Christmas Cookies: Chocolate Gingerbread

This is one of the few recipes I can claim as truly my own. I used to make a chocolate-gingerbread cookie from a Martha Stewart recipe but they were never quite what I envisioned. Both my mom and I noticed the cookies never came out the same way twice, something was always slightly off.

So I went through other cookie recipes, tinkered around, and last year I hit on the perfect recipe for chewy chocolate cookies with the heat of ginger which are the pure essence of Christmas. I love them. I hope you do too.

Suanne's Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder (please use Hershey's Special Dark because it is superior)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 tsp ground ginger (heaping if you like it spicy)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 4 oz melted bittersweet chocolate
• 1 stick butter
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger (either fresh ginger peeled and grated, or bottled pressed ginger which is what I do because grating ginger is a pain in the ass.)
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips (optional)

Sift together flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cocoa, or, as I explained earlier, go fetch your ziplock bag labeled "Chocolate Gingerbread" with the pre-measured dry ingredients. Oh my God, you are SO ORGANIZED! I hate you.

In the electric mixer, cream the butter and pressed ginger until whitened, about 4 minutes, and by the way I personally make that a generous tablespoon of ginger. Add the white and brown sugar and beat until combined, then add eggs, followed by flour mixture and chocolate chips (if using).

Turn dough out onto plastic wrap, flatten into a disk, seal and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours. (Or freeze.  Thaw frozen dough in fridge overnight)

Heat oven to 325. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in granulated sugar. Place on cookie sheet and bake until the surfaces start to crack, about 13-15 minutes. Transfer to wire racks.

These are at their absolute best right out of the oven while the chocolate is still gooey, with a big glass of milk. Once cooled and stored, they are ever so slightly less divine, but still pretty f'ing good. I always wonder if you could revive one in the microwave to just-out-of-oven goodness, but have never tried it. If you do, let me know.

Bok Choy with Asian-style Ribs

I've been on a mission to try bok choy for some time now, and a few stir-fry recipes from Fast, Fresh & Green have clinched the deal.  But Susie Middleton really threw down the gauntlet when she added as a blithe aside, "these would be good with some oven-roasted boneless pork ribs."

Hello.

Asian-style boneless pork ribs.  In the slow-cooker.  Did such a thing exist?

Consult the Oracle.  Of course it exists.  My searchings led me to the blog Choosy Beggars, and this awesome post about boneless Asian BBQ beef ribs.   She used beef, I figured it would work just as well for pork.  I'm not going to transpose it here, because hers is so well-written, being both about ribs and about slow cookers in general.  Just know I followed the recipe to the letter (and yes, there was a special shopping trip involved for things like oyster sauce, Chinese 5-spice powder, etc), and I'll give you a few impressions here:

1) The recipe calls for a grated onion.  I know.  You just have to suck it up and do.  I've heard all kinds of tricks for keeping tears at bay while working with onions; frankly the only thing that is a surefire thing for me is having my contact lenses in.  No such luck so last night I had to try the remedy of chewing gum as I grated.  Not much help.  It was a sobby business.

2) The sauce smells amazing.  I put it all together last night in a tupperware container and the smell lingered around the kitchen for a while.

3) Ribs in cooker.  Sauce on top.  10 hours.  That's the extent of it.  At the end, you will need to skim quite a bit of fat off the top.

4) I didn't love them.  I know, bummer, huh?  They smelled amazing, they looked divine, they cozied up beautifully to the bok choy over rice, they were thoroughly enjoyable.  But I didn't love them.  Maybe I'd love them if they were beef ribs but somehow I don't think so.

I did, however LOVE the bok choy.  That and the rice I could eat over and over again.  So that said, here is the real star of the show...

Stir-Fried Baby Bok Choy with Golden Garlic and Silky Sauce

(I added some halved baby carrots to this recipe just so there would be something for the kiddies to fall back on)

• 12 oz baby bok choy (4-5 heads that are 6-7" long)
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce (one of the specialties I had to go get, it was in both this and the rib sauce)
• 1 tbsp low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 tsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp peanut oil (and again, had to seek that out.  Wow, does peanut oil smell good!)
• 2 large garlic cloves, sliced very thinly crosswise
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Cut the bok choy lengthwise into quarters.  Wash them well by swishing them in a bowl of tepid water, and spin them dry (I shook mine dry, I didn't feel like breaking out the spinner).

In a small bowl, combine the oyster sauce, broth and cornstarch

In a large, non-stick stir fry pan, heat the peanut oil over medium heat.  When the oil is hot, add the garlic slices and break them up.  Cook, stirring, just until fragrant, about 30 seconds (it smells awesome!)  Add the bok choy to the pan.  Season with the salt and turn the heat up to high.  Using tongs, toss the bok choy with the oil to coat and to distribute the garlic slices.

Cook, rotating and turning the bok choy with the tongs and spreading it out so that all of the stems have some contact with the pan as they cook, and so that the garlic doesn't all gather on the bottom of the pan, until all of the bok choy stems are browned in parts (9 to 12 minutes).

Remove the pan from the heat and, using a silicone spatula, immediately stir the sauce as you pour it into the pan.  As soon as the sauce thickens and begins to coat the vegetables, transfer to the bok choy and the sauce to a serving dish.

Delicious.  The bok choy was crisp and savory, perfect with the sweetness of the carrots, and the sauce is indeed silky.  Really loved this dish.

Chocolate Banana Bread with Crystallized Ginger

Remember my previous post about banana bread? Don't ever make it. It sucks. What was I thinking? THIS is banana bread. With dark chocolate chips and bits of crystallized ginger embedded in it like treasure. This is banana bread as it should be and how I shall make it forever more.

Yes, this is from A Homemade Life, and the recipe itself comes from a friend of a friend of Molly Wizenburg, who got the stunning idea to add ginger to his banana bread. I thought for sure I could easily get crystallized or candied ginger at Trader Joe's but when I went there this weekend:  none to be found. I asked one of the workers and he told me that they hadn't had any in months, not since their last shipment had been recalled.

Recalled. Mmmkay.

So I dashed to Stop & Shop and procured a bottle of McCormick crystallized ginger. I dumped out half the jar to chop into pieces. Well maybe a little more. A little more. That's it. Well...oh screw it, the whole jar went in. And a good thing because it wasn't very potent ginger, as it turned out. Of course that didn't stop us from eating the entire loaf in less than two days, but I'll be interested to see the results when this is made with really good candied ginger. Or perhaps I will try making it myself someday. Alton Brown assures me it's easy.

You can link to the full Orangette blog post about the banana bread here (and please do), and here is the recipe:

Glenn’s Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Candied Ginger

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 2 ripe medium-size bananas
• 3 Tbs milk
• 2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I used Toll House dark chocolate chips, oh my God...)
• Small chunks of candied ginger, to taste
• ½ cup chopped walnuts, optional (I didn't use)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan with butter or cooking spray, and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream sugar, egg, and butter.

In a separate bowl, mash bananas; then mix with milk.

In another separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three parts, alternating with banana-milk mixture in two parts, stirring by hand until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips, ginger, and optional nuts.

Turn batter into loaf pan, smoothing top with the back of a spoon, and bake for one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (My cooking time came out closer to an hour and 15 minutes)

Allow to cool for a few minutes; then remove bread from pan and cool on a wire rack.

Thai Coconut Soup

After the Dim Sum outing, the only thing I really felt like for dinner was soup, and specifically my coconut thai soup. I used to make this soup every Monday night when I came home from the city. Jeeps would have the kids at swim lessons and I'd be on my own for dinner. This was my go-to meal, Heaven and comfort in a pot. I could make as much or as little as I wanted, but I usually made enough to have a little for Tuesday lunch.

Thai Coconut Soup

• 3-4 cloves of garlic (and once again I find myself clean out of garlic so I'm using the pre-minced kind in a jar, mea culpa.)
• 2 tablespoons fresh ground ginger (which I also get in a jar at the grocery store.  It's usually in the produce section, the brand is Spice World, and I'm never without 5 or 6 jars of this stuff.  If you can't find it, then grated fresh ginger is fine.)
• 1 can lite coconut milk (and like the damn garlic, I was out of that and had to use "whole" coconut milk. This works fine, although it has more of a tendency to separate, and also makes a richer-tasting soup. Jeeps doesn't mind the latter but I kind of do.)
• Carrots, peeled and diced. (The more the merrier. Honestly, do you understand soup or stew recipes that call for one carrot?!)
• Asian fish sauce. (This is one of the make-or-break ingredients, to the point where if I don't have it on hand, I won't make the soup.)
• Lime juice. (Fresh is best, but I use bottled and I sleep well at night.)
• 1/2 bag of Trader Joe's Thai Vegetable Gyoza, thawed in a colander in the sink. (Yum, yummier and yummiest. If you cannot procure, then naturally any kind of vegetable pot sticker will suffice, or you could use rice noodles or broken spaghetti.)

Put your soup pot on medium heat and splash some olive or coconut oil in. Get your minced garlic smiling in the oil, and then add the ground ginger and a pinch of red pepper flakes (more or less according to your preference). If you want to just stop here and park your face right above the soup pot and inhale for five minutes, believe me, I understand. The smell is divine. When you revive, add the carrots and saute another 5 minutes.

Add the coconut milk, scraping out the can with a small spatula. Stir well, then add 2 cups of low sodium chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low, cover, and simmer until carrots are tender.

The trick is to taste the broth and taste some more before you start fiddling with additional seasonings. Start with a teaspoon of asian fish sauce and a tablespoon of lime juice. I also like to add some baby spinach and some chopped scallions.

By the way, did you know that you can buy fresh scallions, chop and freeze them? They keep very well and I was happy to discover this—I like using scallions in cooking but seem to do so sporadically. More often than not I end up with limp scallions in the crisper drawer just when I need them most.

When the broth is properly salty and sweet and sour and savory, add the gyoza and simmer another 5 minutes. If you have fresh cilantro on hand, chop some of that and add.

This soup is great when you have a cold—all that garlic and ginger and the red pepper flakes make your nose run like crazy. It's awesome.