Rational Jar of Honey » This Paper Ship’s Food Blog

Joel was craving cookies the other day so I decided to crack open Dolce Italiano for something quick, easy, and oh-so-satisfying. Since I generally don’t keep a ton of exotic ingredients on hand (or non-exotic for that matter), the best recipe for me to improvise happened to be the sugar cookies called, “La Befana’s Stars” (traditionally served after Christmas on the Feast of the Epiphany in Italy).

We had recently picked a huge bundle of fresh rosemary from Norbert and Susan’s yard (we’re trying to root it in our kitchen windowsill) so I figured it would be a nice twist of flavor. I used organic pastry flour instead of all purpose, evaporated cane juice (raw sugar) instead of white, and lime zest instead of lemon. I’m sure the recipe would be just as good with the standard ingredients!

They turned out soft, flakey, buttery, and zesty (the lime and rosemary played off of each other so nicely).

So here is my version of the recipe:

For the cookies

-3 & 1/2 cups organic pastry flour
-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 & 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
-1 & 1/4 cups raw sugar
-1 large egg
-2 large egg yolks (reserve whites for glaze)
-1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
-freshly grated zest of 1 lime
-1 large sprig of fresh rosemary, finely chopped

For the glaze

-egg whites
-tablespoon of milk/cream

Whisk all dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, and salt) in a medium bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium until creamy. Beat in the egg and egg yolks, one at a time, mixing well as you go. Beat in vanilla extract and lime zest. Then beat in the dry ingredients a little bit at a time on low speed until a stiff dough forms. Remove the dough and fold in the rosemary. Roll the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and let harden in the fridge for an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease two baking sheets with oil or butter. Divide the dough into three equal pieces and work one at a time (leaving the rest in the fridge to keep it firm) on a floured surface. Roll out the dough to 1/8—1/2 inch (depending on your preference… I like mine thicker) and cut into fun shapes. Repeat and repeat. Whisk the milk with the egg whites and brush a glaze on all of the cookies and sprinkle with a little raw sugar before baking. Bake for NO MORE than 12 to 14 minutes (12 was perfectly perfect for me). They will come out soft and delicious! Allow to cool a little before transferring to a wire rack.

Stuff your face. Repeat and repeat. (Best with hot tea or hot chocolate.)

You can bet your bottom dollar these will be served at our coffee shop/bakery if/when we ever open one!

—Ash

We’ve been on a roll with posting these days, which is funny, because it seems that we’ve been forced to get more creative as the money gets sparse before the holidays! (For starving artists, we do eat pretty well.) Continuing with that theme, since I’ve spent a good deal of the night sewing up a custom Japanese-stitch journal, I’ll briefly post about a frittata I made for breakfast in the studio the other day.

This was the classic flip-the-whole-pan stovetop frittata, where you place a dinner plate upside-down on the frittata after it’s set, flip the plate and pan together, and slide the uncooked side of the frittata back onto the pan to set. (It sounded complicated to me at first, but once you do it a couple times, it’s not too hard. That said, flip it over the sink the first few times…)

For the filling, I melted down some butter and bacon drippings; sautéed julienned turnips from our garden and some delicious late green beans that Norbert and Susan brought us from a local farmer’s market; added some balsamic vinegar and reduced it; added 3 whipped eggs; and tossed in yellow pear tomatoes from our garden right before I flipped it.

You really never know what will pop up when you start scrounging…

—Joel

We’ve managed to harvest vegetables all Fall so far (what a blessing)! There may even be a few more stragglers before Christmas too… a few rows of carrots, cabbage, broccoli, some tiny stunted red tomatoes, and brussels sprouts (well, just the leaves mostly). This week was also the last of the turnips (we really got creative eating them all… including “turnip hash browns”), the pear tomatoes (we got a huge final bag full we may use for salsa), and almost the last of the lettuce (we may have one salad left). We are eating this gardening life up! Pun very much intended.

Our chickens still haven’t produced any eggs yet and we’re starting to think it might not happen until the Spring. We may have caught them just after molting (when they spend all of their energy on losing old feathers and gaining new ones for the Winter, rather than producing eggs). I guess these are the woes of starting so late in the year.

We are still very much enjoying having chickens though! They add such joy to my daily routine, especially with the most recent development of Sugar (the white mixed one) chasing me around the yard in hopes for treats. She even comes up to the side door, peering in to see if I have something for her. We are definitely more cautious with them now as well. We never officially posted on here about it but we lost our little Ika (the runt Rhode Island Red) not too ago to a big hawk. No more roaming chickens when we’re not home! I rush to the window to check on them at even the slightest peep that sounds unfamiliar.

We have been buying eggs at the local markets though! We recently came across these blue eggs that are almost Easter worthy (although it may be hard to tell in the photos).

Below is Joel’s homemade loaf of white bread (SO GOOD). This morning we made one of our classics, what Tyler likes to call, “The Eye of Ra,” or “Eggs in a Basket.” Always tasty!

—Ash