We’re usually not very good at posting holiday recipes very far in advance of the holidays, but this time we’re on the ball. Purim is at the end of next week, but we’ve already made our first batch of hamantaschen. The recipe is from the only place to find a decent hamantaschen recipe these days: my mom’s old synagogue cookbook.

So goes the dough, so goes the hamantaschen — which means that creating a dough with perfect flavor and consistency is crucial. This recipe is great because it calls for just enough sugar, and results in a cookie that holds together well (far too many hamantaschen are overly crumby) but still gives a good crunch. As for fillings, anything goes! We used two pre-made fillings — raspberry jam and poppy seed filling, but also did our own apple-pie filling by cooking apples together with sugar, cinnamon, raisins, butter and a bit of cornstarch. With this dough, however, I imagine that almost anything will taste great.

Ingredients:
4 cups sifted flour
3/4 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs beaten (+1 additional egg, beaten)
1/2 cup cooking oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
fillings

Instructions:
Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add 4 eggs, oil and vanilla. Blend thoroughly. Roll portions of dough onto floured board, 1/4-inch thick. Cut into 4-inch rounds (glass size). Place about a tsp of filling in center. Run a wet finger around the circumference of the dough and pinch edges together to form a triangle. Place on greased cookie sheet. Brush with 1 beaten egg mixed with a small amount of water. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. Makes 2 1/2 dozen.

It’s time we returned to some beautiful food. Though the last few things we’ve posted certainly tasted delicious, they weren’t the most aesthetically pleasing dishes. Last night, however, we made a variation of the most interesting and gorgeous rice and fruit spring rolls from Vegetarian Times Magazine. We’ve made Vietnamese summer rolls with noodles and such before, but this sweet twist on the dish is meant to be served as a dessert.

The recipe calls for sweetening the rice with honey and vanilla, and features a coconut milk dipping sauce. But since we’ve been feeling more lactose-intolerant than usual these days, we nixed the dipping sauce and instead created our own duo of sauces: strawberry and caramel. We loved the result, and would definitely do this again. Rolling wet rice into rice paper is slightly more difficult than rolling the noodle combination, but we quickly got the hang of it, so don’t become discouraged if the first few look a bit wonky. This is so lovely for serving to guests — just sweet enough, pretty, simple.

Ingredients:
1 cup jasmine rice
2 tbsp honey
3 tsp vanilla extract
4 kiwi, finely diced
10 strawberries, finely diced, 10 slices reserved
10 small spring roll wrappers
(strawberry sauce and caramel sauces):
1 cup frozen strawberries
sugar

Instructions:
Cook rice in two cups of water, honey and vanilla. Once rice is cooked, set aside and cool. Fold in diced strawberries and kiwis. Dip one spring roll wrapper in water for about 30 seconds, until soft. Lay on a flat surface; spoon about 2 tbsp rice mixture onto the spring roll and top with a strawberry slice. Roll spring roll tightly and tuck in sides. Repeat for all spring rolls, and refrigerate. To make the sauces, melt and mash strawberries in a saucepan with sugar to taste (probably about 1/2 cup). Strain if you like, and refrigerate until completely cool. Then, melt additional sugar into a caramel sauce by heating over low heat. Spoon strawberry sauce over a plate, and place a spring roll on top. Spoon caramel sauce over over top, and serve.

Alex’s brother, Phil, is here visiting from Boston. We decided that we would make pizza for dinner, and were running through various topping options when I discovered the unthinkable: Neither Alex nor Phil had even heard of (not to mention, tasted) barbecue chicken pizza. We soon learned that this was because they were also oblivious to the existence of California Pizza Kitchen, a chain restaurant commonly found in malls and similar establishments that is widely known for this variety of pizza. I actually first tasted this incredibly yummy dish about six years ago, at a local pizza place near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Random. I’m not a huge pizza person, but I became completely enamored by this amazing combination of toppings — chicken, barbecue sauce, cheese and onions. So if you, like Alex and Phil (and Phil’s friend Cassidy), are unfortunate enough to have gone so many years without this, start preheating your oven.

Though the ingredients are mostly self-explanatory, we sought guidance from a recipe for the pizza that we found on Epicurious. Out of 64 reviews, 97% said they would make it again, so we were sold. We ended up modifying it slightly because we forgot to buy red onions, and I’ll post what we did below. Additionally, unlike with our last pizza successes, we were too lazy to make dough from scratch. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the dough we bought frozen was gluten-free — oops. The toppings completely made up for the odd consistency of the crust, however, and Alex, Phil and Cassidy were successfully inducted into the cult of barbecue pizza lovers.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 large boneless chicken breast halves
2/3 cup hickory-flavored barbecue sauce
7 ounces smoked Gouda cheese, coarsely shredded
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 green onion, chopped

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450. Heat oil in a skillet. Season chicken with salt and pepper, add to skillet and sauté until just cooked through, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer to plate and rest for 5 minutes, before slicing chicken into strips. In a bowl, toss strips with 1/2 cup of the barbecue sauce. Roll out the dough, and fit it onto a baking sheet. Spread half of the cheese over the dough. Arrange chicken slices over the dough, then sprinkle onions on top. Drizzle with remaining barbecue sauce. Sprinkle with remaining cheese, and green onion on top. Bake until cheese melts and crust is crisp, about 14 minutes. Let cool a bit, then serve.

I’m the person you hate, the person who picks the charms out of the Lucky Charms cereal box. You may also know me as the person who only eats the icing off cakes, or — and I swear this only happened once — the person who licks the cheese powder off cheesy pretzels. I just want to eat what I like, and I loooooove those little charms. I love their crunch and I’m cheered by how bright and artificial they are. The idea of designing a muffin around them is one that I’d been toying with for a while. I first thought about baking a cereal-based muffin a few months ago, but when deciding which cereal to incorporate, I couldn’t get these charms out of my brain (my mind grapes — 30 Rock, anyone?) So though this version doesn’t have actual cereal, stay tuned, because this is only the beginning of a wonderful journey into the unknown world of cereal muffins.

I was pretty nervous about these because I didn’t know what exactly would happen to them in the oven. The great news is that the muffins themselves came out wonderfully. They looked a bit wacky because of the colors, but the charms melted the perfect amount, and even kept their crunch. The mediocre news is that I used a sub-par marshmallow icing recipe (I should have known from the proportions, but I was too excited to notice) and my icing came out wet. I didn’t have more powdered sugar and I didn’t feel like figuring something else out, so I just used gooey icing. The story ends happily, though, because the muffins tasted great and so did the icing, which eventually hardened. So the muffins look a little drippy, but they managed to retain the St. Patrick’s Day look (and the deliciousness) that I originally aimed for!

I used the basic vanilla muffin recipe from our vanilla chocolate chip muffins, and simply substituted in the charms. I’m not going to post the marshmallow icing recipe that I’m used, but I’m sure there are millions out there that you can use and just dye a bit green with food coloring. Be sure to top your muffins with an extra charm for good luck!

Ingredients:
2 cups self-rising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1 1/2 cup marshmallow charms
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup milk (skim works)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400. Line your muffin pan with paper muffin cups. Mix the flour and baking powder together in a large bowl, add the butter and rub it into the mixture. Stir in sugar. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, milk and vanilla, then pour this mixture over the dry one. Mix in charms until combined, and spoon batter into the muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, until well-risen and golden. Cool for about 10 minutes, and serve.

During my last visit home, my parents challenged me to cook dinner. As I’ve mentioned, I wasn’t much of a chef while living at home, and I think they wanted proof that Alex doesn’t do all of the cooking while I skipper around in the background. Anyway, I found a delicious recipe in my mom’s Mario Batali cookbook for chicken in wine sauce. I shopped for the ingredients, brought them home, and began working. Within minutes, my mom was in the kitchen, chopping beside me. And before I knew it, she’d started cooking, ditched the recipe, and created her own version of dish I planned to make. Though I was slightly mad for a second or two (“Fine! You just do the whole thing! Will I EVER be allowed to do ANYTHING in this house?”), I realized that moms will be moms (would we have them any other way?) and, of course, it tasted delicious anyway.

Today, we re-made Mario’s chicken in wine sauce, and I am smug to report that it tasted even more delicious when we followed the recipe (boo-yah!). I really, really love this dish. Though there are some annoying steps, such as blanching and peeling almonds, its so worth it because the flavors absolutely melt together. It’s sweet but slightly tangy, and the sauce smells so yummy — honey, wine and cinnamon simmering together gently, sigh. We served this over rice with a small side salad.

I haven’t posted a link to a recipe in a while, but I’m going to send you all over to the Food Network post for this one, since we really did follow it word for word. My only note (from both attempts) is that the sauce takes way longer than 20 minutes to boil down to 1 cup. Otherwise, get your prep work done early and get ready to taste some perfection.