Oven Overdrive

I've finally got a working oven!! In honor of the oven -- well, really to test it -- I baked brown sugar shortbread cookies. It's a recipe from The Washington Post. It's really quite simple. Blend two sticks (or 8oz) of butter, 1/3 cup of light brown sugar and 1/3 cup of sugar. Add a teaspoon or so of vanilla and a half teaspoon of salt. Mix. Then add 2 cups of flour. I actually used my hands when it came to the last cup of flour -- I'm sure a stand mixer would have been fine. Spread in a 13x9 inch pan and cook in a 325 degree oven for about 55 minutes. Let cool in the pan and then cut into squares.



It's definitely shortbread -- dense, buttery, dry but with a nice sweetness to it.

Now that the kitchen work is done, I also cooked some dinner. I stumbled on the Penn Quarter farmers market. I thought it had closed -- it does next week. I picked up some radishes, arugula, apples, and trumpet mushrooms. I sauteed the mushrooms and radish tops in olive oil and garlic. It was tasty!



An experimented with the radishes and apples. I keep seeing apple fennel slaws or salads on menus. I thought I'd try an apple-radish salad with a light lemon vinaigrette. Not really great - but the sweetness of the apple did balance the tartness and almost pepper-iness of radish. It was worth trying but I think I'll use the rest of the radishes in a salad!