Ina Fridays --Desserts and "Other" Recipes -- Eli Zabar's Shortbread Cookies Three Ways

Tiny, fluted, showered in sugar:  "Sparkly, Very Sparkly Stars"

Raspberry Sandwich Cookies

Dipped in Vahlrona chocolate and topped with fleur de sel

These cookies are always on all my cookie trays in one version or another.  Each shortbread cookie is made from the same recipe, but is simply finished differently.  The recipe is Eli Zabar's  (NYC) and I took it straight from Ina Garten, who I guess took it straight from Eli, who, it appears got it from his mother!  My cookies, however, are quite different than Ina's.  Your cookies will be something else as well.  And while these are not terribly innovative or cutting edge, they are terribly delicious.  Addictive, in fact.  Just add coffee.  Just add tea.  Just add sherry.  Just add...you.

If you watch Ina regularly, you'll know she talks about Eli Zabar quite often and even has him on the show occasionally.  Eli Zabar's is a store and catering business in the Big Apple; he's a baker; he's a gardener; well just....Check him out here.   Watch Ina cook an Eli Zabar salmon recipe here. 

    These are versatile... 

Helen's Cherry Pie- Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed -- Pie 101

"Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?  Can she bake a cherry pie, charming Billy?"

She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother....  is poor Billy's lament.  She can, however, bake a cherry pie quick as a cat can blink an eye!  (Click on above link to hear the song; guitar chords included.)


 I was just minding my own business.  I had stuck the hot cherry pie on a rack on an empty shelf in a kitchen cupboard.  A good place to cool pie if you have two golden retrievers. (I made four different pies for Thanksgiving; everyone deserves their favorite once a year.  I'm convinced.  Cherry is my sister Helen's favorite.   Hence "Helen's Cherry Pie."  Also my loved "niece," Kathy's.)

Tucker up front in the kitchen, Gabby retreating into the dining room.

38 Power Foods, Week 19 -- Kiwi -- Quick Individual Kiwi Tarts with Gingersnap Crust

An ultra thin ginger snap smothered with hot pastry cream serves as the "crust."

How the Quick Kiwi Tart with Gingersnap Crust came to be...

While I love to bake a pie as much as the next woman (more than most, I'd guess), I also like nearly instant desserts that are luscious and don't wear out the soles of your trainers.  (Like after you've cooked for company all day and still need dessert.)  I have a pocketful of favorites like a 30-second pumpkin custard (it'll be in my soup book) and a blink-done  individual chocolate flourless "cake." I also have no-bake favorites like a strawberry ice cream parfait layered with crumbled ginger shortbread and fresh peaches. In cases of real emergencies, I buy ice cream and cones--and not just for the kids.

Strawberry Shortcake for Memorial Day

 When it's my friend Sue's birthday, or at least if I can find one, I send her a birthday card with strawberries on it.  Sometimes I can't find one.  Sue loves strawberries and so when I knew she was coming for our Mother's Day cook-out, I knew what the dessert was going to be.   It'll be just perfect for Memorial Day, too, though I'll be busy making carrot cake sheet cakes for a graduation party.  (Carrot cake was one of my first posts as a blogger.  Things, luckily, have really improved!  If all goes well, I'll take some better photographs than I did three years ago.)

Taking vanilla bean out with my kids' Mickey Mouse spoon.

I only make Strawberry Shortcake once or twice a year, so I try and make it light, layered with lots of ripe fruit, full of textural and temperature contrasts, and touched just enough by two kinds sweet cream--frozen and fresh whipped.  It's a celebration  of the start of summer, though if we're lucky, we have strawberries coming for a good part of summer in Minnesota.

For the best Strawberry Shortcake, you need each ingredient to be fresh and/or the best you can find or make.  So for this dessert, I made the shortcakes as well as homemade vanilla ice cream. (Baby spoon used at right still in drawer and my kids are 25 and 34.  We've moved 20 times since the oldest was a baby, so it's been through at least 20 kitchens.  Geez.)    Ripe strawberries (some mashed) and just-whipped cream, of course.   My other tiny, but critical element is a gentle smear of raspberry jam on each half of the sliced sweet biscuits we use for shortcakes.   This recipe makes enough for 8 with a few shortcakes leftover for breakfast the next day. (Slice them, spread with butter, slip under the broiler and serve with jam and lots of hot coffee.)