Light, sweet, and magically minty, Kelsey Nixon’s Peppermint Meltaways are our eighth day of cookies pick.
Click here for the Peppermint Meltaways recipe.
More cookies:
Cooking Channel’s All-Star Cookie Swap
50 All-Star Holiday Cookies
Unique Cookie Recipes
Food Network’s 12 Days of Cookies
Beer, wine and other spirits are some of the most ancient traditions in dining. These merrymaking liquids go back centuries and occasionally millennia. Wine has remained pretty static, but beer has experienced many transformations throughout the years. One Virginia brewery has been dead-set on recreating a three-hundred-year-old colonial brew that eschews barley and hops in favor of everyone’s favorite acorn-shaped fruit, persimmons.
Ardent Craft Ales, based out of Richmond, has just unveiled a recreation of “Jane’s Percimon Beer,” whose recipe dates back to a historical collection from the 18th century. However, the recipe contained no volume amounts or specific instructions, so it was created by a whole lot of trial and error and a whole lot of wasted persimmons. The final brew is said to be a highly drinkable table ale that clocks in at a refreshing three percent ABV.
The brewery will offer the beer to the public tomorrow, Dec. 9 as part of a History on Tap presentation and discussion.
From potato chips to butterscotch chips, Momofuku Compost Cookies combine all of our favorite salty and sweet snacks into one holiday treat that’s perfect for the seventh day of cookies.
Click here for the Momofuku Compost Cookies recipe.
More cookies:
Cooking Channel’s All-Star Cookie Swap
50 All-Star Holiday Cookies
Unique Cookie Recipes
Food Network’s 12 Days of Cookies
Have you ever seen a more Christmas-ready cookie? The sixth day of cookies brings a red-and-green rainbow to your cookie plate, courtesy of Debi and Gabriele. Their chocolate-covered almond sponge cake cookies (with cherry and apricot preserves) are the perfect Italian New York classic.
Click here for the Rainbow Cookies recipe.
More cookies:
Cooking Channel’s All-Star Cookie Swap
50 All-Star Holiday Cookies
Unique Cookie Recipes
Food Network’s 12 Days of Cookies
It’s Friday, so we’re bringing you a bonus cookie. On this fifth day of cookies, our guest blogger spikes traditional snowballs with caffeine and nutty flavor.
Snowballs, traditionally known as Russian tea cakes, are nutty, buttery cookies that make their appearance once the snow starts falling. I prefer the name “snowballs” because they so perfectly epitomize the weather I experience in the Upper Midwest. These Hazelnut Espresso Snowballs are a twist on the traditional Christmas cookie. It is a simple recipe — mainly hazelnuts, butter and flour — but it packs a lot of flavor (feel free to use roasted almonds or pecans instead). The addition of espresso powder complements the roasted nuts, making them perfect for serving with coffee.
Click here for the Hazelnut Espresso Snowballs recipe.
See more original cookies from some of our favorite food bloggers.
More cookies:
Cooking Channel’s All-Star Cookie Swap
50 All-Star Holiday Cookies
Unique Cookie Recipes
Food Network’s 12 Days of Cookies
Kristin Rosenau is a baker and science teacher with a serious sweet tooth. She began an affair with butter and sugar fresh out of college, and her love for baking has only matured since. Rosenau (the voice behind the blog Pastry Affair) develops recipes for the home cook, combining classic dishes and homespun flavors with a dash of honesty.
AKA Jam on It
Ever since I learned how to make my own jams and jellies, I have gone a little crazy in the summer. All the seasonal fruit gets cooked into jam. Some jars I give away as gifts, but the others get used on toast, in sauces and on sandwiches. By the time winter makes its annual appearance, I have a whole fridge shelf filled with half-empty jam jars. When that happens, it’s time to make PB&J bars.
These bars have become a hit in my neighborhood. I bring them to potlucks, I serve them as dessert at dinner parties, I take them to cookie exchanges, I make them whenever there’s a snowstorm or really cold weather, and I whip up a quick batch so the mail lady and the UPS guy have a little something sweet and salty waiting for them at my door. Much like people feel sorry for me because I can’t have gluten, these bars make me feel sad for people who have peanut allergies, because they’re just so darn good.
A pantry staple, dried lentils are often overlooked for convenient canned beans. These little legumes are packed with nutrition and are an easy way to add extra protein without meat to every meal.
Lentils were one of the first plants to be domesticated, and these nutritional powerhouses are used in cuisines all around the globe. Red, orange, yellow, brown or green, lentils are a good non-meat source of potassium, iron and protein. Unlike other beans and legumes, lentils don’t need to be soaked before cooking; use a 2-to-1 ratio of water to lentils and you’ll be good to go in about 25 minutes (or more if you want to mash them).
Not only do you get a great bang for your buck, but lentils are a “meaty” legume, meaning they have the ability to turn sometimes-wimpy vegetarian dishes into hearty meals.
If you’re looking to decrease the amount of meat in your diet, use mashed lentils to replace part (or all) of the ground meat in dishes like meatballs, meatloaf and stuffed dumplings. But if meat is still on the table for you, pair lentils with fats like duck and pork (think bacon) to add a bit of richness to this mild-flavored legume.
Whether you’re trying a meatless meal or making a hearty stew, lentils are a go-to pantry staple that deserve to come out of the pantry to shine this winter.
On the fifth day of cookies, relive your summer nights by the campfire with Chuck Hughes’ genius gooey, chocolatey marshmallow-topped S’mores Cookies.
Click here for the S’mores Cookies recipe.
More cookies:
Cooking Channel’s All-Star Cookie Swap
50 All-Star Holiday Cookies
Unique Cookie Recipes
Food Network’s 12 Days of Cookies
Veganism is everywhere these days, besting all manner of dissenters, be they angry meat eaters or grandmothers who don’t quite understand the concept. However, despite its popularity, humanity still lacks a proper vegan butcher shop. It might have something to do with slabs of vegetables not needing to hang on racks, but who knows.
Well Minneapolis’s The Herbivorous Butcher will look like a regular butcher shop, with various types of meat products lining the aisles. However, all of that luscious, luscious meat won’t actually be meat at all. The store will only sell vegan meat products, which are usually made from soy gluten and other substitutes.
The appropriately named Kale Walch and his sister Aubry took the idea to Kickstarter, where it recently blew through its goal. Moral of the story? People really want an all-vegan version of the entire menu at Katz’s deli.
Is there a holiday tradition more highly anticipated than baking cookies? Whether you like yours festively frosted or decked out in dark chocolate, cookies are pretty much guaranteed to spread the holiday cheer. We’re celebrating 31 Days of Cookies here on the blog, but if you’re not sure where to start, try these five favorite recipes.
1) We nominate Spritz Cookies (pictured above) as the most giftworthy holiday cookie. Rich, yet delicate in flavor, these winners hold up well days after baking, and have an elegant, classic look.
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