Basic Biscotti

I love biscotti. It travels well and makes a great snack or light sweet anytime. I like to make mine smaller and a little softer, not as crunchy. This last batch I based on a recipe I found on Allrecipes.com. I love that they have reviews of all their recipes and you can pretty much tell which ones will turn out good and which ones won't.

I do apologize for the not so great photo. I was going to line them up and take a nicer picture, but then I ended up sending several of them with my hubby on his business trip and by the time I realized I hadn't gotten a picture of the batch this was the last one!

Basic Biscotti
adapted from Biscotti Tosconi at Allrecipes.com

Servings: about 30
WW PointsPlus: 2

1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 tsp Fiori di Sicilia
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, KAF white wheat flour is great in this recipe!
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions: Preheat the oven to 325°. Grease and flour a large baking sheet, or use a seasoned stone.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and fiori di sicilia extract. Combine flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt. Stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Stir in mini chocolate chips. Divide dough into two pieces. Form into long flat loaves about 1/2 inch tall and 12 inches long. Place the loaves 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until a light golden brown. Cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes.   

With a serrated knife, cut diagonally into slices about 1/2 inch thick. Separate slices on stone and bake for another 8-10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

These are tasty plain, or you can melt some chocolate or white chocolate coating and drizzle over the top. Store biscotti at room temperature in an airtight container.

Menu Plan Monday #13

Starting up the Menu Plan a little early this week because I've found a couple of recipes I want to try and wanted to add them here so I wouldn't lose track of where there were. Well that, and to remind myself on the weekend when I'm making a grocery list to get the items I need for these too.

The first one is Spiced Persimmon & Pecan Muffins from Cooking Light. I've never tried persimmon, so this is my adventurous recipe for this week. I've got a few persimmon coming in my box from Full Circle Farm. They have a corresponding food blog that has great recipes for using the ingredients that come in one's box. I'm looking forward to trying this recipe & sampling persimmons!

The second is Cranberry Bars from Allrecipes. Last month when I was in Washington I picked up a couple of cranberry bars that had been made with fresh cranberries at a farmers market. It was so good! I thought it might be tasty so I bought 2, one to eat and one to freeze so I could try to find a suitable recipe to replicate it. I've still got 1/2 a bar in the freezer so I can taste test it against this recipe. I don't think it will be Weight Watchers friendly, but it will hopefully make a nice addition to holiday cookie trays.

That reminds me, I need to start a post with recipes that are great in holiday cookie trays. For now, let's revisit the Gingerbread biscotti recipe that was such a hit last year.

And, on to the menu plan:

Monday:  Veggie Stir Fry (Meatless Monday)

Tuesday: WW Lemon Chicken with Roasted Potatoes (& other roasted veg)

Wednesday: Muffin Cup Meatloaf - carryover from last week, a couple of nights the menu plan just didn't happen

Thursday: Potato Soup

Friday: TBD

Saturday: Salmon Lettuce Wraps - attempting to modify this recipe for Chicken Lettuce Wraps to use Salmon.

Sunday: Homemade pizza or leftovers


Check out hundreds of other menu plans at orgjunkie.

More Biscotti!!

Here is another biscotti recipe I've tried recently. After the success of the Gingerbread biscotti I wanted to try another one that wasn't "holiday" flavored. This one was tasty, but not as good as the gingerbread.

Snickerdoodle Biscotti

1 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla
3 large eggs
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 oz. white baking bar or candy coating.

1. Preheat Oven to 375.
2. Measure flours into a large bowl using the scoop and level method.
3. Add 1C Sugar, Baking powder, and salt & stir together.
4. Mix Oil Vanilla and whole eggs in a small bowl and add to the large
bowl, your dough will be dry and quite crumbly.
5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead 7 or 8 times.
6. Divide in half. Shape each portion into a roll, and place them six or
so inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment.
7. Flatten each roll to 1 inch thick with wet fingers
8. Combine the 1 tablespoons Sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle rolls with
cinnamon sugar.
9. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.
10. Remove from the sheet and cool for 10 minutes.
11. Cut diagonally into 1/2 inch slices and lay them cut sides down on the
cookie sheet again.
12. Reduce oven temp to 325 and then bake 10 more minutes, turn over and
bake 10 more. They'll be soft in the middle but will harden as they cool.
13. Cool completely on a wire rack.

from Master Cook:
Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 76 Calories; 1g Fat (17.6% calories
from fat); 2g Protein; 14g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 18mg Cholesterol;
50mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 0 Fat; 1/2 Other
Carbohydrates.

Mmmmm, Gingerbread Biscotti

Here is the Gingerbread Biscotti recipe. It is a winner for sure!

Gingerbread Biscotti – original recipe from allrecipes.com but I made some changes



INGREDIENTS:
6 Tbsp cold butter
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup molasses
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour 1 tablespoon baking powder
**1 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger
**3/4 tablespoon ground cinnamon
**1/2 tablespoon ground cloves
**1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instead of this mix of spices I used 3 ½ tsp Pampered Chef Cinnamon Plus spice blend

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a cookie sheet.
2. Combine dry ingredients (flours, spices, sugar, baking powder) in large mixing bowl. Whisk dry ingredients together. Cut in cold butter.
In a small bowl, mix together eggs, vanilla, and molasses. mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients to form a stiff dough.
3. Divide dough in half (or thirds for smaller cookies), and shape each half into a roll the length of the cookie sheet. Place rolls on cookie sheet, and pat down to flatten the dough to 1/2 inch thickness.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven, and set aside to cool.
5. When cool enough to touch (about 10 minutes), cut into 1/2 inch thick diagonal slices. Place sliced biscotti on cookie sheet, and bake an additional 5 to 7 minutes on each side, or until toasted and crispy. (if you’re baking on a Pampered Chef stone stand up slices and bake about 6 minutes) Remove from stone and cool completelty.

Once completely cooled drizzle w/melted chocolate & assorted sprinkles.

NI: 70 cal, 2 fat, 1 fiber