Coconut Cookies

Every year, my mom has a cookie exchange, and I make several dozen cookies to trade with a group of people.  Last year I made Carrot Oatmeal Cookies full of coconut.  This year, after much deliberation and a somewhat last-minute decision, I settled on the Coconut Cookies from Good to the Grain.

Let me tell you - I do not want to see another cookie recipe for quite some time after this ordeal.  My head is spinning.  This recipe has you do things in such a strange way.  If you know a bit about the ingredients you're working with, it will probably make sense to you (as it did to me after an a-ha moment) but it makes for quite a difficult experience.  You basically cream sugar and eggs together, add the dry ingredients, add room-temperature butter (here's where it starts to get difficult - I could hear my poor little mixer begging me to stop torturing it), THEN you add coconut milk.  In the recipe's defense, I was making double batches, but go over to your mixer, fill it 2/3 of the way with dough, then add 2 1/2 cups of liquid, and see where it goes.  Not into the dough, that's for sure.  I won't be surprised to find spots of coconut milk in some unusual places.  That being said, I can understand why this is done this way.  Coconut flour is very absorbent and it sucks in liquid fairly gradually.  I'm sure the internet could explain it to you better.

Naturally, when you are making eight batches of an unusual cookie recipe (in my case, four double batches), something is bound to go wrong.  With the unusual order of adding ingredients, I completely forgot the butter for my second batch.  I went all the way through to the coconut milk before I realized it.  The only thing I didn't waste was two cups of shredded coconut.  So I tried to put the butter in anyway.  Eventually I accepted that it was not salvageable and now I've got several dollars sitting in the bottom of my garbage can.  Wonderful.

I was up very late making dough.  It was my plan to scoop the balls of dough, roll them in coconut, and put them in the fridge that way to bake this afternoon, but when I rolled one out, it just kind of melted everywhere, so I decided to just put the dough straight in the fridge and turn it into cookies today instead.  This worked out well because the dough was firm to start with and got softer as I worked through the container, but not quite as soft as it had been when it was first made.  I made one cookie sheet with a 3 tablespoon scoop, as the directions told me to, but I panicked and switched to a 2 tablespoon scoop so that I wouldn't be short on the number of cookies.  Unsurprisingly, this also shortened the baking time (an even 16 minutes worked perfectly) so this process took a very long but surprisingly quick 3 hours.

I was skeptical about the expensive ingredients and the amount of work I was doing for these ridiculous cookies.  But when that first batch came out of the oven (the bigger ones, obviously they couldn't be used for the exchange and therefore absolutely had to be eaten immediately) they were pillowy soft inside, with a crisp coconut-flaked outside.

I now had five dinner plates and three cooling racks covered in stacks of coconut cookies.  My plan for wrapping them up was to use a fold-over plastic sandwich bag (got those by accident and need to use them up) placed inside a paper bag with the top folded down, holepunched, and tied with a ribbon.  I ended up putting them in fold-over plastic sandwich bags and put those inside paper bags.  11 cookies in each.  I folded them over and tied a ribbon vertically and called it a day.  (I don't even own a holepuncher!)  By that point it was time to leave so I was really cutting it close!  But I made it, with all my cookies.  And people seemed to like them.  :)

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving 2010 was cooked for only 7 people, so we didn't go too overboard.  It was a lot less stressful this way.  We had no appetizers to worry about, either.

Pumpkin and Feta Muffins

These are first because they are the coolest thing we made.  I got the recipe from 101 Cookbooks a few weeks ago and they were the first thing on my Thanksgiving recipe list.  I followed the directions exactly and got excellent results.  The only thing to note was that we ended up with 18 muffins instead of 12, but that's certainly nothing to complain about.

Golden-Crusted Brussels Sprouts

When my sister got wind of the menu (the day before Thanksgiving, of course) she greeted me with: "Can we PUHLEEEAAASE make a DIFFERENT VEGETABLE?!?!"  Right after these were cooked, I saw her stick her hand right in the skillet to try one - and of course she loved it.  Super simple, and the caramelized edges were the best part.  This is another recipe from 101 Cookbooks.

Lemon-Barley Stuffing

This recipe from the New York Times was kind of a wild card, but it worked out in the end.  The mushrooms shrunk into ribbons when roasted, and I thought there wouldn't be enough lemon, but it shined right through.  The chive butter was fun to make and pretty much made the dish.  This is where I gained a deeper knowledge of where the line lies between browned and burned.  Note to self: more liquid next time, trust your instincts.

Sandra Lee's Turkey

Well, of course there was a turkey.  This one had butter massaged into it.  I never liked turkey before, and I still only ate a very small bit of it, but it was very good.  This picture is gross.  (Thanks to Haley for the photo.)

Mashed Potatoes

Yuck.  That's all I have to say about that.  This is a picture of what later became mashed potatoes.  There's no finished picture because there's nothing pretty about mashed potatoes.  (Thanks to Haley for the photo.)

Garden Vegetable and Potato Lyonnaise

I've got these giant rutabagas sitting in my fridge, plus a few turnips, and I've never had these things before, of course, so I had no idea what we could do with them.  I found this recipe through the "look inside" feature of Amazon - it's in Homegrown Pure and Simple by Michael Nischan.  Naturally, Amazon wouldn't let me look at the second page, but I found an adapted version online and used it to sort of wing it, and it turned out alright.  The strong flavors weren't appreciated by all, but I finally got to try a bunch of things through this dish.

Pumpkin Cornbread

When we were little, my dad used to make us biscuits.  Of course, they came from a box, but I had to remind him to channel those times from the past when my mom asked him to help us by making the cornbread.  This alone was the most hectic time of the day, as he insisted on lining up each ingredient, did not know the difference between liquid and dry measures, and refused to stop whisking even when I said he was finished.  Then we ended up having to bake it in the microwave (it makes sense if you've seen my mom's space-age microwave) and since we're all too short to see the top it got a bit toasted.  Fortunately, it tasted fantastic.  This was another New York Times recipe.  (Thanks to Haley for these photos.)

Winter Green Salad with Sugared Walnuts, 

Crispy Pears and Pomegranate Vinaigrette

I made this last year, but did a different candied walnut.  Though we had to make some substitutions, these walnuts were delicious.  Everyone kept walking by them and snatching a few - we're lucky we had any left for the salad.  The vinaigrette was my favorite part.  This recipe is from Clean Food.

"Best-Ever" Apple Pie

Haley made her famous apple pie with lattice crust.  It's the best-ever apple pie!  This particular pie contained a variety of apples known as "whatever we had lying around."

Spice-Kissed Pumpkin Pie

This pumpkin pie recipe is from 101 Cookbooks.  It features a special spice blend and a hazelnut paste between the filling and the graham-cracker crust.  Delicious.

Pumpkin and Ginger Scones

These were not for Thanksgiving, in particular, but they were there when I arrived to cook on Thanksgiving, and they were delicious.  I liked them plain, but they were very good with Haley's cinnamon glaze.

Barley Brownies

I made brownies for a party the other day.  From a box.  I know, I know, way to go against my own principles.  (Even worse was how many I ate...)  When I was putting away my bag of Bob's Red Mill barley flour yesterday, I noticed a recipe on the package.  A brownie recipe.  With barley flour.  Whole grain brownies.  YUM.  (Note: they are still not healthy.)

They came out delicious.  Brownies from a box, although they are probably full of things that I don't even want to know about, have a certain chocolatey deliciousness to them.  These definitely performed as well as a boxed recipe.  I like the dark chocolate fudge brownie mixes, so I'd like to play around with adding a little more chocolate to this recipe - maybe some melted dark chocolate.

Barley and Roasted Pepper Salad

My mom's neighbor gave us 5 peppers (red, orange, yellow) and I decided I wanted to roast them, but had no idea what to do after that. Later that day I opened How To Cook Everything Vegetarian (surprise) to look up something totally unrelated, and when I opened the book it happened to land on page 87. I happened to notice a recipe on this page called "Wheat Berry or Other Whole Grain Salad with Roasted Peppers." The first sentence of the recipe says "This mild, rich salad is not only delicious but also gorgeous, especially if you use red and yellow peppers you've roasted yourself." Not surprisingly, I made it the next day.

This recipe takes a bit of advance preparation. I roasted the peppers and cut them into long thin strips the day before. I also should have cooked the barley at this time. I wanted to use wheat berries as the recipe mentions, but I couldn't find them in my freezer or refrigerator. I know they are buried somewhere in there. One of these days I will come up with some kind of organizational system.


I didn't have fresh basil, so I added some dried basil to the dressing of olive oil and red wine vinegar. I mixed it up before pouring it over and mixing it in. I got a little too crazy with the dressing so I will have to have some self control next time so I'm not eating spoonfuls of oil with each bite.

This kept for several days in the refrigerator, although I made sure to eat it at room temperature. I like grain salads best at that temperature. It was definitely easy to make with all the prep work done.

Asparagus Salad

I know what my mom is going to be thinking when she reads this - "asparagus is out of season!!!" Well, I saw some nice looking ones at the store and I have been wanting to try this Asparagus Salad, so I picked them up. I just couldn't wait until next year! I had also seen radishes at the farmer's market over the weekend so I went back and got them today just for this recipe. I also made some plain barley to give it some more heft as a dinner meal.

The sauteed broccoli and asparagus were nice, because they both taste better cooked. The radishes added an interesting color and dimension but they were way too large (the recipe specifies tiny radishes for a reason, I guess). The lemon pine nut dressing was delicious, although it did take two tries to properly toast pine nuts. (Oops!)

Barley takes forever to cook, and I have pearled barley, so it could have taken even longer. For a weeknight, that is no good. Luckily you can make grains ahead of time and reheat them from the fridge, so I saved some for my next endeavor.

Overall, I was not crazy about this salad. Maybe I built it up too much because I really wanted to try it. My favorite part was the asparagus. It was perfect. The broccoli could have been cooked a little more, but that's my fault for not putting it in by itself first. The dressing was delicious and you can easily serve it over any vegetable. I have never had radishes before (that I know of/remember), and they were OK. They were pretty boring. Now that I think about it, they sort of reminded me of water chestnuts, which I really don't like at all. I also wish I could have tried broccolini, but I don't remember ever having seen it anywhere. If you want to add barley (or other grains) to this, I would use just a few small spoonfuls and mix it in thoroughly. I probably won't be making this again. It was OK, but I guess just not what I was looking for!

The good news is that I still have broccoli and asparagus to experiment with something new! I just finished reading Food Matters by Mark Bittman (it's a quick read, since half of it is recipes anyway) so I am trying to keep more fresh produce in the house, and using whatever pantry items I have on hand to turn them into meals. The overall idea of his book is to eat more plants and less meat/dairy products, which is much healthier, so I am giving it a try.

Greek Barley Salad

I am trying a bunch of different kinds of whole grains and other healthy stuff. Sometimes I find things I want to try before I find any recipes to try them with. When I bought my quinoa at Whole Foods I saw the barley near it on the shelf, and it really appealed to me because of its size. Barley is one of the largest grains, which is one reason farmers in the Fertile Crescent thousands of years ago decided to plant it to become farmers. (It's a lot more complicated than that, so if you are interested you should check out this book I am reading right now - Guns, Germs and Steel.) So I bought the barley and looked for a recipe to make with it. I came across a recipe for Greek Barley Salad. I like Greek food, so this looked good to me. I decided I would make it down the shore this weekend.

The barley I got is pearled barley, which means that the hard outer shell has been removed. If you want to be really picky about it, this means that it's no longer a "whole" grain. But that doesn't mean it's not good for you! Barley takes a LONG time to cook, so I got it going and had my mom watch it while I got ready. Of course, it wasn't done when I came back. I mixed the dressing and cut the pepper, tomatoes, onions and parsley.


When the barley finished cooking but was still hot, I mixed the dressing in, then after it cooled to room temperature I mixed the rest of the ingredients in. I didn't measure the feta, I just used a full 5 ounce container. My mom, my sister and myself tried it after it was mixed together and they liked it. My sister thought it should be served cold, and my mom thought it should be served warm. I liked it room temperature, but we will have to see what happens when we try it again later (it's now in the fridge). This is a good recipe to try for someone who has never cooked barley before, and if you leave out the feta it is instantly vegan!