Lemon Pistachio Biscotti

Now that I've made an apple tart, I thought I would try my hand at something else that scares me - a twice baked dessert. I was flipping through my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and found a recipe for Lemon Pistachio biscotti and decided to try it. I wish I wasn't so afraid of baking in the past, because they came out great.

Lemon Pistachio Biscotti
from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, Bridal Edition

Ingredients:



1/3 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel (I didn't have a lemon to zest for this, so I added a couple squirts of lemon juice to the batter instead)
1-1/4 cups pistachio nuts


Directions:
Lightly grease 2 cookie sheets; set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour and lemon peel. Stir in pistachio nuts.



Divide dough into 3 equal portions. Shape each portion into an 8-inch roll. Place rolls at least 3 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets; flatten slightly until about 2-1/2 inches wide.



Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and tops are cracked (loaves will spread slightly). Cool on cookie sheet for 30 minutes.

Use a serrated knife to cut each roll diagonally into 1/2-inch slices. Place slices, cut sides down, on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake in a 325 degree F oven for 8 minutes. Turn slices over and bake for 8 to 10 minutes more or until dry and crisp (do not overbake). Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.



Servings: about 36 cookies

Review:
Since it's only me and the husband around our apartment during the week, I halved the recipe, so I only got about 15 cookies out of it. My only complaint was that the dough was a little hard to work with, so I chilled it for a half hour to firm it up. The cookies are really good and I'm glad I gave this recipe a try. There are some different variations in the book that I'd like to try, including double chocolate biscotti.

Pasta e Fagioli

I don't eat there very often, but when I do go to Olive Garden, I LOVE to get the salad and breadsticks. My favorite of the three soups they offer is the Pasta e Fagioli. The Minestrone that they offer is okay, but it's not very filling because it doesn't have any meat in it. The other soup they have is called Zuppa Toscana and it is just way to creamy for me, but then again, I don't really like cream based soups to begin with.

A couple years ago, I decided that I could definitely re-create this soup. It seemed simple enough: just some meat, carrots, beans and noodles. I wasn't very good at improvising back then, so I searched online for one of those copycat recipes. To my delight, I was able to find one on the website cdkitchen.

Pasta e Fagioli
adapted from cdkitchen and Olive Garden

***CAUTION: If you get the recipe from the cdkitchen website, make sure you adjust the serving size - the recipe posted makes 9 quarts. Unless you're having ALOT of people over, or plan on freezing it, 4.5 quarts is more than enough***

Ingredients:



1/2 teaspoon Oil
1 pound Ground beef
6 ounces Onion; chopped
7 ounces Carrots; slivered
7 ounces Celery; diced
24 ounces Tomatoes; canned, diced
1 cup cooked Red Kidney beans
1 cup cooked White kidney beans
44 ounces Beef stock
1 1/2 teaspoon Oregano
1 1/4 teaspoon Pepper
2 1/2 teaspoons Parsley; (fresh chopped)
3/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce We were out of tabasco, so I omitted)
24 ounces Spaghetti sauce
4 ounces dry pasta Shell macaroni; or other pasta
(I also added two cloves of garlic for good measure and 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes for an extra kick)

Directions:



Sauté beef in oil in large 10-qt. pot until beef starts to brown.



Add onions, carrots, celery and tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes.



Drain and rinse beans and add to the pot. Also add beef stock, oregano, pepper, Tabasco, spaghetti sauce, and noodles. Add chopped parsley. Simmer until celery and carrots are tender, about 45 minutes. (I usually make this in the early afternoon and let it simmer until dinnertime, adding the macaroni about 15 minutes before serving)



Servings: 9 bowls

Review:
This soup really hits the spot on cold and rainy days. Since that has what it's been all week, it was perfect. I made this on Sunday and it lasted us 3 dinners, plus I had it for lunch for 3 days. In the past, I've frozen half and it held up well. This is one of my go-to recipes when I don't feel like trying something new, because I know it always comes out really well.

Apple Tart

Now that I have been cooking more often, I decided that I need to explore the "inside" of the oven, with baking. To tell you the truth, baking always scared me a little bit. With cooking, if you put too much or too little of something, you can usually fix it. Baking, on the other hand, is more like a science of exacts. If you have the tiniest bit too much or too little of an ingredient, it can sabotage the whole recipe.

So, this week I decided to put my fears aside and try out an apple tart. Afterall, I had a brand new tart pan, it's apple season, and my mom requested I bring a dessert to Thanksgiving dinner - what better reasons to jump right in head first!

I saw this apple tart recipe a few weeks ago on smitten kitchen and decided this was what I was going to make. Although my tart doesn't look quite as beautiful as the pics on SK, I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt.

Alice Waters's Apple Tart
adapted from smitten kitchen

Ingredients:
For dough:
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, just softened, cut in 1/2-inch pieces
3 1/2 tablespoons chilled water

For filling:
2 pounds apples (Golden Delicious or another tart, firm variety), peeled, cored (save peels and cores), and sliced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
5 tablespoons sugar

For glaze: 1/2 cup sugar

Directions:
Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl; add 2 tablespoons of the butter. Blend in a mixer until dough resembles coarse cornmeal. Add remaining butter; mix until biggest pieces look like large peas.

Dribble in water, stir, then dribble in more, until dough just holds together. Toss with hands, letting it fall through fingers, until it’s ropy with some dry patches. If dry patches predominate, add another tablespoon water. Keep tossing until you can roll dough into a ball. Flatten into a 4-inch-thick disk; refrigerate.



After at least 30 minutes, remove; let soften so it’s malleable but still cold. Smooth cracks at edges. On a lightly floured surface, roll into a 14-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Dust excess flour from both sides with a dry pastry brush.

Place dough in a lightly greased 9-inch round tart pan, or simply on a parchment-lined baking sheet if you wish to go free-form, or galette-style with it. Heat oven to 400°F. (If you have a pizza stone, place it in the center of the rack.)

Overlap apples on dough in a ring 2 inches from edge if going galette-style, or up to the sides if using the tart pan. Continue inward until you reach the center. Fold any dough hanging over pan back onto itself; crimp edges at 1-inch intervals.



Brush melted butter over apples and onto dough edge. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over dough edge and the other 3 tablespoons over apples. (I had the same issue with the surgar as smitten kitchen. I think I only used about 3 tablespoons total for tart and apples.)

Bake in center of oven until apples are soft, with browned edges, and crust has caramelized to a dark golden brown (about 45 minutes), making sure to rotate tart every 15 minutes.

Make glaze: Put reserved peels and cores in a large saucepan, along with sugar. Pour in just enough water to cover; simmer for 25 minutes. Strain syrup through cheesecloth. (I didn't have any cheesecloth, so I just poured the whole contents of the pot through a strainer. This seemed to work okay)



Remove tart from oven, and slide off parchment onto cooling rack. Let cool at least 15 minutes.

Brush glaze over tart, slice, and serve. (I didn't serve mine until the next day, because making an apple tart in the morning, and THEN driving 2 hours to my parents house didn't seem like a good way to spend Thanksgiving morning.)



Servings: Everyone had smaller slices, but I think we got about 10 slices out of the whole tart.

Review:
I would say this recipe was quite a success. I was a little nervous making the crust, but it came out great. If I make this again, I'm thinking brown sugar might be good to mix in as well as white sugar for the glaze. As far as the taste goes, I give myself an A+ since the whole tart was gone within 5 minutes of putting it out on the table. Like I mentioned above, I baked this the night before, so I left the tart in the tart pan while transporting and popped it in the oven at 200 degrees until it was warm enough to serve (about 15-20 min). It went great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.