Salt-and-Pepper Cocoa Shortbread Cookies

I’ve been very excited to share these Salt-and-Pepper Cocoa Shortbread Cookies with you. I meant to post this in time for Valentine’s Day, knowing it would be a fabulous treat to make for your loved ones. However, I was up to my eyeballs making Valentine’s truffles for all of my CocoaRoar customers, so I’m only getting around to this now. I’m sorry. But these cookies are so marvelous that I think you’ll want to make them year-round anyway.

I have a confession to make. By the time I got through making the recipe to photograph it for the blog, there almost weren’t any cookies left to show for my efforts. I don’t mean that I snarfed most of the cookies as soon as they came out of the oven. They nearly didn’t get BAKED, for the raw dough was that good.

(Another confession: this is certainly not the first time I’ve had this happen with a batch of shortbread cookie dough. I admit I have a problem.) 

Buttery with a fine sandy texture, these tender cookies melt in your mouth. Velvety cocoa makes these shortbreads dark as midnight while a generous hit of sea salt intensifies the chocolate flavor, creating the ideal juxtaposition of salty-and-sweet. And don’t be shy about adding the freshly ground pepper, for it adds a beguiling flavor note that makes your taste buds sit up and pay attention. 

Savory Steel-Cut Oatmeal With Sesame and Scallions

We are definitely in oatmeal territory here in New York.  There is a serious cold snap happening yet again, making it perfect weather to be cozy inside while catching up on episodes of “Downton Abbey” and “Boardwalk Empire”.  It’s impossible for me to watch these favorite shows without craving some kind of winter comfort food to enjoy along with the new episodes, though I’m trying hard to avoid inhaling large quantities of cheesy pasta or roasted potatoes these days.  Since I don’t have the patience for a slow-simmering soup, Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Sesame and Scallions really fits the bill these days.  Healthful yet satisfying, it comes together quickly and is ready for its close-up. 

I love how oatmeal acts as a catchall for a wide variety of toppings.  My family has been known to top their breakfast oatmeal with any combination of brown sugar, bananas, berries, dried fruit, toasted nuts, protein powder, wheat germ—you name it.

For years I’d regarded oatmeal as strictly morning food, but I was happily surprised to discover that my beloved steel-cut Irish oatmeal is a versatile backdrop for savory ingredients as well.  I wrote that post about the joys of savory oatmeal more than two years ago, and since then I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve topped my nutty Irish oats with salty shards of Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of liquid gold olive oil. 

But sometimes I need to mix it up, and lately I’ve been going for a soy-and-sesame flavor profile.  The tamari soy sauce and toasted sesame oil create unexpected layers of flavor when stirred into the cooked oats, while scallions add bite and a welcome pop of color. I sometimes add a few toasted sesame seeds if I have them on hand, as I like the way they add crunch while highlighting the sesame notes of the oatmeal in a different octave.

A Proper Vesper

Every year when the Oscar nominations are announced, I immediately map out a  movie-going schedule in an attempt to see as many of the nominated films as I can in the weeks before the awards ceremony.  Alissa is my frequent movie buddy, but with all of these particularly heavy-duty films nominated this year, we just weren’t in the mood for a somber evening, which is how we ended up at the James Bond movie.  Even though we were at “Skyfall” on its opening day back in November, we both felt compelled to see it on the big screen once more, and our second viewing certainly did not disappoint.  (May we just talk about how inspiring Daniel Craig is?!  Wow.) It only seemed natural to follow our movie-going outing with a proper Vesper, the signature James Bond martini.

Basically, the Vesper is a mostly-gin martini, with a touch of vodka for balance and orange-scented Lillet in place of the traditional vermouth.   In “Casino Royale”, Agent 007 orders a dry martini right before a dramatic high-stakes poker game, but then he changes his mind: “Three parts Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet.  Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.  Got it?”  I always appreciate attention to detail in all things, and this drink is no exception.

 

James Bond, quite pleased with his creation, names this cocktail after Vesper Lynd, his love interest in “Casino Royale”.  “Because of the bitter aftertaste?” she asks him.  “No, because once you have tasted it, you won’t want anything else.”  I was always a classic martini girl myself, but now that I’ve started drinking Vespers on a regular basis, that is what I crave.  Bond was right. 

Chipotle Chilaquiles For A Fresh Start

Hello everyone. I am really happy to be back on this site at long last, and I truly have missed being here. I will try to make up for my absence with a plate of soul-satisfying Chipotle Chilaquiles, prepared especially for you. I realize that’s a lot to ask from a single recipe, but once you taste it, I know you’ll thank me.

The reason for my hiatus would take a year’s answer or none at all, and I will merely confine myself to saying that 2012 was Year Of The Major Curveball. There were huge personal upheavals and professional ones too, a year of trying to roll with the punches as gracefully as possible but with varying degrees of success. (As a result, most of my creative projects—such as this blog—got pushed to the furthermost edge of the proverbial back burner.) In coming to the end of a most challenging year, I was simply grateful that to have made it through 2012 and that everyone I love survived it too.

Whew.

However, some good things happened towards the end of 2012, such as this delightful new job and that crazy adventure. I also took myself to San Francisco for a late August escape, treating myself to some much-needed downtime in that beautiful Northern California light, along with a good dose of culinary inspiration. One of the most outstanding meals during that fabulous week was a plate of to-die-for chilaquiles from the Primavera tamale stand at the farmer’s market outside the Ferry Building. I’ve been on a mission to recreate it for myself ever since.

 

Chilaquiles, a traditional homey Mexican dish, are made by briefly simmering lightly fried corn tortillas in a brothy tomato-chile sauce. The trick is to cook the tortillas just long enough so that they soften a bit but not so long that they become mushy. I cheat a little by using thick-cut tortilla chips instead of the tortillas, and I don’t think the dish suffers in the least from this timesaving measure.

A March Top Ten List

TOP TEN THINGS MAKING ME REALLY HAPPY THIS SPRING

1. The Sliced Spring Salad with Avocado and Feta from Molly Wizenberg of Orangette. I can’t get enough of it, having eaten it every day for the past week.

2. Cheerful tulips wherever I look: spilling out of a vase on my living room table, planted in the dividers in the middle of Broadway and on Park Avenue, at every corner deli selling flowers, at the farmer's markets...

3. Big bouquets of radishes, ready to be shaved into a salad or layered on top of baguette slices with avocado.

4. Drinking Sancerre Rosé in the late afternoon at Balthazar. Pure bliss.

5. Bundles of asparagus, thick and thin. They often beg me to top them with a freshly poached farm egg. 

6. Weather that’s warm enough to wear shoes without socks. (You can take the girl out of California but you can’t take the California out of the girl.)

Guinness Gingerbread Cake

I am serious about celebrating birthdays, not only my own but those of my loved ones, and I truly believe that a birthday should involve great cake. When a friend’s birthday is on the horizon, I usually pounce on the opportunity to try out a new recipe on my long list of Things To Bake. I can’t usually justify whipping up a multi-layered cake for myself, but I somehow made an exception to that rule this week, for I found myself making this Guinness Gingerbread Cake not once but three times in the past week. It was that good. 

Sylvia had a big birthday last weekend, and I volunteered my cake-baking services for her celebration. Most of my friends request some form of chocolate creation, but Sylvia’s favorite cake is a spicy gingerbread one. Some of the best gingerbread recipes I’ve made involve dark beer to intensify the flavor, and it’s convenient that her birthday falls right near St. Patrick’s Day since I always have plenty of Guinness on hand. 

I once made Claudia Fleming’s Oatmeal Stout Gingerbread Cake for Sylvia’s birthday several years ago, a dessert our friends had all enjoyed at Gramercy Tavern once upon a time. It was a rich Bundt cake, dark with molasses and heavily spiced with two kinds of ginger. But I wanted to do something different this year, having recently came across this Gingerbread Beer Cake in my new book, Sky High Cakes, and I couldn’t wait to try it out.

Black&White Guinness Float

I’m dying to share something that I know will make your day. Once you taste my Black&White Guinness Float, you will wonder how you ever lived without it. I know you’re probably thinking, “Louise, are you out of your mind?!!” While it may sound strange pairing beer with ice cream, the combination totally works. Think of it as a root beer float for grown-ups.

I’m always happy when I find a multi-purpose recipe that is appropriate for a variety of occasions. Some of you may want to jumpstart your St. Patrick’s Day festivities this week, so this Irish stout cocktail will definitely get into the spirit of it all. If you’re celebrating the arrival of spring, a refreshing ice cream drink can enhance your enjoyment of the gorgeous and unseasonably warm days we’ve had in NYC this week. And if you’ve had a slightly stressful day–whether or not you were interviewed by Anderson Cooper in the morning about your unusual autobiographical memory—then a Guinness float is exactly the thing to help you unwind. Trust me, it really helps!

Guinness stout has long been my beer of choice. Velvety and bittersweet, I love it for its full-bodied complexity. As a major bonus, not only is it rich in iron and antioxidants, it is oddly low in calories. What’s not to love about that?

I wanted my beer float to play up both the deep chocolaty notes and the creamy quality of the Guinness. Since I prefer a Black&White milkshake—made with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup rather than being made from only chocolate ice cream—I decided that that principle should apply for this drink as well. A healthy glug of chocolate syrup mixed with the beer in the bottom of the glass intensifies the toasty richness of the Guinness, so much so that it’s practically crying out for a scoop of vanilla ice cream to make the party complete.