Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies

These used to be a Christmas tradition in my family. But when my Grandmother passed, the cookies faded away. I was going through my recipes, ones that my mother kept in her "cookbook" and found this recipe. The recipe was in my Grandmother's handwriting. He measurements were a little kooky... a cup was actually a drinking glass... 2.5 lbs was 1/2 of a bag of flour... a tablespoon was a soup spoon. After taste testing each (only 3), I figured it out. I also modified the cooking time from 10-12 minutes to 8 minutes. The cookies our now MY tradition. Maybe next year, I will share a batch with more family member, that is if we don't eat them all up :)


2.5 lbs flour
2.5 cups sugar
2 sticks butter
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon allspice
1 tablespoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon nutmeg
2 cups of warm milk
15 oz box dark raisin
Powdered sugar drizzle

Cream together butter and sugar. Sift all dry ingredients together and add to butter and sugar. Add milk until mixture reseamble meatball mixture - should be a little tacky. Add raisin. Roll in golf ball size ball and bake in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes. Cool and frost with powder sugar drizzle.

Pasta with Cognac Cream Sauce

Still working on finishing that bottle of cognac :)

Pasta is my weakness. Since losing 20 lbs on Weight Watchers, I have switched to a high fiber diet. Fiber Gourmet makes great pasta! I have a bag of red and black pepper fettuccine. 2 oz is 130 calories, 1 g fat and 18 g of fiber. I started with a basic marinara sauce: 1/2 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp olive oil. I deglazed with 1 oz of cognac. Then I added 1 (15 oz) can of diced tomatoes to deglazed onions, then added 1 oz of fat free cream cheese, 1 large handful of spinach, 5 medium shrimp and 3 garlic Spanish olives.

I let the sauce simmer for about 5 minutes, until the cheese was melted. Mixed with the pasta! It was so good!!

Brussel Sprouts with Bacon and Cognac

Brussel Sprouts with Bacon and Cognac

We received cognac last Christmas as a gift. Today I was thinking of ways to use the last of the bottle so I can make room in my pantry for cookie stuff.

I had brussel sprouts that need to be cooked off, so I chopped some garlic, halved the sprouts, poured about a teaspoon of olive oil in a non stick saute pan and microwaved some bacon. When the sprouts started to get golden, I flipped them over and poured a half an ounce of the cognac and half a teaspoon of unsalted butter. I plated the sprouts and topped with bacon.