Toffee: Toffee and Bittersweet Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are thin, crispy cookies that are the perfect reason to own a silicone baking mat. The toffee pieces tend to stick a bit to ordinary cookie sheets, though a few broken ones can just be the rejects that have to be eaten immediately. It's a personal choice.

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

2 cups unsalted butter

2 eggs

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup chopped toffee pieces

1 cup dark or bittersweet chocolate chips/pieces.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

Cream butter, brown sugar and white sugar in a mixing bowl and beat in eggs. Add flour, salt and baking soda and stir until blended. Add toffee and chocolate pieces and mix. Drop onto a cookie sheet using a spoon or fancy cookie scoop. Bake 9-12 minutes at 375 or until cookies are light brown. Wait a few minutes to cool on cookie sheet and transfer to cooling rack.

Oranges: Glazed Citrus and Raspberries

Photo by Douglas Detert

 This is a variation on a recipe from Julia Child's "The French Chef Cookbook" published in 1968. It can be a great chance to practice your fancy knife skills by making only orange and grapefruit supremes, though I have a shortcut that works almost as well and saves more of the fruit. For recipe, click on blog title or "read more".

Cherries: Door County Cherry Blintzes

Photo by Douglas Detert

Real Door County cherries are a mix of sweet and sour and add a bit of bite to the sweet and creamy flavors of the traditional blintz. If you want to get extremely Wisconsin with the whole operation, substitute shredded cheese curds for the farmer cheese, or get good farmer cheese from Hook's.

Cherry blintzes take a little bit of time and work to assemble, though the cherry topping could be substituted with warmed-up cherry preserves or pre-made cherry pie filling to save some time. My favorite cherry preserves are from Slack's and can be purchased here. For recipe, click on blog title or "read more"