Treats for appetites of every size
Imagine this: you’ve been assigned “dessert” for Thanksgiving dinner. You ask around and get a recommendation for a good fall pie (Thanks, Michelle!). You send the recipe to your mom so she can have all the ingredients ready for you when you get to the house. You should have plenty of time – the train gets in at 8:15am and guests don’t arrive until 11am. And then, the night before Thanksgiving, you double check the train schedule… And the train doesn’t leave Boston until 8:30am.
Fun fact for my Instagram followers (@smilesbymeg): while 76 of you took the time to watch my Instagram story in which I made this cake, only 24 of you could bring yourselves to like the post itself. I’m not really sure what that says about my respective video/photo editing abilities, but I think it means I have to work on my food photography. Also, despite now having posted 7 different Ottolenghi recipes, I still haven’t been selected in his #IBakedOttolenghi compilations. Further proof that my food photography needs work. Looks like I have my project for post-bar-exam life!
In Part Two of my 2017 Christmas Cookie Extravaganza, I’ve got a recipe that is seasonal for the entire winter, not just Christmas, and, under other names, can be made all year long: Snowball Cookies! I’m posting this one today for two reasons. One, it seemed particularly fitting to post about snowballs when I’ve spent the past couple of days in Wyoming doing snow-related activities (largely cross country skiing). Two, as I hit “post”, I’m hanging out with my best friend from college, Cate, who was the first person to make me a variation of these back in college, though …
I made some really really really good cookies this week. Like, I’m staring at the last one in a Tupperware next to me at the table right now seriously struggling with whether to eat it. I’ve already had 2 today. And maybe 3 yesterday. And every day before that since Monday. It didn’t help that the batch made about 60 cookies. So even though my students did some good work on the huge container I brought to their conferences this week, I still had too many left over.
Today was one of those days when it really pays off to be a baker. I saw this recipe on the New York Times Food Instagram account earlier this week and thought it sounded like a good Fall breakfast. When I opened it and looked through the ingredients, I was pleased to find out I wouldn’t even have to go to the store to bake it – everything was in my pantry! When some friends asked what I was baking this weekend and I told them how excited I was that it was a recipe where you’d have everything already …
The day after vacation is always a multitasking kind of day, trying to do all of the things you should have done in time for returning to the real world. Especially when you neglect such things as assignments due on Monday. And I have taken that multitasking to a new level.
Two weeks in a row with a Tassajara Bread Book recipe! AND two weeks in a row with a I-have-everthing-in-my-kitchen recipe.
Full disclosure: this is the earliest I’ve started celebrating Christmas in recent memory. Most years, I have a strict no-Christmas-until-after-Thanksgiving rule, but desperate times and whatnot.
Strawberries are a happy fruit. I’m not sure what exactly makes them happy, though. Maybe because they are red. Maybe because they are the June’s fruit, and June is my birthday month. Maybe because they are the only fruit that I would consider eating as a dessert unadorned. Maybe because I just finished reading The Happiness Project and am looking for happiness everywhere. For whatever reason, they are happy.
This post marks exactly (well, 2 days from exactly) 1 year of SMiLes by Meg. In deciding what to make to mark this occasion, I wanted to go big. I wanted to make something that was quintessentially me. And I wanted it to be crazy complex and impressive to look at and eat. But then I became paralyzed. What would I make? What recipe would fulfill everything I wanted it to do and more? I couldn’t decide.