Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
Biscottis are not something everyone likes to make, they prefer to spend a buck or two for 250 calories of high caloric disappointment.
I decided to make my own biscottis to reduce the calories but increase their absorption of coffee while in use. Absorbing the maximum of highly caffeinated coffee makes it for me!
When my daughters Kristin & Karen come home for Christmas, we all work on making some of the family things we all enjoy. A few days ago, I caught Kristin making one of our favorite ‘with coffee’ desserts… Biscotti! Making the dough isn’t difficult with a heavy duty mixer and a good dough hook… and the real trick is to slice the biscotti after coming from the oven the first time … using a good serrated bread knife.
Today is Christmas Eve… and we are making Tiramisu for tomorrow … not a real traditional Christmas dessert… but nice after a smoked spiral cut ham with my special Apricot and Pineapple glaze!
Bon appetite!
I remember asking my grandmother once how she ‘improvises’ in the kitchen and she gave the usual ‘trial and error’ answer, but on closer inspection I realized that she worked in two very distinct ways. First, she would vary the proportions and types of ingredients which offered a few extra notes to the basic recipe. But more importantly, there were times when she would depart significantly and approach the ‘problem’ in an entire new way. For example, why use the same ingredients in making certain noodle with sauce recipes that were designed before the advent of real refrigeration? Logic must triumph over tradition at times.
This goes a long way to say that I tried a variation of our Biscotti recipe with the addition of brown sugar. Using brown sugar has some significant limitations… but under the heat of making the biscotti added something nice. Oh yes, I added a small amount of pine nuts to the project, not enough to make Laura object ( as they are around 11 calories each!), but enough to make an effect.
Yummy there were!
My family knows that I am a bit over the edge of the map on anything resembling a Biscotti… I am constantly — in the interest of science — trying new recipes for this favorite snack! Most of the time, I play with my standard recipe with fun results.
Of all the nuts, I probably like the humble almond the most. While most would add vanilla or almond extract to enhance this recipe, I thought it would be fun to add a healthy amount of Amaretto that has hints of almond and apricot flavors– two of my favorite.
So at 3pm, I sit with a cup of coffee and enjoy this marvelous treat!
“Fateci godere questo spuntino in buona salute! “
Roger
Happiness is a full biscotti jar!
Now, I know that not everyone enjoys biscottis, but I always blamed it on ‘bad biscottis’ or they were not used properly. I was astounded to see people eat biscottis plain without the customary mug of coffee! sacrilege! I believe the best flavor in any biscotti is brought out by dipping it into a nice cup of coffee… and if the cup has cream with the coffee, so much the better!
Recently someone wrote me that they didn’t like adding nuts into the biscotti because the biscotti tasted ‘crunchy’ when eaten. well, I asked how she made them and it appeared that she swept in all of the nutty crumbs in as well. I like to avoid this by using only half or sliced nuts… no crumbs.
Enjoy the day.
Roger