Lemon Cookies… I mean Fookies!

Continuing my Fooking spree (the things a person would do to avoid studying, right?) I made lemon cookies. Cookies, lemon, only 1/2 cup sugar, what else is there to say? Oh, yes, that we ate them in one day.

Seriously.

Just so you know, I don’t use a cookie cutter, because, you know… I don’t have one! I rolled the dough into a log and cut it with a knife. That way, my cookies (fookies) turned out (almost) round and normal!

They don’t take too long to make, they are pretty easy, the most time consuming thing (obviously) is the three hours the dough needs to rest in the fridge. But, you know, you can do all sorts of things in between!

So, here’s what you’ll need:

1 1/2 cups Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
1 Lemon
1/2 cup (1 stick) Butter
1/4 tsp. Baking powder
1/4 tsp. Baking Soda
1 egg
1 tsp. Vanilla
Some (a little) Salt

And what you’ll do:

Sift flour, baking powder, soda and salt in a bowl. Set it aside. Take the lemon, grate the zest and keep it, then squeeze it and keep the lemon juice. You’ll need 3-4 tablespoons of that, unless you really really love lemon, in which case, use as much as you want. Meanwhile, separate your egg and keep the egg-white covered and refrigerated – we will need it down the road.

In your mixer bowl, add the (softened) butter along with the zest and beat until it’s united. Then add the sugar, gradually, while beating, just until it is one. Add the egg yolk and half the flour and mix and beat until they are combined. Then add the lemon juice, the vanilla and the rest of the flour and beat until everything is combined. Do not overbeat, there’s no reason for you to do that.

Now for the fun part: Take your bowl and empty it on a flat surface. Take the dough and form a log. The diameter of the log should be a bit smaller than the size of the cookies you want to serve! Once you’re done, wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for 3 hours.

Three hours later, preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius – 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Take your log, unwrap it and cut it in cookies. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and place your cookies on that. Lightly beat the egg-white you saved in the fridge with a splash of water (a couple of tablespoons, no more), and brush your cookies with that mixture. Sprinkle with some sugar and place them in the oven.

You can place both baking sheets in the oven at the same time, just remember to switch places halfway through baking.

Now, you know your oven, each oven is different, so you will need to keep an eye on them. They can take from 8 to 15 or 16 minutes to bake. Take them out when they are golden around the edges. If you touch the center and it is soft, that’s ok. The cookies keep baking even after you’ve taken them out of the oven, they will go harder as they stand.

Let them stand in the baking sheets for about five minutes and then transfer them on wire racks, to cool. Or eat them warm, that’s what I did.

There’s also video evidence that I made them, which follows. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Eggplant Loaded Orzo

I made another video yesterday, after my good friend Dana, whose blog, Just a Rez Chick, not only do I highly recommend, but actually believe you already know and follow by now, asked me to cook something with an eggplant.

I would cook Mousaka, but that will have to wait, because it was a workday, it was unexpected, had no meat and will have to come over my fear of frying. That will happen soon, just… you know… not yet…

In time…

Anyway, today being a workday and all, this is what I have time for. I will give you the ingredients and you can watch the How-To on the video.

A couple of notes:

a) If you do not have Harissa (why don’t you have harissa!!) you can use red chillies, they are equally awesome. Just throw them in there 30 seconds before you add the eggplant.

b) I salted and let the eggplant stand, because it smelled bitter. Don’t judge me, I work with smells. Eggplants are sometimes bitter and letting them stand for 1/2 to 1 hour in salt helps solve that. It also helps them not absorb much oil when you fry them, making them a bit less fattening, so that’s one to think about, right?

c) I added cumin, but you can also use cinnamon, especially if you don’t use harissa.

That’s about it. Hope you enjoy the dish AND the video!

You will need:

1 1/2 cups orzo

1 eggplant

1/2 cup sweet white wine

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1/2 tsp harissa

Tomato sauce

salt, pepper, cumin

You will do:

PS. To refresh your memory: Fooking = Cooking + Foo Fighters

Chicken, Rice and Everything Nice

Keeping up with my recent Fooking-mania (which is cooking with the Foos, that is with the Foo Fighters), I made one of Mr. S’s favorites yesterday: Chicken, rice and veggies, in the oven.

His mom usually makes this for us, but this past year she has been wildly unavailable for cooking (ugly unforeseen circumstances keep her away from her normal life), and, well, we missed it.

This dish is savory and heartwarming and juicy and all I want to eat on a cold Sunday, curled up in my blankets on my couch, watching football (sorry, soccer) and reading books. It is a bit time-consuming, but most good things are. Having said that, don’t think that you’ll be slaving in the kitchen all day long, it simply takes some time for the soup/broth to make and then 30 more minutes in the oven. And you’re done.

So, this is what you’ll have to have:

3 chicken breasts (now, that’s what I used, but you can use any part of the chicken you like. I hear legs are awesome, because they give it an extra whomp! So, why not?)

1+1 onions (you’ll need one whole onion for the broth and then a diced one for the oven)

2 bay leaves (or 3 if you’re a big bay fan)

2 cups of rice (use what you would normally use for chicken soup, but again, whatever you prefer is fine)

2 carrots

1 can of mushrooms (I used canned because it was Sunday, we were out of mushrooms, blah blah, you can use fresh if you want)

Salt and pepper (remember to season more than I season my food, I have a low salt sensor!)

Oregano (or any other herb you prefer, I am not a herb nazi!)

What you’ll need to do:

First prepare the broth (or the chicken soup, as we like to call it). Easy peasy, just throw your chicken, one onion and bay leaves in a pan, SEASON with salt and pepper, cover it with cold water by about 2 inches, wait for it to start boiling and when it starts lower the heat to medium and let it boil for 35-40 minutes. When your time is up, check to see if your chicken is done. If it is, take it out and save the broth/soup. You will not need the bay leaves or the onion (which has lost its taste by now).

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius (400 Fahrenheit). Chop your onion and carrots and throw them in a pan with some oil. Let them soften a bit, tossing them around and then add the mushrooms. Let the mushrooms take out their juices and, when they do, throw in the rice. Mix it all and cook for a few minutes, until everything has absorbed everything else’s taste. Don’t forget to season with salt and pepper. At this point you can also add some cayenne pepper or some cumin. It takes it to a whole other level.

When that’s done too, take a deep oven dish, put some oil in it and start assembling. First add the chicken and then the rice mixture around it. Make sure there are no empty spots in the dish. Now is the time for the broth. You need about 2 1/2 – 3 cups of broth for every cup of rice you have used, depending on your oven (the stronger the oven, the more liquid is evaporated). I used about 5 cups of broth for two cups of rice. Remember to measure your broth with the same cup you used to measure the rice. You WILL have a juicy dish in the end, not too juicy, but juicy enough, so don’t worry about it. Also, after a couple of hours, the juice magically disappears, I am convinced that faeries fly in and suck it with flower stems. Sadly, I have no proof.

So, once you’ve done this, put your food in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until the rice is done (it does take about 30 minutes!). Take it out, don’t let it stand for too long, it’s beautiful when it’s warm.

Enjoy it with some feta cheese, or some greek yogurt. Their coolness against the warmth of this dish is a very welcome contradiction!

Well… Now you know what we do when we want to heal our souls!

Enjoy the food, hope you enjoy the video too!