Key Lime Pears from Michael Recchiuti’s cookbook Chocolate Obsession. I’ve been making these for Christmas for the past few years, and it’s my go-to recipe when I have an excess of pears. My friend Missy gifted me with a box (a BIG box) of the fruit last week, and I’ve been struggling to use them all before they go bad. I’ve lost count of how many batches of these key lime pears I’ve made, but we keep eating them faster than I can make them. You take green, very firm pears and slice them thinly, then soak the pear slices in a key lime sugar syrup. The pear slices are then baked (I use a rack set over a cookie sheet, but Recchiuti just lays them on a silpat-covered cookie sheet) until crisp. Recchiuti dips them in chocolate, but I prefer them plain. I think the chocolate overwhelms the pear/key lime flavor.

Pear Bread from Bake or Break. When the pears got too ripe for key lime pears, I decided to give pear bread a try. This is like zucchini bread, except with pears. There are lots of pear bread recipes floating around, and the only reason I picked this one was because I had all the ingredients on hand. I made a few changes. First I substituted brown sugar for half of the sugar, and I added about 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg. Finally, I left out the nuts because I didn’t have any. I ended up with two loaves of fragrant, sweet, dense quick bread. I didn’t really taste pears, unfortunately. I’m going to keep playing with this recipe, especially as my pears continue to ripen.

Corn with Tons of Herbs from Dana Treat. One night I was looking for a side dish to serve with dinner, and I remembered reading about this dish. Corn sauteed with butter, shallots and a ton of herbs, basil and cilantro in my case. Use the best corn you can and fresh herbs only, please. I liked the basil here, but not the cilantro. Thyme would be lovely as would dill.

Cherry Tomato Orzo Salad from Simply Recipes. We’ve been living off of this salad for the past few months, and every time I make it, I make it a little bit different. I’ve moved away from orzo and now use macaroni pasta; its a little more substantial. I also like this with parmesan instead of feta, and I don’t limit myself to just cucumbers and green onions. Any veggies I have languishing in the fridge tend to make their way into this salad. I especially like bell peppers, frozen peas and avocados.

There aren’t any precise measurements with this sort of thing, and just about anything will work. I ended up with about 3 cups of dried cranberries, sliced almonds, salted cashews and hazelnuts which were covered with about 6 ounces of melted bittersweet chocolate. Once the fruit and nuts were thoroughly coated, I made tablespoon-size mounds of the mixture on parchment paper. To help the chocolate set faster, I put them in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.

See? Piece of cake.

I pride myself on my caramel skills. Every year around Christmas, I start making caramels. Chocolate caramels, cinnamon caramels, coffee caramels, mocha caramels, orange caramels, and on and on. Depending on how generous I’m feeling (and how many I can hide from Bryan), some of those caramels might find their way into peoples’ christmas stockings. My standard caramel recipe isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes more than an hour of constant stirring, not to mention cooling and wrapping time.

Then along comes this recipe. It calls for fewer ingredients and less cooking time, but results in a purer, darker caramel flavor. If they weren’t so good, I’d be a little annoyed. 

As is standard with me, I went with one of Medrich’s variations, the nutmeg and vanilla bean caramels, except I used vanilla extract, not a vanilla bean. The nutmeg flavor was sort of lost in the finished product. It’s there, very faintly, but not enough that most people would be able to pick it out. Next time, more nutmeg. I’m also planning to try some of my other favorite variations, such as chocolate or mocha.

Instead of leaving the caramels all plain, I decided to dip half of them in chocolate. Judging from the look on Bryan’s face when he ate one, this was a good decision. A very good decision.

PS. I’m currently taking bribes for next year’s Christmas list . . .

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich

I generally find the idea of candied citrus peel more appealing than the actual product. Usually, the peel is too bitter for me, even when it is coated in sugar and/or chocolate. But, after making the pink grapefruit granita, I had a mound of grapefruit peel staring me down, so I decided to give candying the peel another go. Maybe this time things would turn out differently.

Making candied citrus peel is pretty easy. The peel is submerged in cold water and brought to a boil, then drained. The whole process is repeated several times. This softens the peel and removes the bitterness. Then the peel is simmered in water and sugar until transparent. Once done, it is left out to dry and then rolled in sugar and/or chocolate.

Unfortunately, this peel was still far too bitter to eat by itself. Covered in chocolate, however, it was passable. Maybe if I’d boiled the peel one more time . . .

Currently cooking out of Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.

This was one of the first recipes I marked out of this book. Besides the novelty of making my own popcorn (Wait! Popcorn doesn’t grow in microwave bags?), I love caramel popcorn. My family has a caramel popcorn recipe that we’ve been making since I was a little girl. It is gooey and good and maybe, someday, I’ll post it here.

But this recipe called for almonds. And, if you haven’t heard, I love almonds.

So, my first task was to figure out how to make popcorn. From scratch with no air popper. I know it can be done, because I’ve seen Alton Brown do it. Sass’ method of making popcorn involves tossing the kernels with a bit of oil, dumping them into a paper bag and microwaving them. It sounded easy. It sounded too easy and I was suspicious. Besides, Sass warns that some microwave manufacturers advise against popping popcorn in the microwave. What? I thought that’s what microwaves were made for. Oh my God. Was I going to blow the house up? Would I forever smell of burnt popcorn?

It was time to step back from the recipe and eat some chocolate. Which I did, for several days while contemplating the enormity of my task.

Finally, I decided I was being a dork and I just needed to do this. So I tossed the kernels in oil, plopped them in the paper bag and set the bag in the microwave. I hit the start button and ran to the other side of the room, mentally reviewing where the fire extinguisher was, the location of the nearest exit and whether or not I should warn Bryan that catastrophe was imminent.

Then I heard the first kernel pop. Followed by a second, then a bunch of pops, and the smell of popcorn filled the air. When the popping had mostly stopped, I stopped the microwave and gingerly moved the greasy, hot paper bag to the counter. After a few deep breaths, I carefully opened the bag and . . . I had popcorn. Real, fresh popcorn that tasted like corn instead of chemicals. It wasn’t stale or too salty. It was good. It was so good that I almost ate all the popcorn right then and there.

But, I had a recipe to make, so I dutifully made caramel, tossed it with the popcorn and almonds and scooped it into balls. Yeah, balls of dentistry horror. These puppies darn near wrecked a year’s worth of dental work that Bryan and I just finished. I think I let the caramel cook too long, because they had an odd burnt taste. Bryan and I each ate a popcorn ball, then I pretty much picked the almonds out of the others. Next time, I’ll stick with the Crossley family caramel popcorn recipe and just add almonds.

Obviously, this isn’t from the grains cookbook, but if you try these nuts, I don’t think you’ll mind the diversion. In fact, you might just get down on your knees and thank me. What can I say? I simply can’t stop baking sweet things (or eating, them, either)!

If I ever get motivated to hand out little Christmas presents to friends, these nuts will have a starring role. I found this recipe on smittenkitchen.com, one of my favorite food blogs about a month ago. I immediately earmarked it, went out and bought a bunch of almonds, and then proceeded to let the almonds languish in the cupboard for a month.

Sigh! If I had only known how good these were going to be. They are sweet, salty, cinnamony and just a bit spicy. They are dead easy to make and even easier to eat. They are good as is, but I’ve already got some changes in mind. I would have liked more of the salty, so I’ll increase the kosher salt to 2 teaspoons. Neither Bryan nor I could really taste the cayenne pepper. This time, I used 1/8 teaspoon. Next time, I’ll go up to 1/4 teaspoon. I’m also curious to try different spices. But first, I think I need to go eat some more of these.