Old-Fashioned Popcorn Coconut Meringue Cookies
I am partial to old and eccentric recipes. When my grandparents moved a few years ago, I jumped at the chance to dig through my grandma's old cookbooks. My favorite recipe from the collection is titled 'Potato Soup for a Barn-Raising,' and it begins (I kid you not) with "1/2 ton potatoes, peeled and diced." Now that's a recipe! Buried in the pages of these Mennonite and Amish community cookbooks from the 1940s, I found multiple recipes for popcorn cookies with a meringue base. Intrigued, I started experimenting. I knew I had a winner when Rebecca kept polishing off the still warm cookies before they were cool enough to photograph. These Old-Fashioned Popcorn Coconut Meringue Cookies are a snap to whip up, they are chewy, nutty, not too sweet, and amazingly addictive. And as a bonus, these flourless meringues are gluten free.
Yield: 2 dozen small cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups freshly popped popcorn
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 3 egg whites
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- pinch cream of tarter
- 1/2 cup sugar
Steps:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- In a food processor, combine popcorn, pecans, and coconut. Pulse to chop into small pieces (about pea size). Set aside.
- Combine the egg whites, baking powder, salt, and cream of tarter in a medium bowl and whip until white and creamy (but sill loose). Add the sugar, and continue whipping until you have stiff peaks. This is easily accomplished in a stand mixer, hand mixer, or if you're feeling particularly old fashioned...a hand crank egg beater.
- Gently fold the popcorn-nut mixture into the egg whites.
- Drop tablespoon-size cookies onto a greased baking sheet or silicone baking mat. If desired, extra sprinkle popcorn, pecans, or coconut on top before baking.
- Bake for 14 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before transfering to a cooling rack. These meringues are very soft, so be gentle until they cool completely. They will keep well in a sealed container for 3-5 days.
Blackstrap Molasses Cookies
My sister is a cookie making virtuoso and when it's her turn to host family dinner, Paul and I start perseverating about her dessert days in advance! While my sister is a cookie genius, I am the cookie klutz in the family. The problem with my often laissez-faire attitude to cookie making is that baking depends on science and precision. In a spurt of baking abandonment this past weekend, I guesstimated the amount of baking soda and "tweaked" a recipe in a few too many places...the result was a cookie-bomb that covered the baking sheet and my oven. My kitchen filled with smoke and feeling my baking-esteem slipping, I ditched the improvised-cookie plan and soothed myself with a batch of one of our foolproof favorites: Blackstrap Molasses Cookies.
There are many things to recommend these Blackstrap Molasses Cookies. They have a complex, caramel taste with a warm spiciness and satisfying soft texture. Molasses is the mineral and flavor-rich by-product spun off of sugar during processing. "Blackstrap" is the darkest most intensely flavored version of molasses, so rich in minerals and vitamins that some people take it as a dietary supplement. These cookies are a favorite in our household: soft, rich, and deeply spiced.
Chocolate Maple Granola with Quinoa and Cranberries
This week I took a stand against the breakfast industrial complex. Sunday for breakfast, I thought I’d go carnivorous, and ate a plate heaped high with Amish summer sausage. In honor of meatless Monday, I thought I’d swing vegetarian, and polished off a bowl of leftover garlicky lentil salad with goat cheese. Tuesday at 6am, I started to worry that I might not be getting my daily serving of fruits and vegetables, and munched away on snow peas, carrots, and bell peppers while I was getting ready for work. Don’t worry, I also ate string cheese for protein! This morning I was out of time and thinking that I might want to dip towards the sweet side, unfortunately things got a bit sticky when I tried to juggle spoonful’s of Nutella while driving. Paul, no stranger to my breakfast rebellions, calmly continued eating his grape nuts. Now that I’ve gotten that all out of system, I am ready for a spiffed-up breakfast classic. So when I got home from work today, I made a big batch of Chocolate Maple Granola with Quinoa and Cranberries. This chocolaty, crunchy granola is somewhere between breakfast and dessert, a good place to be in my mind, and with the combination of nuts, oats, and quinoa, provides a complete protein rich meal that keeps me energized through the whole day.
40 Minute Cinnamon Buns
Seizing the opportunity to be sweet and let my sick husband sleep in, I decided to get up early and make one of his favorite breakfast treats, cinnamon buns. Despite the best of intentions, I slept in, shoot! A little frantic, I needed a quick turn-around recipe if I was going to deliver. Rather than the traditional yeast variety, I opted for my tried and true 40 Minute Cinnamon Buns. I discovered this recipe a few years ago while surreptitiously reading a magazine article over someone’s shoulder on a plane. They turned the page before I could finish reading the intriguing looking quick cinnamon bun recipe, so I looked the recipe up when I got home, and here they are, delicious, moist and tangy cinnamon buns, ready in 40 minutes or less, no kneading required!
Coconut Banana Bread
One unlucky night last week, I got stuck. Our house is perched high atop a series of three steep hills, and sometimes the perfect combination of slick icy snow, and lack of plowing makes the drive impossible. The sound of spinning tires, grunting anti-lock brakes, burning rubber, and my slow slide backwards meant I could go no further. As I left my car and trudged up the hills to our house, visions of a greyhound and whippet propelled dogsled pushed me onward. My groceries got stuck, along with my car, which left a pitiful fruit bowl occupied with some droopy black spotted bananas for sustenance when I got home. I thought to myself, when life gives you bad roads and black bananas, make banana bread. This banana bread is easy, deeply flavored with the triple dynamo of vanilla, coconut, and bananas, and tastes fantastic. I have been making and tweaking this moist coconut banana bread for years, and we love it. Paul tends to be a little obsessed and through our first few years of marriage had coconut banana bread for breakfast almost every morning.
Almond Meringues with Creme Anglaise & Berry Sauce, Îles Flottantes
Sumptuous Îles Flottantes, "floating islands," are a rustic French dessert. Part custard, part meringue; think of these as decadent deconstructed egg desserts. We were first introduced to this old-fashioned dish on a trip to France, where Paul ordered it for dessert on a whim. He developed something of an obsession with this quirky dish, and would call ahead to restaurants to confirm they made it from scratch. On his fourth round of Îles Flottantes, he finally persuaded me to dip my spoon, and in a creamy instant, I too become a devoted fan. For Paul's birthday this month, we decided to create our own simplified and less sweet version of Îles Flottantes. We ditched the step of poaching the meringues, and baked ours scented with almond. We served these toasted almond meringues floating in a creamy bath of egg yolk thickened creme anglaise with a fresh berry sauce for a bright fruit contrast to all that creamy goodness. Note that the quality and flavor of your eggs make a huge difference in this dish, so use the best eggs you can find (we used local Clarion River Organics).
