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Thursday, November 4, 2010

A Little Thank You

Well, this is really fun.  I can't believe I was nervous about launching You Little Tarte.  Everyone has been so nice and so supportive.  Why didn't I do this years ago?

Did I ever mention how I finally came to push the publish button? I have Gwyneth Paltrow to thank.  That's right, Gwyneth Paltrow. I get her weekly blog, GOOP, and a while back there was an article about which food blogs Gwyneth enjoyed reading.  G.P. is cool so I took a look at the blogs she likes.   After all, she and I have so much in common. We're both mothers, we both like to cook.  Okay, so maybe not so much in common, but we do have two things in common.  Anyway, the other blogs were fun and I said to myself," I can do that".  And that's it. I had been waiting to find "my idea" and Gwyneth, with the impossibly thin thighs and chic outfits, led me to my idea.  Thank you Gwyneth.  Let's do lunch.

Here are a couple of the things I really like about writing You Little Tarte.

I get to talk about food and cooking, and just about anything else I want.  This is particularly nice because, while Ted and the kids are happy to be the recipients of my handiwork in the kitchen, I'm not always sure they want to hear about my love affair with my Le Creuset dutch oven.  (They sometimes look a little glazed over but I just keep talking.)

By now, you know who Ted, Kate, and Charlie are.  You've met a couple of my friends, heard all about why I love Ina Garten.  You know all about Deborah's new Dior boots and that Mona and Emily make really good muffins.  And, there's more where that came from.  Just wait.

One of the really nice aspects of all this fun is that I've gotten to connect with people I haven't seen in, well, forever.  My long lost best friend from junior high,  Karen,  has been reading the blog and even sent me a cookbook to try out, California Kosher.  There are a bunch of delicious sounding kugel recipes that I have to try  This may call for a Salute to Kugel.  I can hardly wait.  Karen and I were, as Kate would say, besties, back at Mulholland Junior High School in Van Nuys, California.  We once slathered ourselves with baby oil and baked in the sun for six hours.  (What can I say, times were different.  No one worried about things like skin cancer.)

 I guess the point of all this is that I just want to say thank you for reading You Little Tarte.  I also want to thank you in advance for passing it along to all of your friends (and even people who aren't your friends)  who you think might also enjoy it.  There's strength in numbers!!  In just three weeks  we've had over 800 hits and lots of email subscriptions.  This is amazing.  I am woman, hear me roar!

So, let's keep in touch.  Let me know if there's anything you would like to read about.  I'm just learning about this whole blog thing, so I'm open to all thoughts and suggestions.  I have to say, if you're having half as much fun reading this as I am writing it, well, we're all doing better than fine.

Today I went looking for my standard chocolate chip cookie recipe and came across this one for Peanut Butter Toffee Cookies instead.   I had a couple of leftover Heath bars from last week's Halloween Bark, so in an effort to be "thrifty,"  and use what I had in the house, I whipped these up.  They're delicious.  Let me know what you think.


Peanut Butter Toffee Cookies
(Martha Stewart, 2009)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/6 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 large egg
2 chocolate covered toffee candy bars (1.4 oz. each), chopped

Preheat the oven to 350.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on high speed, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add peanut butter and egg; beat until smooth.  With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture.  Stir in toffee.

Using 1 level table batter per cookie, drop onto baking sheets about 1 inch apart; flatten slightly with a fork.  Bake until edges are golden, 16-18 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies immediately to a wire rack to cool completely.

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