A Miracle in My Kitchen

There weren't loaves, but there were fish. Or more specifically, a fish. At times I've wondered what I would do if I were ever faced by a wild, unexplainable once in a lifetime event. Now I know. I would, in this order:

1. run and grab my Nikon
2. do some shutterbugging
   
3. create new surface design to document the tremendous occasion
4. Hit my most visable public forum to chat it up - Hence our current post here at She Sure is Sketchy.
   

Friday in my frantic struggle to get out of New York, I spilled a spot of orange juice on the counter. It wasn't a lot of orange juice and I had to pack. I made an executive decision, leaving it on the counter, I decided I'd clean it up after I yanked my carry-on's zipper into submission.

When I came back to sponge up the spot, it had taken a hint from it's nearest neighbor, my favorite fishy glass. The little juice spot had taken the form of a bright juice guppy! I kid you not, this is a serious phenomenon and it happened in my little bitty kitchen in the heart of Brooklyn on a sunny September afternoon in the year 2009.

Sadly, the cookies accompanying the fish in this photo did not feed the starving masses. Those lucky few who did partake of them claimed they were a marvel in their own right. I am rock steady in my faith of the miraculous, never-changing perfect nature of homemade anything made with my dearest love, my new Cuisinart food processor. So, the cookie goodness was expected and unsurprising, albeit appreciated. If you're looking for your own small wonder here's the haps:

Shortbread Jelly Jam cookies
(as baked on the day of the Miracle of the Goldfish)

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• Interior scrapings of 1/2 split vanilla bean, preferably Tahitian
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• fruit preserves, any flavor - i am partial to apricot and raspberry
• sometimes I take this opportunity to add a touch of cardamom to the mix - but I do that with everything

1. Using the dough blade, In the bowl of a food processor, combine butter, sugar and salt and cream on medium speed until blended, about 2 minutes. Add the egg yolks one at a time. Blend in the vanilla bean scrapings and the extract. If you need to scrape down the bowl you should do it.

2. Turn the mixer off and add the flour. Turn the processor on until the flour is completely blended in. Remove the dough from the bowl. Working on parchment or wax paper, form dough into 4 logs 10 inches long and 1 1/4 inches in diameter; wrap and chill.

3. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

4. Cut a log into twenty 1/2-inch rounds. arrange them 2 inches apart on all sides on a parchment-lined or nonstick cookie sheet or sheets.With the back side of a spoon make a little jelly-jam sized well in the surface of each of the cookies. Fill the wells with jelly-jam, about a teaspoon per cookie if you are feeling stingy, more if you are benevolent and willing to help a miracle along.

5. Bake 15 to 20 minutes. Remove to a wire rack, you know the drill.

6. Bask in the glow of adoring fans.

My kitchen - A miracle mecca.