Knitter in the Kitchen

One great thing about reading food blogs is that I get inspired to try recipes I would otherwise overlook. Deb of Smitten Kitchen posted about the Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, and three days later I made them myself.

When perusing Dorie’s book, I never really looked at the shortbread recipes because I didn’t think I liked shortbread. Well, I was wrong. I love these shortbread cookies — they have an excellent coffee flavor and are surprisingly light in texture.

I can’t eat too many of these — they contain a fair amount of butter so I gave half the batch away — but even one of these cookies after dinner is such a treat! In case you couldn’t tell, I am a huge fan of Dorie. If you would like to try the recipe, you can find it in the Smitten Kitchen link I provided above.

I love Dorie Greenspan’s Swedish Visiting Cake, so when she posted a variation called the Swedish Apple Cake, I knew I wanted to try it. The two cakes definitely do taste different, but the Apple Cake is just as easy and delicious! We loved the mild flavor with just the right amount of sweetness.  Next time I have to remember to use more apple slices.
Modifications: used 9.5 inch pie dish and reduced baking time by about 7 minutes.

Still experimenting with lasagna recipes…

Meat and Cheese Lasagna from The Best Light Recipe (Thanks, Esther!)
Fat-free ricotta and lean ground turkey helped make it relatively healthy. The batch yielded 8 servings and it tasted even better with each passing day — yum!

Next I’m planning to try either Sausage, Cheese, and Basil Lasagna or World’s Best Lasagna. I might wait until the new year, though, because I asked for a red lasagna pan for Christmas…

This year, Suzie has organized Knit with Love, an effort to collect at least 25 knitted hats that will be delivered to elders via the San Francisco chapter of Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly. Suzie is currently just over halfway to meeting her goal and will accept hats for two more weeks, so if you have time to whip up a quick hat please take a look at the link!