{Food & Friends}

Whenever I visit Sunday Suppers I drool over her lovely tablescapes and think about how I can't wait to have a place of my own where I can entertain friends over brunch or outdoor dinners in the summer.  I think about cooking for others a lot - I have a TON of recipes bookmarked, tucked away for someday/someone.  I hope that day comes soon!

[Images via Sunday Suppers]

{Currently Reading} Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

I bought this book some time ago but only recently started to read it. Once I read the first couple pages I knew it was one of those books that I would read slowly because it was already so good and I tend to not want to finish them quickly so as to "savor" them if you will. Anyways, the first couple of chapters are focused on sexual slavery, sex trafficking, and forced prostitution. At the end of the chapter about saving women from these evils, the authors included a powerful Hawaiian parable that really struck a cord:


A man goes out to the beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up in the tide.

A little boy is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back into the water.

"What are you doing, son?" the man asks. "You see how many starfish there are? You'll never make a difference."

The boy paused thoughtfully, and picked up another starfish and threw it in the ocean. "It sure made a difference to that one," he said.

Lemon Almond Biscotti

I've been thinking about making biscotti ever since I saw Giada make some on the Food Network. She made delicious lemon almond biscotti and I knew that I just had to try to make them for myself. I have to admit I was kind of skeptical about her recipe because she used cornmeal. Luckily my aunt made Giada's recipe first and I got to sample what they tasted like - they were good, but I could definitely taste the cornmeal and I wasn't a fan.

I finally decided to look up some other lemon almond biscotti recipes and stumbled on the King Arthur Flour blog, Baking Banter. Their recipe looked nice and easy so I decided to give it a try - I was not disappointed!

Lemon-Almond Biscotti
adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons (3 ounces) butter
2/3 cup (4 3/4 ounces) sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
grated rind of 1 medium lemon (about 1 tablespoon)
¾ to 1 ¼ teaspoons almond extract, to taste (I used 1/2 teaspoon, because in the past too much almond extract has been too strong. I think you would be safe in using 3/4 - 1 teaspoon).
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 to 3 tablespoons (1 to 1 1/2 ounces) freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste (I think this recipe could use more lemon juice to get a stronger lemon taste...perhaps 4 tablespoons of lemon juice)
2 large eggs
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1 cup of coarsely chopped almonds.

Directions:

reheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) one large (about 18" x 13") baking sheet.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the butter, sugar, salt, lemon rind, almond extract, and baking powder until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Beat in the lemon juice and eggs; the batter may look slightly curdled. At low speed of your mixer, add the flour and almonds, stirring until smooth; the dough will be sticky.

Plop the dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Shape it into a log that’s about 13" long x 3" wide x 3⁄4" thick. Straighten the log, and smooth its top and sides; a wet spatula or wet bowl scraper works well here. I just wet my hands and it worked fine.

Bake the dough for 25 minutes. Remove it from the oven, and allow it to cool on the pan anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes; just work it into the schedule of whatever else you’re doing in the kitchen. Reduce the oven heat to 325°F.

Using a spray bottle filled with room-temperature water, lightly but thoroughly spritz the log, making sure to cover the sides as well as the top. (I didn't have a spray bottle so I just used a brush :) ) Softening the crust just this little bit will make slicing the biscotti much easier.

Wait another 5 minutes, then use a serrated knife to cut the log crosswise into 1⁄2" slices. As you’re slicing, be sure to cut straight up and down, perpendicular to the pan; if you cut unevenly, biscotti may be thicker at the top than the bottom, and they’ll topple over during their second bake.

Set the biscotti on edge on the prepared baking sheet. Return the biscotti to the oven, and bake them for 30 to 35 minutes, till they feel very dry and are beginning to turn golden around the edges. Remove the biscotti from the oven, and transfer them to a rack to cool.

That's it! Easy peasy. It seems like a long process, but it's super easy and you'll have most of the ingredients in your fridge/pantry. My one critique of this recipe is that it's not very sweet, which is fine with me, but my mom said it would taste better if it were sweeter. I dipped them in melting chocolate (NOT CHOCOLATE CHIPS) to give them added sweetness.