Nutella and Lemon Curd Sandwich Cookies

I know it's not very chickenless of me to share two recipes from the same cookbook in one month. Believe me, I was just going to do Cook of the Week and post this sometime down the road.

As I write this, there's a gunman on the loose within a few blocks of my house. As of fifteen minutes ago, they had no suspects and were still attempting to secure the office building where it happened. I'm sure you'll all read about this in the news later, and by then what I just told you will be out of date. But right now, I'm scared and confused. What the hell is going on? First Fort Hood, now this... What's wrong with the world? If that sicko is prowling my neighborhood right now, looking for a place to lie low, if he just busts into my house right now, I WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH HIS HEAD. I may never know anyway. We may never be able to point to it. They may never prove that it's hormones in the water supply, or an undercurrent of political resentment on all sides that's finally built its way to this, or ANY ONE THING. As a human being, that makes me nervous. Human beings like to know things. They like to dissect incidents, to overcome hurdles. Puzzles with no answers are the essence of Jung's Shadow.

So if I'm so nervous, what am I doing here at my laptop, sitting on the floor so my head is below all the windows, writing about cookies? Because I may not know how to solve the tragedies of the world, but I do know cookies. Especially these cookies. I've baked them many times, and their sweet buttery perfection never fails to distract me. So at least for the short time that I'm blogging about them, I'll be the boss. Not some nutcase wandering around town with a gun. ME. I'm in charge.

And I say we're baking cookies, damn it.

We're baking Grandma Sylvia's Salt Butter Cookies on page 188 of America's Best Lost Recipes:

But we're baking them the Chickenless Kitchen way, which means that instead of the chocolate filling they tell you to use, we're using Nutella and lemon curd. And because there is currently no whiskey in the Chickenless Kitchen, we're using lemon juice instead.

Nutella and Lemon Curd Sandwich Cookies

Ingredients

2 large egg yolks

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. lemon juice

2 sticks salted butter, softened; or 2 sticks unsalted butter plus 1/2 tsp. salt

2/3 c. granulated sugar

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp. each Nutella and lemon curd

Directions

Heat the oven to 350.

Beat the yolks, vanilla, lemon juice, butter, and sugar in a mixing bowl.

Incorporate the flour (and salt if using).

Roll bits of dough between your palms to make balls about 3/4" across. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. You should end up with about 36 small cookie halves. Let these cool completely (both Nutella and lemon curd are lousy to work with at high temperatures).

Once the cookies have cooled, separate them into two groups of the same number. Spread a paper-thin layer of Nutella on one group, lemon curd on the other. Take one of each (it helps if they're approximately the same size) and marry them. Press firmly, or else the lemon curd side will slide off. Makes 1 1/2 dozen sandwich cookies. Store in the refrigerator.

Just checked the news again. Apparently they have ID'd the suspect, an ex-employee who was fired last year for "performance issues." They're saying it's too soon to pinpoint that as a motivation.

They haven't physically caught him, at least not as of three minutes ago. I can hear the noise of the police helicopters over my house starting to fade. Maybe that's a good sign. Just going to have to wait and see. In the meantime my heart goes out to the victims and their families, those poor people who can't just look at pictures of cookies and make this go away.

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

End-of-the-Week Recap: A Glitch in the Culinary Matrix, Virtual-Saturday Crepes, Oatmeal Clafouti, and Two Kreativ Blogger Awards(!!!!)

The rest of my compulsory vegetarian week was a disaster. Broccoli rabe is really, really freaking bitter if you don't treat it right. So bitter that I'm afraid I might have given my husband and myself irreversible tannic poisoning.

And check out this spoon! My New Orlasian Red Beans and Rice came out so thick that I pulled a Neo.

The only as-yet-unmentioned meal I cooked last week that I'm proud of was the Nutella Crepes With Honey and Sliced Nanners pictured below, and it wasn't my recipe. I followed Jane Brody's for Basic Crepes near-verbatim. You can find it on page 502 of Jane Brody's Good Food Book. Or not, since I've taken the liberty of reprinting it for you here.

Basic Crepes

from Jane Brody's Good Food Book

Ingredients

1 egg

Pinch salt (she says to omit it if you're making sweet crepes; of course I was like, "Whatevs!")

1/2 c. all-purpose flour

5/8 c. milk

1 tsp. sugar (omit for savory crepes)

1/4 tsp. vanilla (ditto)

2 Tbsp. melted butter, divided

Directions

Beat everything except 1 Tbsp. of butter together in a mixing bowl. Heat a small pan with sloping sides over medium-low to medium heat (not quite high enough to burn your butter). Dab some of the reserved butter on the pan and spread it around. Pour enough crepe batter in to barely cover the bottom of the pan and tilt the pan around to even it out. When you start to see bubbles in the batter, lift the edge with a spatula every ten seconds or so to see if the bottom is sufficiently browned. When it is, flip the crepe and cook about 15 seconds on the other side. Remove it from the pan and plate it (or set it on wax paper if storing). Lather, rinse, repeat. Makes 8-9 small crepes. I spread Nutella on mine, folded them in quarters, and served with sliced nanners and a drizzle of holly honey.

Do you have a favorite crepe filling or topping? Feel free to share!

Thursday was Virtual Saturday for my husband, since he took a four-day weekend. You may have noticed that I skipped Chickenless Cook yet again this week due to some out-of-townage. We were at my mom's place eating this:

Oatmeal clafouti. I am not a huge clafouti fan; most traditional recipes are too bland for my taste. These however were excellent topped with plain yogurt, applesauce, and maple syrup. My mom and I will tweak this recipe and probably share it with you later. Thanks for hosting, Chickenless Chick's Mom!

Last and certainly not least, Janis at Bite Me New England and Robin at Vegetable Matter have each bestowed upon me the unspeakable honor of a Kreativ Blogger Award! These are The Chickenless Kitchen's first awards ever. I am mega-excited and flattered to no end. Thanks, Janis and Robin!

Now, lest the Award Police come in the night and take them away from me, I have to tell you seven interesting things about myself and nominate seven other blogs for the award. Here goes.

Seven Interesting Things About The Chickenless Chick

1) The cookbook that originally hooked me was Almost Vegetarian by Diana Shaw... even though I eat red meat.

2) My favorite restaurant growing up was Chili's.

3) My favorite restaurants now are locally owned and operated. Both happen to be Mexican, though El Coqui also serves Puerto Rican food and Da Kine Diego's can more accurately be described as Cal-Mex.

4) When I was three or so, all I ate without complaint were Kraft Singles and tomatoes. If I had to pick only two foods to eat for the rest of my life, they would still be cheese and tomatoes... though I think a Kraft Single would turn me green at this point.

5) My favorite drink is gin and club soda with lime and Angostura bitters... yes, I know, I am a ninety-year-old man.

6) You know how most people either have rhythm or don't? I have it sometimes.

7) I hardly ever open my mouth in group social settings. One through five are probably all news to my closest friends.

My Nominees (in Alphabetical Order)

1) Color Hungry

2) Furey and the Feast

3) Sweet Water

4) Tasty Eats at Home

5) Tasty Trix

6) The Gourmet Goddess

7) The Ungourmet

I am a writer, so chickenless writing was my foremost consideration in choosing my nominees. Anyone can post a recipe, but these ladies (the fact that they are all ladies is sheer coincidence btw) make us feel like we're right there in the kitchen with them. Each is honest and bold, but each has her own special voice. I am delighted to follow all their blogs. Thanks to them for brightening my days!

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

Which of These Cookies Is Not Like the Other?

That's right, it's the second one from the left in the top row. If you've ever made cookies at five in the morning so your husband could take some for lunch (while the coffee was still brewing and about fifteen minutes off from being in your belly), you may just understand how such screw-ups can happen.

Here's what the instruction read: "Bake until just set and beginning to crack... rotating the baking sheet halfway through baking."

Here's what my groggy brain read: "Bake until just set and beginning to crack... rotating halfway through baking."

I was like, "What? Okay, well, you're the boss, cookbook." But then I did one and thought to myself, "Uh... that doesn't look right." So I went back and read it again. Sure enough, no cookie-flipping involved... What the hell, groggy brain? Next time coffee will be my top priority.

If you read my posts often, you know that I invent my own recipes almost every day. But I also use cookbooks from time to time. I am still learning the chemistry of what makes a cookie dough different from a cake batter different from a quick bread different from... well, inadvertent quick bread pudding.

This morning's recipe for Upside-Down-No-Wait-Right-Side-Up Peanut Butter Cookies is adapted from the one for Peanut Blossom Cookies on page 180 of America's Best Lost Recipes: 121 Kitchen-Tested Heirloom Recipes Too Good to Forget.

The collection, from the editors of Cook's Country Magazine, focuses on vintage recipes that have been passed down through generations of cooks and bakers. I geek out over vintage stuff (clothes, boats, luggage, furniture... you name it), so I was thrilled when a casual acquaintance showed me the book, and even more thrilled when she said I could keep it. Thanks again, Helena, wherever you are!

Peanut Blossom Cookies are supposed to have Hershey's kisses on them as in the picture below, but I just used what I had... after all, five in the morning is no ideal time to shop unless you're willing to break a window and leave the grocer an IOU. Other changes include a slight peanut butter reduction and substitution of light brown sugar for dark brown sugar, neither of which I would recommend if you have the original ingredients on hand. I was also so pressed for time that I didn't process the peanuts with the flour the way it said to do. No opinion on that one... I like the whole peanuts, but then again I've never had it the other way, so who knows? And of course, being the salt fiend that I am when it comes to cookies, I swapped half the unsalted butter for salted. This I will always, always recommend for any baked good under the sun.

Upside-Down-No-Wait-Right-Side-Up-Peanut-Butter-Cookies

Ingredients

2 3/4 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder

2 sticks butter (1 salted and 1 unsalted), softened

3/4 c. well-packed brown sugar

3/4 c. granulated sugar

2/3 c. peanut butter

2 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. roasted salted peanuts

Directions

Drink your coffee!!!!!

Preheat the oven to 350. Stir the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together in a large mixing bowl. Add all remaining ingredients except the peanuts and beat with an electric mixer. Stir in the peanuts.

Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and place these 2 inches apart on a baking sheet (the book says to use parchment paper, but they don't stick, so it's a waste of parchment paper in my opinion). Bake 11-13 minutes. Makes 4 dozen small cookies.

The super-sweetest thing about America's Best Lost Recipes is not the recipes themselves, but the stories they use to introduce them. For instance, I didn't realize that the wave of popularity enjoyed by peanut butter cookies with kisses on top resulted from an entry in a recipe contest that ended up losing. The winner was some walnut cookie no one's ever heard of. Do you ever wonder what we'll find important years from now? Which of our recipes will still be around, and which ones will die out?

To fit the theme of the book, I've artificially antiquated all the pics in this post through the magic of iPhoto. Here's an interesting one:

I have no idea who Amanda is. Remember I said that a casual acquaintance gave me this book? Well, when I got it home and opened it, out slipped this card. I assume she'd used it as a bookmark. As previously mentioned, her name is Helena (not Amanda) so I concluded the card had been written from her rather than to her. I meant to give it back, but forgot a couple times, since we didn't each other that often. Now, as far as I know, she lives in Texas. And Amanda never got her card.

The envelope is still sealed. I've never looked inside. And probably never will. Why, I don't know. It's probably just a hella-belated birthday card. My seeing it would just barely, marginally, forgivably violate Helena's and Amanda's privacy. But every time I see that name, hand-scrawled in pencil, it stops me in my tracks. If the name weren't there, it would be different. I would open it in a heartbeat. Because of that name, I'm leaving it for future generations to find. Because of the name, a simple envelope has become a mystery. Maybe one day, as my unborn kid is opening this book, out it will slide. Maybe they'll open it immediately. Maybe they won't. Either way, they'll have a story to go with their recipes.

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.