Lemon Bars

I've learned a lot about the cookbook and food-writing business in the eleven years we've been doing it. Among many things: you've got to balance old and new. A cookbook needs more than cutting-edge, tweaked, or twisted recipes. It needs some classics thrown in for good measure.

Because--and here's the real deal--most people will make the classics before they make the innovative.

Take my mother. When we're in the middle of a cookbook, we always hand her some recipes to test. When we were writing THE ULTIMATE COOK BOOK--click here for those 900 (!) recipes--I sent her a big packet. The first one she did? Snickerdoodles. Mind you, she'd had her own recipe since I was a kid. But she did the tried-and-true before she did anything else.

Same with our book REAL FOOD HAS CURVES, the step-by-step plan to get off processed food. Most people start the plan with the chocolate pudding recipe. And why not? But I'm always amazed that it's the first thing out of the gate, before anything more inventive. (For more on that recipe, see my blog post here.)

I'm not complaining. I would make it first, too. And often. Do, in fact. But it is strange how we're brought back to the standards in the kitchen. I wonder why that is.

Anyway, it all brings me to these lemon bars--which I adore. So old-fashioned and lovely. I think they're the perfect, bright, sour treat for a cold winter day. Or any day.

Let's get to it:

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Peanut Butter Oat Cookies

Can you believe it's almost 2011? I've probably told you this before but one of my favorite quotes from Toni Morrison's masterpiece, BELOVED, is when Sethe tells her daughter this: "It's so hard for me to believe in time. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay."

Gorgeous, no? Just to be able to say "I don't believe in time anymore."

Still and all, it's the time of year when we all measure time's passing. And mostly, we do it by making resolutions. (Well, that and by drinking too much champagne. A pretty gorgeous thing, too.)

If I can be so bold, I'd like to propse a resolution for us all, me included: let's all nudge ourselves one step more whole in our food choices. Which means one step browner.

In other words, let's eat more whole grains.

We don't have to go nuts and chow down on millet the first week out. I said "browner," not all the way to Birkenstocks.

It's a simple resolution. There are plenty of whole-grain recipes on this blog. And great books by the likes of Lorna Sass and Robin Asbell.

Here's what I'm talking about: a recipe that sneaks the grain in without too much trouble. It's a great treat--and with whole grains, even better. Again, browner. You don't have to give up cookies. Just make better ones. As in these from our ULTIMATE PEANUT BUTTER BOOK:

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Big Buttery Sugar Cookies

As you know, we're all about what's real on this blog, about real food at every turn.

Which means baking can be a problem. Modern baking was designed for food that sometimes doesn't meet with the "real" test: hydrogenated this, overly refined that.

We can push back. Not completely. But enough that it makes sense with busy lives and normal resources. Don't worry: we're not going overboard. Don't put on the Birkenstocks. (I assure you Bruce has on his pair at this moment.) Don't tell me about how hemp is an important crop for "other" reasons. Don't break out the patchouli. (Yet.) Instead, push back a little.

In that spirit, I offer you this revamping of one of our own recipes, this time from THE ULTIMATE COOK BOOK, our 900-recipe tome. In those pages, you'll find a more standard sugar cookie recipe. Here, we're going to get a little "realer." You'll note in the top picture that our cookies are not the standard, lily white sugar cookies. That's because they're using a little whole wheat pastry flour, a little less-refined sugar.

Let's get to it.

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Cherry Oat Bars

Um, yum. Crunchy bar cookies, laced with jam. I ask you: what could be better?

But before we get into it, and because we're into real food, let's have the discussion. You know, THE discussion. The one about empty calories. The one about sweets.

Listen, anything like this is nutritionally void. Oh, sure, I could blather on about oats. But really? These are a treat. Period.

And should be. You need treats in your food choices, if only to vary them. But two things. 1) Despite any ad copy blather, any dessert should have a whole grain in it. Hey, let's not kid ourselves. We need to get in the grains where we can. And 2) we shouldn't have treats lying around the house for days on end. So here's a strategy. Make these, then cut them into squares and freeze them in small batches. There'll be ready to go when you are. Or share them. The very best way to enjoy treats? With others.

And you know the final rule: never make pans of dessert within two weeks of a relationship break-up. I'm just saying.

OK, enough. On to the bars.

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Orange Rosemary Biscotti

You probably could have figured this out, but I'm not much of a soft and gooey person. (No, we're not talking about the marks of a personality!) I'm the guy picking off the crunchy bits at the edge of a casserole. I'm the one who orders his fries extra-extra-extra crisp. And I'm the one who can keep a whole bag of toffee for months on end but will eat every potato chip in the house for no other reason than that they're there. (It's why there's rarely any potato chips around here!)

For all these reasons, biscotti are about the best cookies for me. But here's the conundrum: I like to dunk them. Yet I still want them still crunchy, even after they take a dive. That means they have to be very crisp. Tooth-breakingly so. Because I want to souse one or two in the last of my red wine after dinner. Or in a cup of tea mid-afternoon. And still get a crunch!

Bruce's orange rosemary biscotti are gorgeously crunchy but also delicately aromatic. A perfect treat. Plus, they freeze exceptionally well. What could be better?

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Tropical Macaroons

The other night, Bruce asked me if I wanted coconut or almond macaroons for dessert. I couldn't make up my mind. Not that I'm all that indecisive. Oh, a little. But not a lot. I'm like any good Southern boy who's lived a decade and a half in New York City and New England. You know, just a remnant of good manners left. I smile before I cut you off on the highway.

Anyway, I couldn't decide. So he ended up making both--at once. With some chopped candied pineapple in the mix, to boot.

Here's the shtick for about 32 cookies:

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Fig Cookies, Part 2

You've got that first bit down, right? The filling. If not, check it out here. Because now we're making cookies.

Remember how I said I wanted something like those brand-name, mass-produced fig cookies, but more--that is, more like a cross between a danish and a biscotti?

Stick with me here. Have you ever even considered crossing a danish and biscotti? I have! Sometime, I'll tell you about our attempts to cross cheesecake and baklava.

Anyway, here we go, the completion of our fig-stuffed cookies.

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Fig Cookies, Part 1

I can't tell you how many times people have asked Bruce and me, "Where do you get your recipes?"

Given that Bruce is a trained chef and that I've been writing full-time about food for over a decade, I try not to take offense.

The recipes come from our kitchen. They are products of our imaginations--and hard work. The photos on this blog, too. I'm not a professional photographer and have no aspirations to be one. I simply snap what's on the counter or the stove without the help of any fancy lights or even a fancy camera. Shoot, I use the one I stick in my pocket when we're on vacation.

Nonetheless, although the recipes are ours, we do look for inspiration. For example, when we order something we love in a restaurant, Bruce often sees if he can morph the cheffy techniques into a home-friendly recipe. (There's a Chinese-inspired, braised leg of lamb coming up on this blog, based on a recent meal at Szechwan Gourmet in New York City.)

Believe it or not, another bit of recipe inspiration lies with all those mass-produced things in the supermarket. These are the knock-offs, the recipes where I say to Bruce, "Hey, can you make this, only better?" These are the recipes in which we try to take packaged, processed favorites and turn them back into real food.

That's how this recipe came about. When we were writing The Ultimate Cook Book (check it out here--with 900 new recipes!), I told Bruce I wanted some figgy, sandwich cookies to match the packaged ones. You know the cookies I mean, the ones I can't name without a trademark issue. Those. Only better. Crunchier and definitely figgier. I wanted a fig danish in cookie form. Or a biscotti wrapped around figs.

Anyway, here's what he came up with. It takes two days to make these treats, so I'm going to offer this on the blog in two parts. Stick around. It gets better and better. But they're definitely real food, nothing processed about them. And pretty healthy, too.

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Everything-But-The-Kitchen-Sink Chocolate Chip Cookies

OK, that's my world right now. Or more specifically, my backyard. It's been raining for days. The snow is giving way to rank ugliness. It looks as if we're going to have an early spring in this part of New England, up here in the iron-cold dark where Calvinists sprang full formed from the ground.

Mostly, it means the brook behind our house is flooding, filling the meadows with water. Not a bad thing, mind you. I'll be glad of it come July when the wildflowers flourish. But right now, it just means mud. And lots of it.

So it's a good day to stay inside and make cookies. The kind that empty the pantry: maple syrup, coconut, wheat germ, tahini, oats, chocolate chips.

Wow, are they good! Pour yourself a glass of milk. Whole milk. I mean, what's the point of low-fat? You saved, what?, thirty calories? Really? That's going to save the world? Listen, if you're going to make these cookies, go for broke.

But before we get to the recipe, a confession. (It is Lent, after all.) I like crunchy cookies. Period. I'm not a soft-cookie guy. Yes, I learned to like a few of the gooey ones for our chocolate cookie book. But mostly, I'm all about the crunch. Because I'm all about the dunk. You realize we're back to the milk discussion, right?

OK, Let's get started.

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Pistachio Cardamom Cookies

Lately, I've been obsessed with cardamom, my new favorite "warm" spice (as in "warm in the body," like cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace--not hot, and not herbaceous).

I've been putting it in chocolate cake, in ice cream, in chicken sautés, in just about everything. I was reading some cookbooks this morning and found a recipe for sour cherry cardamom clafouti. I almost passed out.

Last week, probably to stifle my cardamom whining, Bruce morphed the Indian sweet, kaju makrum (cashew macaroons) into ridiculously crisp wafer cookies with pistachios and, yes, cardamom. I swear, all week I didn't eat any sweets during the day so I could have a small stack of these with a glass of milk after dinner, my little-kid dessert while the Olympics were on. I was undone. They're that good. Try them. Promise.

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