By the time I made it down to the deck overlooking the chicken coop, the raccoon had her half way down the run. I stood above them, trembling, crying, and throwing rocks until the ‘coon dropped the injured hen and alighted to the top of the fence.

By six am the sun was up, Trotsky was in the ground, and her last two eggs were folded into a batch of blackberry orange muffins. Despite our heavy lids, I knew the Squeeze and I were up. And we may as well eat.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

I always have greater success in achieving a good texture when I mix these muffins by hand instead of in an electric mixer. Lumpy batter is OK.

1. Prepare ten standard-sized muffin cups and preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Cream butter and sugar. Don’t worry about “light and fluffy,” just get them smoothly and evenly combined.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
4. Add eggs, vanilla, and orange zest to butter mixture. Stir to combine. Do not mix so long that it becomes smooth and uniform.
5. Add flour mixture and milk. Again, stir to combine, leaving some lumps.
6. Gently fold in blackberries. Scoop into muffin tin.
7. Bake until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.
8. Cool five minutes on a wire rack before removing muffins from the tin.

Adíos, Trotsky. We’ll miss you and your delicious eggs.

This is one of my favorite summer dishes, great alongside a grilled meal outside. Try it slightly warmed with lemon-ginger grilled shrimp and warm corn tortillas (above), at room temperature as a potato salad picnic alternative, or make up something else entirely (and report back). When you are dicing up your ingredients, try to make them all about the same size.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Heat a small amount of vegetable oil in your favorite skillet – I prefer to use my big ol’ cast iron pan for this.
2. Once hot but not smoking, add the corn kernels and cook until well browned.
3. Remove the corn to a bowl and wipe out skillet if necessary. Add a bit more oil and moderate the heat.
4. Cook the garlic, bell pepper, onion, pineapple, and zucchini until the vegetables are just done and the pineapple is caramelized. Bear in mind they will have different cooking times.
5. Squeeze lime juice over jícama and sprinkle on a generous amount of cayenne pepper.
6. Combine all ingredients: the pan-roasted corn, caramelized pineapple, cooked beans and veggies, seasoned jicama, salt, and pepper.
7. If possible, let salad rest a few hours or overnight to let the flavors deepen.
8. Serve warm, cold, or at room temperature.

I can’t take much credit for this one. For starters, the whole thing was the Squeeze’s idea. I found the cookie recipe at The Joy of Baking and didn’t change it a bit, and the ice cream is a simple adaptation of my friend Bob Hopkins’ vanilla ice cream formula. When you make them, however, I suggest that you keep all the glory for yourself.

You’ll want to start on the ice cream three days ahead of when you plan on eating these beauties.

Mint Ice Cream

1. Scald milk and add mint leaves. Let steep five minutes.
2. Add half of the cream.
3. Bring mixture to a simmer. Do not allow to boil.
4. In a separate bowl, beat sugar into egg yolks until mixture is very smooth and light yellow in color.
5. Slowly whisk simmering milk mixture into egg mixture.
6. Return to heat and cook until thickened.
7. Remove from heat, add remaining cream, and pass through a strainer to remove mint leaves and any cooked bits of egg.
8. Chill overnight.
9. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.
10. Freeze churned ice cream over night again before making sandwiches.

Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and prepare two baking pans.
2. Cream butter and sugars until fluffy and light.
3. Beat in vanilla and egg. Scrape down beater and sides of the bowl.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
5. Stir in dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined.
6. Fold in chocolate chips.
7. Drop teaspoonsful of batter onto prepared baking sheets.
8. Bake on center oven rack 8 – 10 minutes, or until the centers of the cookies are still soft, but the edges are well set.
9. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.

Assembling Sandwiches

1. Scoop out an ice cream puck roughly the same diameter as your cookies, and as thick as you please.
2. Place ice cream puck between cookie bottoms and smush the sandwich gently between your palms.
3. Return sandwiches to the freezer for a minimum of 20 minutes before serving.
4. If making well in advance, wrap individual sandwiches in plastic wrap before re-freezing.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Combine all and toss.
2. Let sit out, covered, for at least one hour to marry the flavors.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. While your jars and lids boil, combine and heat mashed berries, calcium water, lemon juice and honey.
2. When the berry mixture comes to a boil, sprinkle in the pectin. Stir vigorously and thoroughly, taking care to hunt down and eliminate pectin lumps.
3. Return to a boil for a few moments, remove from heat, and fill sanitized jars.
4. To seal jars, first wipe their mouths with a clean cloth, careful not to touch them with your fingers.
5. Apply lids and rings.
6. Place jars into a large, tall stockpot full of boiling water. Boil, submerged, for five minutes.
7. Remove jars carefully with canning tool or tongs. Allow to cool. Home-canned products should be used within a year.

I guess I must have grown up a Nabisco Kid. I can still hear the mid-1980s jingle: the rising intonation of the company name followed by the sweet little “bing,” just like, I always imagined, a faerie’s wand, putting just a little bit of magic into my favorite snack cookie. Little Debbie was cute, but she never stood a chance.

While the Keebler Elves kind of creeped me out, and I’ve always preferred Premium brand saltine crackers to Nabisco’s Club, the Fig Newton is, I believe, among the very best of the brand’s bunch. And while I can’t really sign off on the “fruit and cake” assessment, the classic Fig Newton is no ordinary cookie. Neither is my grown-up version of it, a revision and expansion of David Lebovitz’ Fig Cookie recipe in his gorgeous cookbook, Room for Dessert.

You will need a couple of hours from start to finish, which may be split over two days if you like. I suggest starting with the filling, and letting it reduce and thicken while you make the cookie dough. When both the filling and the dough are well chilled, you’ll want a good-sized, cool workspace upon which to roll out the dough and assemble the cookie logs. I like working on a lightly-floured pastry cloth, as the cloth makes transferring the log to a cookie sheet quite easy. When I set to making these the first time, I was somewhat intimidated at the notion of making a filled cookie, but they are really quite simple.

Roll the dough out into rectangles, then make a row of filling in the middle.

Then brush the edges with water. Fold one side up, then the other.

Next, just press the short ends together to seal off the log and transfer to a lined baking sheet.

Bake until golden, about thirty minutes. Cool; slice.