PECAN PUMPKIN BUTTER CHEESECAKE SQUARES

This is another recipe from the Muirhead people -- the ones who make that wonderful pecan pumpkin butter that Williams Sonoma sells for $10.00/jar. Visit their website for more recipes with pecan pumpkin butter: http://www.muirheadfoods.com/. If you're not near a Williams Sonoma store, or if you would rather make your own pumpkin butter, the knockoff recipe is on my blog under Jams and Preserves category. It's not hard and it's so delicious. I followed the Muirhead recipe, except I added toasted pecans to the crust and topping; added a chocolate drizzle to the topping; added cinnamon, vanilla and flour to the filling; and subbed heavy cream for the milk. Instead of serving this as the main dessert, I cut them into small, cookie-size squares and will include them on my Christmas cookie tray.

Pecan Pumpkin Butter Cheesecake Squares
INGREDIENTS:
CRUST: 2 cups all-purpose flour, lightly spooned and swept
2/3 cup packed brown sugar (I used 1/3 cup sugar + 1/2 Tbsp. Stevia Plus +
1 Tbsp. molasses
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) + 2 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter
1 cup toasted finely chopped pecans

FILLING: 16 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup Muirhead Pecan Pumpkin Butter (or homemade)
3 Tbsp. heavy cream (or milk if you prefer)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. flour

DRIZZLE: 1/2 - 3/4 cup chocolate chips
2 Tbsp. condensed sweetened milk

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9x13 pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil, letting it hang over the edges. (This will be your "handles" to pick up the cheesecake squares when they are cool.) If using mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar. Mix in flour and salt until just combined, then add nuts. Mixture will be crumbly. If using food processor, pulse flour, sugar and salt together till combined. Add cold butter, cut into small chunks. Pulse till crumbly. Add pecans and pulse till combined. Set aside 1-1/2 cups for topping. Press remaining dough into bottom of the baking pan. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden. Cool slightly while preparing filling.

Have all filling ingredients at room temperature before starting. With electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth in medium sized bowl. Mix in eggs, cream, cinnamon, vanilla and pumpkin butter. Stir in flour. If using food processor, pulse cream cheese and sugar till smooth and fluffy, about 5-6 pulses. Add eggs, pulsing till combined, about 3 pulses. Add cream, cinnamon, vanilla and pumpkin butter, pulsing again till combined, about 4-5 pulses. Add flour and pulse till it disappears, about 2 pulses. Spread filling on pre-baked crust. Crumble remaining dough on top evenly. Bake 35-40 minutes or til filling is set. Cool completely on wire rack.

When cool, pick up "handles" and transfer cheesecake to cutting board. Heat the chocolate chips and condensed milk in a small saucepan over low heat till melted, then drizzle over the bars. Cut into squares. Refrigerate or freeze these till you are ready to serve them. Best served cold rather than room temperature.

LITTLE LEMON HEARTS

These are interesting little cookies. The recipe is from McCall's Cookie Collection, 1965. There is no picture, and the recipe is not annotated in any way, so I was left on my own to figure out a puzzling recipe. First of all, there is very little flour in this recipe, and I am wondering if the amount listed is an error, because there was no way I could get a workable dough with the amounts given. When I got to the point of rolling out the dough, I found I had two options: first, throw the dough out and forget the cookies; or second, rework the dough adding more flour. If I had chosen option 1, I would have lost all the ingredients; choosing option two seemed a better idea since the only thing I would lose is time if the cookies didn't turn out. I thought the cookies would be tough from being reworked, but they weren't. There is no fat in these cookies, so they're not a tender butter cookie. Instead they are a crispy nut cookie with a wonderful lemon flavor. I opted not to glaze them with the lemon glaze. Instead I rolled them in 10X sugar. They're a nice little bite-sized lemon nut cookie that will blend nicely on my Christmas cookie tray. I am printing the recipe as it appears in the cookbook, with my notes. The yield will depend entirely on how large your cookie cutter is and how thin you roll the dough.

Lemon Hearts
INGREDIENTS: 1-1/2 cups toasted ground pecans or hazlenuts (I used pecans)
1/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour (I used at least 2/3 cup, maybe more)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 Tbsp. grated lemon peel
3 egg yolks (I used large eggs)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. lemon juice

Glaze: 1 cup sifted 10X sugar
1-1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2-3 drops yellow food coloring (optional)

DIRECTIONS: In work bowl of food processor, pulse the toasted nuts until they are finely ground. Do not overprocess or they will turn to nut butter. Add the flour, baking powder and lemon peel and pulse till combined. Set aside.

In medium mixing bowl at high speed, beat egg yolks until thick and lemon colored. Gradually add 2/3 cup sugar, beating until mixture is smooth and well blended, about 5 minutes. At low speed, add lemon juice, beating just till combined. With wooden spoon or spatula, stir in nut mixture; mix to combine well. Refrigerate, covered, overnight.

Next day, preheat oven to 325 F. Generously grease and flour cookie sheets. (I lined with parchment paper, no greasing or flouring needed.) On lightly sugared surface, roll out dough 1/4 inch thick. (I used flour instead of sugar. If dough is too sticky, add more flour and work it in until you are able to roll it out without the dough sticking to the bottom.) With 2-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out cookies. Place 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheets. Bake 12-15 minutes, or just til cookies are puffed and set. (10-12 minutes is a better guide. By 12 minutes, my cookies were overbaked.) Meanwhile, make glaze: In small bowl, combine sugar, lemon juice and food coloring; stir til smooth. Remove cookies to wire rack; cool partially. Spread tops of warm cookies with glaze. Decorate, if desired, with cinnamon candies; cool completely. (I did not use the glaze; instead I rolled the cookies in 10 X sugar.) Makes about 4-1/2 dozen.

PANSIES IN DECEMBER

One thing I like about living in the southeast is having pansies in December -- and on through the spring. I love the way these little soldiers stand up tall and salute you, smiling at your comings and goings. When all the trees have lost their leaves and no other flowers are blooming, they continue to bring cheer to the dreariness of winter.

COMFORT FOOD: BEEF STEW

Guy is a meat and potatoes man. OK, I confess....I love beef, too. My fondest memories of our early years together include Friday nights at Maruca's in Trenton, NJ, with Delmonico steak sandwiches and French fries. Maruca's Delmonico steaks were about 1/2" thick, tender as butter, and the meat was well aged with fantastic flavor (not to mention the steak was on the best roll in the world -- Italian People's Bakery roll). In the southeast, there is great pork, but they don't age their beef and the flavor just isn't there. And who can get a steak sandwich with 1/2" thick steak any more? Fudd Rucker's used to have it, but they cut back and now their steak sandwiches are awful. We ate those steak sandwiches every Friday night with no guilt added. It's a different story now. As I cut the beef for this stew and saw the nice marbling that was going to make the meat tender, I envisioned all that fat clinging to my arteries. Needless to say, I had a light portion and doubled up on salad.

About stew meat: chuck is your best cut if you want tender stew. My recipe has a little kick to it because that's what we like. Coffee and wine enhance flavors, and the paprika and chipotle chile powder give a little kick. For us, this is 6-7 servings, but we're small eaters. Although I will say when it comes to beef stew, we both tend to eat more than we would normally.

Beef Stew
Source: Judy's Kitchen
INGREDIENTS: 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. chipotle chile pepper
1 tsp. paprika
2.5 lbs. beef chuck, cut into bite-sized pieces, excess fat removed
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups coarsely chopped onions (about 1 large)
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh garlic
1 cup coarsely chopped celery
1 cup dry red wine, drinking quality (I used Firenze 2006 Chianti)
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp. instant coffee powder
1 cup coarsely chopped parsley
2 large baking potatoes, peeled, cut in large pieces
2 carrots, peeled, cut in chunks
1/2 cup coarsely chopped parsley

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Mix flour and seasonings in gallon size resealable plastic bag. Add beef, seal bag and shake to distribute flour evenly over beef. Heat oil in large skillet. Add beef with any excess flour, onions, garlic, and celery. Saute' over medium heat till beef is lightly browned and vegetables start to cook, about 5-10 minutes. Turn heat up to high and pour wine over skillet. Let it bubble up for a minute or two and scrape up any residue on the bottom of the pan; then add the tomatoes, water, coffee powder and parsley. After the mixture comes to a boil, spoon or pour it into a 9x12 baking dish and bake it in the oven, covered, for 2-3 hours. Remove cover, add potatoes, carrots and parsley and cook, uncovered for 1 hour.

RUGELACH

These are new cookies for me. Since I'm Hungarian, I usually make kiefles for Christmas -- they're similar to these. Although Barefoot Contessa makes rugelach look easy, I wouldn't recommend them for a beginning cook. First of all, plan to spend some time in the kitchen if you do make these. They're not a simple drop cookie. As I read reviews on recipe sites, I found that the most cited problem was the oozing of the filling. Interestingly, I didn't have that problem, except for a few cookies. I put all the filling ingredients in my food processor (like I do for kiefles) instead of brushing on the jam and covering it with the nut/sugar. But I ran out of my filling when I got to the second tray, so the last few cookies needed filling. I spread those with jam and sprinkled nuts, cinnamon and sugar over the jam. Those are the ones that oozed. (I increased the filling ingredient amounts below so it should now be enough.) Also, many of the reviewers felt the process was expedited by using a pizza cutter to cut the dough. Since I rolled the dough between sheets of wax paper, I hesitated to cut the paper with the pizza cutter. I used an ordinary butter knife, and it worked fine. I had a damp paper towel on hand and I wiped the knife on the paper towel after I cut one line. (whew, that sounds weird, cutting one line, huh?) I also used the butter knife to spread the filling over the dough. I tried a spoon and a spatula and the knife worked best.
How can I explain to you how good these cookies are? Even though you will get a good number (if you make them small), it will not be enough. I could eat these all day long. Of course, I'm the same way with kiefles. After quickly downing 6 cookies, I put the rest in the freezer and asked Guy to padlock it. These are not lo-cal. And, by the way, this is not Barefoot Contessa's recipe. It's actually from allrecipes.com, submitted by Jackie, and rated 5 out of 5 by 87 members. One member said, "I have many rugelach recipes, but this is truly the best I have ever made."

Rugelach
INGREDIENTS: 2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, very cold
1 8-oz. package cream cheese (I used Neufchatel) very cold
1/3 cup sour cream very cold (I used Lite)
1-1/3 cup walnuts, toasted
2/3 cup white sugar
4 tsp. ground cinnamon
2/3 cup raisins
3/4 cup apricot or peach jam or preserves
For rolling the rugelach: 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon

DIRECTIONS: Make dough: In work bowl of food processor, place the flour and salt and pulse briefly to combine. Cut cold butter and cream cheese into smaller pieces and add to flour. Pulse two or three times, then add the sour cream and pulse till mixture comes together. Separate into 4 pieces, and wrap each piece in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2 hours or up to 2 days.

Making filling: Place toasted walnuts in work bowl of food processor and pulse till they are ground fine. Add sugar, cinnamon, raisins and jam or preserves and pulse till mixture is a coarse paste. Refrigerate till you are ready to make cookies.

To make cookies: Take filling out of fridge and bring to room temperature, so that it spreads easily. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. (Did you know you can reuse it? Just wipe it down -- it lasts a long time.) Cut two sheets of wax paper like you would for a pie crust. Lightly flour one sheet. (I put the flour in a sieve and shook it over the paper, making a light dusting.) Take one piece of dough out of the fridge, and roughly shape into a rectangular block, like a brick shape. It's easier if you do this now, rather than when you roll it. Sprinkle flour over the top of the "brick." Using a rolling pin, roll the dough the long way to lengthen it. When you get it so that it fills up the length of the wax paper, roll it the other way. Be sure you check the bottom of the dough for stickiness as you do this, because you will need to sprinkle some more flour underneath and on top. This is very sticky dough because of all the fat. But be careful not to add too much flour or you will have a tough dough instead of a flaky dough. When you get the dough all rolled out -- nice and thin -- you can spread the filling on. See the photo below. You can see my rectangle isn't perfect. It's ok -- when the cookies are rolled up, it will be fine.
Spread the filling with a butter knife, leaving both of the short ends open. First cut the dough in half, lengthwise, making two strips. Then cut each half into strips about 1 to 1-1/2" wide. Beginning with the end that has filling, roll up so that the end without filling is last. Roll cookie in cinnamon/sugar mixture before placing seamside down on cookie sheet. Wipe knife on damp paper towel after each cutting.

Place the cookie sheets in the oven after all cookies are rolled. Chill for at least one hour, longer is better. OK to let sit overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. When oven is ready, remove cookie tray from fridge and place in hot oven. Bake 25-30 minutes, or till lightly browned and done in centers. Cool on wire racks. These cookies freeze well.

DEE'S CHESS PIES

These mini-chess pies from a 40-year old cookbook (Jaycee-ettes) used to be a Christmas regular for me, but I haven't made them in quite a few years. I ran into some problems because I had no notes on the recipe, and the amounts are off. To spare you the trouble of what I went through, I'll give you better recipe amounts. I added some chcolate syrup and brandy to this recipe and I toasted the walnuts to enhance flavors. If you're unfamiliar with these pastries, they're very chewy, like a pecan pie, except the walnuts are ground, so you don't get the big pieces of nuts. The sweet nut filling combined with an unsweetened short crust makes for a very pleasant taste experience. They can be topped with candied cherries or maraschino cherries. I ran out of those, so I used some chcolate that I had stored in a glass jar that had been mixed with condensed milk -- kind of like a frosting. So you could sub canned chocolate frosting I guess, just a dab in the center before you put the top layer of nuts on. Then when you bite into the cookie, you get that dab of chocolate frosting in your mouth with all the other goodness.....very yummy. I am warning you ahead of time, these are a little bit of work and are messy, but they are so good I think they are worth the trouble.

Dee's Chess Pies
INGREDIENTS: Crust: 1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine (I used 1/2 butter/1/2 Smart
Balance buttery spread)
6 oz. Neufchatel cheese
2 cups all-purpose flour, lightly spooned and swept

Filling: 2 Tbsp. melted butter or margarine (I used Smart Balance)
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 tsp. molasses
2 Tbsp. chocolate syrup
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 tsp. brandy (I used Jim Beam)

Other: 1-1/2 cups walnuts, toasted and ground
24 Maraschino or candied cherries cut in half to make 48 halves

DIRECTIONS: Make the crust: Have all crust ingredients chilled. Combine flour, butter and cream cheese in work bowl of food processor and pulse till well combined and mixture is crumbs. (Alternately, cut the butter and cream cheese into the flour with a pastry blender, then form a ball by pressing ingredients together.) Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 1 hour or longer.

When ready to make cookies, remove dough from fridge. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. You will need mini muffin tins for 48 little pies. (I only have 2 12-well tins. My other 2 tins are old and rusty and I would not put food against the wells. So I lined the wells with little paper cups. This was a mistake, because the crust partly stuck to the paper liners. You do not want to give cookies to someone who will get paper in their mouth, so don't do what I did. As it turned out, I had to bake a second batch anyway, because the filling amount made way too much. I had some frozen cookie dough that I used for the last batch. I still threw out half of the filling because it was too much.) Cut the cherries in half and, if using maraschino, drain them on paper towels. Put all filling ingredients in medium bowl and whisk well till combined.

Break off pieces of dough to make 1-inch balls. Place balls in muffin wells and, with thumb, work the dough to go up the sides of the well. Using a half-teaspoon measuring spoon, sprinkle nuts in bottom of each well.

Spoon a scant tablespoonful of filling over the nuts, then sprinkle 1/2 tsp. nuts over top and cover with a half-cherry.
Bake for about 1/2 hour, or till tops start to crack and pastry browns. These will puff up and -- if you've filled them too full -- they will spill over, so watch them. Remove tins to cool on counter for 5 minutes, then take them out of the tins and finish cooling on rack. These freeze well.
I'm calling these cookies since I make them at Christmastime with my Christmas cookies, but they could also be considered a pastry.

CHOCOLATE CREAM PUDDING

This is an easy dessert when you really have no time to fuss. You can serve it with store-bought cookies, or your own. This pudding is light, smooth and mousse-like, not overly sweet, but it's rich tasting and satisfying.

Chocolate Cream Pudding

INGREDIENTS: 1 box instant pudding of your choice (I used chocolate)
1-1/2 cups fat-free half and half, well chilled
1/2 tsp. instant coffee granules
1 Tbsp. Kahlua or other coffee brandy

1-1/4 cups heavy whipping cream, well chilled
1/4 cup 10X sugar
1/2 tsp. instant coffee granules
1 tsp. Kahlua or other coffee brandy
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Chocolate bar for grating

DIRECTIONS: In medium-sized chilled bowl with chilled beaters or whip attachment, beat the pudding mix, half and half, coffee granules and brandy for about 2 minutes. Cover and place in fridge for about 30 minutes to set. In a separate small chilled bowl with chilled beaters or whip attachment, beat the cream till stiff. Add remaining ingredients and beat till incorporated. Place about 1 cup of the cream mixture into a resealable plastic bag and place in fridge. Fold remaining cream mixture into pudding till well mixed, then spoon the pudding into 6 individual serving dishes. Cut a corner of the plastic bag with the cream mixture, and pipe onto the top of the puddings. Grate a chocolate bar over the top of the whipped cream, letting it fall onto the pudding. Serve immediately or refrigerate.