I recently happened upon a sand dollar cookie stamp at Der Kuchen Laden, Frederickburg’s topnotch kitchen store, and snapped it up, thinking what a great hit beach-themed cookies would be during Gulf Coast getaways. For kids summering on Bolivar Peninsula, a day at the beach meant a fistful of sand dollars, sugar shells, and colorful beach glass as smooth and opaque as Texas honey. Sand dollars were the hardest to find because the disk-shaped marine creatures habitually burrow into the sand. We’d swim out to the sand bars and dig for dollars by burying our feet a few inches into the sand and sliding along until our toes hit the critters’ hard internal shells. We’d pluck them out of the sand and haul them home. Popular legend holds that sand dollars are really mermaid’s coins. If I’d heard that as a little girl, I surely would have gathered even more. This recipe is a variation on the common shortbread cookie, without eggs or other leavening, because, according to the cookie stamp people, the rising of the cookies obscures the pattern left by the stamp. Makes sense to me. Although it is expensive, I like to use vanilla bean paste because it has little flecks of vanilla seed in it, giving the cookie a sandy, beach look. It is available at kitchen specialty stores and at many upscale grocers.
Turn humble onions into this thrifty yet luxe pasta dinner.
This pasta has some really big energy about it. It’s so extra, it’s the type of thing you should be eating in your bikini while drinking a magnum of rosé, not in Hebden Bridge (or wherever you live), but on a beach on Mykonos.
Serve a thick slice for breakfast or an afternoon pick-me-up.
Reliable cabbage is cooked in the punchy sauce and then combined with store-bought baked tofu and roasted cashews for a salad that can also be eaten with rice.
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
This is the type of soup that, at first glance, might seem a little…unexciting. But you’re underestimating the power of mushrooms, which do the heavy lifting.
A dash of cocoa powder adds depth and richness to the broth of this easy turkey chili.