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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Oven-Fried Potato Chips

It's been quite a day of writing. Heavy lifting all around. But I think I finally cracked the code of the second chapter of our book named for this blog, the chapter about detoxing your taste buds from the modern world of packaged, processed food.

To celebrate, and to relish something so real it made me dance around the kitchen, we whipped up some oven-fried potato chips, the perfect snack: crunchy, salty, and without any preservatives or unnecessary fat. With a glass of iced tea, who could ask for more?

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