of year.

Wishing You All A Happy, Joyous Holiday Season.

Coconut Cranberry Cookies

Makes 6 doz cookies

Preheat oven to 350℉

1 1/2 cups butter room temp (3/4 lb)
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
2 teaspoons vanilla

In a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed, beat butter, sugar, orange peel, and vanilla until smooth.

3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture, stir to mix by hand, then beat on low speed until dough comes together in a smooth mass, about 5 minutes. (The mixture will look dry until it comes together as a dough. If it is too crumbly to form into balls, the dough needs to be mixed longer).

1 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 1/2 cup sweetened flaked dried coconut

Mix in cranberries and coconut.

Shape dough into 1 inch balls and place about 2″ apart on  lightly sprayed baking sheet (do not use parchment).

Bake at 350℉ until cookie edges begin to brown, 8-11 minutes. Shorter baking time will yield chewier cookie.

If baking  2 sheets at once in one oven, switch their positions halfway through the baking.

Cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling racks.

Dust with powdered sugar (optional).

From Sunset Magazine published sometime during the last decade!

The lovely lemon has a recorded history dating back to ancient Egypt and Rome. It was brought to the new world in the 16th Century. Aren’t we lucky! We use it not only for brightening flavors but also medicinal purposes. It even has an artist’s paint color named after it:  Lemon Yellow. All cooks are crazy about this magical pantry staple.

I love lemons to enliven flavors; as a stand alone dessert filling; candied; and zested or peeled for that explosive punch of color on a plate. And it’s the only pantry item I can think of that has this association: squeezed.

This is why it’s been front and center in my mind. We all know the pressure of being squeezed: time; space; ideas; both real and virtual. I have been carefully navigating  the shoals of studio work and readying the house for a move in the future. It’s no wonder this word popped into my mind.

It’s fitting that it has taken me 8 months to finish this piece:  “Lemon Meringue Pie Slice”.  True, part of this delay was locating the right cardboard. Another was placing my non-commissioned pieces on the back burner while waiting for “time” that had been squeezed out of my schedule, to appear.

As I watched the little streams of juice trickle between my clenched fingers to pool  in my bowl, it suddenly became my visualization.  The perfect image of a certain kind of pressure for the kitchen inclined.

Squeezing lemons clearly illustrated that the current pressures would yield exactly what I needed in the future. Drop by drop the juice would meld together the flavors of the lemon cilantro pesto I was preparing. Being squeezed by these crazy constraints  will extract just what is needed for the move to go forward.

Lemon Cilantro Pesto

Zest and juice of 2 small lemons
1/2 cup toasted almonds
4 cups fresh cilantro leaves loosely packed
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
3/4 cup freshly grated pecorino

1 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

In a food processor fitted with steel blade attachment, blend first 5 ingredients until coarsely chopped.

Drizzle in the olive oil in a slow stream while the processor is running, until finely chopped.  Season with salt and pepper.

Makes approx 2 cups.

This pesto is very stiff.  Set aside a little pasta water after draining your pasta, to loosen the sauce.

It was late May,  really not that long ago.  The low gray sky and heavy clouds were barely filtering the sun on a cold wet Saturday morning. It was another dreary visit to the Farmers Market on the wettest recorded Spring in 70 years.

I love potatoes and turnips, and I arrived expecting to see their broad palette of browns, muted reds, and pale yellows which always follow a drawn out winter and cold Spring. But this visit gave me my first  hint of color, and with it the fruit and veggies yet to come. The artist’s hope can reside in color!  On this visit, the color was orange, and the produce was baby carrots.

Spring, although late, had finally arrived.  Soon I would be able to slather butter on my radish baguettes and anticipate that first bite of my fresh tomato tart.

I scooped up several bunches of baby carrots.  I love the incredible sweetness, the tenderness with just a little crunch, and the versatility of this earliest Spring veggie. You can eat it raw as a snack or in salads, or barely cook it as an addition to any dish.

I wanted to celebrate these carrots as the harbinger of a long awaited Spring with a simple recipe.  I have made this so often I no longer use a recipe: a splash here and a pinch there. This preparation lets the carrots shine in color and flavor. I sauteed them gently in butter, and when barely tender stir in a little sugar and balsamic vinegar to taste. For an added contrast in flavor and color I toss in chopped chives at the end, and viola! A delicious Spring welcome.

Balsamic Glazed Baby Carrots

1 lb baby carrots, washed and trimmed
1 1/2 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoons sugar ( or to taste)
1 1/2 Tablespoons Balsamic (or to taste)
2 Tablespoons chopped chives or sauteed  shallots

Melt butter in heavy saucepan over medium heat.

Add carrots.

Saute until tender-crisp.

Stir in remaining ingredients.

Serve!

I have substituted honey for sugar, shallots or onions for chives, and apple cider vinegar for Balsamic and it’s always delicious! Also good cold in salads!

From the perfect selection on a trolley that’s wheeled around ‘fine dining’ establishments, to the orange day- glow product extruded from an aerosol can, when it comes to cheese there is something for everyone.

Be it artisanal or lowbrow, melting creaminess or plastic wrapped slices, the variety of  choices is seemingly endless. And most astonishing of all: it originates from the same product, milk.

For the artist, all the usual descriptive qualities are present: color, texture and shape. If I then mix in the interpretive characteristics, such as creamy; sweet; complex; rich; sharp; etc.,  this ancient food that crosses all cultures becomes a still life subject of infinite exploration, deserving of canvas and paint.

The cheese, as they say, stands alone.

I still write my initial blog notes with pen and paper. And sometimes, I just can’t pick up that pen. The words just aren’t there. During the last ‘pen-less’ three weeks I also watched as a human rights revolution, and celebration, spread across the Mid-East and North Africa.

I thought I had nothing to say, but it was now obvious to me that this was the perfect time to re-visit, and bake, my Peace Cookies.

I explored the Peace Cookie in a recent post, and after researching options on the internet, I complied a list of variations. Since many blogs have been written about the Dorie Greenspan chocolate sable Peace Cookie, I decide to bake the Croatian Peace Cookie. This cookie was a cream cheese pastry with a jam filling. While staying in the spirit of the original, I did find myself redesigning this recipe.

I began by substituting my own cream cheese pastry for the original cookie pastry when I discovered the original recipe was incomplete. After making one batch I  changed the size of the original cookie, a 3″ square was just a mouthful of pastry, trimming it down to a  2″ square which was the perfect two bite size.

But the most important change of all, and in solidarity with our Mid- Eastern/North African sisters and brothers, I changed the filling to a mixture of fig preserves, dates and almonds.

I rounded out this little cookie with a brush of egg glaze and sprinkle of sugar to hold it together, and give it shine after baking. A much prettier finish than just a dusting of powdered sugar, which is what the original recipe called for.

The original cookie was a Croatian family recipe. It was published along with the following notation: “Each cookie is a prayer for peace for all people living in war torn and repressed nations.”

I’m so happy I decided to double the recipe. Double the Peace!

‘Redesigned’ Croatian Peace Cookie

Makes 4-5 doz

Pastry: ( can be carefully rerolled  two times)

1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 8- oz package cream cheese, room temp
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

Whisk salt and flour together.

Using stand or electric mixer, beat butter and cheese until light.

Beat in sugar until mixture is fluffy.

Mix in flour/salt until dough can be gathered together. It will be soft.

Divide the dough, forming into 2 equal square shapes, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour, or can be made a day ahead and chilled overnight.

If chilling overnight leave out until soft enough to roll.

Filling:

1 cup pitted chopped dates
2/3 cup fig jam
2/3 cup  chopped roasted, unsalted almonds
2 tablespoons melted butter

Mix above together in a medium size bowl

1 egg, beaten
additional sugar

Assembly:

Preheat oven to 350°

Flour your rolling surface.  I roll out this pastry on wide plastic wrap dusted with flour.

Roll out one chilled square of pastry  to 1/8″. If pastry was chilled more than one hour, leave out to soften until it is soft enough to roll.

Cut pastry into 2″ squares. ‘Gently’ re-knead and re-roll scraps to prevent dough from getting tough.

Lay out the 2″ squares so you can fill them assembly line style. See photo below.

Place one scant teaspoon of filling in the center of each square.

Bring opposite corners of the square to the middle, pressing the first corner down sightly onto the base, and overlapping the second corner.

Brush with egg and sprinkle with sugar.

Repeat process with second square of rested pastry.

Bake on an unlined, ungreased baking sheet for 20-25 min, or until bottoms and edges are golden brown.

Think Peace!

I sat looking out my studio window watching the robins gobble the last remaining red berries from my yard, wondering why I placed a Peanut Blossom, such a sunny cookie,  in a decidedly cool background. But watching the last speck of red in my yard disappear down the gullet of one happy robin, it dawned on me: it’s the color of winter.

And when I visit the market in the winter, both the farmers outdoor markets and my local co-op, doing my best to support our local farmers by passing by the bright red hydroponic tomatoes from North of the border, and the bright green scallions from South of the Border, what remains is a very muted winter palette of color. There are the root vegetables such as  carrots, potatoes,  parsnips  and beets. These earthy colors are punctuated here and there by onions, squash, and apples.

But what I was really dreaming about in the middle of continual gray, was a nice bright salad. That left me one choice. Construct a salad with all the colors that winter has to offer, and brighten the taste with a vinaigrette. Its ‘The Colors Of Winter Salad’!

The Colors Of Winter Salad

Use any root vegetable that appeals to you. In this salad I used red, russet, and purple potatoes; golden beets; parsnips; onions; carrots; and squash. I also used apples in the dressing and as a finish to the salad for added crunch!

Roasting veggies: use the veggies of your choice,  just cut them all approximately the same size for even roasting.

Preheat oven to 400°

1 lb.  each purple, russet, and red potatoes scrubbed and cut into 1 inch pieces.
1 1/2 lb. carrots  scrubbed, cut into 1″ pieces on the diagonal
1 1/2 lbs parsnips, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 lb. beets, whole (I used golden beets to avoid staining the other veggies)
1 small onion, peeled and cut into 1″ chunks
1 lb.  hard winter squash (Butternut, Delicata, Danish etc.) peeled and cut into 1-1/2″ pieces
5 cloves of garlic, peeled
1/2 cup olive oil
Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup fresh Rosemary coarsely chopped.

Toss all ingredients, in a medium bowl.

Place all ingredients, except beets, in a half or baking sheet, and roast until barely fork tender, 20-30 min.

Wrap whole beets separately in foil, and roast approx 40-50 min.

To assemble:

1  large apple, large diced skin on
Apple dressing: recipe follows ( uses an additional 1/2 apple)
Crumbled gorgonzola as garnish optional.

Cut cooled, peeled beets into 1″ pieces.

Toss all veggies  and diced apple in a medium bowl.

Add dressing to taste: I like this ‘lightly’ dressed, adding about 2 tablespoons.

Serve at room temp.

Apple Dressing:

Makes 1 cup.

You won’t use all of this in the salad, but it’s so good you will use up in no time!

2 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons grated shallot
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup finely chopped apple ( approx 1/2 medium apple)

Pulse a few times in cuisinart or with immersion blender.

Stores for 5 days in fridge.

I never do resolutions for the New Year. I do have a New Year tradition however, that I call ‘Reviewing’. Reviewing is a visit to the past year’s favorites. ‘Favorites’ can be places; people; things;  or events. And favorites can be new or old!

I  just sit down and make a list. In very short order I have filled a legal sized sheet of paper. With so many memorable ‘Favorites’, I can’t help but look forward to what’s in store for the New Year!

Here are four of my ‘Favorites’ from this years list. Three are repeats, and one is new.

Grandma Goldie’s Snack Mix:

It just wouldn’t be the holidays without this one of a kind, stellar snack! It is a yearly gift from our friend Linda.  Without a doubt this is the best snack mix recipe I have ever tasted. It has the perfect spice, salt, sweet and texture balance. It has been passed down to Linda so that she may carry on Grandma Goldie’s very secret recipe!

Diva Tool:

I love this new favorite gift I received from friends this year. It’s 5 tools in one, WITH rhinestones!

The handle contains 4 different attachments. I am already using this one one in The Cardboard Kitchen. And guess what?  It does make you feel like a Diva!

Agnes Martin:

Agnes Martin makes my list every year. I find her life and work inspirational. I absolutely love getting lost in her fields of color and line.

Several times a year I revisit her work and writing. One of my favorite text’s is a 1979 lecture she prepared for the University Of New Mexico that was then revised and published in Artspace, entitled  “The Current Of The River Of Life Moves Us”.

Pierre (Bonnard) And Henri (Matisse):

Affectionately referred to as ‘my boys’, Pierre and Henri  definitely make me happy every day, and they make my list every year!

And they are so artistic. Look how they  arrange themselves to form their own graphic patterns of blacks, grays and whites. I think they discuss the artistic merits of how to position themselves before they get comfortable.

Don’t you agree this is a much better tradition than resolutions? May you all look forward to 2011!