Peanut butter & sesame seed cookies

This is just to say

I have eaten the cookies

I baked for my weblog

and I didn't even take any pictures.

Forgive me, but they were delicious

with a hot cup of coffee. 

I did a bad thing. I made a batch of cookies, and then I ate them all without taking any photos for you.

Fortunately, it is an exaggeration to say that I ate them all. I had help. But still, no photos. I'm sorry. Forgive me. These are very similar to regular old peanut butter cookies, but with a slightly more assertive flavor. They are a little chewy and a little crumbly and a little crunchy all in one, and they're not too sweet.

Here is the recipe:

1/4 c peanut natural smooth peanut butter, unsalted*

1/4 cup sesame tahini

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine*

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar*

1 1/4 c flour

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt*

1 Tbsp each of black and white sesame seeds*

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease two cookie sheets. Using an electric mixer or fork, cream together the margarine, peanut butter, tahini, salt, and sugar in a medium-large bowl. Beat until the mixture is fluffy. Taste a tiny bit and adjust the salt, if necessary.

2.  Add the cornstarch and the flour. Mix with your hands until the dough comes together. If it's really really dry, add a tablespoon of soy milk, but only do this if the dough is too crumbly to work with.

3. In a shallow bowl or a plate, mix the two colors of sesame seeds together.

4.  Scoop up a 2-tablespoon sized piece of dough, and roll it into a ball. Flatten it a little between your palms, and dip one side into the sesame seed mixture. Place seedy-side-up on the cookie sheet and repeat with the remaining dough. If you want to, you can use a fork to make a criss-cross pattern on top of each cookie, as you would for classic peanut butter cookies. Bake the for about 12 minutes, until they are golden-brown around the edges.

*So many stars, right? Well, here's what you should know. You can absolutely use salted peanut butter, but if you do, and especially if you're using salty Earth Balance, then leave out the additional salt. 

As for the margarine, you are of course welcome to use regular old hydrogenated margarine. Cookies aren't really good for you anyway. But read the ingredients to make sure they haven't snuck any whey or other dairy ingredients in there, or else the cookies won't be vegan and you'll have worked so hard only to make cookies that you won't want to eat, and that would be the pits.

If you don't have light brown sugar, you can just use white sugar. If you don't have white sugar, you can use Sucanat. The sesame seeds are primarily for decoration, and while they are lovely, they can be omitted without really ruining anything. You will still have yummy cookies! If you don't have sesame seeds, you can dip the cookies in coarse sugar instead.

In short, you are your own person and you can cook however you gosh darn please.

Hamantaschen

My hat it has three corners, three corners has my hat...
Sorry to post this a week AFTER Purim, but I had to rework the recipe a bit. Slash, I got lazy.

You'll need:
2 c. flour + 1 tsp. baking powder + 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. refined coconut oil
1/4 c. apple sauce
2 Tbsp. orange juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. lemon extract

In a medium mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the coconut oil until soft. Cream in the sugar for 1-2 minutes. Add the apple sauce, vanilla, and lemon extract and beat until combined. Add half the flour and mix until just combined. Then mix in the orange juice, and add the remaining flour. The mixture will be a little crumbly, so smush it together into a ball. Refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes.

To roll out the dough, cut into 4 pieces. Lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin, and roll out one of the pieces to 1/4 in thick. Use a cookie cutter or the rim of a glass to cut as many large circles of dough as you can out of the piece of dough. You can re-roll it and re-cut it a few times to make as many cookies as possible.

Put the circles of dough on a silicone baking mat or piece of parchment on a baking sheet. Spoon about 2 tsp. apricot preserves (or other fillings) into the center, and fold the edges into a triangle shape. Pinch the edges closed tightly around the filling. Repeat this process to shape the remaining cookies. You can also fill them with the traditional poppyseed filling, (which comes in a can, lucky for me!)

Bake at 350 F for about 12 minutes, until the edges are light brown. Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

Macaroons

These are a classic for Passover! In my family we always have those ones from a can but, come on! Everybody knows, cookies are supposed to come from the oven!

These are incredibly easy to throw together, and you can make them a couple of days in advance, just store them in a tupperware once they're cool.

Yield 2 dozen cookies

1 (7 oz.) bag sweetened shredded coconut
2/3 cups slivered almonds
1/2 cup matzoh meal for cake--this type is much finer than regular matzoh meal
1/3 cup apple sauce
1/3 cup agave nectar
1 Tbsp oil
1/4 cup soymilk (or substitute coconut milk for extra coconut flavor! But I didn't have any so I used soy.)
Optional: chocolate, to melt & drizzle across the tops

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Put the almonds in a blender or food processor and pulse until they're ground. When they're done, they should look sort of like sand.
2. Put the coconut, ground almonds, and matzoh meal in a bowl and use your hands to combine them and break up any big clumps of coconut.
3. Mix the apple sauce, oil, and agave, and pour this into the coconut mixture.
4. If it's doesn't hold together easily, add a little of the soy milk until it's wet enough to hold together.
5. Use a tablespoon to pick up balls of dough and roll them LOOSELY in your hands, just to help it keep its shape, but you don't want to squeeze it too hard. Place the cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet. You can put them pretty close together, because they won't spread.
6. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the coconut looks nice and golden. Be careful with them when they're still warm; they'll fall apart easily. I think the safest way to get them onto a cooling rack is with a thin metal spatula.

For that Mounds Bar effect, you can drizzle the tops with melted chocolate once they're cool.
Enjoy!

Note: if you can't find the special cake matzoh meal, you can put some regular matzoh meal through the blender until they're the consistency of flour.