Cyclone! time for chili

In honor of the latest tornado watch for our region -- and, the actual cyclone warning for points NNE of here, around Iowa City -- and, because it's been so gosh-darned chilly these days (dropped all the way down to 56º F. at night just a couple of nights ago), I'm posting one of the recipes for chili, from the Famous Chili Recipes from Marlboro Country cookbook I picked up at auction two weeks ago.

I had a variant on this served to me, some years back, and had been searching for the recipe ever since.

I thought I heard something -- like somebody's arteries hardening as you read the very first ingredient... It seems R. J. Reynolds can kill via more than simply blackening the lungs... but what a way to go!

CYCLONE CHILI

When a blue norther was howlin' across the plains, a plate of Cyclone Chili tasted mighty fine to a cowboy. Green tomatoes and pieces of cactus, thrown in with the beef and peppers, sure helped chase the cold.

1/3 cup lard
4 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup drained canned nopalitos (cactus pieces) or cooked green pepper strips
12 canned (or fresh) Serrano peppers, seeded and chopped, or 12 tiny green hot pickled peppers, seeded and chopped
1 10-ounce cans Mexican green tomatoes or 3 cups of cut-up, fresh tomatillos* (about 10)
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
1 1/2 cups beef stock or canned beef broth
1/3 cup chopped fresh coriander or 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
5 teaspoons crushed cumin seeds or ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Heat lard in Marlboro Chili Kettle; add meat, about 1 pound at ta time, removing after each pound is browned. After all four pounds are browned, put onions and garlic in kettle and cook until soft. Return all beef to kettle.

Rinse cactus pieces in cold water; drain and add to beef. Also add peppers, green tomatoes, tomato paste, beef stock, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer about 2 1/2 hours. Makes about 2 1/2 quarts.

*If using fresh tomatillos, increase beef stock or broth to 3 cups.

Okay, so this recipe may not have much of an attraction right now, if you're up here in the northern hemisphere, but if, perchance, you're in Buenos Aires or somewhere in South Africa, you may find this has its place in your menu this season.

Save me a bowl, will you? I'm getting mighty peckish.

Update: I see I have somehow missed the garlic in copying the recipe. It's 2 cloves crushed fresh. But I usually use about a teaspoon of the roasted variety.

Gratuitous postcard: Miss Anna Glenn's Dandelion Wine

I love old cookbooks. Still, I scarcely ever cook, any more, unless Mom is out of town & I can therefore use her kitchen, because (a) my own kitchen isn't working, and (b) my own refrigerator is often quite bare. Still, a girl can dream, can't she?

Now, combine my love of old cookbooks with my quiet passion for composite flowers, and suddenly we have a thing of magic: Miss Anna R. Glenn's DANDELION WINE, as published in the third edition (December 1, 1907) of The Monmouth Baptist Ladies' Cook Book.

Pour one gallon of boiling water over one gallon of blossoms. Let stand three days. Take one pound of sugar to each quart of juice, one lemon, three oranges to one gallon juice. Take the liquid of flowers and rinds of lemon and oranges and boil fifteen minutes. Strain, then add lemon and oranges, sliced. When lukewarm add two tablespoons yeast or one-half cake compressed yeast, scant measure. Let stand one week. Strain again and settle, then bottle.

Now, I'm entirely too happy I don't weed my pitiable lawn.

Hmm. Beneath this recipe is a digression, on the making of fruit juices for sherbets:

For fruit beverages prepare the syrup by boiling sugar and water together, any fruit juices may be used, singly or in combination. Also candied cherries, bits of pineapple or other fruits or jelly may be added. Mint sherbet is made by adding mint leaves cut in rather small pieces.

Bottle all surplus, when canning fruit, to add to sherbets.

I wonder if I could use lemon balm or other entertaining aromatic leaves to make a worthwhile sherbet? Or are sherbets a lost cause?

Because, the season for dandelions is upon us now, and the season for frozen desserts is nigh.

Vot's fer deener, snoookums?

Auction stuff, again. Last local auction, I came home with a copy of The Monmouth Baptist Ladies Cook Book,
third edition, printed December 1907.

It automatically opens to page 174-175 (obviously a favorite page for a prior owner) whereupon sits the recipe for

SCRIPTURE CAKE.

One cup of (Judges 5 : 25) butter, three and one-half cups (Kings 4 : 22) flour, two cups of (Jer. 6 : 20) sugar, two cups (I Sam. 30 : 12) raisins, two cups (I Sam. 30 : 12) figs, one cup (Gen. 24 : 17) water, one cup (Gen. 43 : 11) almonds, six of (Isa. 10 : 14) eggs, One tablespoon (Ex. 16 : 31) honey, pinch of (Lev. 2 : 13) salt, to taste (I Kings 10: 10) spices, two teaspoons (I Cor. 5 : 6) ) leaven, or baking powder. Fol-low Solomon's advice for making good boys, (Prov. 23 : 14).

The links are, of course, not in the original book, but the extra close parenthesis after (I Cor. 5 : 6) was.

But I'm not a big fan of cake, these days (I usually ask for and receive pie for my birthday). Plus, the book doesn't say how hot an oven, or how long to bake. So, instead of fussing over that, I'm preparing, from this book, this recipe:

ESCALLOPED SWEET POTATOES

Slice raw sweet potatoes very thin. Butter a pud-ding dish, arrange a layer of sliced potato in the bot-tom ; sprinkle over a teaspoon of flour, bits of butter and a little salt and pepper, continue in this way until the whole dish is filled. Pour in enough milk to moisten the whole and bake forty minutes.

At least I know from experience how long to cook sweet taters.

If them yams fails, I may have to eat some of this:


Although I'm not sure I can find any "shreded" wheat around here, any more.


All to get me ready for tomorrow's auction.

Dammit, Jim! I'm a cat-owner, not a dog-biscuit chef!

Mom just informed me that the brand of dog biscuits she buys for Clyde is now on the recall list, so I've been researching various recipes for treats, so the poor wee bairn won't do without, in these hard times. I came across one that looks likely to persuade Clyde he's not suffering -- Lucky's Happy Bones, from Lucky's Pet Resort and Day Spa:

2 tablespoons corn oil
1/2 cup natural-style peanut butter
1 cup water
1 cup whole wheat flour


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine oil, peanut butter and water.
3. Add flour, one cup at a time and then knead into firm dough.
4. Roll dough to 1/4" thickness and cut with cookie cutter.
5. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

I'm offering this up to Mom, since it's her kitchen and her doggie. I've been told by several people that this is canine crack, so we should be careful how much we give him... we shall see.

A lot of the other recipes I came across called for garlic powder or soup bouillon, neither of which can I imagine is good for a pet -- lily family substances like onion and garlic can cause hemolytic anemia in dogs and cats, and nobody (not dog nor cat nor human) needs all the sodium in dehydrated bouillon. Nevertheless, for those who are concerned, these days, over the increasing number of pet food and pet product recalls, there are several very useful sites for recipes, so you can know precisely what is going into those precious tummies.

So, there, Mommy. I can do nice things for the dog. But the cats still get preferential treatment from me. Yeah, I'm prejudiced. So sue me.

Politics (also known as Bologna)

After reading this at Captain's Quarters, I've come to the conclusion that, not only do I not necessarily want to know what goes into the making of laws or sausages, but the two things have a lot in common.

So I'm running a recipe from this little advertising booklet.

Politics (also known as Bologna):

40 pounds of pork
60 pounds of beef
20 pounds of water
4 ounces of black pepper
2 ounces of mace
1 ounce of coriander
1 1/2 or 2 pounds of salt

Cut the beef into very small pieces, or put it through a grinder, using the course (sic) plate, and let it "cure" twenty-four hours in a cool place. Then grind it very fine, put the pork through the grinder, using the medium plate and mix the meats, seasoning the water. Work the mix-ture thoroughly until it becomes sticky and takes on a dull color. Stuff it into beef casings or large hog casings, divide it into links about a foot long and let it hang in a cool place twelve to twenty-four hours. Smoke it with Wright's Smoke, as directed in other sausage recipes. When the second coat of Smoke has dried thoroughly, cook the sausage in water at a temperature of 160 to 175 degrees Fahrenheit, which is far below the boiling point, for thirty minutes to one hour, according to the diameter of the links. Then plunge the sausage into cool water for about thirty minutes and hang it up in a cool place to keep.

Owing to the popularity of these sausages containing beef, it may pay you to buy this part of your supplies from a butcher, or one of your neighbors, if you are not prepared to slaughter beeves on your own place. For full instructions on beef slaughtering, see the section on "Beef and Beef Products."

There are two important points to remember in connection with sausage making. One is that sausage meat invariably should be allowed to "cure" twenty-four hours before being stuffed. Otherwise, it is very likely to spoil. Another is that the high temperature of the ordinary smoke house will ruin sausages if the smoking is prolonged. The heat renders out the fat and makes the casings brittle. The sausage, as a result, is likely to be dry and hard. The best way to Smoke any kind of meat or meat products is with Wright's Condensed Smoke.

Whether it's John Edwards' shifting blame in the hopes that he can undermine his opposition in the bid for the oval office, or the MSM trying to convince the masses that, while the Democrats filibustering the appointment of justices was "keeping the debate open", the Republicans filibustering the no-teeth, "we hate the surge plan and everything Bush proposes to save Iraq" resolution is "stifling debate," it's all a whole lot of bologna.



Update: via Instapundit, A Second Hand Conjecture has the cloture vote as seen from an historical perspective.

Postcards, Postkarte, and a classic stuffing

I have already put on the holiday pounds, having spent the past week and a half preparing packages of homemade goodies to hand off to about two dozen good people and their families. Today, though, I'm taking a bit of a break.

I've already prepared all the basic ingredients ahead of time -- to take with me to my extended family's house tomorrow before dawn -- for our family's traditional cornbread stuffing.

Basic cornbread stuffing:

Ingredients:
one large batch of your favorite cornbread recipe (Here's where I cheat: I prefer 2 boxes of Jiffy brand cornbread muffin mix), made several days in advance, then cut into cubes or large crumbs and allowed to become stale
1/2 cup butter
5 to 6 stalks of celery (about 2 cups), coarsely chopped
1 large (softball-sized) sweet onion, coarsely chopped (again, about 2 cups)
1 pound fresh button mushrooms, sliced about 1/3 inch thick
1/4 teaspoon sage
fresh-ground white pepper to taste
1 cup turkey broth (you can make your own, using the giblets & neck plus bay leaves, pepper, etc., or buy a low-sodium canned variety of your choice)

Directions:
In a large frying pan or wok, melt 1/2 the butter. Stir-fry celery, onions with sage and pepper, until they turn transparent. Put aside in large bowl. Put remaining butter in pan, at high temperature, sauté the mushrooms only until tender and golden. Add back, into the wok, the celery/onion mix, bring to high heat, add 1/2 cup broth. Remove from heat.

Lightly toss into stale cornbread (it's better stale than toasted, for some reason only a mad scientist might be able to explain), gradually adding the remaining 1/2 cup broth as needed. You don't want to make it soggy, so go lightly -- when all the crumbs are moistened, stop adding broth.

Put into oven during the last hour that the turkey is roasting, allow to bake for that full hour, to develop a nice golden crust on top and a steamy inside.

If you cook this in the turkey cavity, be sure to check the bird's interior temperature very carefully to make sure it's done... and remove the stuffing from the cavity immediately upon removing the turkey from the oven.

Variations: Fresh cranberries may be added to the celery/onions at the beginning of cooking, for a livelier color and tangy flavor -- and be alert! They "pop" when they're ready.

Also, dried apple chips, chopped dried apricots, or finely chopped red bell pepper may be added to the cornbread just before mixing in the sautéed vegetable mixture.

But the point is to keep it simple.

You can actually prepare all the ingredients separately, several days in advance of the feast, and tuck them away to be heated and mixed right before they are to go into the oven. That is, in fact, what I've done this week.



I'll assemble all the parts once I'm in the distant kitchen, and that way we won't run any added risk of contamination (since food poisoning is so much in the news, this month).

And, it is here that I say, thank modern technology for plastic containers! They also make great gifts... the sort which you can stuff with all sorts of goodies, in order to enhance their value.

Postcard, brevkort, and breakfast of happiness

Because of divorce and a peculiar family dynamic, Mom was raised by her aunt and uncle from the time she was about four years old until she married Pop. One of the best things to come from this arrangement was that we had extra "grandparents". Plus, Mom had an extra grandma, in effect, by virtue of her maternal aunt's marriage.

We were all blessed, therefore, to spend Christmas, plus several other holidays and a few other occasions, on the farm that family had owned since the middle of the 19th century. Outside the window of the room we kids most often filled, there stood and spun a 40-foot-tall windmill which still drove the pump for the farm's water as late as the 1970s, as the wheel at the top creaked and whined all day and night. That noise, combined with the excitement of being with the rest of our gigantic family, meant we all had a lot of sleepless nights.

For all the lack of slumber, we could always count on prying open our eyes to real, hearty farm foods -- dozens of eggs, scrambled and/or fried, slabs of bacon, fresh bread, cinnamon-raisin toast, and, occasionally, the real treat: pancakes.

Still, we never had the one treat Mom remembered from her own childhood -- the treat her grandma called "plumkuchen," but was nothing like the recipes we found as we searched Mom's 300+ cookbooks for a reasonable facsimile.

The trouble is, the treat Mom remembered was a bit like a light muffin with a fresh prune plum half (pit removed) baked up in one of those round-bottom pans that, in Scandinavian circles, makes them "AEbleskiver". It seems Great-Grandma had come up with a variation on the Danish treat (though how she got the original, since she was German, we'll never know. We'll just assume she had friends in high cupboards).

At any rate, here's our reasonable facsimile of the family treat from days of yore:

Plummy kuchen-thingies
stove top -- no baking!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1 cup heavy cream (or, in a pinch, half-and-half)
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 egg whites, beaten until soft peaks form
melted butter
1 dozen fresh prune plums (small, dark-skinned, and heavily sweet), halved and pits removed

Directions:
Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cardamom. Mix dry ingredients and cream into egg yolks. Fold beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture.

Heat pan over medium heat, brush lightly with butter. Half-fill wells with batter, drop in a plum half, cook until bottoms of cakes are puffed up and rich golden-brown, turn them to brown other side.

May be served plain or sprinkled with powdered sugar. I like them plain.

Apparently, the Danes served them without plums, and later American recipes included applesauce (hence the "AEble" part of "AEbleskiver"). But snce I'm in the process of growing a couple of dwarf prune plum trees in my yard, Mom has talked frequently of the day we can use the harvest to make these treats.

In the meantime, we're faking it with other fruits (namely apples, canned apricots or peaches).

And it's still a really great way to break fast on Christmas Day in the morning.

Postcard, brevkort, and some no-bake yummies

Okay, so my Swedish great-grandmother would be rolling over in her grave to see me sharing recipes, so I won't give away the secret family recipe for the "Swedish Christmas Breakfast Ring" (there's probably another official name for it, but our family has always called it just that), complete with chopped nuts, apples, dried berries, cinnamon and... well, let's let that one slide before she rises and does something untoward.

Instead, I'll offer one of my favorite treats for any time of year, but one which comes in handy when you don't have a working oven handy... such as is the case in my own kitchen (and I use the term "kitchen" with tongue firmly planted in cheek).

No-bake, no-knead, no-stress fudgy goodness

Ingredients:
4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup butter
2 cups evaporated milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups graham cracker crumbs (the plain, not the honey grahams)
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions:
Combine sugar, butter, and evaporated milk in a large saucepan, cook on medium-high, stirring constantly. Bring to a full rolling boil, then stir occasionally as it continues to boil for 10 minutes (be as precise as you can, here).

When 10 minutes are up, remove from heat, stir in remaining ingredients, spread in greased jelly roll pan. Before completely cool, mark off your grid for cutting into squares, top each square with a pecan half (or, if you're a candy sicko, you can use pretty little mints, but keep it simple). Allow to cool completely, then cut into squares. (May be refrigerated to cool faster.)

Be forewarned: this is not a cookie to treat lightly. It is highly addictive and not for the faint-hearted (or the arterially-challenged). It is rich, sweet, chocolatey, and, I'm assured, almost better than sex...

Wait. This is a Christmas recipe. There's nothing naughty about it at all. Nope, nothing. Not a lick of sin. Absolutely safe for everybody, and wholesome -- with all that nutritious Graham cracker goodness -- nothing could possibly be frowned upon.

Yah. Suuure. Ya betcha.


"All Hail to thee, O blessed morn"

Postcard, Cartolina, and another cookie

My friends and I were hoping to make stained glass cookies again this year, but we decided we didn't like making the traditional sugar cookie recipe that everybody always suggests. We dug out a more interesting-looking one from the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs.... um. From Mom's collection.

The concept of a stained-glass cookie is fairly simple: make a cookie with a hole (or a shape) cut out of its middle, bake it most of the way through, and, before its last two minutes in the oven, take the sheet of cookies out, fill the hole (or shape) with crushed colored hard candy (like Life Savers), pop the sheet back in the oven, and let the last two minutes of baking the cookie also melt the candy into a "stained glass" effect within the cookie. If you do this, you most definitely need to use a non-stick layer beneath the cookies, and you need to allow the cookies to cool on the cookie sheet, or the sugar goes all funny and lumpy, instead of staying glassy.

So, anyway, we didn't want the sugar cookie, as I'd mentioned. Too bland. We pulled up this Ginger Shortbread recipe. Only, it rises a little too well for making stained glass cookies -- the shapes become indentations in the cookie, and there is, therefore, no room at the inn inside the cookie for the candy part. Sigh.

Still, the cookies were irresistible, and we made a gazillion itty bitty ones, since we had the animal-cracker-sized cutters out for the aborted stained-glass project. The little things took almost all day to make, and were worth every minute of it.

So.

Ginger Shortbread Cookies
preheat oven to 350º

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons molasses
1 Teaspoon water
zest of 1 medium-large orange, grated (about 2 Tablespoons, or 1 1/2 Tablespoons of store-bought dried orange peel, if you must)
1 egg
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup light brown sugar (packed tightly)
1/4 cup corn starch
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup very cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch squares (we like to cut it first, then pop it into the freezer for about 20 minutes, before working with it)

Directions:
In a small bowl, whisk together the molasses, water, egg, and fresh orange zest. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, corn starch, spices, baking soda, and salt (per Mom: if you insist upon using dried orange peel, add it, here, instead of in the wet ingredients. If you must. sigh).

Using a pastry blender or a pair of knives, cut the butter into the dry mixture until it looks like coarse meal. Pour the liquids over the flour, beat with mixer until dough forms. Knead 2 to 3 minutes, until smooth (if you use a heavy-duty mixer with a dough hook, you may reduce the time by at least half). Divide in halves, shape into two balls, wrap in plastic, and chill for a minimum of 2 hours.

When ready, take first half of dough, and, on a lightly floured surface, roll to 1/4-inch thick. Cut with your favorite cookie cutters. Bake at 350º F for 10 to 13 minutes, cool on wire rack.

If you are using itty bitty cutters (1 to 2 1/2 inches), you don't need to bake for longer than about 8 minutes.

These are mighty zippy cookies. Be careful you don't sizzle your tongue on the ginger and orange zest.

And, don't forget to put a good, fresh orange and/or tangerine or two into each child's stocking, Sunday night, Santa!

Postcard, Postkarte, and recipe, for frohes Weihnachten

My maternal great-grandmother came from Germany with her five sons, right before the onset of World War I. Two of the boys were fast approaching the age when they might have been drafted into the Kaiser's army, and she wanted none of that. She and her boys then had to work hard to learn a new language and many aspects of the new culture, when they settled in Illinois.

But she never surrendered some of the things she had valued from back in the old country. A woman of her time and place, Great-Grandma had her little secrets in the kitchen -- many of which went with her to her grave (as do so many family secrets, for better or for worse).

Still, Mom managed to coax out from her grandmother the secret to tasty, rock-hard, perfect-for-dunking-in-your-coffee-or-hot-cider Pfeffernusse. Mom remembers the Christmasses from her own childhood, when she'd gnaw happily on these cookies for the entire of the season.

Mom has given me permission to share the family secret with any and all -- start your own tradition, if you want. So here's the old family recipe from Mom's family:

Grandma H's Pfeffernusse
preheat oven to 375º F

Ingredients:
1 quart Dark Karo syrup
1 pound granulated sugar
1 pound butter

2 Tablespoons baking soda dissolved in a small amount (about 2 Tablespoons or less) of very hot coffee (or boiling water, if you're a sissy)
3 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons allspice
5 pounds all-purpose flour
grated rind of one lemon
1 1/2 to 2 cups finely chopped nuts (we use pecans; Grandma was less specific)

Directions:
In a very large bowl, cream syrup, sugar, and butter. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Form into teaspoon-sized balls, drop on ungreased cookie sheet (they will expand somewhat, so give them room to breathe -- about 1 1/2 inches between them).

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until browned. (The longer you bake them, the harder they will become. At 12 minutes' baking time, they will be truly hard cookies, and will have a shelf life of about 3-4 weeks. The dough also freezes well, for about 3 months in an airtight container.) Allow to cool on rack.

These cookies do not have a strong flavor, since they're designed to be served as dunkers. They do, therefore, go very well with other treats, such as gum drops and peppermint sticks.

One year, Mom used this recipe to make the walls, doors, and roof panels for our gingerbread house, since gingerbread tends to get all crumbly if you're working with kids and their clumsy little paws. We had the coolest Hänsel-and-Gretel layout, all set up for when they showed the animated film of the Humperdinck (Humperdinck! Humperdinck! Humperdinck!) opera on Chicago's channel 11, on Christmas Day in the morning.

And they all lived happily ever after. So, I hope, will you.

Holidays mean... baking! Mmmmmph mmf yum!

I don't care which holiday you want to call it, whether you're going for a festival of lights or a celebration of the birth of a famous baby, whatever your take on holidays of all sorts, mine has to do with sugar, eggs, flour, a few other ingredients, and a whole mess of boxes and tins and plastic containers.

I love to cook and to bake, for the sheer pleasure of the craft (we won't go into the cleanup end of things during this season. That's like discussing how much a girl loves the attention of her man, right in the middle of the Super Bowl). Leave it simply that I like to bake. I especially enjoy doing so in Mom's kitchen, because she has a working oven (actually, two, but who's counting?)... and, coincidentally, an automatic dishwasher (but that's not important right now). Plus, I like to bake with friends. There's something satisfying about having bunches of hands involved in something as fundamental as holiday food. One person chops, one stirs the stuff on the stove, one measures, and so on, and so on... We like cooking up traditions, that way.

One of my favorites, during the Christmas season, is a recipe straight from Pop's childhood in Charleston, SC. My father is not overly fond of Charleston. He'd have been much happier having been raised near his beloved Packers, but you went where your parents took you. While Grandpa was at sea in the nay-vee, Grandma moved lock, stock, and soup kettle from Green Bay to Charleston, just in time to deliver her only son, who practically then made a lifetime career out of grumbling about her questionable judgment -- not to mention her culinary skills, or rather, her lack thereof.

Yes, it's true, I had a Grandma who put army cooks to shame. When Pop went away to college, and ate at the notoriously bad cafeterias, he couldn't understand why anybody complained about the food there. It tasted "just like Mom's cooking."

Still, the one recipe which made its way from Charleston to our table -- to become an annual tradition in our family-- is one even Grandma couldn't wreck. This treat is known as

Benne Seed Cookies

Preheat oven to 375º F.

Ingredients:

2 cups (1 lb) Butter, (1 cup reserved)
2/3 cup toasted sesame seeds (benne seeds, if you’re from Charleston, S.C.)

2 cups sugar
2 eggs
4 Tablespoons water
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups flour

6 cups powdered sugar
6 Tablespoons whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract


Directions:
In a medium saucepan, lightly brown 1 cup butter and the sesame seeds. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream remaining (unbrowned) 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 2 eggs, and add 4 Tablespoons of the sesame seeds, well-drained, from the browned butter mixture.

Blend in water.

Add baking powder, salt, flour. Mix well.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Grease bottom of tumbler or other very flat, manageable tool, dip in granulated sugar, and flatten cookies onto sheet (about 1/4 inch thick. They should resemble regular sugar cookies, here). Bake 10 minutes, or until edges turn golden brown. Cool and top with following frosting:

In a large mixing bowl, combine powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla.

Take the remaining browned butter/benne seed mix, add to sugar mix. Stir until smooth.

These cookies are very rich and sweet, so they don’t need a lot of this frosting. Still, don’t be stingy. Benne seeds are good for the spirit -- or so the kinfolk told me.

Makes 6 dozen
Calorie, carb and fat counts: If you have to ask, go somewhere else. It's Christmas, dagnabbit!

My Bestest Friend Mari and I made the batch in the photo, yesterday. There are only a few left, now. I'm not tellin' who ate most of them. But I will say, he's not the one who did the baking -- just the dishes afterward. So he deserves what he nibbles.