Greek Cookies, Lung and Liver Grub and Book News

First the book news: I’m delighted to say that Ellora’s Cave has contracted another of my books, Wednesday Nights with Jamie. It’s a contemporary erotic romantic comedy with an interracial theme. No release date yet. I’ll have more info about this story, including the formal blurb and some excerpts, up on my website soon.

More book news: Ellora’s Cave has given me a September 6 release date for Accidental Foursome, the sequel to Polly’s Perilous Pleasures! I’ve updated my website with blurb and two excerpts. I’ll add the cover as soon as I receive it from EC. I recently blogged about this story here.

This is where the Greek cookie part comes in. Most of Accidental Foursome is set in Greece, which made me hungry for some of my favorite Greek foods. So I decided to bake a batch of koulourakia, which are Greek Easter cookies (recipe below). They’re just slightly sweet, dry and are perfect with coffee or wine. These cookies are traditionally formed into S-shapes, coils, circles or twists, glazed with an egg wash and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

My wonderful husband gave me a KitchenAid mixer last year so I used that to make the cookies. I’ve always made koulourakia by hand before so this was a first. It also became a madcap kitchen disaster. You see, there are many versions of this recipe. I’ve used the one below most often in the past. A failsafe recipe. This time however, with dieting on my mind, I decided to substitute an alternate recipe using two additional cups of flour so each cookie would be even lower in fat and sugar than they already are. Big mistake.

Daisy’s Lesson Learned: Don’t be such a know-it-all dunderhead and just read the damned instructions for the mixer before using it to make cookie dough for the first time.

It’s just that, because I’m forever dieting, I rarely use the mixer. Hell, I just about never even bake cookies at all anymore for that matter, so I’m a little rusty. The KitchenAid sits in a position of honor on my kitchen counter, like a great metal kitchen god, where I gaze at it dreaming and drooling about all the decadent goodies I could be making with it. Let me tell you, this mega-powerful mixer ain’t like the old Sunbeam mixer my mother used when I was a kid. Uh-uh. At high speed this machine makes the entire house rumble and there were a few times I could swear it was ready to take off and fly around the room.

Well, the mixer didn’t fly around the room, but my cookie dough did. Really. Literally. I kid you not. During five choruses of the mixer’s Whap, Thunk, Splat routine I let out a resounding shriek. Alone in the house, it was like I was Lucy with Ethel nowhere to be found. By the time I’d regained control, my kitchen and I were covered with flour and clumps of cookie dough had been flung into the deepest, darkest recesses of my cooking domain. During my flailing flurry of culinary alarm, I somehow knocked the carton of eggs (with 3 eggs left in it) to the floor, along with the bag of flour, which, thank God, only had about a cup left in it. Once the panic wore off I found myself laughing hysterically when I thought, once again, about people asking me where I get my ideas for writing comedy.

I took pictures to share here, but you can just forget about it because I’m not posting any of them. The photographic evidence of my kitchen cookie disaster was so extreme, so beyond ridiculous, no one would ever believe they weren’t totally contrived for the purposes of including on my blog. Yeah, it was that bad.

From now on I’ll be making these cookies by hand. There’s a lot of kneading involved and I can use the exercise. The recipe (the foolproof one I usually use):

Easy Koulourakia

1 cup butter (please don’t skimp and use margarine)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs (reserve one yolk for glaze)
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon of fresh squeezed orange or lemon juice; or whiskey
sesame seeds for topping

Cream butter. Add sugar gradually and cream together thoroughly. Add eggs (reserving one yolk for glaze) and beat well. Blend in juice and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients. Knead well until dough is smooth. Pinch off pieces and roll on board lightly by hand to desired length (about 6-inches is good). Fold in half and make into twists or other shapes. Place on lightly oiled cookie sheet. For glaze, brush with mixture of egg yolk and one tablespoon of cold water. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Place on cookie rack to cool. These don’t have to be refrigerated.

Go ahead, be creative and experiment with this recipe. It really is pretty much foolproof. You can use the basic dough in many different ways. I like to add chopped almonds, pecans or walnuts and then sprinkle the egg-washed tops with a mixture of coarse sugar and finely chopped nuts before baking. Or try doing jam thumbprints; or hiding a candied cherry or chocolate (or both) inside; or frosting them, etc. But they’re great plain, and not too bad for weight watchers.

Which brings me to the liver and lung part. *shudder*

While searching for my Greek cookbook I came across a book I’d picked up from a garage sale a couple of years ago. Jean Nidetch: Weight Watchers Cook Book. Clearly, a not-so-subtle reminder from the diet gods that I should have been focusing on losing weight rather than baking cookies. Yeah, whatever. Anyway I got sidetracked and started thumbing through the WW book. It has a 1966 copyright and includes the complete WW program, menu plans and recipes. We’re talking nice, easy, yummy recipes like:

Calves Liver Kabob: 8 ounces calves liver; 2 stalks celery, diced. Wipe calves liver with damp paper towel. String on skewers with celery dice. Broil quickly close to flame until liver is brown, turning as necessary. Makes 1 serving.

If the idea of unseasoned liver on a stick doesn’t float your boat, then there’s always:

Lung and Onion Stew a La Grace: 1 pound beef lung; 2 onions; 1 tsp. salt; 1/2-tsp pepper; 3 cups water. Wash lung and cut into cubes (about 3-inch size). Slice onion, add salt, pepper and water. Cook on high flame in heavy tightly-covered kettle about 2 hours or until lung is tender and most of water has disappeared. Add additional water during cooking if necessary. When ready to be eaten lung should be tender and there should be only about 1/2 cup thick liquid or gravy on bottom of pan. Makes two servings.

On my word of honor these recipes are not made up. They’re really and truly in that book. And since I’m convinced that I lost a good 10 pounds just by reading through those heinous recipes, I thoroughly and guiltlessly enjoyed the hell out of a handful of koulourakia with a cup of espresso after dinner that night.

So, had any kitchen disasters of your own? Tell me about them. Please. It might help to make me feel like less of a domestic dimwit.

Friday, August 11 Update:



Thank you, M.E. Ellis! I’m truly honored and delighted. You really made my day!