How about something sweet ? This confection, which I’ve known about as long as I’ve known my husband (that would be…19 years or so, yikes), is no longer something I can eat, as it has almonds – but I remember it fondly from our college days (when he made it recently for a work potluck he got roundly scolded for making something his wife couldn’t eat). It’s been handwritten in the back of our old Moosewood Cookbook forever, along with the Sour Cream Coffeecake and the Red Bell Pepper Pesto. I hadn’t realized the story behind the recipe’s name until recently, so I asked him to write a little about it: 

It’s amazing how one rarely questions the things with which one has grown up. Take this dessert. Chocolatey and creamy, it’s almost a mousse, but then there are the ground almonds, giving it a firmer texture and a little bit of gritty crunch before it dissolves. That’s not a mousse; it’s caribou. Or at least that’s what we called it in my family.

Only when I got into cooking and baking in college and begged the recipe from my mother did I discover that it had another name – La Reine de Saba (the Queen of Sheba). Once again, I didn’t question the name. I had suspected that caribou was not the actual name, and La Reine de Saba sounded reasonable.

Except that this dessert isn’t like any of the other versions of La Reine de Saba that I have found. Those versions all have eggs, and most have at least a little bit of flour, yielding a dense, fudgy cakelike product. My family’s version is definitely not fudgy or cakelike. But it is mighty tasty.

Caribou (Reine de Saba)

Melt:

• 12 oz chocolate chips
• 4 oz German sweet chocolate
• 1 stick unsalted butter

then add:

• 4 oz ground almonds
• 2 Tbsp Creme de Cacao, Grand Marnier, Tuaca or other liqueur

Cool.

Whip 1 cup cream. Fold it into the chocolate mixture. Scrape into a buttered 1 qt casserole and chill 2-3 hours. Cut into squares and serve. Getting the first piece out is always hard – better eat that one.

For the last six months or so there has been a recipe (a clipping from Bon Appetit or some such publication) stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. I guess I somehow thought that if it was out in plain sight I would actually make it – sort of a triumph of optimism over experience. Turns out that staring at something every day doesn’t necessarily inspire you to do something about it…

I did make it, finally, for a middle-eastern themed dinner party we gave recently. Sort of a miracle, really. The recipe was for muhammara, a Syrian puree of roasted red peppers, walnuts and pomegranate molasses, and it seemed so completely up my alley that I can’t believe how long I waited to try it. I’m usually such a sucker for anything with pomegranate molasses. As it turned out, though, I decided not to use the clipping, which called for jarred peppers and panko crumbs. I went with a recipe from Cooking with Amy instead, just tweaking it slightly. Like many dips, this is a very forgiving recipe, so you could adjust it however you wanted.

By the way, this is how I usually roast peppers. I know you get a better flavor by holding them over an open flame and blistering them black, but it’s simpler and more hands-off to cut them in half and put them in a hot oven until the skin blisters. It loses a little of the juice, but you get a more even application of heat. Then it’s easy to rub the skin off.

The only real issue I had making the muhammara was that I was rapidly running out of olive oil (we were using it in everything), so I went a little sparing on it, leading to a dip a bit thicker in texture than I would have liked. Also, I used two red peppers and one orange, which looked beautiful at the market but produced a slightly drab-colored blend – all red is definitely the way to go.

For our dinner party I put this dip out with a bowl of blue corn chips, some toasted pita wedges and a bowl of semolina crackers from the Breadfarm. The slightly sweet, crispy crackers were the winner with the muhammara. Thin baguette slices would also be lovely, I think.

I also found a great-sounding idea in Greg Malouf’s book on Lebanese and Syrian cooking, Saha - it calls for stirring together muhammara and labneh (yogurt cheese). I’ll have to make myself a note to try that sometime, I might get around to it in the next year…

Muhammara

• 3 red bell peppers
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 Tbsp pomegranate molasses
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp cumin
• hefty pinch red chile flakes, or a fresh hot red chile, chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup olive oil

Roast the peppers and peel them, saving the juices. Lightly toast the walnuts in a skillet and let them cool.

Combine everything but the oil in a food processor. Once it’s blended to a paste, keep the motor running and add the oil in a thin stream. Scrape into a bowl and serve.

As so often happens, last time we were at my parents’ house there was a box of pears to deal with. I took what I thought was a modest assortment and hoped they wouldn’t all ripen at once. So far, so good – only two came ripe this week, although I did have to put them in the fridge until I was ready for them.

We had already made and eaten a pear custard pie not long ago, so this pair of pears was treated to our other usual preparation: poached in sugar water in the oven, then stuffed with a mixture of chopped pecans, sugar, brandy, vanilla and sour cream. Unbelievably, this recipe came out of a Betty Crocker cookbook, but it really is a winner: tender, sweet, hot pears with a rich crunchy filling – what’s not to like?

Pears with nut-sour cream filling

Adapted from Betty Crocker’s New International Cookbook. Serves two (amounts are estimated – I tend to just add things until it tastes right).

two pears, peeled, halved and cored
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup white sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup pecans (or other nuts)
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp brandy
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp sour cream

Preheat the oven to 325°. Mix the water, sugar and lemon juice in a 9×9 inch roasting pan and put the pears in – turn them several time to coat them with the liquid. Bake for 25 minutes. Arrange the pears cut side up in two soup plates.

In a small bowl, combine the nuts, sugar, brandy, vanilla and sour cream. Spoon this mixture into the hollows of the pears. If desired (i.e. if you have a larger capacity for rich desserts than I do) you can mix more sugar and sour cream in a bowl and spoon it over the top. Serve.

I finally got hold of a bottle of Clear Creek pear brandy recently, so I decided to try a little nip with the baked pears. It actually didn’t go very well, because the flavor is so thoroughly pear that it just disappeared alongside the dessert. It was excellent sipped afterwards, though.

I’m not necessarily a big one for making Christmas cookies, but I do like to do some baking over the holidays. In past years I’ve made a lot of biscotti, since it ships well, and occasionally chocolate crinkles. But last winter I went back to making a recipe that was a favorite of my grandmother’s – she picked it up while she and my grandfather were living in Corpus Christi, Texas, during World War II. They’re very simple cookies, but they remind me of her – plus they’re fabulously delicious. If I make no other cookies for the holidays, I will make these.

Corpus Christi Pecan Cookies

from the recipe files of Maurine Tuttle

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• a good shake of salt
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Mix everything together more or less in the order written. Drop onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350° until set and just golden brown around the bottom. Eat warm, cool or frozen.

You may have noticed, not only is this a very simple recipe, the instructions are pretty vague. That’s because it hardly matters what you do, these cookies will be good. See these cookies I just made? I forgot to add the baking soda to them. They were wonderful.