Holiday Goodies

According to their site, Andes Crème de Menthe candies rank as the “number one after-dinner mint” delivering a “smooth blend of mint and chocolate flavors– the perfect post-meal treat”.

They are particularly popular during the holidays and easy to find at your local grocery store. They help bring these easy chocolate “brownie” cookies to a new level of decadence.

After removing the cookies from the oven, each one is topped with an Andes mint while still warm. The residual heat melts the candy, turning it into a spreadable “frosting” to swirl over each cookie.

They’ll be the hit of any holiday gathering cookie swap.

Certain people, I’m told, are particularly susceptible to taking their parents seriously, just as they might be to sunburn, or T.B.  I believe it, especially around New Year’s Eve, when a trio of my Mom’s personal aphorisms begins to clang around my head. 

“Don’t drive after dark: the drunks are out.”  Kinda true, and especially relevant.  Not only do New Year’s Eve activities happen in the dark, but most revolve around drinking.  Plus, this being Los Angeles, I drive wherever I’m going.  Looks like I’m not going anywhere.

“Don’t breathe other people’s exhalations.”  Admittedly one of her more bizarre pieces of advice, but no less applicable.  Parties, by their very nature, are full of people, and people (the unhygienic monsters) consistently breathe.  Best I stay at home.  (And ask my boyfriend to direct his exhalations out an open window.)

“Nothing good ever happens after midnight.”  Forget seeing the ball drop.  I’ll be desperately trying to will myself to sleep at that point, avoiding whatever general “not good” waits around to pounce on people in the wee hours.

My first taste of goat’s cheese was at a tapas restaurant in Chicago many years ago. The soft, creamy cheese with a fairly mild, salty taste was topped with pine nuts. At the time, the flavors were so different from what I was accustomed to eating. During the years since that first introduction, I’ve become quite fond of the full, rich flavor of goat cheese.

One of my favorite ways to serve goat cheese is to spread the room-temperature cheese on a platter and top it with sliced sundried tomatoes in oil, smashed kalamata olives and slivers of fresh basil. I drizzle some of the oil from the jar of sundried tomatoes over the whole platter and serve it with baguette slices. Guests cover the bread with oil-soaked cheese and then top it with the tomatoes, olives and basil. The whole thing can be assembled right before guests arrive. It’s not a concoction I developed myself. Mary Risley, of Tante Marie’s Cooking School in San Francisco served it at the first class I ever took from her.

This holiday season I’ve combined those same ingredients and baked them in tiny little cream cheese tart shells. The rich custard holds all the ingredients together in a flaky cream cheese cup.

Another classic Christmas cookie - Shortbread is a traditional Scottish dessert that consists of three basic ingredients: flour, sugar, and butter. According to Wikpedia, this cookie resulted from medieval biscuit bread, which was a twice baked, enriched bread roll dusted with sugar and spices and hardened into a soft and sweetened biscuit called a Rusk.

Eventually, yeast from the original Rusk recipe was replaced by butter, which was becoming more of a staple in the British Isles. Despite the fact that shortbread was prepared during much of the 12th century, the refinement of shortbread was actually accredited to Mary, Queen of Scots, in the 16th century.

The name of one of the most famous and most traditional forms of shortbread, petticoat tails, were named by Queen Mary. This type of shortbread was baked, cut into triangular wedges as they are in this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated.