Rugelach Pinwheels

 
Meet one of my top 5 favorite cookies, the rugelach pinwheel. Growing up, chocolate chip rugelach were my favorite variation, but now I love this one, which is filled with raisins, nuts, and jam. What makes these rugelach stand out from other cookies is the cream cheese based dough. The dough is very easy to make and it produces great results every time. It does require a couple rounds of chilling, but you can work around it. I sometimes make the basic dough a day or 2 before I use it. What's best though is that you can freeze the rolled up cookie logs for a few days or a couple weeks, which is really handy if it's just me in the house and I don't want to slice up both logs at once.

This is a really versatile cookie when it comes to the fillings. You can use almost any dried fruit and nut combination inside the the cookie, as well as different jams. I've used cranberries, currents, raisins, and pecans. When it comes to jams I usually stick with apricot since it's a mild flavor that i really enjoy in these cookies. I haven't tried a chocolate chip variation since the fruit and nut combo is my favorite, but I'm sure you would have a delicious result. I make these almost every time I visit my parents since my dad loves them (and I am never opposed to eating rugelach). They've always been a hit and have a flavor that works with every season. I'm sure people will be asking you for the recipe once you start sharing these.

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Iced Walnut Brownies

Today has been a sweets and treats sort of day. This morning I went to the Fremantle Market where I discovered an Indian vendor selling all sorts of Indian sweets. Being curious, I pretty much bought one of all. I'd never even heard of half of these desserts before, but had so much fun trying them out. There was almond burfi, mango peda, jalebi, ladoo, and some others that I can't remember (note: I'm sure there are tons of spelling variations if you look any of these up). Some were great, some just different, and some not quite my ideal dessert. Regardless, it was exciting learning about some new foods and tasting new flavors. And it made me want to bake when I got home. I decided I'd make some walnut brownies since I had the ingredients at home (and the local shops are closed on Sunday). I found a recipe that sounded good, had almost all positive reviews and seemed pretty foolproof.

The results were a moist and chocolaty, took 15 minutes to prepare, and were completely fuss-free (I was in no mood for high maintenance baking). I didn't have the right size baking pan, so I used a casserole dish instead. This works out fine, but it added 15 minutes to the baking time. I'll post the original recipe's baking times since I'm assuming most of you have regular baking pans. If you're going to make these, don't get lazy and skip the icing, it makes these brownies stand out from the everyday brownie we've all eaten. If you really want to go into sweets overload mode, serve this with some vanilla ice cream when it's still warm.
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Oat-Anything Crackers

Yesterday was a complete baking disaster. I found a recipe for a pomegranate pound cake that sounded (in theory) delicious. It had lime zest, vanilla, and pomegranate combined in what sounded like a wonderful summer cake. I have now discovered the awful texture that pomegranates create in baking. If I really thought about it, I would have realized this before baking, but I was too excited to try out the new recipe. Moral of the story: those really hard little seeds in each pomegranate bite means you have horrible, hard, unappetizing morsels throughout your cake. Lesson learned, I think I'll stick with using just the juice from now on.

This morning was a different story in the baking world. My friend sent me a link to a Heidi Sawnson oatmeal cracker recipe that sounded, and looked, so good. And, surprise, surprise, I couldn't find dark rye flour in the regular grocery store or the health/natural food store. So I got home and did a quick search to see if there was another type of cracker that might do that trick. All I can say is YUM! I found a recipe for an oat cracker (not quite oatmeal, but close) that was easy to make, easy to adjust to your flavor preferences, and perfectly crunchy. The basic recipe only calls for 5 ingredients, which you most likely have at home right now. I added some poppy seeds and dried rosemary to pack in more flavor (how can you resist a homemade rosemary cracker).

You could pretty much add any flavor combination you'd like to these crackers. If you're unsure of what flavors work well with crackers, this link is a great basic guideline for what spices/herbs compliment different foods. Just look in the bread section and it will probably work well in a cracker. These crackers make a wonderful snacking cracker, but aren't really strong enough for dipping anything chunky. I spooned some macadamia pesto (sadly not homemade) on top and had my first round of lunch at 11 this morning.


My suggestions for making these crackers is to make sure the crackers have a golden look once they're baked. Golden means they'll be really crispy. I got impatient with a few and took them out a little too early and they lost their crunch once they cooled. The original recipe calls for a 20 minute bake time, but mine took 35. Also, if you're having a hard time blending everything into a fine, powdery consistency, keep scraping down the sides of your blender. I even ended up moving the whole blender in different angles to get as many of the oats and nuts ground up.  

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Spinach and Candied Walnut Salad

Every now and then I look for random recipes based strictly on what's in my fridge/pantry. Last night I had a bag of spinach and leftover blue cheese that I wanted to use up. So after looking at blogs and websites filled with the same salad (more or less) that used ingredients I didn't have at home, I was relieved to find this one! I tweaked the salad only by using apples instead of pears, either fruit would be great, and was really happy with the result. The candied walnuts were so easy to make and are a great snack, even on their own. I think I ate about half of them straight off the baking sheet. The dressing is nothing to brag about, but all the flavors come together really well when the salad is mixed.  You can chop everything into bit sized bit or just use the spinach leaves as-is and slices of fruit. It's also great because you can adjust the amount of cheese, fruit and walnuts based on your own preferences. I didn't follow the scale of this recipe since I made it for 2 people, so go ahead and play around with it. The recipe I'm posting is the original, made for more people
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