I love Valentines Day with all the pink and red hearts and the candy…..oh my, how I love all the candy. My fav “over the counter” candy is Dove, any flavor, but if I get to pick what I get, my heart always takes me to Ethel M chocolate, which you have to order out of Las Vegas. I know, I know, does anything good ever come out of LV except “addictive behavior” and my answer to that is….YES! Ethel M Chocolates. This is the best, better than Ghirardelli, better than Godiva, or See’s…it is the creamiest ever. Their lemon truffles is like eating a can of Eagle Brand dipped in the best chocolate EVER! So next time you want to splurge a little, go on-line and order some chocolate from EM….you will be so glad that you did. I didn’t mean to get started on that, but I just cannot think of chocolate without thinking about EM, but now on to the recipe of the day. If you are dining at home tonight as we are instead of going out, may I suggest that you go find a few pictures of you and your sweetie from past years and place them as your centerpiece at the table. It will be a great reminder of some precious times together and spark lots of conversation about when the pictures were taken. (Don’t pay attention to how much you have aged since the pics were taken, that will ruin the mood).Focus on what great times you have had and what you were feeling when the picture was taken and share with each other the memories that go along with each picture. It will be a lovely evening, reminiscing with each other.
My husband just had some surgery done last Fri and has been home recouping the last 3 days, so of course, because I wanted to be able to say that I was the best wife around, cooking him anything he wanted and waiting on him hand and foot, I have spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen. Actually, my time in the kitchen was due to a different motive (but please don’t tell him) Although it made me sound so nice and sweet, taking care of my sweet ailing hubby, my motive was to keep busy and not have to listen to the “snores” coming out of the den as he lay there getting all the “anesthesia” out of his system. Needless to say, the kitchen was the quietest place in the house to be…now I now you must be thinking how cold hearted I am, and I guess you are right, but most of you wives have had a husband who has had some type of surgery and know what I am talking about. Every time he woke up, I was called to come “assess” the situation….”does my face look swollen”, “do I feel like I have temperature”, “I think my stitches are bleeding”….”do you think I could take a pain pill a little early, my head hurts”…”could you fluff my pillow”…..well, I think you get the idea, so the kitchen was my place of getting away from playing “Nancy Nurse”
As long as I was in there I thought, to make this look like I was being nice, I would go ahead and cook things the patient liked, so thus……this new recipe for biscotti. Took me a long time to get to this point, didn’t it? Now you know what he sleeps a lot, ha…or pretends to be asleep, hum…..I wonder?…..
Well, since we have been staying home quite a bit over the last few days letting him recoup, I began to dig into some of my different cookbooks and came across this one from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook.
It is a keeper and our little patient even took some to work with him today for his “coffee time”.
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup boiling water
3 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting baking sheet
2 teas baking powder
1/4 teas salt
4 tables unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
3 large eggs, plus large egg, lightly beaten for brushing over dough to brown it well
2 teas vanilla *because I was making this for Randy, I used the vanilla, if it was going to be “all about me” day, I would use Almond extract
1/2 cup unsalted pistachios, coarsely chopped
Preheat oven to 375. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper* (I didn’t have any paper, so I sprayed my pan with Pam and dusted it with a little flour, worked very well) Set aside.
Place cranberries and apricots in a small bowl and add the boiling water. Let stand for about 15 min. Drain and set aside. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl; set aside.
In another bowl, beat butter with sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 min. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after ea egg and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture and mix on low speed until combined. Mix in fruit and nuts by hand with spatula.
Turn out dough into 2 individual loaves on baking sheet. Shape each piece into a 16×2 in football shaped log. Flatten it a little with floured hands to where it looks like a half of a football shaped piece of dough.
Brush beaten egg over surface of the dough and then sprinkle with a little sugar over the top.
Bake, rotating sheet halfway through until logs are slightly firm to touch, about 25 min. Transfer logs on parchment paper or sheet to a wife rack *(couldn’t find my racks, so just left on baking sheets which I had placed over the edges of hot pads, allowing air to get under the baking sheet to cool for about 20 min. As soon as I took these out of the oven, reduce the oven temp to 300.
Using a serrated knife, cut the logs into 1″ slices and place on cut side down on baking sheet and place in oven for about 30 min (after 15 min, turn each slice over, total baking time, 30 min)
Remove pan from oven and let biscotti cool completely. Biscotti can be kept in airtight container at room temp for up to 1 week.
Chocolate Castles 