So in my kitchen adventures, I frequently have some leftover odd item that I have to figure out how to use. Which starts another adventure, right? Or ends up in the freezer in one of those mysterious ziploc bags my husband is always dropping on his foot.

So in my Meyer lemon adventure, I made lemon curd with four egg yolks, leaving me with four egg whites. Egg WHITES? As you can tell from my pic, I don’t generally eat egg white omelettes for breakfast. Pie with meringue just isn’t practical for a household of 2. Puffy meringue cookies were just too precious. And tedious. So I did a little googling (side note: per Wiki, Google would prefer I didn’t use this word as a synonym for general web searching) and saw several variations on macaroons. Ding Ding Ding! I’ve never made them before, and I don’t know if I’ve ever had a GOOD macaroon. I’ve had some really lame storebought ones (comes in a canister once a year not naming brands). I’ve had some from bakeries that were awfully pretty to look at, but heavy and dense and light  on flavor. But the idea of a macaroon grew on me — and I felt myself rising to this self-perpetuated challenge.

Think about Mounds. And Almond Joys. Coconut is the dominant flavor. Truly moist interiors, but not gooey. Firm but not dense. So in my mind, a macaroon should be a cookie version of those. As I compared and contrasted the recipes and techniques and photos (sorry, it’s the analyst in me), it became clearer that the fewer ingredients the better, oven temperature was uber important, and the ingredients needed to be handled very gently (forget about whipping anything to peaks).

The step-step version pictured used classic semi-sweet chocolate chips, roasted/salted pistachios, and a little Key Lime zest (’cause I had some leftover from here). I’ve also made a version with toasted hazelnuts and DARK chocolate chips (see left) that made me swoon. Literally. I gave a dozen of them to a dear friend (because I wouldn’t be able to control myself if they were in my house), and she swears she ate all of them herself. That good.

So this might be my new favorite cookie. It’s definitely a coconut cookie. Moist and not too sweet on the inside, and that amazing toasted coconut on the outside. Just enough chocolate and nuttiness to make it interesting. The lime zest is subtle — and intriguing.

Michelle’s Mahvelous Macaroons
Adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction
Yield: About 30 cookies

4 large egg whites
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt [optional]
A bag of sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup chocolate chips
2/3 cup chopped nuts
~ 1 teaspoon lime zest [optional]

Preheat the oven to 325F. Line a sheet pan with a silicon baking sheet (“silpat”). I did NOT test with parchment, but I bet that would work. You’d probably need a fresh sheet for each batch, since these are REALLY sticky. I would NOT recommend baking spray or butter/shortening on the bare cookie sheet.

In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk, whisk the egg whites, sugar, vanilla, and salt [skip the salt if your nuts are already salted] until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is frothy, about 2 or 3 minutes. Start on low and then crank it up a bit! Mix in the coconut by hand with a wooden spoon or spatula, ensuring every coconut strand is evently coated with the eggy liquid. Gently stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Scoop onto the silpat with a medium-sized cookie scoop — eight scoops per pan. You’ll note that I have two pans — but only ONE goes in the oven at a time! In my 40 years of baking, I have never been happy when I baked two pans of cookies at a time, even if I rotated and flipped racks halfway through. For cookie perfection, ONE pan at a time!

Bake a single pan at 325F for 10 minutes. Rotate. Cook another 10 minutes. Remove to the counter and allow to cool about 5 minutes before removing with a spatula to waxed paper or cooling racks to fully cool. Makes about 30 cookies.

NOTES:

• Don’t scoop until JUST before you are putting a pan in the oven — otherwise they slump :(.
• You will want to stir the batter once or twice while pans are cooking so the last couple of cookies, from the very bottom of the mixing bowl, aren’t too wet and eggy.
• I use dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips, but feel free to use milk chocolate if that’s what you prefer.
• If using hazelnuts, you’ll want to toast the raw hazelnuts in a dry skillet over medium heat. Remove from hot pan and set aside to cool. Most nuts benefit from this treatment.

Sometimes I make something absolutely DELISH without realizing it’s going to be good enough to blog about (meaning I don’t take pictures along the way). This old-fashioned comfort dish is one of them. I’ve had several requests for the recipe, so let’s go for a mini-post!

Ham and Spaghetti Squash Casserole
Serves 4 – 6

1/2 of a large-ish cooked, seasoned spaghetti squash (about 4 cups) [*]
1 small onion, diced fine
Extra virgin olive oil
2 cups cubed ham
1 container plain greek yogurt
1 1/2 – 2 cups shredded cheese [**]

Cook the onion in a tablespoon or two of olive oil until soft and slightly colored. Allow to cool.

Preheat your oven to 375F. Gently mix the cooled squash, onion, ham, yogurt, and a cup or so of the cheese (reserve some for later) in a large bowl. Pour into a 7″ by 10″ baking dish that you’ve sprayed with baking spray. Bake 30 – 45 minutes until it starts to get all bubbly. Sprinkle the reserved cheese over the top and cook another 10 or 15 minutes until it’s brown and crusty.

Serve hot with some crusty bread.

And maybe a glass of wine :).

[*] I roasted off a large spaghetti squash earlier this winter, generously seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. We ate half at the time and I froze the remainder, so this casserole used the frozen portion. Drain well after thawing — it tends to give off some water as it thaws. There’s a great pictorial at theKitchn that describes how to roast a spaghetti squash. Also, it turns out that dogs love spaghetti squash too.

[**] Any melty cheese will work. I think I used a combination of something frozen and unlabelled, cheddar, and “six cheese Italian”, since I had partial bags of all.

I’m still not cooking. My palate is still off while recovering from bronchitis (29 days and counting), so the stuff that appeals to me is veggie-based pizza, very select soups, and nursery food (think jello, simple cookies, oatmeal). I normally drink my morning coffee with 2% milk, but I can’t tolerate that — too bitter — so I’ve started buying flavored creamers. I’m really sensitive to salt as well. Chips and most crackers are just intolerably salty. I assume all will settle back to normal once I’m recovered, but for now, I’m just going to take it easy in the kitchen.

So a few years back I had a 20-mmmph-year high school reunion (Glynn Academy, Brunswick, GA). Facebook ended up being the easiest way to circulate all the event info, so I ended up “friending” a boatload of people from high school. Helen Stergius happens to be one of those people. I’m thinking she was probably funny in high school, but I am embarrassed to say I don’t really remember details. She’s out in Colorado and I’m on the East Coast, so our interactions are pretty much limited to reunions and Facebook. Now, in Adult World, she is one of the funniest people I know. Like spit-out-coffee-all-over-your-Kindle funny. She makes fun of herself and embraces her own special awkwardness. So when she posted the following on Facebook, I knew I had to share:

“Next time you think you are a total dork in the kitchen, imagine yourself doing this and you’ll immediately feel competent:

You make fettuccine by hand, including mixing, kneading, and rolling. You boil it. You strain it over the sink. The strainer tips and dumps all of your handmade pasta into a few slightly dirty dishes and a little soap. Begin cursing the same word over and over and over. You desperately plunge your hands into the sink to save the pasta, forgetting that the water you just poured had just been boiling. Spray cold water into the sink, refill the colander, rinse the pasta like crazy, boil some fresh water so that you can flash boil the pasta to reheat and clean (?) it. Transfer the pasta to the boiling water, imagining a noodly slither but instead getting a noodly plop of all noodles. Boiling water goes everywhere, into your cream sauce, into the butter package, all over your legs. Continue cursing then stop because it’s stupid and not helping. And calling attention to the fact that you just dirtied then washed then reboiled noodles. Complete meal as planned with slightly soggier noodles and a watery sauce. Family graciously says it’s awesome. The rest of the meal only slightly overcooked because of pasta debacle.

There – your dorkiness pales in comparison tonight, I am sure.”

See what I mean? Once I read this, I immediately messaged her asking permission to share this with a broader audience, as well as permission to use her name. She’s a good sport, and responded with:

“Haha! Sure you can identify me it’s no big deal. I did not scald my self and though my hands and shins feel sunburned a bit they aren’t even red, so you might want to add that so that no one thinks I have 3rd degree burns as a result. What a silly mess. It’s easy to make pasta but it takes so long to do it – when it all dumps out in the sink there’s just no rational reaction”

You know, this is JUST as funny on the fifth read as it was on the first! Many thanks to Helen for inspiring an interim post until I return to regular blogging!

This is Nurse Buddy. My near constant companion as I fight the Mack Truck of Non-Fatal Illness: Bronchitis. After eight days of fever, I may be turning the corner. That little “flu” my husband had before Christmas — well I came down with it New Years Days. And got steam-rolled. The blog hiatus continues, but I leave you with a quick photo of the last thing I cooked in 2013, a pork-rib bibimbap.

I’ve taken a brief hiatus from the blog. Between wacky work obligations and my husband coming down with what Dr. Mom here thinks was the flu (no, he never actually made it to the doctor), there just hasn’t been much actual cooking in the Matlack household. Although I did manage to squeak out a couple of loaves of bread:

No worries — I hope to rekindle my relationship with my kitchen very soon, and until then, Merry Christmas!!

A good pie crust is more than just a vehicle to get the filling to your mouth. A good pie crust has flavor and flaky layers, and is tender but still snaps. My mother makes a fine pie crust. My grandmothers made very fine crusts. Me? Not so much. Until recently, I bought my crusts. Every few years, I gave ’em another try. All were sad disappointments. Tough. No layers. No flavor. I have tried shortening, butter, a combo, even oil (Mom uses oil with great success). I used a pastry cutter, two butter knives, my fingers. I overworked it. I rolled it too thick. I gave up.

So with the start of this blog, shame finally drove me to the pie crust again. I read ALOT. I watched Ina Gartner and America’s Test Kitchen and asked around. I took a cooking class where the dessert was a tart crust. I kept coming back to “DON’T TOUCH IT TOO MUCH” and “KEEP IT COLD” … over and over and over. The key equipment seemed to be a food processor. I didn’t have a full-size one, I don’t have the space to store one, but if I was ever going to conquer pie crusts, I felt I had to give it one more try. So I bought myself a basic Cuisinart food processor.

My first attempt was with an all-butter crust (from Cutie Pies by Dani Cone). I found I needed far less water than the printed recipe called for, but by carefully following the **technique**, I produced one FINE pie crust. Me! A pie crust! And I did it again and again!

Buoyed by my initial successes, I tweaked the recipe a bit, replacing some of the butter with lard. Yes, lard. Fruit of the pig. Properly rendered lard is as neutral in flavor as vegetable shortening, but none of that trans-crap. Lard truly elevates this crust from delicious to sublime. The lightness and flakiness and layers upon layers … I tell you, the lard really makes it. So I share with you, today, my pie crust.

Pie Crust
Makes 1 double-crust 9″ pie or 2 single-crust 9″ pies

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup lard
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes
1/2 cup ice water

Put the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of the food processor fitted with the metal blade. Pulse 2 or 3 times to combine. Put the lard and butter cubes on top of the flour.

Pulse just a few times until the fats are distributed into flour-coated pea-sized globs. This might be as little as 10 pulses.

Pour the iced water through the narrow feed tube and pulse just until it’s through the tube and the mixture looks like wet sand. This might be just 10 pulses.

Reach in and grab a small amount. Squeeze. Does it stick together like play-doh? If so — you are done!! If dry, add water just a teaspoon at a time, with a minimum of pulses, to get to this wet-sand-squeezable state.

Dump the contents onto your floured countertop. Divide in half. Shape each half into a disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap (or a zippered bag) and refrigerate for AT LEAST an hour and up to 3 days. Freeze if it’s going to be around longer than that.

When ready to roll, let it set out just a few minutes (no more than 10). Lard is softer at refrigerator temp than butter, so it can’t sit around long. On a lightly floured countertop, roll out your patty to about a 12″ circle about 1/4″ thick. I like to put my rolling pin in the center, roll away from me. Pick up the pin and place back in the center, roll towards me. Rotate the patty about a quarter-turn, and repeat. The larded crust is a little more fragile than an all-butter, so you may get a little tearing towards the edges. Patch it. Who cares. This pie crust ROCKS.

Happy Thanksgiving! I am traveling back to Virginia from Florida today, so our T-day dinner will be delayed a day or two   Hope yours was scrumptious!

So my friend Amy grew some leeks this year (I grew weeds, one intentional tomato plant, and countless volunteer cherry tomato plants). She OH SO GENEROUSLY brought me the very first one she harvested. It was beautiful. Not as large as the commercially-grown grocery store versions. Much more tender (yes, I nibbled on some green to test). And not nearly as DIRTY as a grocery store one. I pondered out loud what I might make … not a pie, because it wasn’t big enough, but certainly an omelet. Or a frittata. But something that would really let the leek shine. I was REALLY excited about the lovely little hand-grown leek! Well, I wasn’t exactly fishing for more, but the next morning, Amy brought me some MORE of her lovelies. NOW I had enough for some sort of pie!

I’m a little obsessed with the thought of pie lately, because I’ve been practicing pie crusts. So when my quantity of leeks suddenly shot up, well, we were going with something crusted. I stumbled around the internet to get some ideas, and realized that something like a quiche really appealed to me. But you know what, most quiche recipes call for half-and-half, or cream, or BOTH. I really didn’t want to overpower these sweet tender leeks with a heavy custard — I wanted them to star. Over at The Kitchn, their recipe called for 3 eggs, 1 cup milk, and 1/2 cup cream, but if you actually READ the intro, you see they recommend a 2 eggs-to-one-cup-milk ratio, or 3 eggs to 1 1/2 cups milk for a nine-inch pie. So I had my custard figured out!

But what else to throw in there? I knew my husband would cringe without some sort of meat. Because the leeks are so sweet, I didn’t want to go the similarly sweet ham or prosciutto route, but I did have BACON. Bacon would add a salty-smoky counterpoint to those sweet leeks. I always have bagged, shredded cheese on hand, and the swiss caught my eye for its nutty bite. Folks, we are close to lift-off!

Leek, Bacon, and Cheese Quiche
Serves 6

One unbaked 9″ pie crust
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
A minuscule pinch of Kosher salt
1 1/2 cups well-cleaned and finely sliced leeks (whites and light green)
6 – 8 slices crispy-cooked bacon, cooled and chopped or crumbled
1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (bagged, pre-shredded is fine)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk (I used 2%)

Melt the butter in a small saute pan over medium heat. Add the well-cleaned leeks and just a pinch of salt. Saute until soft — turn down to medium-low if they start to color — this will take a while since leeks are much more fibrous than a shallot or regular onion. Allow to cool.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Loosely toss the leeks, bacon, and cheese and put in the bottom of the crust.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with a fork until the yolks and whites are broken up, then add the milk and mix well with the fork. Gently pour over the leeks and friends. Put in the oven and bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the custard is mostly set. A little jiggle in the middle is good. I usually take a butter knife and insert it about 1/4″ into the custard, about halfway between the center and the edge, just to make sure it’s set. Pull and allow to cool before slicing. How cool? You should be able to pick up the pie plate without screaming.

As a side, I made a mustardy vinaigrette to serve over cold (leftover) green beans tossed with sun-dried tomatoes. The bitter of the mustard+vinegar and the crisp of the green beans was a nice contrast to the soft, warm, cheesy quiche. And some bacon