Flourless Almond Torte

Ben and Jen gave us the Run Fast, Eat Slow cookbook for Christmas this year. We happened to be driving down and back to Tulsa to see Kent’s mother right after we’d opened presents so I took the cookbook along and read him recipes. This one in particular intrigued me, although I knew I wouldn’t make it as is. While I understand the health impacts of sugar, maple syrup isn’t the flavor profile I like in most baked goods. So I knew I’d change things up. 

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• ¾ C brown sugar
• ¼ C olive oil (I use one of my less flavorful oils in this recipe)
• 2 t almond extract
• ¼ C Amaretto
• ½ t sea salt
• ½ C almond slices
• 5 C almond flour (not meal), sifted 
• ½ C small dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F
2. Grease a 9-inch springform pan with butter.
3. Toast the almond slices—watch them because they will go from no color to burned pretty quickly.
4. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, brown sugar, oil, almond extract, Amaretto and salt.
5. Add the sifted almond flour and chocolate chips to the bowl and stir until thoroughly combined.
6. Pour into the springform pan (you may need to sort of smooth out the batter a bit).
7. Top with the toasted almond slices and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
8. Cool the cake on a wire rack for about five minutes, then carefully loosen the edges of the cake with a knife. Gently remove the pan’s sides and remove. Use the same knife to loosen under the cake and transfer to a serving dish.
9. Cut into 12 slices and enjoy!

Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries

A friend made a vegan version of this for a recent brunch. She substituted almond milk and a flax "egg," and it tasted great. For our normal use, I've gone ahead and made the non-vegan version. It's so good that this morning greedy me had two helpings.

This is a delightful and easy breakfast dish to make when you want something a little more interesting than just oats.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 C old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 t baking powder
• Dash of kosher salt
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 2 T butter, melted and cooled
• 2 C whole milk
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 C sugar
• 2 C blueberries, fresh or frozen

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 
2. Grease an 8” square baking dish.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the oats, baking powder, salt, zest, and spice. 
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the butter, milk, sugar, and egg.
5. Pour about half the dry mixture into the baking pan, then add half the blueberries. Add the remaining dry ingredients and top with the remaining blueberries.
6. Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients and blueberries; make sure the blueberries get covered.  
7. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the mixture is browned along the edges and the center has set up.
8. Enjoy!

Cheater's Candy aka Christmas Crack

A friend of mine posted this recipe on Facebook and I was intrigued. So I made some and (unfortunately) we like it a lot. It’s called Christmas Crack because of the crackers, which is kind of dumb. But I can’t think of a better name unless I call it Cheater’s Candy. Which is also ridiculous but it's what I'm going with anyway.

Ingredients:
1 C butter
¾ C dark brown sugar
A full sleeve of saltine crackers
16 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
Optional toppings:
Pretzels, broken into pieces
Heath bar, broken into pieces
Peanuts

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 400°.
• Line a large shallow cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray well with something like Pam.
• Put the saltines in a single layer on the cookie sheet, covering the entire sheet – if you need to fill in any gaps, use broken crackers.
• Meanwhile, in a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.
• Next add the brown sugar and turn up the heat to medium; stir constantly with a flat wooden spoon until the butter no longer floats on the top of the brown sugar (it should begin to come to a boil).
• Cook for about five minutes, stirring constantly, until the toffee begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
• Carefully pour the toffee over the saltines and, if necessary, use the flat wooden spoon to spread the toffee around gently until all crackers are covered. You may need to rearrange your saltines if they get moved – just use a fork.
• Bake for about five minutes and remove from the oven
• Let cool for about three or four minutes and then sprinkle the chocolate chips on the toffee-covered crackers. Put the pan back in the oven for a minute or so, so that the chips are more melted.
• Remove from the oven again and carefully spread the melting chips over all the crackers. 
• Sprinkle with the crushed pretzels, Heath bars and whatever else you want to use.
• Let cool completely before breaking into pieces.

Green Bean Casserole

My daughter-in-law adores green bean casserole for holiday meals. I have to be honest, I’ve always disliked the dish, largely because it uses canned green beans. I find most canned vegetables to be awful and green beans are the biggest offenders in my world. But this year, she made the casserole from scratch. Oh my word, what a transformation! Here’s her recipe, cut down to serve two.

Ingredients:

Crispy Onion Topping
½ yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced (use a mandoline if you have one)
1/8 C flour
1 T breadcrumbs
Dash of salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Canola, safflower, peanut or other high-heat oil, for deep-frying

Beans in Mushroom Sauce
1 ½ T butter
6 ounces baby portabella mushrooms, thinly sliced or coarsely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper
Dash of salt
1 garlic clove, minced
1 ½ T flour
¾ C vegetable or chicken broth
¼ C milk
½ pound fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into pieces

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 325° F*
• Toss onion with flour, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper 
• Heat oil in a skillet and fry the onions until light golden brown 
• Remove and place on plate with paper towel – set aside
• Over medium-high heat, melt butter in a skillet
• Add the mushrooms, salt and pepper and sauté them until they start releasing their liquid, anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes 
• Add the garlic and sauté one minute more
• Add the flour and stir it until it fully coats the mushrooms
• Add the broth, stirring the whole time
• Simmer mixture for 1 minute, then add cream and bring back to a simmer, cooking until the sauce thickens. Stir frequently.
• Add greens beans to sauce and stir until they are coated
• Put bean and mushroom mixture into a casserole dish
• Sprinkle crispy onions over the top
• Bake for 30 minutes, or until sauce is bubbling and onions are a shade darker

* I put the beans into the oven while our Christmas pork roast was cooking at 325°. The beans cooked for probably half an hour and were perfect, so no need to blanch them.

Victorian Tea Pastry

When I was growing up, my mother made Swedish tea rings for Christmas breakfast. This was quite an undertaking since it needed to rise twice and then be rolled into the ring shape with all the requisite fillings. I liked it a lot but it was a ton of work. Then in my 20s, my mother found this recipe. It’s much easier, has all the same bang for your buck in terms of taste and presentation and best of all, you don’t need to start this recipe the day before.

When my kids were little, they tended to switch up the consonants on words, so this was called the Pee Tasty. To be honest, we still call it that today.

Topping:

½ C water
½ stick butter
½ C flour
2 eggs
½ t almond extract

Bottom:

½ C flour
½ stick butter, softened
1 T water

Icing:

1 T butter, softened
½ C powdered sugar
1 ½ t milk
¼ t almond extract
1/8 toasted, sliced almonds

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F

Top: Bring the water and butter to a boil, Remove from heat and immediately stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. Beat till smooth. Set aside while you make the bottom of the pastry.

Bottom: In a bowl, combine the flour and butter and blend well. Add the water and mix with a wooden spoon until the dough tends to form a ball. Place on a cookie sheet and flatten until it’s about ½ inch thick (dough shouldn’t reach the edges of the baking sheet).

Top: Now add the eggs one at a time to the still-warm mixture in the pan. Beat well after adding each egg until the mixture is smooth. Add the almond extract and mix well. Spread the mixture over the dough on the baking sheet coming to within ¼ inch of the edges. Bake for about an hour (don’t open the oven). Cool about 10 minutes before frosting.

Icing: Blend the butter, powdered sugar, milk and almond extract until smooth. Spread over the warm pastry and sprinkle with the toasted, sliced almonds.

This version is cut in half from my mother’s version. If you want to make the full recipe, increase the eggs to three, not four. Otherwise double everything else.

Cranberry Upside-down Cake

There's so much goodness in this cake, I don't even know where to begin. I first had this cake four years ago in Boston. A dear friend and chef had made it for one of our Bible study dinners and I fell in love with the combination of rich sweetness plus the tartness of the berries.

I never did get her exact recipe, so I scouted around online and cobbled together this version. I made it for a Christmas Eve dinner and it was gone by the next day. I got heavy cream, intending to make whipped cream for the cake but forgot to bring it to our dinner and you know what? We didn't miss it one bit.

Ingredients:

Topping:

1/2 C sugar
At least 2 T butter, softened
2 C fresh or frozen cranberries, not canned -- if using fresh, wash and sort; if using frozen, thaw and drain

Cake:

1 1/3 C flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
3/4 C sugar
1/2 C (1 stick butter), softened
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 t fresh lemon zest
2/3 C milk

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350F
• Generously coat the inside of a 9-inch cake pan with the 2+ T softened butter
• Put the 1/2 C sugar in the cake pan and coat the entire pan with sugar (bottom and sides); there will be a lot of sugar remaining. Make sure it's evenly spread on the bottom of the pan.
• Place the cranberries in the bottom of the cake pan and make sure they're evenly distributed. Set the cake pan aside.
• In a small bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Set aside
• In a large mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until the mixture is pea-sized or smaller.
• Add the egg, lemon zest and vanilla and beat until smooth.
• Add in the flour mixture and milk and beat at a low speed until just blended, or use a wooden spoon to blend.
• Carefully put the batter on top of the cranberries in the cake pan, making sure to cover the berries evenly. I used a spatula and dropped the batter onto the cranberries, almost like biscuits. Then I used the spatula to gently spread the batter around and cover the berries.
• Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the middle cleanly and the top of the cake has started to brown slightly. With my current oven, the cake baked for 45 minutes and I didn't use the toothpick.
• Let the cake sit for 10 minutes, then use a knife to carefully loosen the cake from the pan.
• Invert the cake onto a cake plate (you may need to tap the cake pan) and let cool completely.

Cranberry-Port Sauce

This recipe is based on a Food & Wine recipe I found about eight years ago. I never liked cranberry sauce until I made this and now I adore it. Serve the sauce warm or at room temperature; you can make this ahead of time and store it refrigerated for up to two weeks.

Ingredients:

½ C port (I've used tawny and ruby port and generally prefer a ruby port)

½ C pomegranate juice

12 ounces fresh cranberries

¾ C sugar

Directions:

• In a medium saucepan, combine the port and juice and bring to a boil.
• Add the cranberries and sugar and simmer over moderately low heat until the sauce is jam-like and most of the berries have popped, about 25 minutes (you can also help the berries along by smooshing them as they cook).

Honey Roasted Almonds

Be warned, these won't last long. They are incredibly delicious and also easy to make

Ingredients:

12 ounces raw almonds
2 T honey
2 T water
2 T canola oil
1/4 C sugar
1 1/2 t salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325F.
• Place the almonds in one layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 20 to 30 minutes until roasted.
• While the nuts are roasting, mix the sugar and salt in a bowl large enough to hold all the nuts, and set aside.
• About 10 minutes before the almonds are finished, mix the honey, oil and water in a large frying pan and heat almost to boiling.
• Add the toasted nuts to the pan. If the liquid hasn't already come to a boil, the heat of the nuts will make it boil. Stir over medium heat until all the liquid is gone.
• Put the coated almonds in the bowl with the sugar/salt mixture and stir until the nuts are entirely coated. You may have some extra sugar/salt mixture left over. You can save it for the next batch of nuts (because there will be a next batch).