Chocolate Hazelnut Panna Cotta with Macarellas

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

In order to customize this challenge to the personal tastes of people in this apartment, I chose to create a luscious chocolate hazelnut panna cotta, topped with roughly chopped, toasted hazelnuts. Macaraellas - thin cookies of coconut and sugar sandwiching a healthy dose of Nutella - are the perfect crunchy accompaniment.

Union Square

UNION SQUARE
New York, NY
© Dolcetto Confections | Allison M. Veinote, 2011

Soft Peanut Butter Cookies

What comes to mind when you think of peanut butter cookies? My thoughts drift towards a big cookie jar sitting on a grandmother’s kitchen counter, with the lid sightly ajar to allow the fresh-from-the oven cookies to finish cooling. Although I was blessed enough to know two of my great-grandmothers and my grandmother, I do not recall ever such a picturesque cookie jar scenario.

Of course, it is entirely possible they did in fact make peanut butter cookies, but other peanut butter obsessed family members may have gobbled them all up before my little hands had a chance to reach into the cookie jar. I have two culprits in mind, who just happen to be sister and brother - my sweet mother and loving uncle.

Most recently, they have begun battling over who receives the most peanut butter baked goods from me. You may remember this battle last year; it was neither mature or pleasant to witness. This gets a bit worrisome on this day each year, my uncle’s birthday. This year, unsatisfied with just about every old-fashioned peanut butter cookie recipe I have tried, I decided to develop my very own recipe of peanut butter cookies - a recipe exhibiting the perfect combination of soft and crunchy. I mailed the results to my uncle for a sweet birthday surprise, which I think he will enjoy.  I am fully prepared to endure the wrath of my mother, deprived of peanut butter cookies, as soon as she reads this post or she receives a call from my uncle, bragging about his birthday gift.

Happy Birthday Uncle David!

Luke's Lobster

Originally hailing from Maine, I learned several vital lessons in the six short years before my family migrated south. I learned an afternoon of blueberry picking is a hot, prickly adventure, but rewards you with the best blueberry muffins, pancakes, and pies imaginable. I was taught how to bake a proper whoopie pie and that marshmallow fluff is not an acceptable filling ingredient. Finally, the day after a family gathers for a large lobster feed, the menu will include a simple lobster roll - chunks of leftover lobster meat, held together with just the slightest hint of mayonnaise, spilling out of a toasted, buttered roll.

After college, I moved to New York City, or The Land of Pinstripes and Weird Chowder as deemed by my loving uncle, and was horrified to find mayonnaise-laden, untoasted, unbuttered, overpriced impostors of a decent lobster roll.

So imagine my delight when a boy named Luke moved in around the corner last spring. A young Mainer with boyish good looks who could turn out a mean lobster roll. More specifically, the entire team at Luke’s Lobster could serve up this lobster roll, with a genuine smile, in the lobster shack-esque atmosphere. New Yorker’s everywhere have fallen head-over-heels in love with Luke’s Lobster and there are now a total of three (three!) locations that can fulfill my worst cravings for a taste of summer days, embodied in the form of a perfect lobster roll. And if you happen to get such a craving on a chilly winter day, their perfect cup of clam chowder will be waiting to warm you up.

Luke’s Lobster

http://www.lukeslobster.com/

East Village: 93 East 7th Street, New York, NY (phone: 212.387.8487)

Upper East Side: 242 East 81st Street, New York, NY (phone: 212.249.4241)

Upper West Side: 426 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY (phone: 212.877.8800)

Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Writing a food blog keeps me honest, but not in the sense of being truthful (which I am) or not providing faulty recipes (which I don’t). By honest, I simply mean I am forced to try an array of different recipes, no matter how much I may just want homemade graham crackers with a cold glass of milk everyday for the rest of my life.

The big downfall to this honesty is that after pursing our inspiration in the kitchen, meticulously recording ingredients and methods, writing a thoughtful post, and photographing the finished product, bloggers - including myself - tend to wipe our hands clean of improving upon the published recipe. Despite the notes I make on what to try differently or how to improve the recipe the next time, I rarely consult these notes in attempts to devise an even better version.

A few weeks ago, a certain someone looked over at me longingly and whimpered, “What does a boy have to do to get some mint chocolate chip ice cream around here?” To remedy the situation, I consulted the recipe I developed and posted last summer. But just as I was poised to shatter the first egg’s delicate shell, my notes flashed through my mind. I gently set the undisturbed egg back in its crate and consulted lots of different recipes for this ice cream, comparing the ratios of each, in attempts to achieve the changes I desired. The result was the best mint chocolate chip ice cream I have ever tasted. This, I promise you, will be the version I will keep and make each time someone bats his baby blues my way.