Dreamy Rose Pavlova

Many, many years ago in a land far, far away Grandma Grabbert got a recipe for pavlova from New Zealand. Although it was labor-intensive, she made it religiously for every major holiday. After I left for college she even made it just for me when I got back.

The only problem was that I hated pavlova. I used every means possible to escape the pavlova trap. Then last year, after an avalanche of once disdained foods became palatable to me, I tried pavlova again. It was wonderful. Grandma Grabbert uses strawberries and kiwis to decorate it. This recipe calls for rose petals and raspberries, but we had peaches, strawberries, and blueberries, so that is what we used. If you use rose petals, be sure they were grown without piesticides and were intended for human consumption.

The best thing about this pavlova is that Mom made the whole thing while I lounged on the couch. She is such a good mom, and I am such a bad daughter. Do you love me anyways, Mom?

Dreamy Rose Pavlova
4 egg whites
1 1/4 C sugar
2 t cornstarch
1 t red or white wine vinegar
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/4 C heavy cream
2 t rosewater
2 1/2 C chopped fruit
edible rose petals to decorate

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Make sure the bowl you use to whisk the eggs is spotlessly clean and grease-free. Add egg whites and whisk until they stand in peaks.

Mix together the sugar and cornstarch, then add the egg whites in 2 or 3 batches, whisking all the time to achieve a beautiful, glossy white meringue mixture. Finally, stir in the wine vinegar and vanilla extract.

Spoon the mixture onto the parchment paper, gently spreading it out into a circle 8-9 inches in diameter. Place in a preheated oven, 350 degrees, turn the heat down to 300 degrees, and bake for 1 1/4 hours, or until crisp. Let it cool in the oven if it isn't so brown that it will burn.

Whip the heavy cream until it forms soft peaks, then whisk in the rosewater. Heap this on top of the pavlova and cover with the fruit and rose petals if you are using them. Serve as soon as possible, though it can wait up to 24 hours.

Dutch Babies with Rhubarb Sauce

You know it's bad when you start eating babies. I mean....that's about as bad as it could possibly get. But here we are serving Dutch Babies to dinner guests. Just for future reference, I have absolutely no hard feelings for anyone who is Dutch. If they didn't have such tender, succulent babies I would leave them alone.

Dad cut a bunch of rhubarb from their yard and brought it out to us. When he does something, he goes all out and he ended up bringing a WHOLE grocery bag full of rhubarb stems. We had no choice but to get into the kitchen and make something with it.

Dutch Babies

1/3 C milk

1/3 C flour

2 large eggs

1 T butter, melted

1/4 t baking powder

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a muffin pan in the oven to warm it while blending the ingredients. Blend all ingredients until batter is smooth. Put batter into 12 muffin cups. Bake for 10 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue to bake for 6 minutes, or until puffed and golden, and centers are firm.

While the dutch babies are cooking, hull and halve 1 pint of strawberries and chop 2 ripe peaches. Drizzle 2 T of honey over the fruit and toss to coat.

Remove hot Dutch Babies from baking cups to small plates. Top with rhubarb sauce and fruit. Sprinkle toasted almonds on top of the fruit and serve immediately.

Rhubarb Sauce

1/2 cup water
2/3 cup sugar
3 cups thinly sliced rhubarb

Bring water and sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the rhubarb, turn heat to low, cover, and simmer until rhubarb is soft, 10 to 15 minutes. Mash and chill in the refrigerator, about one hour.

Chinese Orange Beef

Yep, you guessed it. I am STILL playing catch-up from all the cooking we did with my parents last weekend. I tell ya - they are slave drivers.

The good thing about cooking with my parents is that Kevin ate everything we made. That almost never happens. Here's how it usually goes down: I make it and I eat it. He will maybe smell it before refusing to consume it, but it usually doesn't progress that far before the rejection.

Kevin really liked this meal. He said it would be even better if you left out the vegetables and served the meat on a sandwich.

Chinese Orange Beef

2 pounds beef stew meat

1/2 C teriyaki sauce

1/2 C orange marmalade

1 t garlic, minced

1 t fresh ginger, minced

1 red or orange pepper, cut into strips

6 oz. snow peas, strings removed

4 scallions, thinly sliced

Add beef, teriyaki sauce, orange marmalade, garlic, and ginger to crock pot. Mix together and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Stir in pepper strips and snow peas; cover and cook on high for 10 minutes until vegetables are tender-crisp. Serve over rice and top with scallions.

Omelet Cannelloni

Mom and Dad are slave drivers. They have been running me ragged every moment since they arrived, and I wish they would never leave. We have been having a blast cooking non stop, and this is one of the recipes we tried, which I have been meaning to try for weeks.

To make a circular omelet, take a silicone pastry brush and spread it into a circle as soon as you pour a couple of tablespoons into the hot skillet.

Here they are lined up and ready to get sprinkled with cheese and tossed in the oven. Everyone loved them, except Kevin, who just isn't a spinach fan.

I definitely haven't eaten this well since....well, since I lived with Mom and Dad.

Omelet Cannelloni

1 box frozen spinach, thawed

1/2 C cream cheese

8 T grated parmesan cheese

grated nutmeg

4 eggs

2 T water

1 T olive oil

Combine the thawed spinach with the cream cheese, 4 T parmesan cheese. Mix well and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Whisk the eggs with the water and salt and pepper to taste. Brush a nonstick skillet with olive oil and then pour in 2 T of the egg mixture and brush with a silicone pastry brush to make a small omelet. Cook for a few seconds until it is set then left it out onto a plate. Continue until you have 8 small omelets, piling them on top of each other.

Spoon a little of the spinach mixture onto the edge of one of the omelets and roll it up. Place it in a shallow dish. Fill the rest of the omelets until the spinach mixture has been used up, placing them side by side in the dish.

Sprinkle with the remaining parmesan cheese and bake in a oven preheated to 375 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes, or until bubbly and golden brown on top.

Toasted Coconut Fruit Dip

There was an absolutely fabulous fruit dip at the last work pot luck. I searched far and wide until I found the chef who brought it: Paul finally confessed and gave me the recipe. I was shocked at what he said it contained: sour cream, brown sugar, and macaroons. It certainly doesn't sound like sour cream would be very good with fruit, but it adds a subtle undertone to the dip.

My macaroons came with a layer of chocolate on the bottom. Of course, I did what anyone would do who is truly devoted to a creating a tasty way to eat fruit. I cut the macaroon off the top then ate the chocolate bottoms. All. Of. Them.

Yummy ginger snaps turn a healthy snack into a . . . well, it is still a tasty snack.

Toss it up with a bowl of small fruit for a fruit salad. Blueberries are a bit small to dip, so this is a great alternative way to have coconut flavored, creamy fruit.

Dad said the dip was good three different times. That is a pretty big compliment. The only higher praise anything could possibly receive is that it is "very, very good."


Toasted Coconut Fruit Dip

12 macaroons, crushed

1/4 C brown sugar

1 pint sour cream

Smash the macaroons and then mix in the brown sugar and sour cream. This works well with hard brown sugar if you let it sit a few hours in the fridge. The hard pieces will soften up and will stir right in.

Gnocchi alla Romana with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Mom and Dad came to visit this weekend. When Mom came into the house she sat by a stack of cookbooks I had in the living room. It was a big mistake to have everything there because she choose a very time consuming one to make. Oh, goodness. It might be the death of me. We have picked out a bunch of recipes, and now the remainder of Mom and Dad's trip will be spent slaving away in the kitchen.

Here 4 gnocchi patties are layered up in a baking dish.

It looks so good coming out of the oven. I am so glad she convinced me to help make this wonderful dish. They are a flavorful and savory and the perfect second course to our lunch.

Gnocchi alla Romana with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

5 1/2 C milk

3/4 C finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes

3 C semolina flour

1/2 C unsalted flour

1 C parmesan or mozzarella, shredded

4 eggs

1 1/2 t fine grain sea salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Slather a 9 x 13 inch dish with butter.

Combine the milk and sun dried tomatoes in a large saucepan over medium heat. Simmer for a few minutes until the tomatoes have softened a bit. Gradually stir in the flour, mixing until it begins to pull away from the side of the pan. This just takes a minute. Remove the pan from the heat and quickly stir in 1/4 C butter, 3/4 C parmesan, the eggs, and the salt. Work in the eggs quickly or they will begin to cook on the hot dough.

Put a glaze of water on the counter and spread the gnocchi into a 3/4 inch slab. Cut the dough into 1 1/2 inch circles and put them in the baking dish slightly overlapped like a fanned deck of cards. Melt the remaining 1/4 C of butter and drizzle it over the gnocchi. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Bake, covered, for 25 minutes. Remove the cover and bake, uncovered, for 25 more minutes. Serve with the Bright Red Tomato Sauce spooned over the gnocchi.

Bright Red Tomato Sauce

2 T olive oil

1 1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes

3 cloves garlic

1 t fine grain sea salt

1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes

Combine the oil, red pepper flakes, garlic, and salt and saute for a few minutes until the garlic begins to take on a bit of color. Stir in the tomatoes and return to a simmer, and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and season with more salt if desired.

I Think He Might Be Drunk

Lucas was upset one day last week. He told me that he thought Steve might be drunk. I asked why he thought that, and he said that he could smell it on him. I asked him if it bothered him, and he said, "sorta." Then came the real question. How long have you been working here?? A MONTH AND A HALF?? Is this the first time you have noticed it? Yep.

Sheesh Lucas....you aren't very observant, are you?

One thing I can say about this job is that I have learned what alcohol smells like when it is seeping through someone's pores. It is not a pleasant aroma.

Artichokes with a Butter-Lime Dipping Sauce

Artichokes are a scary vegetable. In a fit of craziness, we got a couple at Trader Joes, and then I had to figure out how to make them. It turns out they aren't difficult at all.

First, trim the stem and the top by an inch and trim the thorns with a pair of scissors.

Then put them stem up in a steamer with 2 inches of water for 20 minutes until the stems are tender. Here you can see the fork slid clear into the stem.

For the sauce, melt some butter and add a splash of lime until it suits your fancy.

Eat it by pulling off a leaf and dipping it in the butter, then scraping your teeth along the leaf about halfway up to get the fleshy part. Throw out the rest of the leaf and proceed to the next one.

It Was So Heavy That Holly Had to Move It

We have a lot of heavy equipment in our lab. We also have a new employee who has aspirations of lifting weights internationally in a couple of years. Holly is a petite 24 year old who rides a motorcycle. As you can imagine, the guys are crawling all over her. I actually feel sorry for her because she can't go anywhere without a creepy, crawly engineer stopping to talk to her. Uugghh.

She has a boyfriend so she lightheartedly talks to everyone and then runs away as soon as she can do it politely.

Today I overheard Kurt telling Eric, "The equipment is so heavy that Holly had to move it."

Hmmm....does something about that sentence sound wrong to you?

Lamb Curry

A few years ago Mom made lamb curry while we were in Wyoming. As the good daughter who I sometimes pretend to be, I said that it smelled good. She put apples in it and when I dished out my plate I avoided the apples like a plague. One apple chunk snuck on to my plate, and to my utter shock, it was great.

Then I revisited the curry pot and dished out a few more scoops of apples.

Last weekend I was a crazy cook, and we had this curry for Kevin's birthday on Sunday. It wasn't the meal he requested. But he did say that it was the best lamb curry he has ever tasted. (For whatever that is worth - seriously, how many times could he have possibly eaten lamb curry?)

Lamb Curry
1 lamb roast (about 2 cups chopped lamb)
1 T oil
1 onion, chopped
3 t curry
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and thinly sliced
3/4 C water
1 t chicken bouillon
1/4 C cold water
2 T flour
salt and pepper to taste

Roast the lamb in the oven for 2 hours, until it reaches 170 degrees. Let cool slightly, then trim fat and shop into 3/4 inch cubes. In a skillet saute the onion. Add the lamb, onion, curry, apples, 3/4 C of water, and bouillon to a large skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir 1/4 C cold water and 2 T flour, then stir over medium heat until how and bubbly. Add salt and pepper to taste and then serve over hot rice or whole grains.

The Cowboy Monte Cristo

All the Monte Cristo sandwiches I have eaten were dipped in a flour batter and then deep fried and served with raspberry jam. They were yummy, but I ran across this recipe that uses a simple egg batter, and it sounded delicious and way healthier. It is more like stuffed French Toast than the deep fried sandwiches I ran across at Bennegans.

It is cowboy style because we used beef and turkey instead of ham and turkey. It is really simple to make: just put together a sandwich with cheese, tomatoes, avocados, beef, turkey, and anything else that suits your fancy. Butter the inside of the bread, then dip it into 2 eggs that have been beaten with a little water. Pan fry it like French Toast, then snarf it down.

Chocolate Cherry Biscotti

Apparently, there were a lot of unhappy blog readers when I made the almond biscotti instead of the chocolate ones. In order to correct the error of my ways [well, at least in this case] I have ponied up the effort to make another batch of biscotti. Now I desperately need somebody to come eat some of this biscotti before I eat the entire batch.

Kevin ate one and he didn't mention if he liked it or not. All he said was, "This is really chocolaty!" If you kinda, sorta like chocolate, don't attempt this recipe. If you are a tried and true chocolate lover, this is the recipe for you.

Somehow, I get the feeling that when it said, "sprinkle each log with a little sugar" this isn't what it had in mind.

This was supposed to be the top picture, but that chair looks really silly. Doh! I don't care if the chair is there or not. I still want to eat the biscotti and drink the milk. 'Cause if you don't have some milk handy, you will wish you did.


This was another optional photo. The grass is finally green, so I really wanted it to be this picture, but it took all the richness out of the biscotti. It is such a dark chocolate that it is almost black.

Chocolate Biscotti
2 C flour
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
3/4 stick butter, room temperature
1 C sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 t vanilla extract
3/4 C chocolate chips or chunks, chopped
1/3 C dried cherries, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put the rack in the center. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.


Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.

In a large bowl with a hand mixer (or a stand mixer with a cookie paddle) mix the butter and sugar at a medium speed for 3 minutes, until very smooth. Add the eggs and beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl, for 2 more minutes until it is light, smooth, and creamy. Beat in the vanilla extract.Reduce the speed to low. Mix in the dry ingredients in 3 batches until just combined. It will be sticky and ball up around the beaters. Toss in the dried fruit and chocolate chunks until just blended.

Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a rectangle about 12 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 1 inch tall. Don't worry about making it completely even. Sprinkle each log with a little sugar.

Bake for 25 minutes, until they are just slightly firm. Transfer the baking sheet to a rack and cool the logs for 20 minutes on the baking sheet. Leave the oven on.

Carefully move the logs with a spatula to a cutting board and cut into 3/4 inch slices with a bread knife. Stand the biscotti up on the parchment paper, with the bottom of the log still on the bottom, and a little room between each slice. Bake for another 10 minutes. Transfer to racks and cool to room temperature.

Fees in your 401K - There Ain't No Way to Tell

Lately I've been trying to figure out how much I pay in fees on my 401K.

Here's an excerpt from my fund fact sheet:
"It is estimated that the Fund’s expenses will be roughly 0.55%
per year, over an extended period. The Fund’s expenses may
increase or decrease in any given year and may be adjusted
to reflect the SSIP’s administrative expenses."

Basically, it says the fees are adjustable and you can't be sure about how much they were last year. I was sure there was a way to find an exact figure on how much I paid in fees last year, so I called the company that manages the 401K. The guy I spoke with was very helpful, but had no information. There are 8 different funds in my 401K, which means 8 different managers.

On the fact sheets for each fund, 3 funds had telephone numbers listed, 3 mailing addresses listed, and the remaining 2 funds listed absolutely no contact information.

I give up! It is literally impossible to figure out how much my 401K charges.

Watermelon Strawberry Slushies

In Vegan Soul Kitchen, Bryant Terry mentions that he used to avoid watermelon because of the racial stereotypes associated with it. That was a surprise to me. The first time I heard about that stereotype was when the mayor in California resigned over the cartoon about the Easter egg hunt using watermelons instead of eggs this year at the White House.

Now I wonder why I was born white. If there ever was a watermelon lover, it is me. Kevin makes fun of me for eating half a watermelon in one sitting. When I buy a watermelon, Kevin will buy an extra one if he feels like eating some because he knows that there isn't enough in one melon for me and anyone else.

At first glance, I took issue with adding honey to the wonderfully sweet watermelon. But who am I to criticize a fellow watermelon lover? The slushies are wonderful with the honey, and I will never again doubt anything Bryant suggests.

Watermelon Strawberry Slushies

8 cups of watermelon juice (blend seeded watermelon cubes until you get the right amount)

2 cups frozen strawberries

2 T lime juice

1/8 C honey

berries or mint for garnish

Fill two large ice cube trays with the watermelon juice and freeze until solid. Mix the watermelon ice cubes, the rest of the watermelon juice, and the rest of the ingredients and blend with a hand blender. If you are using a regular blender you may need to blend in 2 batches.

Opening Weekend

Last weekend was the first weekend that walleyes were in season. Pan fish [such as crappies] are in season all year long. The lakes are filled with fishermen who are anxious to get the very best walleyes. So what do we do? We go on a weekend trip to fish for crappies.

John and Geri own the boat, and John's sister owns the cabin where we stayed, and Geri made almost all of the food, so they single-handedly ran the show this weekend. We are just glad they invited us along.

Connie and Mark - is it just me or does everyone look cold? The only way to distinguish people is by their coats. In the background you can almost see some of the 23 boats who shared this bay with us.

Here's Kevin with his big crappie. The crappies in the Twin Cities are big if they are 10 inches. We drove 3 hours so we could squeeze out another 5 inches - our biggest crappie topping out at 15 inches. Actually, Connie and I drove up together and missed one turn. Then we followed that up with several wrong turns and turned our drive into a 6 hour adventure.

Here's Kevin with a great northern who ate his hook. It looks more like a snake or an eel than a fish to me. Back into the lake for him.

Here's the wide mouth bass. It was big, but not in season so John threw him back. How do I know he is a 'him'? I have no idea how to tell the difference, but this one has sharp fins that won't hesitate to make you bleed, so I can only guess that it is a man. Let's not even approach the question of why John caught the biggest and the most fish....

The Health Fair Puts Out an Eye

The Health Fair came to town today. After we went around to the different booths we got to put our names in to the door prize drawing. Yep. You guessed it. I made out like a bandit.

The Good Prizes
Edible Bouquet (a fancy fruit basket) - Amy won it
Pilates ball - Brian won it

The prizes won by people on my team
Insulated cup - Kurt won it
Beach Bag and Kit - Lucas won it
Pedometer - I won it

Immediately after picking up our prizes, Kurt used his cup as a megaphone. Steve responded by announcing that he could hear Kurt on the other side of the cafeteria, and Kurt should absolutely, for no reason whatsoever, ever again amplify his voice more than it is normally. Lucas started running up and down the cube halls with his new kite.

Meanwhile, I took my pedometer and ran to Brian's cube. He agreed to switch me my pedometer for his pilates ball. And that, my friends, is how I came to be the winner of the door prize drawing even when I wasn't the winner. To take it one step further, I stopped by Amy's desk and ate some of her fruit. Sheesh...some people have no boundaries.

While I was airing up the ball I noticed a resistance band tucked into the bag. After a few cursory moves, Lucas looks over to see my new toy, his eyes glittering with the possibilities of the band (AKA sling shot) and he wrestled it out of my hands.

Mike instantly joins him and they sling a mini Army man across the room. Then they duck so they won't get caught in their infantile game. I am positive the giggling didn't give it away.



Here Holly, Steve and Todd sling a mini Army guy across the room....don't they look devilish?

*DISCLOSURE* While there was a very real possibility that someone could have been hurt by our Kamikaze Army dude, no one was actually injured, and all eyes are still fully intact. One soldier is MIA, but we have high hopes that he will be found and returned to service shortly.

Gettin' Obamed

Kurt is a raving liberal. Steve and Todd are both tried and true Republicans. Steve likes to point out every time that the market is going down. He will sigh and mumble, "We're really getting Obamed today."

On days with big market drops, I usually take a screenshot of finance.yahoo.com, and send it out with a note that we are getting Obamed. Today I took a screenshot and sent it out, only this time the market was up. Kurt thought it was hilarious. I just love having a new verb to use, and I use it like it is going out of style.

Ultimately, we have been so beaten down by the stock market fluctuations that none of us have any emotional reaction no matter what the stock market does.

Wraps and Homemade Tortillas

Wraps are a great lunch on a day off. Kevin helped saute all the vegetables, and we both enjoyed a completely homemade lunch.


The tortilla recipe is originally from Oh She Glows. Somehow her tortillas were a lot rounder. It's a mystery to me how she did that - this one is the roundest of the bunch. We had to make this recipe twice before they came out right. The first time it was way too sticky, and I am not sure what we did wrong, or what changed the second time.

Here is a picture of everything in the wrap - lettuce, chicken, tomatoes, red peppers, cheese, and ranch. Kevin also put hot sauce on his. Next time we will add some black beans, but there weren't any thawed this time.

Does anyone want to volunteer to clean up the kitchen?

Homemade Tortillas

- 2 cups flour (whatever kind you want - we used a mixture of white, wheat, and corn meal)
- 1/2 t salt
- 1/2 t baking soda
- 1 T Olive Oil
- 3/4 cup hot water

Preheat a skillet to medium high heat. In a bowl, mix all ingredients well. You may not need all the water to form a soft ball. Cover and let sit in a warm place for 20 minutes.

Divide into 8 equal parts and let sit, covered, another 20 minutes.

Roll each ball out to a 6- or 7-inch circle shape. . Then take the rolling pin and roll from the center outwards, back and forth a few times as you go around the circle. When it starts to get thinner, take your left hand (if you’re right handed) and turn the tortilla a couple inches. Use your right hand to use the rolling pin (holding in the middle) and roll from the center outwards. Keep turning and rolling until it is paper thin.

Place a tortilla into the skillet and watch until bubbles form. This won’t take long. When the bottom is lightly brown (or there are darker spots), flip over, press down once or twice, and cook for about 30-45 seconds, or until smoke appears.

Cook remaining tortillas, watching carefully, and place on a plate, with wet paper towels in between them. Refrigerate for later or remove the paper towels and freeze.

Lenox Almond Biscotti

I've never been to New York City and have absolutely no intention of ever changing that. This recipe came from the restaurant Lenox, which I am sure is way out of my budget even if I did go to New York. There is a chocolate biscotti recipe that I almost made instead of this one, but this recipe had a picture in the cookbook Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, so it was the one that I tried first. By the way, that cookbook is 472 pages of nothing but desserts. Oh my. . . .it just might be the death of me.

Speaking of cookbooks, I currently have 5 checked out from the library at the moment and have about 20 recipes tagged. It's gonna be a bus weekend.

When shaping the logs, they can be shaped roughly, but this is the basic shape.

Yummm. . . .I could hardly stand to wait until they came out of the oven. They are almondy and delicious.

Lenox Almond Biscotti

1 1/2 C flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1/2 C cornmeal

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 C sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 t almond extract

3/4 C sliced almonds

1/3 C dried fruit

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put the rack in the center. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add the cornmeal and whisk again.

In a large bowl with a hand mixer (or a stand mixer with a cookie paddle) mix at a medium speed for 3 minutes, until very smooth. Add the eggs and beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl, for 2 more minutes until it is light, smooth, and creamy. Beat in the almond extract.

Reduce the speed to low and mix in dry ingredients until just combined. It will be sticky and ball up around the beaters. Toss in the dried fruit and almonds until just blended.

Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a rectangle about 12 inches long, 2 inches wide, and 1 inch tall. Don't worry about making it completely even.

Bake for 15 minutes, until they are lightly golden but still soft and springy to the touch. Transfer the baking sheet to a rack and cool the logs for 30 minutes on the baking sheet.

Carefully move the logs with a spatula to a cutting board and cut into 3/4 inch slices with a bread knife. Stand the biscotti up on the parchment paper, with the bottom of the log still on the bottom, and a little room between each slice.

Bake for another 15 minutes, until they are golden and firm. Transfer to racks and cool to room temperature.

Sweet Potato Pecan Balls

Sweet potatoes. Was there ever a more perfect food? Aldi's has run out of bags, which were $1.50 for 3 pounds, so I am stuck with buying them at Rainbow. Even at twice the price, this makes a cheap dessert.

They are also really easy. I know the directions are a bit long, but the whole process takes less than 10 minutes, half of which is nuking the tater. Another great thing about them is that I get to use my Silpat mats, which Santa brought and have been woefully under utilized.

Hey - where did that 9th ball come from? Either it is a really big rascal or else I can't count . . .


Sweet Potato Pecan Balls
1 medium sweet potato - scrubbed
2 T butter
8 pecan halves, chopped (about 2 T)
up to 1 T sugar or honey (I didn't use any)
1 t ground cinnamon
salt to taste

Preheat the broiler. Wrap the potato in a paper towel and microwave at full power for 5 minutes, until soft to the touch. Slice open and scoop out the pulp with a spoon.While still hot, mix in the butter. Add the pecans, sugar, and cinnamon. Mix thoroughly and form into 8 balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

Place on a baking sheet and put it about 4 inches under the broiler. Broil until slightly crusty, 2-3 minutes. Turn the balls over and broil for 2 more minutes. Sprinkle with salt and serve.

A Tall Drink of. . . . NOT WATER!

Bad things usually happen when I am sitting at my desk minding my own business. If I am preventing someone else from doing their work, there is no problem, but if I am being a productive worker, all heck will break loose. Thankfully it is a rare phenomenon.

I have a drinking problem. . . the liquid usually ends up on the front of my shirt instead of down my throat. So, I grabbed a straw and took a large gulp from my water bottle. . . and then there were something papery on my tongue.

What the heck? I couldn't figure out what it was. . . .until. . . .

Ugghh...the straws had an infestation of those bugs that get into wheat. What ARE those things? At any rate, I had just had the privilege of tasting one of the empty cocoons left behind after it turned into a flying pest. Kurt helpfully said, "Let's call it a Monarch butterfly because that will make you feel better. . . . EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW THAT IT WASN'T."

Excuse me for a moment....I'm feeling a little ill.