Shortbread – the Best Cookie in the World

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

I’ve been on a cookie tear recently, and it’s reminded me just how much I love shortbread. It’s arguably the best cookie in the world, especially when made with the very best ingredients. Butter, sugar and flour, that’s it, and each has to be of the highest quality to shine.

The way I like to jazz up shortbread is by simply adding spices to it and treating it like an eating utensil for ice cream. Cardamom Shortbread Cookies is inspired by ginger crunch cookies from New Zealand, one my favorites. I add cardamom and ginger to the basic shortbread dough and then add a touch of sea salt on top. This headily spiced cookie is the perfect foil for vanilla ice cream, but would also pair well with chocolate, strawberry or any classic, mellow ice cream flavor.

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Everything is Beautiful at the Marché

Enter to win a collection of food items from France, selected by Sandy, along with Around my French Table cookbook by Dorie Greenspan. To enter the sweepstakes, go to http://bit.ly/YGrDyy. Follow Sandy in France on Twitter to keep updated on new goodies for the prize package.

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

Saturday at the marché in Arles, I was reminded once again why I had wanted to make this town our home base during our vacation in Provence. We are staying, instead, in Avignon. Avignon is beautiful and we have a chic (and affordable) apartment inside the walled city. No problem there.

But the Saturday market in Arles is my favorite, and all the fabulous food stalls beckon, making me want to go home and cook. I kept humming the song from A Chorus Line...Everything is beautiful at the (instead of ballet) marché. Because everything IS beautiful, from the most gorgeous fruits and vegetables, to the luscious cheeses, the crusty breads and flaky pastries, the meats and seafood, the herbs and spices, the honey...

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Try this Hot and Hearty Sandwich for Dinner

Enter to win a collection of food items from France, selected by Sandy, along with Around my French Table cookbook by Dorie Greenspan. To enter the sweepstakes, go to http://bit.ly/YGrDyy. Follow Sandy in France on Twitter to keep updated on new goodies for the prize package.

By David Hu
A new video for Video Friday

Much as I try to cook dinner most weekday evenings, sometimes I’m too tired or there’s not quite enough time. In these instances, sandwiches tend to be one of my go-to meals: quick and usually made with pantry-stocked ingredients.

I try to make a hot sandwich because it seems a little more dinner-like and more satisfying. Today’s video recipe is a take on the classic French Croque Monsieur. Some Croque Monsieurs require broilers but this one’s made easily on stovetop. From start to finish you’ll be eating in under 10 minutes. It goes great with a green salad.

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Rainy Day Soup

Enter to win a collection of food items from France, selected by Sandy, along with Around my French Table cookbook by Dorie Greenspan. To enter the sweepstakes, go to http://bit.ly/YGrDyy. Follow Sandy in France on Twitter to keep updated on new goodies for the prize package.

By Lori Powell
For One or Two Bites, a blog for singles and couples

The spring rains have begun as well as some amazing thunder clappers. This past week delivered not only tons of rain and high winds but lots of buds and flowering bushes and green grass. This is my favorite time of year (fall is a close second).

Today is a day of gardening and digging out of last year's twigs and fall leaves that found there way into my garden to form a protective blanket until spring really arrived. So maybe it's a tad early, as I know that up here in the Hudson Valley, they say, do not plant or uncover until frost is really a distant memory, which locals say is around May 15.

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Welcoming Spring with Strawberries

Enter to win a collection of food items from France, selected by Sandy, along with Around my French Table cookbook by Dorie Greenspan. To enter the sweepstakes, go to bit.ly/YGrDyy. Follow Sandy in France on Twitter to keep updated on new goodies for the prize package.

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

The time I’ve been waiting for all winter is finally here: the first of the season’s strawberries.

I’m surprised to find out that many people don’t associate spring with strawberries, but I do. In the South, they always marked the arrival of new spring crops and, of course, lasted well into the summer, when most people think strawberries are at their best. And while I agree with that opinion, I still love the first strawberries, with their slight tartness.

That tartness suits them well to maceration, my favorite treatment for strawberries. Akin to marinating meat, maceration is when you soak a fruit in liquid in order to soften it. How you macerate it and in what liquid is where you can get creative.

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