Skip to main content

Countdown Day 6, and Food52's Secret Santa Swap!

By

When it comes to gifts under the tree, I think I morphed into a child as much as my kids, if not worse.. (I 'm officially guilty of tearing open into my secret Santa Gift on Christmas Eve, rather than the next day morning). My gift was from my Secret Santa 'gingerroot' from Hawaii. She is a Food52 superstar, having contributed some timeless classic recipes to their two volume book.

For the past two years, 'Enbe' a graduate student from Tuscon has been instrumental in organizing a wonderful Secret Santa food swap amongst members of the Food52 community. She sends us each a name amongst those who've signed up and we have the privilege of sharing foods (mostly cookies and condiments) and little gifts with someone with whom we've forged a bond online through Amanda Hesser & Merrill Stubbs' unique venture.


I loved each and every thing that gingerroot had so thoughtfully put together in my box.  A bag of the biggest & best Macadamia nuts, Native Hawaiian raw honey, chocolate a ginger citrus soap (which my 7 yr old laid claim to and immediately ran off to jump into the shower, just so that he could use it!) , home made cookies which my three yr old went for even before she opened her presents from Santa, and a bottle each  of Yellow tomato/pineapple & eggplant preserves. Thank you so much Jenny, for making this holiday season so special!

It was love at first taste with the pineapple preserve. So much so, my head cannot decide on how many things I should use it on . For starters, I made a batch of 'easy peasy' thumbprint shortbread cookies that really showcased this delectable jam. This is also my birthday recipe gift for my Aunt, Lakshmi Ramanathan (Chithi as I call her) who turns a young  60 today.

A shout out is also owed to Perfect purees of Napa Valley for their awesome Caramelized Pineapple concentrate . A tablespoon of this excellent ingredient in the shortbread dough, really highlights the preserves.

Thumbprint shortbread cookies with Yellow tomato & pineapple preserves (makes about 30)

You need:

1  cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons Caramelized pineapple concentrate ( or 1 tablespoon of orange zest)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
 Your choice of  preserves

 Preheat oven to 300 F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the flour along with the concentrate/  zest. Using your finger tips, gently work the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Bring the dough together into a ball. Using a cookie scoop divide the dough into little spheres of about 1 inch diameter. Place on the baking sheet 2 inches apart from each other,  gently press down with a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon to make a little well.


Bake in the oven for 10 minutes (at this time, the cookie would have risen, obliterating the well. remove and press down with the same spoon to make the indentation before turning the sheet around and placing back into the oven for another 10 minutes. Remove and cool for 5 minutes on the sheet before  spooning 1/4 teaspoon of the preserves into the wells. Allow to cool completely.



Here's wishing you a fabulous 60th Birthday, Lakshmi Chithi!


Labels:

Comments

  1. LakshmiDecember 26, 2012 at 11:31 PM

    Yum! My mouth is already watering. Make it for me when you come here. And thank you very Niv for the gift.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to hear feedback from you, your thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

Popular posts from this blog

Sputtering back....

By
I seriously feel like this scene from the movie 3 idiots .. remember this one? The way I kept racking up drafts and eventually stopped doing that as well. Lulled into complacence by the quick high from Instagram posts. Recipe measurements hastily scribbled into a Moleskine notebook faithfully depending upon my moods. The truth is that I keep over thinking the backstories needed to make the post more interesting while in reality the truth is that ideas and inspirations just occur spontaneously (like little itches , sneezes or twitches) whenever the opportunity happens to strike. Some really cool ideas that scare the beejeezus out of me and yet prove to be utterly delightful and simple in the end. Others, that seem so trivial that I feel it wouldn't be worth crowing about -- even if there are enough other recipes in that genre that get so much publicity simply because the author happens to have the right marketing knack. So in the past 4 years that I've been
3 comments
Read more

Product Review: Ninja Mega Kitchen system and a recipe for Masala Dosa

By
 One of the biggest reasons for attending conferences is the priceless experience of meeting fellow bloggers and get an invaluable exposure to all things  culinary. This includes vendors with new products to savor and get inspiration from. I had no complaints about whatever appliances I had for making traditional Dosa (Traditional South Indian rice & lentil crepes) batter, a sturdy tabletop stone grinder that you could add the Urad dal, turn the timer on , and 30  minutes later, come back to a container full of fluffy, batter with the consistency of whipped egg whites. The The cons of this is the cleaning up, of the various parts, the roller, the grinding bin, the multiple trays on which the rollers need to be placed while transferring the rice & lentil batter, the invariable drips of thick batter on the counter.... you get the point, It takes quite a bit of time. I was pleasantly surprised when the appliance company, Ninja asked me if I'd like to try any of their
14 comments
Read more

Unusual Ingredients - Unripe Blueberry Achar

By
T'was just another Summer afternoon, The kids were home for the summer holidays, getting bored, there's only so much summer reading you can force them to do, and the Indian mommy in me could no longer caution them against going out in the afternoon  (I've solemnly refused to use that horrid excuse of 'You'll get a dark tan if you stay out in the mid day sun'), and so we decided to head out to Terhune orchards for the blueberry picking. The kids never say no to outings to the orchard, they LOVE the trip there, the cute yellow dogs and the cats,  the chocolate crinkle and Snickerdoodle cookies, and they positively trip over grabbing buckets and heading joyfully towards the berry bushes... ... And there it ends, the younger one loses herself in her delightful imaginary worlds where she probably thinks she's hacking her way through virgin Amazon jungle, sighing at every branch that brushes against her legs, picks 2 or 3 berries as if they were a new as
6 comments
Read more