Winter Comfort Foods

*Brrrrr* Baby, it's cold outside! Here are two yummy recipes to eat with some tea or hot cocoa, while curled up by your warm hearth. ;)

This recipe was concocted by my better half.

Cardamom & Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

1 ¾ cup unbleached flour
½ cup raw sugar*
1 cup butter
½ teaspoon vanilla
pinch of sea salt
½ teaspoon cardamom, freshly ground
1 cup pistachios, lightly toasted and coarsely chopped

Mix butter and sugar until fluffy.
Gradually add flour.
Add vanilla, salt, and cardamom. Stir in pistachios.
Chill dough for 1 to 2 hours.
Lightly flour surface and roll out dough to ¼ inch thick.
Sprinkle surface with sugar (optional).
Cut out with 2 ½ inch cookie cutter.
Lay on parchment paper line cookie sheet.
Bake for about 20 minutes at 325.
* I have used honey and maple syrup with this recipe to make it ‘more local’ (1/4 cup of either) and added another ¼ cup of flour to the recipe.

This is a recipe I pretty much came up with on the fly to use up leftovers, and try to remain virtuous to my eating local/regional.

Apple, Cranberry, Walnut Loaf

½ cup dried cranberries
1 apple, cored and peeled, chopped into chunks
½ cup walnuts, freshly shelled and coarsely chopped
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour*
¼ cup of honey or maple syrup
2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ amaranth seeds
3 eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup soft butter

Sift together flour, baking soda, and sea salt
Blend together with eggs, butter, and honey/maple syrup and add to dry ingredients
Add in cranberries, apples, walnuts, and amaranth seeds gradually
Pour batter into a butter loaf pan (small, about 8 by 4)
Bake for one hour at 350
Allow loaf to cool in pan for about 20 minutes
Removed gently from pan and let cool on rack for about another 10
Recipe Yield: One load
*Could be replaced with acorn or amaranth flour.

Sláinte!

Laurel