quick curried peanut sauce for many veggies
chop one medium yellow sweet onion, and smash, peel, and mince a few cloves of garlic. Peel and mince a half inch of fresh ginger.
sauté the onions and garlic in olive oil until the onions are translucent. Stir in the ginger along with a teaspoon of curry powder and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Stir in about three teaspoons of sesame oil and three tablespoons of Braggs or tamari sauce.
glop in a cup of peanut butter, and whisk in boiling hot water in a thin stream to bring the mixture to a saucey consistency.
prepare the veggies of your choice: fairy tale eggplant sliced in half and roasted; purple potatoes halved, par boiled and fried; steamed baby artichokes; bell pepper and broccoli sauté; string beans. What’s in season?
peanut butter kiss cookies
it snowed two inches in chicago yesterday
— peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies —
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1 cup veggie shortening
- 1 cup peanut butter (yummy crunchy or creamy)
- 5 tablespoons milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 3 ½ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- chocolate kisses or chocolate stars
this is the kind of dough that doesn’t suffer from just dumping everything into a big bowl and running the electric hand mixer through it, but i tend to mix stuff by hand just because i like the head-time and the bowl and the hard stirring feels good in my arms. And this recipe originally (?) ran in an save-energy-to-help-the-earth calendar of recipes that encouraged hand mixing, among other energy saving tips. So to mix by hand:
using a heavy fork, cut the sugar into the shortening and peanut butter. Crack the eggs into a liquid measure or small bowl & beat, pour into the sugar & fat. Stir in the vanilla and milk. Continue stirring and sift in the dry ingredients. Stick the bowl of dough into the fridge for an hour or so.
preheat the oven to 375º and pour some sugar into a dish. Form the dough into balls, roll in the sugar, and line up on an ungreased cookie tray (i line it with parchment paper when i have it. Also, if you are using chocolate stars, it’s good to flatten your cookies a little by pressing them with the bottom of a glass or do the traditional peanut butter cookie cross-hatches by pressing the flat back of a fork onto the ball, once then again on a 90º angle). Bake for 10-12 minutes then remove the tray to the stovetop, press a chocolate piece into the top of each cookie while still warm and let sit on the tray while the second batch bakes then lift each cookie to a cooling rack.
makes about 4 dozen cookies, and the dough freezes pretty well so you don’t have to make them all at once.
