Newly Minted Tradition

Sometimes, I feel a little silly saying I "invented" a new dish - I think they've all been tried before. However, when I stumble upon flavors that I, myself, have never tried or read about before, it feels like true innovation to me.

This dish was like that. I had just about a quarter of a small kabocha squash left from a previous meal and wanted to roast it tossed simply in olive oil, salt and pepper to accompany our Thanksgiving dinner. I made a fairly fine dice out of it, thinking it would cook quickly, and slid it after tossing into a 350 degree oven. I nearly burned it - you can see that a few of the smaller pieces did approach ignition - and when I tasted it, it was good in that hearty, sweetish, comforting way that kabocha squash always is but, admittedly, a little on the ho-hum side.

I had picked up at the supermarket the previous day a small package of glazed pecans - nothing but the nuts very lightly coated with canola oil and sugar and, I suspect, roasted briefly - and I had the idea of adding them to the squash dish while it was still hot. It was so good that it will be an honored guest at all subsequent Thanksgiving dinners at our house. Next time, I will make slightly larger cubes of squash but I'll be even more liberal with the toasty nuts. While it wasn't as sweet as pumpkin pie or that squash dish with melted marshmallows on top, it was a really nice accompaniment to our dinner and I'm already dreaming of serving it alongside a roasted pork chop. I got a little frisson of pleasure, too, at thinking I had invented a whole new dish.

Pecan Pie Perfection

If you love pecans as much as I do, pecan pie can be a bit of a trial. My problem is that I don't really like the gooey, too-sweet gel on which the pecans rest in most pecan pies. I only really enjoy the crust and the pecans.

We had dinner this week with the delightful Naomi and her beau Sam, a couple of students it has been my pleasure to befriend; they gave up a precious afternoon and evening to cook for and entertain us two old fogies despite the fact that Sam is only here for a few days before he has to head back to "pahk his cah in the Hahvahd Yahd" - he's doing a post-doc at Harvard and they let him off the leash only briefly and infrequently.

Sam and Naomi put on quite a spread - roasted sweet potato rounds as an appetizer, pork roast with homemade wheat yeast rolls and roasted acorn squash - and, hallelujah! a bourbon pecan tart for dessert. They said they got the recipe from epicurious.com and the closest one I can find there is this, only Naomi subbed out the bourbon with brandy instead (good choice!), and added a dollop of spiked whipped cream. The crust she used was seriously buttery and the tart was mostly pecans, with just enough sweet stuff to hold the nuts together - just the way I like it. If you're looking for a great recipe for a Thanksgiving pie, give this one a try - it's as close to pecan pie perfection as a pecan lover could wish for.

Yes, Pecan!

If Ben and Jerry hadn't already used this name to honor President Obama with their butter pecan ice cream, I'd have taken it to name the best cookie I've made in a month of Sundays.

I found this recipe while trying to duplicate a cookie I had at, of all unlikely places, Starbucks - it was big and flat and buttery and full of pecans and little toffee chips - heaven in cookie format! I downloaded a recipe that sounded about right - it wasn't, but in some ways it's even better.

These delectable morsels have all the best ingredients - serious animal fat in the form of unsalted butter, refined sugar (two kinds!), toffee candy, white flour, whole eggs - in short, these are very, very bad for your heart, your waistline and your pocketbook.

They are very, very good, however, on the taste buds. If you like toffee and pecans, these are a must. They are sweetly nutty but not sickly sweet, they have some texture from the chunked toffee bars and nuts, and they are ever so slightly chewy, especially if you take them out before they are truly browned. Even though I don't usually like baking cookies, I will be volunteering to make these for any and all subsequent meetings, weddings, coffee hours, birthday parties, anniversaries, bar mitzvahs, commitment ceremonies, wakes, whatever! Try 'em and see what you think.

The basic recipe comes from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle, 2002. The only adaptation I made, other than some tweaks to the technique, is to substitute cracked Heath bar pieces for the pre-made English toffee bits in the recipe; I had read in the comments that the pre-made toffee bits don't give enough of a toffee flavor so I searched until I found Heath bars and gently cracked them with a hammer before unwrapping them. It wasn't a lot of work (except finding them! Locally, you can buy them at Andronico's markets but don't bother trying Long's or Target) and the rich toffee flavor is very evident when you use the cracked candy. The texture produced by the uneven chunks of candy is more interesting as well.

Toffee Pecan Cookies (makes about 6 dozen)

2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened (this works out to a stick and a half of butter, or 12 Tablespoons)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups English toffee pieces such as Skor or Heath (I recommend using Heath Bars. about 7 bars makes two cups of pieces)
1-3/4 cups pecans, toasted and chopped (I didn't toast mine - I'm famous for burning nuts while toasting)

Position rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350F. Line baking sheets with aluminum foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray. (I used parchment paper and no spray - worked like a champ!)

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer (I don't have one so just used my hand-held mixer) using the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars at medium-high speed until light, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract. At this point the dough will look curdled or grainy. At low speed, add the flour mixture, mixing just until blended. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the toffee and pecans.

Drop the dough by rounded tablespoonfuls (I used my smallest sorbet scoop) onto the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake, one sheet at a time, for 14 - 16 minutes, until the cookies are starting to turn golden brown around the edges (I did two at once - so sue me, I'm impatient!). Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes, then carefully transfer them to wire racks to cool completely. Ms. Boyle says the recipe makes 48 cookies - mine must have been smaller as I got 6 dozen.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

I found these to be much tastier cool than they were immediately out of the oven. Yes, yes, yes Pecan! (and Toffee!)