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Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

The all time family favorite

December 24, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

We LOVE this cookie!!! It is work, but it is worth it! For melt in your mouth pecan heaven, this is the cookie for you. There is not much sugar in the dough, hence the double rolling in powdered sugar. Many cultures have variations of this cookie and they may change the nut to almonds or walnuts, but we love pecans. And the finger shape is a bit more elegant than a fat ball as some folks do.

Unbaked pecan crisps on baking sheet.

My mom always made a double batch and it was never enough for all 8 of us. I make a double batch for just the 4 of us, so you can imagine. Mom would enlist my brother Mark and me to help her with the rolling in powdered sugar. Our trick was to purposely break them while rolling – so they were no good and we just had to eat them. That was believable to her, especially in the first rolling while they’re still warm. But she caught on and would just giggle under her breath, unless we started “breaking” too many!

This is the single recipe. I hope it will become your family favorite too!

Baked pecan crisps on cooking sheet.

Baked cookies cooling for 5 minutes

PECAN CRISPS
¾ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup of pecan halves, ground in a food processor
2 cups flour
¼ tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter very well. Add sugar gradually and beat well. Add vanilla. Sift the flour and salt together and then stir in the ground pecans and add this mixture gradually to the butter and sugar mixture. Mix thoroughly. The dough may be crumbly but gather it together with your hands and the warmth from your palms and all the butter in the dough will enable it to hold together.

Pecan crisps.

Finished pecan crisps

Gently squeeze it. Shape dough into finger lengths. Place on greased or Siltpat lined baking sheets about 1” apart. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Then while still warm, roll in sifted powdered sugar. Cool cookies on rack and then roll again in the sugar until they have taken all that they can hold.

Filed Under: Desserts Tagged With: Christmas cookies, confectioners sugar, holiday cookies, holiday entertaining, pecan crisps, powdered sugar, vanilla

Getting ready.

December 2, 2011 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

With the holidays coming, a lot of entertaining may be on your calendar. It’s a great time to get together and toast to your friends!

I love to entertain. I love to plan the dinners and dessert, but when it comes to the appetizers, I admit I struggle. I usually never get a chance to eat much of them as I’m busy preparing dinner. I don’t like to serve things that are too fattening or filling and how often can you buy the same dips (which usually aren’t very good, except for hummas) or serve more cheese? Other things are great but more complicated and take up too much time unless you’ve taken the whole day off of work.

This is something I wanted to share with you. This dip is my friend, Diane’s recipe. I knew we liked her and her husband the first time we were invited to their home for dinner as they were the only other martini drinking couple we knew in Summit, NJ when we all lived there. Our sons were friends and played soccer together.

I love straight up gin martinis but these days I really can’t take more than 2 sips and then I need to put some ice in it. (I really just love drinking out of the straight up glasses.) I remember the first time I had this dip, that night we each had two martinis before dinner! I must admit, I don’t remember what she served for dinner.

Oh no wait, she served a way overdone boneless leg of lamb.

She had forgotten about it in the oven.

But the dip was great!!

Once again I have altered this recipe for our tastes. This has a nice spicey bite to it that most people love. If that doesn’t suit your taste, skip the Sirachi sauce.

ARTICHOKE DIP
One 14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained of juice
One 4.5 oz. can of green chilis with the juice
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese, packed
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use Hellmann’s light)
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1 tsp. Sriracha sauce (the hot sauce with the red rooster on the label)

Take each artichoke heart in your hand, hold upside down, and squeeze the juice out of it and place in the food processor bowl fitted with a steel blade. Add all other ingredients and process until smooth. Place in an oven proof dish and bake at 350 degrees for 20 – 30 minutes, until browned around the edges and a little bubbly.

This dish tastes great but is not pretty so top it with some chopped parsley leaves or snipped chives.

Serve with whole wheat pita chips, red pepper strips, fresh fennel strips or celery sticks.

The nice thing is you can make this ahead of time, even the night before, just cover with plastic wrap to store in the fridge, and heat up before serving.

CAN recipe competition.

Filed Under: Appetizers Tagged With: Appetizers, artichoke, artichoke dip, celery sticks, chilies, dips, fennel strips, holiday entertaining, hot dips, martinis, Parmesan cheese, party snacks, pita chips, red pepper strips

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Mary Frances

Mary Frances

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