Holiday cookies

Let's face it, holiday Christmas cookies aren't that healthy, physically. But they are a simple way of lifting Christmas spirits, especially if you have someone to share them with. I made these for a December 1 picnic (and am only now posting about it, my bad!). But there were other deserts and mine required the effort of decorating them, so I came back home with most of them.

These are from a 1975 cookie cookbook put out by Better Homes and Gardens. That's only about middle-aged for my cookbook collection. If I'd had that cookbook when it was new, I would have been making them as a junior high student in eighth grade enrolled in home economics. I remember that my seventh grade home economics teacher to a great extent, and my eighth grade home economics teacher to a lesser extent, wanted to teach us the newest trends in home economics. So we learned things like outdoor cooking, how to set up a household budget and how advertising tries to trick us. Great stuff I hope all junior high children have an opportunity to learn today. I don't think we did learn how to make sugar cookies.

I'm not so sure the women's magazines and books were encouraging our mothers to help us bake anything but the most traditional of cookies in 1975. However, this cookie recipe makes a not too sweet base for any cookie shapes or cookie décor you wish. I also thought the addition of orange peel and the option of substituting orange juice for milk were nice touches. I couldn't see not using the orange I had just grated the peel off of, so I did use that orange and added a very small amount of water to yield 1/3 cup of juice.

 I really can't say it's healthier than being not to sweet. Most more modern recipes will eliminate, at the very least, the shortening. In this day of gluten-free and keto, they possibly also eliminate the sugars and flours, substituting things like maple syrup, honey or coconut sugar for the sugar, and coconut or almond flour for the plain white flour this recipe calls for. Of course, on the keto diet, they may eliminate the peanut butter too.

PEANUT BUTTER CUTOUT COOKIES

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

12 cup granulated sugar 

1egg

2 teaspoons shredded orange peel

1/3 cup orange juice (or milk)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt ( I put less)

Cream shortening, peanut butter and sugars together. Blend in egg, orange peel and juice or milk. Sift flour, baking soda and salt into the creamed mixture. Stir. Cover the dough and chill it two to three hours. (I chilled mine overnight, about 12 hours, with no problems.)

Roll out the cookie dough to 1/8" thickness, cut into desired shapes. Place on greased cookie sheet to bake in 350 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes. This recipe can make four dozen cookies if the dough is rolled thin enough.

I decorated my cookies with less than $10 worth of icing and colored sugars I found at the grocery store in between my house and this park. Ironically, I found another half-used container of red sugar in my cupboard after the picnic. I also later figured out that the tube of icing will flow better if microwaved briefly. I'm not sure I had time that day to make my own icing and color my own sugars, but even if so, such a recipe wasn't in this cookbook. 

If I make these cookies again, there actually is another recipe one page forward in the same cookbook I'll try next time. It has no peanut butter, but also less sugar (only brown) and no shortening. It does have honey and spices. Sounds delicious, and maybe - unlike the peanut butter cutout cookies - tasty enough to eat without décor. Or, since my husband is a huge fan of licorice, I'll try the recipe listed right after these peanut butter cookies called Anise Cutouts. Or, in one of my Sunset cookbooks, there is a recipe that has no peanut butter, but has both orange peel and anise. 

For decorating, other ideas I'll possibly try are spreading the cutout cookies with the slightly warmed icing, and topping that with peppermint or any kind of nuts. Maybe I also would find a good recipe for homemade icing and sugars.

But, I usually only make one holiday cookie recipe a year, if that. And, other than my personal favorite, Cocoa Drop cookies, I usually try new recipes. I may make cutout cookies one year, Cocoa Drops another year, sweet little jam-filled things another, bar cookies another, and I seem to recall that my one and only Christmas cookies last year were these buttery drop cookies, a recipe I can't even remember what cookbook I found them in.

I would have linked those cutout recipes I haven't tried yet so you could beat me to it. But most of what I have in my old and semi-old Better Homes, Betty Crocker and Sunset cookbooks aren't on those particular company's websites. So I'm not sure which of the universe of other websites has the best recipes.

However, this is a very close link to my old Betty Crocker favorite, Cocoa Drop cookies .  This link takes you instead to Betty Crocker's recipe for Chocolate Drop cookies. It's a very similar recipe, but in my cookbook, there is the option to use 1/2 cup of cocoa and 2/3 cup margarine instead of 2 oz. of unsweetened chocolate and only 1/2 cup of margarine. I also make the frosting that comes with this recipe, but tint it with food coloring instead of adding chocolate. This allows me to have bright green and red for Christmas, or other colors the rest of the year.


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Making another go at this

I have probably three or four blogs, maybe five if you count the one I did for a little while on GoodReads.com for the first in the series of books I'm writing. All of my blogs are hit and miss. I do them for awhile and then when I lose interest in that topic, I stop. I think my other blog on blogger I even was completely writing on a different topic than what I started.

But food has always been a passion of mine. And so is writing. So, I am promising to make another good effort on this blog, which I dedicated to food when I started it more than three years ago. I am still passionate about telling you how to find good, healthy and inexpensive food.

A few things have changed. I used to be a super strong advocate for the local pick-your-own produce farm, which unfortunately has gone out of business. So now I will have to advocate that if you want fresh organic vegetables you go to a Farmer's Market. I'm a big fan of the Patch Farmers' Market, which sets up shop at the Don Schroeder Medical Clinic in Rubidoux on Mondays, the Vernola Marketplace Shopping Center on the other side of Jurupa Valley on Saturdays and somewhere in Riverside (County Circle Drive?) on Thursdays. However, I find it difficult to get to all three of them, so I'm not a frequent shopper there. So, I tend to get most of my vegetables at grocery stores. I may on occasion get them at 99 Cents Only Store, which at least at the stores on Limonite in Jurupa Valley and Van Buren in Riverside, has perfectly acceptable produce on a regular basis. Dollar Tree, which otherwise would be my favorite (and closest) dollar store is not as good for food.

The other thing is that my recipes in the past were heavy on pasta. I was of the mistaken impression at that time that a vegetable lasagna, for instance, was perfectly healthy if you made it with whole wheat pasta and went heavy on the vegetables. Well, now I'm trying to worry more about carbs and cholesterol, so I'll be keeping that in mind as I write new recipes.  With that in mind, I will tell you that last night's leftover lasagna with both hamburger and salami, as well as some spinach and tomatoes is what's for dinner tonight. And that my next blog post will be about Christmas cookies, so not too cheap or healthy - but at least fresh.

But I hope to keep this going, so let's see!

Too much produce!

I love the fresh produce offerings available in my area, but sometimes it's a bit too much. Here is my current problem.

 I have produce on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator, which is a new refrigerator and not quite as big as my old one. The old one was 25 years old, so I took advantage of a Southern California Edison program to get one for free.

 I have filled the vegetable drawer of my refrigerator clear full. (Alleviated it a bit after this photo was taken by putting most of half a Farm Fresh to You cabbage in cabbage soup last night.

 The fruit drawer. I'll be alleviating the situation here soon by making pear bread.

But that will just make room for all this fruit that is still in my box from "The Patch."

Where to get fresh from the farm vegetables!

Fresh vegetables - and by that I mean usually organic produce as straight from the farm as possible - seem to have grown in popularity even since I made this blog about fresh produce a few years ago. For instance, at that time, my home city Jurupa Valley had only one option besides its limited number of local grocery stores. Now it has three. I'm going to review these here, and discuss options for the rest of you as well. However, option 1 is available to almost all Californians, and options 2 and 3 are open to anyone who can travel to Jurupa Valley at the appropriate times.

Our local options

1. Farm Fresh to You - This isn't just local to Jurupa Valley or a surrounding city, but it's the one option here that has been around longer than my blog. This is an online ordering service for a package of fresh, organic and often exotic vegetables and fruits. You arrange to have as many fresh fruits and vegetables delivered to your door as you want or need, once a week or even less. When I first started using the service, you had some choices about box size and contents. Now you have even more, and can even customize your box. Check out http://www.farmfreshtoyou.com/ for more info.

2. The Patch - This is the newest option in Jurupa Valley, having only started in April 2015 (this month as I write this). The Patch takes place from 9 a.m. to noon at the Jurupa Community Center (4810 Pedley Road, Jurupa Valley). It's a partnership between Adams Acres Farms in Rialto (including Gabriel, the former owner of Unity Farm locally) and Healthy Jurupa Valley's Gardens and Markets team. While just the two farmers using Adams Acres at this time, they are working on agreements with other farmers to bring even more in. With two farmers, they already both offer organic fruits and vegetables that are as good or better than Farm Fresh.  If you can make it to the Patch, you can pick up a box that you pre-ordered at least 24 hours in advance by calling Reach Out at (909) 982-8641, or you can pick and choose the produce while you are there that will meet your needs. The only drawbacks - no home delivery, and you must be able to come to the Jurupa Community Center during the hours the Patch is open.

3. Unity Farm - This farm is located on Crestmore Road in Jurupa Valley. Give them an hour or two notice by calling (951) 318-4261, then travel during normal business hours (weekdays only) to the farm at 4800 Crestmore Road, Jurupa Valley. (It is located on Rancho Jurupa Park, in between the campground and administrative entrances.) This farm has lovely organic vegetables, but the box they pick for you has been typically heavy on peppers since changing owners, and has never offered fruit.

If these options don't work

1. Farmers Markets - The Patch evolved from many Jurupa Valley residents' desire to have a local Farmers Market. Since it's only coming from one farm, it's still not quite that. But many cities do have Farmers Markets. Our nearest neighbor, Riverside, has one on Main Street by its convention center on Saturday mornings. It also has one on Arlington Avenue on Friday mornings, but why go there when you can get even better at The Patch? Many other cities offer Saturday morning or weekday evening farmers markets. I think the absolute best one I have seen is in Santa Monica on its Third Street Promenade, which is also a Saturday morning market. 

2. The grocery store - Jurupa Valley's Fresh & Easy has just closed, otherwise I would have listed it above for its fantastic organic produce. While I don't know that our remaining locals, which are Stater Bros. and Wal-Mart have quite as interesting a variety, they do actually have more fruits and vegetables than you will see in the boxes or at many Farmers Markets. If you still have a Fresh & Easy, a Sprouts or possibly a national chain store like Albertson's or Von's, even better chance of having a wide variety of produce. 

However, these fruits and vegetables aren't quite as fresh as even Farm Fresh to You's options, because there are middle men - the warehouses these grocery stores own, and then the grocery store itself. Their produce therefore is more like three days old, compared to about two days old for Farm Fresh, and picked just that same day or the night before for The Patch  and most other Farmers Markets, and within hours at Unity Farm. 

Ratatouille sandwich

If you have squash, eggplants, bell peppers, onions and/or tomatoes there's an easy way to use them up. Make ratatouille. This dish, which is like a vegan stew, originated in southern France and has kept the French name everywhere it goes.

Traditionally, ratatouille requires all four of these vegetables and roasting some of them for an hour. Traditionally, it is served over rice or noodles.But who cares about tradition?

I did not when I found a recipe for a ratatouille sandwich in my Panini cookbook. I knew that even though the recipe called for bell peppers and zucchini, I only had crookneck squash (and pattypans, which will hopefully be added to another recipe another day) and jalapenos, along with one eggplant. This recipe called for a single small onion, but unless you want to count green onions, I didn't have these either.

I further reduced my need for tradition, or even following a recipe, when I looked in the fridge and found that we only had three small, sorry-looking tomatoes left. We got good use out of the rest. And since I now wasn't following the recipe with four of the five called-for vegetables. The tomatoes and onions were eliminated all together, the squash and peppers had alternate varieties.

Further research into my refrigerator's contents made for yet another change to the recipe. We are beyond what is traditional here, since you usually don't add ham, cheese and sandwich bread to your ratatouille. Because this is what was in my refrigerator, I only added one slice of ham to each sandwich and a little Mozarella cheese. Also, since I didn't have any French bread (just wheat) but did have some sandwich rolls in the freezer, I left the panini maker in the appliance cupboard and toasted the buns in the toaster oven instead.

My recipe described this creation as as a ham and cheese sandwich with ratatouille. My sandwiches were more ratatouille sandwiches with a little ham (one slice each) and a little cheese. I have enough ratatouille left over to do this again, but I'm going to need French bread for another recipe. I also may get more ham, and some Gruyere cheese, which is closer to the obscure type of cheese the recipe called for.

As usual, most of my vegetables were from Unity Farm. However, my crookneck squash is from somebody's back yard garden. I don't have much room on the patio of my condo to grow stuff, but if you have a real back yard, you could have at least a few vegetables without even going to "the farm." Tomatoes, squash and peppers are all good things to grow in a back yard garden, and you might try eggplant too.

Vegetables Italianish

Chicken with tomatoes and basil

If you like pasta, and I do,  you can use up your fresh vegetables quickly by mixing them with your favorite noodles or other shapes. Here's a recipe using tomatoes, basil and green onions (*these three vegetables are in last week's Unity Farm box if you bought one), regular onions and mushrooms. This recipe also has chicken. 

4 chicken breasts (or equivalent chicken tenders, 1 to 1.5 lbs.)

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

Lemon pepper

2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

3 green onions

Your favorite pasta

Brown the chicken breasts. Add onion, mushrooms and pepper and cook 2-3 minutes. Add tomatoes and green onions. Simmer 15 minutes. 

Meanwhile cook noodles. Add to chicken and vegetables and serve. Makes enough for 4-6.

Pasta Primavera

As I probably have mentioned before, I'm a cookbook collector. As I may not have mentioned before, these days one place I shop for food is on a real farm. It's called Unity Farm, and it is an organic farm right here in Jurupa Valley, on the grounds of the Rancho Jurupa Park on Crestmore Road/46th Street. For me, that's only a little farther than right around the corner (I literally could drive to it without even going up to Limonite, although it's slightly shorter if I do take Limonite). For anyone living in Jurupa Valley or Riverside, it's worth the drive.

So, since I have referred a number of Riverside friends to Unity Farm, it's now become apparent that I need to share my ideas for what to do with those yummy vegetables. So here's how I used some of the ones in my last box. That box contained, among other things, squash, carrots, peppers and tomatillos.

So, really simple idea, although it's based somewhat on a cookbook. My recipes are for two people, but you can adapt for more.

Pasta Primavera

Chop up one of your squash, two of your carrots, at least one of your peppers and about seven or eight of your tomatillos from Unity Farm. Add about half of an onion you bought at the grocery store, unless you still happen to have one from Unity Farm (I haven't had one from there the last few boxes.)

Stir fry these in a little bit of oil. Meanwhile, cook half a package of pasta to the dente you like. (You could substitute spaghetti squash or maybe brown rice if you have vegan or gluten issues) Add the pasta to the stir fried vegetables and mix well. 

My cookbook, which was published in 1989, suggested adding Parmesan cheese to this mix. We like Parmesan cheese so we sprinkled it generously over ours, and we are glad we did.