As a food blogger, you get offered a lot of odd things for free. My all-time favorite? Kangaroo meat. I wish I were joking.

It’s every blogger’s own decision whether to accept swag or not. Personally, I believe that my blog is all mine, and I don’t do any sponsored posts here. If companies want to send me something, I’m cool with it. I just don’t promise to write about it.

My other rule of thumb is that when I receive things that I honestly do like—things that I would recommend to you all—I have to give them away to you guys. That’s why I’m excited to be handing over this great cookbook from Quirk Books, and a little bummed that I’m not keeping it for myself.

The Cookiepedia by Stacy Adimando (who also writes for Serious Eats), is yes, you guessed it—an cookie encyclopedia. It’s cute and colorful and full of tips for churning out perfect cookies. I do believe this cookbook was tailor made for me.

There are recipes for chocolate lovers.

Recipes for ambitious bakers.

Pretty photos to gaze at even if you don’t bake at all. And if you love to bake, there are recipes for every cookie under the sun, from buttery to spicy to fruity.

I even found a recipe for one of my all-time favorites: mint thins. Or in Girl Scout land, the über popular “Thin Mints.”

It would be irresponsible of me to not test out a recipe from the book before handing it over to one of you. So I just *had* to make them. And as it turns out, they weren’t as labor-intensive as I thought they would be. And worth every minute of preparation.

You begin by churning a thick, buttery dough in the mixer.

After letting it chill, you roll it out and cut into circles.

Bake, then dip in a blissful blend of chocolate and peppermint…

…and twiddle your thumbs as they cool.

In Lucy’s case, twiddle your tiny, very impatient thumbs.

Savor. Lick the melted chocolate from your fingers.

They are, in my approximate estimation, about 11,957 times better than the Girl Scout version. No offense, little ladies.

Try them for yourself using the recipe below. And if you want to try your hand at other types of cool cookies, enter to win The Cookiepedia in the comments. I’ll announce the winner next week!

Contest Rules

1. To enter to win The Cookiepedia by Stacy Adimando, simply tell me in the comments: What is your favorite type of cookie?
2. U.S. addresses only, please. I’m paying for the shipping myself, y’all. One entry per person.
3. A magical random number winner picker computer thingie (that’s it’s technical name) will choose the winner next week.

Mint Thins from The Cookiepedia by Stacy Adimando        printable version

Nobody you know will not come by when you say you’re baking homemade mint thins. (If they don’t so much as ask, consider defriending them immediately.) The question is: Do you want to share? The baking and dunking takes no time (especially if you taste as you go), but these bite-sized treats do hold up best (and taste yummiest) once the mint chocolate has had ample time to set. If you’re protective of your stash, store them in the freezer. They’re best with a chill anyway.

Preheat oven to 350F. Makes 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

• 1 c unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 c powdered sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
• 2/3 c cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate
• 1/4 c unsalted butter
• 3/4 tsp peppermint flavor

2. Turn out the dough onto a clean surface and form it into a disk with your hands. Split the disk in half and place them in the fridge to firm up for 1 hour.

3. Working on a floured surface (you’ll need a decent amount, since the dough is sticky), roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thick. Shape the cookies using a 1 1/2-inch round cutter and place them on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, then let cool completely.

4. Break up the chocolate into a bowl and set it over a small pot of simmering water* (make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water). Add the butter and the peppermint flavor and stir the mixture steadily until it’s fully melted and looks glossy and smooth. Remove the bowl and let the chocolate cool slightly.

5. One by one, drop the cookies in the chocolate, then scoop them out with a fork to let the excess drip off. (Tap the cookies against the side of the bowl to help drain the extra chocolate). Move them carefully to a wire rack or parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. When they’re all coated, move the sheet to the refrigerator or freezer to set.

*Note from RDG: If the chocolate gets too hot, it will harden. To reconstitute it, add a little vegetable oil and/or milk and stir until it comes back to a smooth consistency.

We have a bit of a civil war going on in our house. It’s the Nutella lovers versus the Nutella haters. I, because I am awesome and always right, love Nutella. Lucy, because she is a mini-me and equally awesome, loves Nutella.

Dave, human garbage disposal, will eat pretty much anything EXCEPT Nutella (I blame his formative years being spent in Europe, where they use this stuff like butter). Charlie is the tie breaker. She’s a baby who can’t eat Nutella yet. So she defaults into Dave’s category (although I’m very optimistic that she’ll turn the tables once she is older) .

Two for, two against. They say a house divided against itself cannot stand. But since I am the baker, I dictate what sweets emerge from the oven. And this weekend, it was Nutella brownies.

If you don’t know what Nutella is, you’ve been living under a rock  let me explain: it’s a creamy, chocolatey spread made from hazelnuts and cocoa. Think of it as chocolate-flavored peanut butter with a slightly nutty taste. Most grocers carry it on the peanut butter aisle.

To make these brownies, you’ll also need some vanilla extract, sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, butter, eggs, hazelnuts and chocolate chips.

What is there not to love about Nutella? It’s creamy. It’s chocolatey. It can be spread on bread or swirled into yogurt, dolloped on ice cream or dipped with a graham cracker.

I found hazelnuts on my grocer’s bulk foods aisle and they were pretty inexpensive. We’ll use them later to top these gorgeous brownies. It gives them a nice crunch and makes them purdy.

Begin by melting together the butter and sugar together with a few tablespoons of water. Stir often.

Just as it begins to boil, remove from heat. We don’t want scorched butter on our hands.

Stir in the Nutella…

…and beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla, too.

Whisk in the flour, baking soda and salt until smooth.

Fold in the chocolate chips.

Have a tiny helper grease a baking pan for you. Sure, you have to wash butter hands afterwards, but look how much fun she’s having!

Spread the batter into the greased pan.

Chop the hazelnuts and sprinkle them on top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes in a 325F oven. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean (just make sure you’re poking the batter and not a melted chocolate chip—give the toothpick a little taste to make sure. Over-baking these puppies is not allowed).

Here’s the kicker: let cool completely before cutting. The chocolate chips will solidify and the brownies will become denser and more fudgy as they cool. Trust me, it’s worth it.

See? Told you.

The bittersweet chocolate chips add a perfect contrast to the richness of the batter, and the nuts on top give a nice crunch. These little squares disappear fast.

For the moment in our house it seems the Nutella lovers are winning. Poor Dave. He never stood a chance. But as they say, to the victor go the (nutty, chocolatey) spoils.

Nutella Brownies    printable deliciousness

It’s torture to let these brownies cool completely before eating, but you’ll be rewarded handsomely if you can stand it (as they cool, they become more fudgy and the chocolate chips solidify). Makes one 9″x9″ pan of brownies. 

• 1/3 c butter
• 3/4 c sugar
• 2 tbsp water
• 3/4 c Nutella
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 c flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 c bittersweet chocolate chips (I like Ghiradelli 60% chips)
• 1/3 c hazelnuts

Confession time: I have an affinity for big box store muffins. You know what I’m talking about—the big warehouse store where you can buy five pounds of cottage cheese for $2.99? Their muffins slay me, especially the banana nut variety. But the trouble is, you can only buy them in a pack of twelve and each muffin is the size of a small planet. Plus, they likely contain an entire day’s worth of calories. As I swallow each buttery bite, I can literally feel the muffin slide down my esophagus, skip right past my stomach and implant itself on my ass. There is a reason they call it a muffin top, my friends.

So what is a girl to do when she craves those moist, melt-in-your mouth banana nut muffins but doesn’t want a butt the size of Neptune? Make a healthier version, of course.

Start with overripe bananas. The browner the better. Mash them up with a fork.

Add to the bananas an egg, greek yogurt (to keep things moist and add a little bit of richness—low-fat sour cream would work, too), vegetable oil, and vanilla extract.

For the dry ingredients you’ll need white and whole wheat flours, baking powder, salt, brown sugar and wheat germ (the “raw” or “untoasted” variety) for a little extra fiber.

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Fold in some walnuts.

Pour into 12 prepared muffin cups and sprinkle some more walnuts on top if you like.

Bake for a little under 20 minutes. They puff up nice and purdy.

Pour yourself a cup of tea and sink your teeth into one of these beauties.

They’re more moist, more flavorful, and less likely to stick to your hips than those gigantor muffins. Of course they still have a decent amount of fat as all good muffins do, but you won’t feel them stick to your hips. Or implant themselves on your thighs. Or park their big banana butts on your…well, you get the picture.

-RDG

(Almost) Better-for-You Banana Nut Muffins   handy dandy printable

Prep Time: 10 minutes Bake Time: 20 minutes

• 3 large overripe bananas
• 1 egg
• 1/2 c honey-flavored greek yogurt
• 1/3 c vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 c whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c all purpose flour
• 1/2 c raw (untoasted) wheat germ
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 c chopped walnuts, plus more for topping

1) Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, mash bananas until smooth. Stir in egg, yogurt, oil and vanilla.

2) In a medium bowl, combine wheat flour, all purpose flour, wheat germ, sugar, baking soda and salt. Pour into wet ingredients and whisk until smooth. Fold in walnuts.

3) Grease or line 12 muffin cups. Spoon in batter nearly to the top of each cup. Sprinkle with additional walnuts if desired. Bake for 17-20 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool slightly before serving.

Brown butter (or is it “browned butter”? The verdict is out. Weigh in in the comments section if you’ve got an idea.) is butter’s richer, nuttier cousin. It takes only minutes to create brown butter from regular old butter, but the results are worlds away. The flavor is richer and more pungent, and brown butter can be used in any recipe where melted butter is called for. Hence: brown butter baked goods. Use it in cookies, bars and brownies and you’ve just taken your treats to the next level.

These mini brown butter blondies (does that make them brunettes?) require only very simple ingredients: butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, flour and salt.

*Apologies in advance for the following 3 photos. This is why I do not often take photos under the florescent lights of my stove.

To brown the butter, cut into slices and melt over medium heat in a hefty pan.

Once the butter has melted, it will foam, bubble, and then brown. Stir constantly to ensure that it doesn’t burn.

After about 5 minutes (give or take—use your best judgment), it will be a rich brown color and have a nutty aroma. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.

Stir in the sugar, egg and vanilla and mix until smooth.

Carefully pour into the flour/salt mixture. Stir to combine.

Add whatever fixings you like. I used dried cranberries and coconut in this batch, but chocolate, peanut butter or butterscotch chips would all taste great.

Stir. Smell that heavenly aroma? That’s brown butter, folks.

Dollop generous 1/2 tablespoons into a greased mini muffin pan.

Pop in the oven and you’ve got mini blondie bites.

Serve warm topped with vanilla ice cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

If you want to skip a step, you could also spread the batter into a greased 9×9″ pan and slice into squares after baking. I make them mini because they’re cute and I like the ratio of crispy edges to soft middles.

Gooey brown butter centers dotted with tart cranberries and flaky coconut. Warms my belly on a cool winter evening. And since they’re so small, eating three of them is practically calorie-free, right?

*Crickets.*

It was worth a shot.

-RDG

Mini Brown Butter Blondies adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Makes 24 mini blondies.

Prep Time: 10 minutes Bake Time: 12-14 minutes

Special Equipment: mini muffin pan

• 1 stick butter (8 tablespoons)
• 1 c flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 c packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 c your favorite add-in (chocolate chips, dried berries, nuts, etc.)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Slice the butter and melt in a heavy pan over medium heat. Once the butter begins to bubble, stir constantly for about 5 minutes until butter is brown in color and smells nutty. Remove from heat.

2. In a small bowl, mix together the flour and salt. In a separate bowl, stir the sugar, egg and vanilla into the browned butter until smooth. Combine with the flour/salt mixture. Mix in your add-ins.

3. Grease a mini muffin pan. Spoon heaping 1/2 tablespoons of dough into each cup. Bake for 12-14 minutes until edges are lightly crisp. Do not overbake. Let cool a few minutes before serving. Top with vanilla ice cream or freshly whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon if desired.

If, and I stress if, she has found a book that really piques her interest, I can sit her in a chair next to the cookbook section and peruse for a few moments. It’s a crapshoot as to what’s checked in at the moment, but I absolutely lucked out during this particular visit. The book is Marcus Samuelsson’s New American Table, and it was love at first sight.

Before you poo-poo me, I will acknowledge that yes, it’s that Marcus Samuelsson of Top Chef Master’s, the one who came off as sort of an ass. He owns a string of restaurants in NYC, he’s a James Beard Award-winning chef, the youngest ever to receive two three star ratings from the New York Times, blah blah blah. Looking beyond the hype and the attitude, I began to read his recipes. And read. And drooled. And read. An clapped with delight. And read. And became giddy with thoughts of the pancetta potato cakes, empanadas with peanut-mango sambal and coconut rice pudding that would soon be filling my kitchen with their aromas.

“New American” here simply means a collision of cultures, a fusion of flavors and ingredients and methods. The book is a mish-mash of recipes, and although I’m in love more with the photography of the recipes than the stories behind them, it’s a fun world of cooking to explore.

The first thing I had to try, simply because it’s the first thing I had all of the ingredients for, was his recipe for sun-dried tomato bread.

But reading through the recipe, I needed to alter a few things. Real sun-dried tomatoes? I only had the jarred variety, packed in oil. Fresh majoram sprigs? Ummm….I don’t grow that. Fresh yeast? I wouldn’t even know where to get the stuff.

And hold the flippin phone: kneading? By hand? That just isn’t going to work for me. From here on out let’s just call this the “cheater’s” version of sun-dried tomato bread. And even though you’ll be a mischievous, deceptive I-don’t-follow-the-rules kind of cook, the results will make it all worthwhile.

Once I resolved my ingredient issues (summer savories instead of majoram, drained and rinsed sun-dried tomatoes, active-dry yeast instead of fresh), I pushed full speed ahead.

Let the yeast hang out with the salt in some lukewarm water for a while. Once it bubbles and foams (as pictured), it’s ready. If it doesn’t bubble or foam after about 10 minutes, get some new yeast (expiration dates, as it turns out, matter when it comes to dry yeast) and start again.

Roast your garlic or saute a few cloves in a frying pan with a little olive oil for about 20 minutes. The cloves should be soft and easy to squeeze out of their little clove homes.

Chop your tomatoes and kalamata olives…

…and mash them together with the garlic and the fresh herbs to form a paste.

And the whole kneading-by-hand dilemma? Solved by a stand mixer. It’s my secret bread weapon.

On low speed using the dough hook attachment, combine your flours with the yeast mixture. When the dough has come together and all the dry ingredients are incorporated, increase the speed to medium and mix until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. If the dough remains sticky, add a bit more flour one tablespoon at a time until you get the right consistency.

Toss in the sun-dried tomato mixture and stir until evenly incorporated.

Halve the dough and place into two prepared loaf pans. Cover and let rest in a warm place until doubled in size, or about one hour.

On a cold day when my radiators have kicked on, I love to let my bread rise on top of them. It fills the whole house with that fresh bread smell.

Bake for about 50 minutes, sprinkling the tops of the loaves with a little kosher salt and covering with foil halfway through baking.

That’s one gorgeous loaf, my friends.

Serve up a warm slice with a little soft cheese and a few olives, and you’ve got the perfect afternoon snack.

I love the flavors in this bread: salty kalamata olives, tangy sun-dried tomatoes, and a touch of fresh, mild herbs to balance it all out. This is a savory bread for the recipe books, my friends.

New American Table is now long overdue, but I can’t part with it just yet. There are too many recipes I need to try, or should I say cheat. What can I say? I love new books just as much as my daughter. But just as she tosses aside the board book she’s read one too many times, so do I toss aside recipes I just can’t follow to the tee. I’m a much happier cook that way. And really, shouldn’t cooking be about following your own rules, not someone else’s?

Sun-Dried Tomato Bread (based on the recipe from Marcus Samuelsson’s New American Table), makes 2 loaves

• 1/2 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes (rinsed and drained if jarred, soaked and drained if fresh)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 large garlic cloves, unpeeled
• 1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives (pitted)
• 1 packet or 2 1/4 teaspoon active-dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons table salt
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 cups lukewarm water
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus a few tablespoons additional if needed
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh herbs (I used summer savories, but you could use anything that would work well with the flavors)

Heat olive oil in a small saute pan over medium-low heat. Add garlic cloves and saute, stirring occationally, for about 20 minutes or until cloves are soft to the touch (alternately, you could roast a head of garlic and use the remaining cloves for something else). Let cloves cool on a paper towel.

Pour water into small bowl and add yeast and table salt, stirring to dissolve. Let rest in a warm place until the yeast begins to bubble and foam, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, squeeze garlic cloves from their skins and mash together with fresh herbs, sun-dried tomatoes and kalamata olives to form a paste. Set aside.

Add flours to bowl of stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. On low speed with the splash-guard in place, slowly pour in the yeast mixture. Continue mixing on low until all of the dry ingredients are incorporated, and then increase speed to medium. Mix until dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. If dough remains sticky, add additional flour one tablespoon at a time until dough reaches desired consistency. Prepare two loaf pans with cooking spray. Divide dough in half, place in pans, cover with a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, or about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375F. Bake for 25 minutes. Sprinkle tops of loaves with kosher salt, cover with foil, and continue baking an additional 25 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when tapped. Let cool in loaf pans for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.