Pantry Collective

Around Thanksgiving, when cranberries were readily available and inexpensive, I bought an extra bag and froze it so I’d have some around once they were gone for another year. For some reason supermarkets think we don’t want to eat cranberries any time of the year except late fall. While it’s true that they happen to be in season then, it’s not like seasonality has ever concerned the grocery store before (see: tomatoes RIGHT NOW).

These muffins are delightful. Have I ever made muffins from scratch before? Nope. Were these super easy? Yep. Tart cranberries, fresh orange zest, and yummy toasted walnuts, with a crunchy muffin top thanks to the sugar sprinkles. You could make blueberry muffins with the same recipe, although I would use lemon zest in that case. I might increase the amount of fruit, too - 1 1/2 cups is fine, but I think they could have handled two cups and would have been all the more full of cranberry flavor.

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I know that’s a strange name, but these cookies are so full of butter (and therefore amazingly good) we could only make them once per year in my house growing up. I guess since Christmas and Thanksgiving were already full of bad-for-you treats, Valentine’s Day got these cookies. The original recipe, from a set of recipe cards from 1984, calls them “Chocolate Nut Logs”, but for whatever reason we stopped making them with nuts long ago. To make them seem more appropriate for Valentine’s Day my mom would sometimes shape the cookies into hearts. Now that I live in Chicago I’m rarely home for Valentine’s Day and I miss these cookies like crazy, so I convinced my mom to make them with me over the Christmas holiday.

They’re amazing straight from the refrigerator - something about them works best when they’re nice and cold, although you can certainly eat them at room temperature.

For about 4 dozen small cookies or 1 1/2 dozen large cookies

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 pkgs (12 oz) semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
1 tbsp shortening
(2 cups finely chopped nuts, optional - not used in the cookies we made this time)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cream butter, sugar, vanilla, and egg until light and fluffy.
2. Mix flour and salt. Add to first mixture. Using hands (or a wooden spoon and a lot of muscle) mix until well blended.
3. Stir in 1/2 bag of mini chocolate chips.
4. Use 1 level tablespoonful of the mixture for each cookie (for small cookies). Ours are probably closer to 2 tablespoonfuls each. Shape into logs, rounds, hearts, whatever. Arrange on ungreased baking sheets.
5. Bake at 350˚ for 12-15 minutes or until the bottoms of the cookies are just turning golden brown. Remove from oven and let sit on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer cookies to wire rack.
6. Melt remaining chocolate with the shortening (we do this in short bursts in the microwave, stirring frequently).
7. When cookies are cool enough to handle, dip into chocolate. If using nuts, sprinkle or coat with nuts at this time. Let stand on wax paper until cool, then pop them in the fridge to firm up. We leave them in the fridge and eat them cold.