Peanut Butter Cookies

When I was a kid, I hated peanut butter. I know this because my dad thought it would be funny to teach me to recite, on cue, a list of all the foods I didn't like. And then if someone ever asked me “Hey Blair, would you like some cole slaw?” I would just spout them all off without warning: “Don't like cole slaw, don't like mayonnaise, don't like peanut butter, don't like peanut butter crackers, don't like Tootsie Rolls, don't like spaghetti...” etc.

But then I grew up, my mom figured out a way to make PB&J appetising to me, and my grandpa introduced me to Reese's cups, which are still my favourite candy. In college, I was even known to have a spoonful of peanut butter for breakfast on my way to class, but somehow peanut butter cookies have always been low on my list. Maybe it's because they're somehow so often dry and crumbly instead of soft and decadent like their chocolate chip cousins. Maybe it's those weird fork marks on top? Or maybe it's just that, truth be told, when facing a tin of holiday cookies, I'd just rather go for something more reliably amazing.

That said, I strongly associate peanuts, if not peanut butter, with Eleanor (and rightly so, at least judging by how well-worn this recipe is). She always had a crystal dish of Planters nuts somewhere in her living room, and I was fascinated by the fact that there were just snacks available all the time in her house. (Also, I know they were Planters because she also had all kinds of Mr. Peanut memorabilia that must have come with the jars over the years.) I may not have liked peanuts, but I'd conquer that dislike if it meant I got to eat anything out of a crystal dish whenever I wanted to, especially if it was offered to me by a peanut wearing a monocle. So every time we visited, I'd sneak peanuts and think Eleanor was très glamorous.

But back to the affair at hand: I offered to make cookies for Judson to take to a game night with his friends, and when presented with the option between peanut butter cookies and oatmeal cookies, he chose peanut butter. (Since then, he's chosen three other desserts over oatmeal cookies, but I keep thinking I'll sneak them in one of these days).

I made him these peanut butter cookies, and it turns out they are awesome. I'm sorry, Eleanor-- I should have expected nothing less from someone who bought enough peanuts to be in the running as Mrs. Peanut. These are exactly what I've always thought peanut butter cookies could be, but never knew how to achieve: they're gooey, salty-sweet, and have a depth of flavour beyond just PEANUTS. Plus, they're somehow not overly greasy, which is also another personal pet peeve when it comes to anything peanut-related. They're incredible when eaten warm out of the oven (with a glass of milk, please!), but they're also delish at room temperature, even for several days after making them. Plus, they're easy and classic... though I clearly haven't figured out how to make those fork marks yet.

The Verdict:

4 spoons out of five. These are the best peanut butter cookies I've ever had, but I'm trying to reserve 5 spoon ratings for recipes that are more unique than this one. But again, let me reiterate: best peanut butter cookies I've ever had. Make these for a party, make these for a friend, make these for yourself and you'll see... just make sure whoever you make them for doesn't have a peanut allergy first.

The recipe:

Peanut Butter Cookies

The ingredients:

½ c shortening or Stork
½ c peanut butter
½ c sugar
½ c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¼ c flour, sifted
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp milk

THE DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350F/176C.
Cream shortening, peanut butter, and both sugars in a mixer.
Add egg and vanilla, beating well to incorporate.
Sift flour, soda, and salt together, then add to peanut butter mixture alternately with milk.
Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheet and cook 10 minutes or until flattened and slightly brown around the edges.

Yields 2 dozen cookies, not 3 dozen as listed on Eleanor's recipe... unless you make them much smaller.

Quiche à la Bramafam, or, Tomato and Caramelised Onion Tart

Spring comes slowly in Edinburgh, which is strange, because 90% of the year here seems like it's either autumn or spring. But spring is slow to get off the ground: it starts with snowdrops, which are the only flowers that exist for about a month. Then come the daffodils, which last for another 3 weeks or so, by themselves (we're currently in the middle of daffodil season), then will come the tulips, then some flowery white trees I don't know the name of, and finally the rest of the trees turn fluffy and pink for nearly a month, because apparently 90% of the trees in this town are cherry trees. It's pretty awesome.

I love living in a place that has seasons because I grew up in Florida, where there is only “hurricane season” and “the rest of the year.” But now that I'm grown I miss the constant heat sometimes, and I miss the way every day in Florida feels almost exactly like the day before it, but most of all, I miss the thunderstorms. Florida has amazing thunderstorms, and since it only thunders about twice a year in Edinburgh, I definitely miss them the most.

Anyway, when spring finally comes, all I want to eat for dinner every day is quiche and a green salad. It's my favourite way to celebrate the fact that we're moving away from winter soups and into summer veggies, so when I found a quiche recipe in the box, I knew it was a great time to give it a try. At first I thought it was odd that Eleanor would have saved this quiche recipe-- there aren't a lot of vegetarian meals in the box, so this one stuck out immediately as a little pretentious and a little random for her tastes... but then I remembered that my mom made Quiche Lorraine for dinner a lot when I was growing up, so maybe Eleanor was into it, too? I guess it makes sense: this dish was invented by Julia Child's co-author (and named for her estate), and everyone who cooks loves Julia Child, especially in 1978, which is when this recipe was pulled from an issue of Better Homes And Gardens.

This quiche is perfect for this time of year, because it's lighter than most winter fare but still manages to be hearty and filling. We had it with a spring green salad with lemon vinaigrette and it was the perfect way to celebrate the onset of spring after a long and dark winter. It's time intensive-- probably better for a weekend than a weeknight, unless you really like cooking. And it's really more of a tart than a quiche-- there are only two eggs in it, which seems low when you realise the vast quantities of onion and tomato in it.

Honestly, it's a great dish for anyone who isn't a huge quiche fan, because it tastes more Italian than French, and if you ate it with your eyes closed you could probably pretend it was some crazy variety of pizza.

The Verdict:

4 spoons out of five. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not picky when it comes to quiche, so my verdict on this was probably going to be amazing no matter what, but Judson is pretty on-the-fence about quiche, and even he loved it. It's filling but not overly heavy, and if you, like us, live in a land where the calendar says spring but the weather outside does not, this is the perfect meal to make because the veggies it requires are winter vegetables: onions and canned tomatoes, reliably good no matter the time of year.

Notes: You can make this with a bought crust, and that would definitely take off part of the time of cooking it. You can also sub in sour cream or storebought crème fraiche OR Greek yogurt if you're feeling frisky instead of the recipe for crème fraiche that follows below, but in the spirit of making the recipe to the letter, I included the details anyway.

The Recipe:

Quiche a la Bramafam

The Ingredients:

The Crust:

2 c flour
½ tsp salt
½ c butter, cold
2 tbsp shortening or Stork
1 egg
3 tbsp ice water
(This makes enough for a double crust, so you can halve it if needed, or just freeze half of the dough wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and use it within a month. I made the whole recipe and used half for the quiche and half for yesterday's pie.)

CRUST:

Combine flour and salt in mixing bowl.
Cut in butter and shortening with a pastry cutter or two knives until mixture forms very coarse crumbs.
Make a well in the center of the mixture.
Beat together egg and water, then pour into well in flour mixture.
Toss the mixture with two forks until it almost forms a dough, then press it together into a ball with your hands as fast as possible.
rap in plastic wrap or foil and chill 20 minutes in freezer or 90 minutes in refrigerator before using.

The Creme Fraiche:

½ c whipping cream
3 tbsp sour cream

CREME FRAICHE:

Combine cream and sour cream in a jar with a tight-fitting lid.
Shake well for at least 30 seconds to blend.
Let stand at room temperature, covered, for a few hours or up to a day, checking it periodically.
t's done ripening when it's slightly thickened and tangy.

The Quiche:

½ recipe crust
2 ½ cups finely chopped onions, from about 4 onions*
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
28 oz can Italian tomatoes, cut into small pieces
4 cloves garlic, crushed
3 tbsp chopped parsley
½ tsp dried thyme, crushed
½ tsp dried marjoram, crushed
½ tsp dried oregano, crushed
1 bay leaf, crushed
2 eggs, beaten
1 recipe crème fraiche, or equivalent in Greek yogurt or sour cream
¾ c Swiss or Emmenthal cheese, grated

*Vidalia would be amazing here, if you can get them.

QUICHE:

Line a 10-inch quiche pan or 9-inch pie pan with the pastry crust.
Chill while preparing filling.
Melt butter with the olive oil in a skillet, then add onion and cook for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally until onions form a thick paste.
Add undrained tomatoes and garlic to skillet and boil uncovered 25-30 minutes more, until mixture is a thick paste, stirring and scraping the bottom frequently.
Preheat oven to 400F/204C.
Remove from heat and stir in parsley, thyme, marjoram, oregano, and bay leaf.
Combine eggs and crème fraiche in a small bowl, then stir into tomato mixture.
Pour mixture into prepared shell and place on a baking sheet.
Sprinkle with cheese and bake 25-30 minutes, until filling is set and top is browned.
Remove from oven and sprinkle with additional cheese, if desired.
Allow to stand 15 minutes before cutting.

Yields 6 servings, perfect as lunch or dinner with a small green salad.

Rhubarb Pie

I've always associated rhubarb pie with the Southern US. Maybe this is because my (other, very non-Yankee) grandmother was the first one who introduced me to it (mixed with strawberry pie filling in a too-red confection when I was a preteen), or maybe it's because, after that one ill-fated strawberry adventure, rhubarb went out of my head until I was 15, hanging out with a friend in Kentucky, and his dad brought me a piece of “fresh rhubarb, right off the bush! You have to try it, it's just so good!”

Have you ever tasted raw rhubarb? It's literally the worst. It's so bitter and so sour and so terrible I thought I'd never recover. So after that I learned my lesson and moved on to eating it only cooked any time I could find it, which wasn't often in the States.

But then I moved to Scotland and it's all over the place here! Rhubarb muffins, rhubarb puddings, rhubarb jam for your scones in the morning, and best of all, it's never paired with strawberries! So now I love rhubarb. As long as it's not raw, that is. It's pearly and pink and pastel and it's amazing boiled with sugar, strained, and stirred into lemonade.

But I still associate it with the Southern US, and so I was surprised to find a recipe for it in the box. Eleanor may have been many things, and she may have spent a full half of her life in Florida, but she was, above all, most emphatically not Southern. So I guess I was wrong about rhubarb, but that's ok. That's what the project is about, after all: being wrong about inconsequential things and then figuring it out.

This recipe is really simple-- even moreso if you only read half of it, as I did, and somehow ignore the entire “double pastry” part and only make it with a single crust. Hey, we're not here to judge. Just to eat pie and drink hot coffee. But my favourite part-- beyond the simplicity of the recipe, beyond the beauty of cooked rhubarb-- my favourite part is that it's written on the back of a pre-printed recipe card for Armour Star Chopped Beef. What, you may be asking, is Chopped Beef? I don't know. Perhaps it is like chipped beef, but I've never had that either and I'm not about to do the research to find out.

So Eleanor hand-wrote the recipe for this rhubarb pie on the back of a card that I assume probably came with the box itself-- there are a handful of these cards in the box, all with handwritten recipes on the back. And all of them contain gems like this: “Cut contents of 1 tin chopped beef into 8 slices. Fry in a little butter.” I'm glad Eleanor wrote on the back of them-- I'm going to assume even she didn't like the idea of tinned beef and only saved the cards because she had written dessert recipes on the other side. When I first realised that the front of the card had a pre-printed recipe on it, I asked Judson if I should make the recipe for Chopped Beef, too-- but then we realised (with a sigh of relief) that there is no way to buy tinned beef over here in Scotland (or, I hope, anywhere), and that it's not even a recipe so much as just “remove contents from jar and eat,” so I'm not bothering with it. If you have a problem with that, we ask that you kindly take it up with management.

If you have a tart or quiche pan (like a pie pan, but shallower and with straight, fluted sides), this is the perfect recipe to use it. I have one, but forgot about it until it was too late. Alas. If you're not using a tart pan, I recommend increasing the amount of rhubarb from 2 cups to 2 ½ cups or so (4 large stalks is plenty). I've included a recipe for pie crust below, but it makes enough for a double crust. I only used half of it, because I didn't read the recipe well and was already planning on using the other half for a dish I'll be posting tomorrow, but the recipe calls for a double crust, so feel free to use the entire thing. I ended up liking it better without a top crust because it let the rhubarb shine through more, but I'm kind of meh about crust anyway. If you're one of those people who likes crust, then make the top layer, too.

The Verdict:

4 spoons out of five. I found myself wishing there was more rhubarb in the filling and that it was a little more tart. (The wish for more rhubarb could easily be remedied by cooking this in a tart pan, which is what I'll do next time). It's worth noting that the Brits we shared it with, who probably all have more rhubarb experience than me, loved it, so it's possible I'm the one in the wrong on this one.

The recipe:

Rhubarb Pie

The Ingredients:

The Crust:

2 c flour
½ tsp salt
½ c butter, cold
2 tbsp shortening or Stork
1 egg
3 tbsp ice water

The Directions:

CRUST:

Combine flour and salt in mixing bowl.
Cut in butter and shortening with a pastry cutter or two knives until mixture forms very coarse crumbs.
Make a well in the center of the mixture.
Beat together egg and water, then pour into well in flour mixture.
Toss the mixture with two forks until it almost forms a dough, then press it together into a ball with your hands as fast as possible.
Divide in half and wrap in plastic wrap or foil.
Chill 20 minutes in freezer or 90 minutes in refrigerator before using.
Roll out half of dough and press into the pie pan-- crust does not need to be parbaked before cooking the pie.
If desired, roll out second half of dough and place on top of rhubarb filling, pricking top crust to allow steam to escape.

The Filling:

2-2 ½ c rhubarb, sliced into bite-size chunks
3 tbs cornstarch
1 c sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional but recommended by me)

FILLING:

Preheat oven to 425F/218C.
Mix together all ingredients and pour into prepared pie crust (recipe above, or use a storebought crust).
Cover tightly with foil and cook 10 minutes.
Turn oven down to 350F/176C, remove foil, and cook for another 45 minutes, until filling is set and does not wobble when nudged.
If using only one crust, you might need to lay the foil loosely over the pie during the last 10 minutes to keep the rhubarb from scorching as the filling finishes setting.

Yields one small pie.