Rainy day blahs

After a month with almost no rain we are getting buckets today. No gardening (which also means no watering, yay) but I'm happy to be in the kitchen making raisin bread and biscotti. It's quite cool and the house needs warming up.

Pretty simple, I'm using my regular bread recipe and adding honey, raisins and cinnamon to it.

The biscotti are also really simple and oh so delicious, taken from my trusty, Betty Crocker's New Cookbook with substitutions here is the recipe for Orange Almond Biscotti:

1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tbs orange zest
2 large eggs
3 1/2 cups all all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup toasted slivered almonds (I used toasted walnut pieces because I didn't have almonds on hand)
1/2 tsp pure almond extract (my addition because I like it)
1/2 cup dried cranberries (my addition and you guessed it, I like 'em)
-Heat oven to 350 F.


-Beat sugar butter, orange zest and almond extract.
-Stir in flour, baking powder, salt, walnuts and cranberries
-Shape dough into two equal rectangles, 10 x 3 inches on un-greased cookie sheet.
-Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
-Cool for 15 minutes
-Cut on the diagonal into 1/2 inch slices, place slices cut side down on a cookie sheet.
-Bake for about 15 minutes or until crisp and light brown, remove from cookie sheet and cool.
-Drizzle melted chocolate if desired. I dunk my cookies so no chocoloate drizzles for me...





Enjoy with tea or coffee.