Almond-Cardamom Christmas Cookies

Every year I make a small assortment of Christmas cookies for friends and family. Now that I'm home again, I have just enough time to make some before Christmas!

My first cookie this year is one that I found on Recipezarr and was posted by a member named Bergy. I'm so happy I found it because it is such an awesome recipe. It melts in your mouth from all the delicious butter, yet has a crunch from the almonds. It's perfectly sweet too, and has one of my favorite flavors - cardamom! But I will warn you, if you don't absolutely love cardamom, or if you like it more subtle, you may want to cut the amount in half.

I tried different patterns for the top of the cookie, but the one pictured at the top is my favorite, and it's perhaps the easiest one to do! Other things I tried were arrangements of three almond slices, four almond slices, just one big almond slice, and even mini chocolate chips.


The one slice was elegant, but there were very few large slices in the bag that would do the trick.

Oh, and another wonderful little feature of this cookie is that it can be stored for months in the freezer in a plastic container - not that they would ever last that long!

Almond-Cardamom Christmas Cookies

12 tablespoons powdered sugar

10 teaspoons ground cardamom (whichever amount - it will be separated) *

1 1/2 cups salted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar

4 cups flour
1 cup sliced almonds
sliced almonds for garnish

1 egg (or just the white) to adhere the garnishes

* Some people may want to consider cutting the cardamom in half. I love cardamom, but I will admit that it was strong in this amount.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Mix together the powdered sugar and 6 teaspoons of cardamom in a small bowl. Set it aside.

Cream the butter and sugar, and the remaining 4 teaspoons of the cardamom in a large bowl. Add the flour by cupfuls until it is completely blended. Then stir in the almonds by hand.

Grab a heaping tablespoon of the dough at a time and roll each piece into a ball. Drop it into the powdered sugar and cardamom and toss it around until it is coated.

Place each cookie on a greased cookie sheet (or one lined with a Silpat silicone sheet) and press gently with something flat (I used a measuring cup) until the cookie below is about 1/2 inch thick. Once flattened, the cookies should be 1/2 inch apart on the cookie sheet.

Use egg wash to adhere the almonds on top. Truth be told, I used Just Whites because I had it in the fridge.

Bake for 14-15 minutes, until beginning to brown around the edges.

Don't try to remove the cookies from the cookie sheet until they have cooled somewhat. Otherwise, you would risk having them crumble apart, and that would be a shame.

Makes 50 cookies.

Fruitcake Wishes and Gingerbread Homes of Old Sturbridge Village

Let me begin this post by saying that I am no longer homeless! Yippee!!!!!! We fortunately had our power restored late on Friday and moved back into our home that night. It's so good to be home.

Late on Friday night, we got a snowstorm too and got about 10" of fresh powder. It hasn't stopped since. And now we are beginning a new storm that will bring another 10 inches of snow.

During our period of refuge, we visited our friends, Karen and Todd. Karen had just discovered the King Arthur Flour catalog and she and I ordered several items that were delivered to her home. So yesterday I went to pick up my fruit cake kit:

I am looking forward to making it. Then, I'd also like to make one from scratch and compare them. But that's a lot of fruitcake, and other than myself, I don't think anyone else will eat it! So I'm totally indecisive about which to make first.

Before I left Karen and Todd's to head back home, they invited me to Old Sturbridge Village. The village is a living history museum - buildings represent those of the time, volunteers dress in period costumes and demonstrate crafts, careers, and life during the years of 1790-1840.

It's hard to believe that in all my years in New England (about 20 years), I've never been there! I was going to spend the day making Christmas cookies, but I ditched my plans and jumped at the opportunity. And I'm so glad I did.

Todd sings with the Worcester Men of Song who were performing that night at the village. After watching the performance, we ventured out into the village. It was still snowing lightly and there was a real winter wonderland before our eyes.










There were sleigh rides around the village common:


But the best part for me was the gingerbread house competition taking place in one of the buildings.

Some of the entries were representations of the buildings of Old Sturbridge Village:

I was fascinated with the gingerbread houses. They are so beautiful and I can only imagine how much work some of them were. I applaud all the contest entrants!!!

There were other food-related demonstrations also.

In one house, we got to sample the cider, which I very much enjoyed. They added spices like cloves and cinnamon, and then they would put a red-hot poker that had been sitting directly on a fire into the metal bucket of cider. The sugars in the cider instantly caramelize and make the most marvelous flavor.

In another house there was a demonstration of Christmas dessert-making techniques and ingredients. The woman volunteering was making waffle-cones. She had a batter which she would butter and then pour onto an iron that had been sitting directly on the fire heating up. Within a few seconds the cone was ready to be removed from the iron and wrapped. She would then fill them with cream that had been whipped using a whisk made of small twigs tied together with string. You can see the cones in the background of the following picture. They are behind the sugar plums (which look like rum balls).

It was a great time. But today I must get back to the cookie making!

I'm homeless! (pics included)

Well, folks, we are homeless. Seriously. We had the worst ice storm ever and evacuated yesterday morning.

It began in the afternoon on Thursday. We all went home from school. Then, around 8:00 pm the power went out. We took out our heaviest down blanket and burrowed in for the night. But sleep was not easy. Every few minutes we heard a tree snap and break and fall to the ground. The ice made it especially noisy, and it sounded like a war was going on around us. Joe was worried about a tree coming in through the roof. I'm happy to say that didn't happen.

We had a transistor radio which came in real handy in the morning for me. I wake up at 5 and it's pitch-black out. So I found a local station and listened till I could find out my school was closed.

When daylight came, we could see just how bad it was, so we decided to try to leave. Trees were down everywhere and we saw a neighbor from the other side of the neighborhood seeming to be looking for an exit in his truck. Not a good sign.

Joe ventured out and found an escape route out of the immediate area. Good enough to decide to risk it and try to leave. En route out of the neighborhood, we saw a neighbor who is a part time police officer in town. He said he heard it may be weeks before we get the power back in our area.

This was the road we took to get out of our neighborhood. The other one was impassable.


These pics are the main road that gets you near the highway. We were in a little caravan of large vehicles. Luckily, Joe has a 4-wheel drive truck. Between the truck and a whole lot of desperation we made it through 15 miles of this to a safer place.






Once we got to the highway we were free and made it to the first open gas station, filled up, and continued south.

So we are staying with some very generous friends about one and 3/4 hours from our home. They have an efficiency apartment above their garage. I am so grateful and feel so fortunate to have this to escape to.

I'm spending time wondering how long it will be before my school has power and I'll either also have power at home, or I'll have to drive 2 hours to work. Only time will tell!

Spinach with Golden Raisins and Pine Nuts

I've had a bag of spinach in my refrigerator for longer than I care to admit. It surprises me that it still looked in tip-top shape this morning and I decided it was time to do something with it.

I had a plan all along. There was a recipe in last month's issue of Food and Wine Magazine. All I needed was the spinach! That's great because sometimes I see a recipe and I hardly have any of the ingredients.

So today was the day.

The toasted pine nuts and plump golden raisins were so wonderful. Sweet and nutty are great with spinach. And I added a little kick with some red pepper flakes.

Food and Wine recommends serving this dish with roast beef and potatoes. I kept it simple and made it the fun part of an egg white omelet, to which I added some goat cheese. It was a great breakfast and I felt like I had something good for me.



Spinach with Raisins and Pine Nuts
Adapted from Food and Wine Magazine

1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped white onion
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
20 ounces fresh spinach (2 bags)

Place the golden raisins in a container with very hot water. Cover and let stand.

Place a pan on medium-high heat. Once it his good and hot, add the olive oil. Only wait a few seconds (just to warm it up) before adding the onion to the pan. Add half of the salt and pepper and saute the onion until it is caramelized and browned.

Add the spinace in batches, along with the remaining salt and pepper. After you add each batch, toss it around in the pan for maybe 2 minutes while it wilts and makes room for more spinach.

Serves 6

Best Pound Cake Ever!

I have to thank another blogger for this one. Thank you, Kim Morgan Moss at A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen for this most scrumptious, moist, and impressive recipe.


I came upon her blog while browsing through all the fabulous food porn at Food Gawker. This is one of my favorite sites on the Internet and I can spend oodles of time there, drooling at the photos posted by my fellow bloggers.


Should you visit either of these two sites, you'll see her photos. I'll be the first to admit that I was unable to make mine look as elegant as hers. But the recipe was the best!

As for my experience, I chose the bundt pan option. But I'll admit that were I to do it again, I think I'd go for a parchment-lined springform pan. I had some problems when it came to getting the cake out of my pan.

But, then again, the cake was so moist, I just patched it back together! A little icing covered it up quite nicely.

My family, for better or worse, doesn't care so much about how a cake looks, so my flawed presentation was just fine! And nothing could destroy the deliciousness of a good recipe.

I recommend this one with a big cake-eating grin.