Christmas Biscotti and Snowflake Cookies ready for School Christmas Fair.

These biscotti are crunchy and fabulous and extremely useful to have in a tin.  They go perfectly with a cup of coffee and are just the ticket around Christmas for those of you not so keen on the endless array of mincemeat treats.  You can customise the biscotti to your own tastes but I couldn’t resist the red, white and green combination of dried cranberries, white chocolate and pistachios – it is this colourful trio which makes them Christmas Biscotti.  By all means leave out any of the above if they are not to your liking, I omitted the nuts when I made these for our school fair.

These would make a very elegant accompaniment to coffee after dinner, perhaps with a glass of Vin Santo into which to dip them.  Adding a bowl of clementines with their glossy leaves still attached and some big fat dates would make this suitably Christmassy.

100g caster sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

125g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

A pinch of salt

25g white chocolate chips

25g dried cranberries

25g pistachios

Preheat oven to 180. Whisk the sugar and egg together, add the vanilla, flour, baking powder and salt and mix well.  Finally gently fold in the chocolate, cranberries and pistachios.   Form the dough into an oval log and put on a parchment lined tray.  Bake for 25 minutes then turn the oven down to 160, cool for 5 minutes, cut into slices and put these slices back onto the tray and bake for a further 10 minutes, turning once.  Makes about 20.

My granny had an orange Tupperware for biscuits which usually contained Nice biscuits (Nice you note, rather than nice).  I wasn’t very keen on the container nor on the contents but always forced one down in the way that children seem unable to turn down a biscuit.  Now that I think about it, biscuits in the 70’s were not what they are today.

Bourbons, pink wafers, custard creams, Rich Tea, digestives, gingersnaps. Then there were Garibaldi, exotically named and invitingly glazed but always mouth puckeringly dry.  Viscounts with their pat of mint cream, a real treat as foil wrapped almost counted as confectionery.  Oh and those hefty rectangular shortbread bricks which invariably came in a tartan packet.   We weren’t exactly spoilt for choice back then.

Now however, biscuits practically take up an entire aisle in the supermarket.  All the above remain, time will not wither us etc. but there are now hundreds of newcomers from the white chocolate dipped cranberry beauty to the extraordinary pencil thin Mikado.  There are Belgian chocolate dipped wafers, American Oreo’s and various French sables and galettes.   For the purposes of research you understand I tasted a few old favourites, Breakaway – the chocolate didn’t seem as thick and am I imagining it or are they smaller than they were?  Or perhaps I am just bigger.  Blue Riband which I remember as a proper after school treat were dry and disappointing.  Kit Kat’s happily remain exactly the same.

So I parade up and down the shelves looking at what is there and what is new but then a voice in my head pipes up “we will make biscuits at home – home made are much nicer…” When I was a child these words would make my heart sink, bought things seemed so much more exciting and yet, I can hardly believe it is me saying them now.  True though and here is a recipe which I hope will prove the point.

Vanilla Biscuits

100g soft butter

30g icing sugar (plus a little extra to dust)

90g plain flour

30g cornflour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.  Cream the butter and sugar together and then add the flours and vanilla until combined.  Put the mixture in the fridge for 20 minutes to make it a little easier to handle.  Take a teaspoonful and roll into a ball, put on the baking sheet and flatten gently with a fork (dip the fork in flour so it doesn’t stick).  Repeat with the rest of the dough and then bake for 20 minutes (check after 15) until just golden on top and cooked on the bottom.  Cool on a wire rack and dust with icing sugar if you want.  Makes about 24.

These are perfect as they are but you can see from the photograph that I sandwiched a few with some chocolate icing I had left over.  My children loved the doubles with the extra treaty filling – I prefer them unadorned with a cup of tea.

I love harissa – for me its fragrant heat seems to go with so many things – and always have a jar on the go.  Inspired by Poilane tartines I’ve tried these harissa roast tomatoes with various other ingredients, stirred through nutty brown rice and on toasted sourdough, all good,  but this is my favourite.  The lentils seem to go with the tomatoes particularly well and the garlicky yogurt is the finishing touch.  It is one of those dishes that is not only yummy but you feel is really doing you good.  Cheap, super healthy and delicious which is a pretty good combination.

100g puy lentils

1/4 stock cube, chicken or vegetable

1 bay leaf

1 clove of garlic, peeled

3 tomatoes cut in half (through their equator)

2 teaspoons harissa

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

Parsley, a small bunch

Garlicky yogurt to serve

Preheat the oven to 180.  Put the lentils in a pan with the stock cube, bay leaf, garlic and cover with boiling water, cook for 15-20 minutes (topping up the water if necessary) until cooked but not soft.  Drain and keep warm.

Pu the tomatoes in a small baking tray, try and balance them so their cut sides are flat and level.  Mix the harissa, sugar, vinegar and oil in a bowl with a couple of pinches of salt, pour this over the tomatoes and roast for 30-40 minutes until soft.  You can “baste” them a couple of times if you want.

To serve, pile a couple of spoonfuls of lentils onto a plate, top with 3 tomato halves and a good blob of yogurt.  Sprinkle generously with parsley.  Serves 2.