These Jes Lahay Cactus Heart Cookies are So on Point

In the spirit of #followfriday I wanted to highlight Jes Lahay and her brilliant Cactus Heart Cookies. My only regret is not highlighting them before Valentine's day, apologies! Jes is a Minneapolis, Minnesota based baker, and you can find her at Whisk + Wander.

The details: I love the pale shade of green she uses here, the clusters of tiny cactus spines, and the addition of a perfect cactus flower blossom. I mean, look at that delicate ruffling of the petals! You can get get the recipe and learn her technique on her site, Whisk + Wander. So excited to see what Jes makes next!

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The Most Popular Recipe Last Month

I'm always quite a bit surprised to see which recipes pop the most throughout the month. And, it's always fascinating to see which recipes end up being most popular. For example, looking back on last month, I was sure this Spicy Rainbow Chop Salad with Peanuts was going to be the lead contender, or at least get up there. But it barely made the top ten. Instead, have a look. Here are the top three recipe for January!

1. Slow Cooker Black Bean Chili with Kahlua: This was the most popular recipe on 101 Cookbooks last month! The chili is Kahlua-spiked and combines chili powder and good dose of chipotle for depth of flavor. I'm guessing the weeknight-friendliness of the slow cooker in general was what put it in the top slot.

2. Instant Pot Dynamite Cold Tonic: Coming in a close second was this head-clearing, sniffle-blasting tonic. It has flavor like a stick of ginger dynamite. Unfortunately, I think we can thank this year's nasty cold and flu season its popularity. If you need to jolt a head cold into submission, consider starting here.

3. The Best Pizza Dough: A classic from the archives! Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough method. It is always delicious, and a great staple to have in your weeknight repertoire.

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Two-ingredient Candied Citrus Pops

Get ready. These are my new favorite thing, and I suspect they might end up being your favorite thing too. Imagine plump, juicy, citrus segments coated in thin, crunchy, sugar shells. You bite through the crust, and the citrus explodes with a wave of sweetness. It's a concept I wish I'd thought of myself, but it's actually a recipe by Dirt Candy's Amanda Cohen, featured in Cherry Bombe: The Cookbook. Amanda was inspired by a street food vendor in Beijing. And, it's funny, there is a beautiful photo of her grapefruit pops in the book, but it was her description of the street vendor, and the way his slices lit up the entire street that charmed me into trying them.

A couple things to note before making these. It's helpful to have a block of foam from a package, or the kind of foam you might use to arrange flowers. This helps your pops stay upright after you candy them. The other consideration is how hot to let the sugar get. Amanda recommends going to 275 - 300°F - or until the mixture is light brown. I like the pops that go a bit darker than that, you get a lot of caramel and molasses notes that play of the citrus in magical ways. The blood orange segments I did in the darkest sugar mixture were a complete revelation. But this is all personal preference, so experiment to figure out where you'd like to be on the spectrum. One last thing I'll mention, if your mixture doesn't get hot enough, the candy shell won't set.

I found the easiest citrus to deal with was anything easy to peel, with minimal seeds, and small to medium in size. Some of the grapefruits were tricky to peel and keep intact. Kishu mandarins, on the other hand, are a dream to work with (pictured). Play around - this is peak citrus season and this make for a dramatic snack, treat, or dessert!

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Green Falafel Bowl

No surprise, the cornerstone of this recipe is the golden-crusted, spinach falafel. If you look at the photo, you'll see the pan-seared patties hanging out in the 5 o'clock position. They're crusted, golden, browned on the outside, tender and lemon-flecked on the inside. They're also packed with good-for-you spinach and chickpeas. I make them in big batches, freeze them, and eat them (allll the time) as snacks, or in bowls like these.

That's a long way of saying, if you have the falafel, you can pull together a pretty good snack or meal. It could be something along the lines of what you see here, or something different based on what you have on hand. I had some hummus in the fridge (a red beet version of this hummus), some kale, carrots, and cucumber that needed to be used, and some pita. Also, some herb stragglers. The pita and carrots went into the oven, I cooked the falafel in a skillet, and chopped up the rest. Let's say you didn't have any of that, but you did have some romaine, yogurt, and a garlic clove. You could do falafel lettuce wraps instead, smashing the garlic into a paste and adding it to the yogurt along with a bit of salt. Use that as your sauce. The name of the game here is adaptability.

Cooking methods: Once you've formed the falafel you have a range of cooking options. If you smush them a bit, and pan-fry them in a bit of oil, you'll get the best golden crust. Sometimes I bake them (450°F), also pretty-strong contender. I've even tested them in an Air-fryer, and they're one of just a handful of things to exceed my expectations in it (7 minutes at 390°F, shake the basket, and do another 7 minutes).

Vegan version: I'll note this in the recipe headnotes below as well. To make the falafel vegan, you can use flax "egg" (5 T. water + 2 T. ground flax seeds whisked together), and skip the cheese.

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Slow Cooker Ribollita

Here it is, by popular request! A wonderfully hearty, slow cooker version of ribollita, the famous Tuscan stew made with bean, vegetables, dark greens, and day-old bread. You can start it in the morning, and let it cook over the next 6-8 hours. Just look at the ingredient list, there's nothing fancy here, and that's part of what I love about this sort of food.

Ribollita means "reboiled" in Italian - it's a soup that was cooked in order to use up leftovers and straggler ingredients. In that spirit, please use this recipe as a jumping off point. If you have sweet potatoes instead of carrots, use those. A yellow onion instead of red? That's fine. It's completely a-ok to riff on the general concept here, and chances are, you'll end up with a substantial pot of goodness.

And lastly! One of the things I'm particular about when using a slow cooker is the order in which I add ingredients. There are often times I'll hold an ingredient back until the very end. In many cases this is to maintain as much of the brightness and clarity of flavor as possible. Or, it could be a textural thing. In this ribollita, for example, I like to hold back the tomatoes, kale, bread, and lemon zest until the final hour. You end up with a more vibrant stew for the initial serving. And then, for the leftovers, a nice melding of flavors happens overnight. So, in this case, I'm going for melding, and trying to avoid any overcooked flavors and textures. Hope that makes sense!

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Middle Eastern Millionaire's Shortbread

This is the Middle Eastern Millionaire's Shortbread from Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh's Sweet, and it's incredible. Millionaire's shortbread is traditionally made by layering shortbread, caramel, and chocolate. It's often shockingly sweet, and overly rich - even by dessert standards. This is different. Imagine a crisp, shortbread base spread thick with a creamy tahini-halva blend, finished with glossy tahini caramel. It's brilliant, and a thin slice makes for the perfect treat.

The trickiest part of this recipe is sourcing the halva. There are a couple grocers who stock big slabs of halva here in San Francisco, and you can purchase it by the pound. Call around if you're stumped, and check Middle Eastern markets. Even if they don't have it, they might be able to point you in the right direction.

One of the great things about this recipe is the components. You can make them in stages. For example, you can bake the shortbread crust a few days in advance, if you like. The spread comes together in a flash, so it's less of a consideration. And then you can make the tahini caramel when you're ready. When finished, you can keep the bars, refrigerated, for up to a week.

Play around with pan shapes, and the like. Individual, tiny versions are definitely on my list.

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