Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Pear & Walnut Cookies



The recipe for these pear and walnut cookies was in Dish magazine. I made them to take as a gift when we went to friends for dinner on Saturday night. The look quite cute, but were slightly disappointing as because of the pear, they lost their crispness quite quickly.

The biscuits were a shortbread style biscuit but included lemon zest and chopped walnuts. You then thinly sliced the pears (I used my mandolin), rolled the dough out, cut out shapes, brushed the biscuits with maple syrup, adhered the pear, brushed with more maple syrup and then baked.



I made square ones which fit the whole pear slice on them and round ones which just fitted the bottom. I wasn’t sure whether I would make these biscuits again, but on reflection, they would be great when still crisp (like within 5 hours of baking!) with blue cheese!!! Especially as the biscuits contain walnuts and pears which are both natural partners for blue cheese, so maybe I will have to cut the recipe out and paste it in my recipe collection!!



On a different note, yesterday morning I had a fabulous time at the Takapuna market!!! Late summer is the most wonderful time for produce and I got beautiful beans, silver beet, beetroot, new seasons garlic, cos lettuce, red peppers, plums, peaches, scallopine and zucchini, all organic and all freshly picked!!! It was very exciting! Dinner last night was pork fillet in a delicious marinade from a Jamie Oliver book (included cumin seed, fennel seed, tomato sauce, smoked paprika and balsamic vinegar), fresh green beans with vinaigrette (this was so yummy – simple vinaigrette of Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, oil, lemon juice and crushed garlic) and a potato dish of thinly sliced potatoes (agria from my mother in law’s garden) layered with thinly sliced onion and grated vintage cheddar and baked. Great to use all this wonderful fresh produce!!!

1 comment:

Cakelaw said...

These look beautiful, regardless of their short shelf life. Dish has some really fab recipes that are different to what you see elsewhere.