A Special Gift-5/26/10

The other night I made the bulk of the Moroccan meal in this month's Food and Wine but I still had the Moroccan Lamb Stew with Noodles to make.  In keeping with the theme, I made this recipe tonight.  It was pretty labor-intensive, something that cooking expert, Paula Wolfert, is not afraid of if the recipe tastes right.  The use of powdered sugar was a bit strange at first but the bit of sweet was surprising.  I really liked this dish for its mix of rich lamb, crunchy almonds, flavorful noodles, and the aforementioned powdered sugar.  I even got to pull out a wonderful old fondue pot of my grandmother's that made this dish look great.  Sorry for the rather cloudy picture.  It really did look good. 
The title for this blog came from the second recipe I'm writing about.  Last night I took some friends who just had a baby dinner.  I get a bit nervous about experimenting on friends, especially when the dish has to travel well so I just made lasagna and bought salad and bread.  I looked in this month's Bon Appetit for a good cookies recipe and found Carrot Cake Cookies with Cream Cheese Icing on page 70.  These cookies were very yummy and tasted just like carrot cake in cookie form.  My only concern was that my cookies were quite flat, unlike the rounded cake-like cookies in the picture.  I think my problem was using all-purpose flour, instead of the called-for cake flour.  Seems like a little switch but it may have made a big difference in how these cookies looked and stayed together.  Oh well, the new mommy loved them and that's what gifts are all about.

Moroccan Lamb Stew with Noodles-A-
Carrot Cake Cookies with Cream Cheese Icing-A-




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