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Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate + Coffee = Mocha, its very own flavor combo. Chocolate Chip Cookies + Coffee = Pure deliciousness, a chocolate chip cookie for grown-ups, spiked with java, crisp and perfect for dunking. But that's a little long, right? So let's just call them Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies. Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies, Fresh from the Oven & Comforting. Crisp & Sweet, Perfect for a Coffee Break. Weeknight Easy, Weekend Special. Potluck & Party Friendly. Easy DIY.

Pork Tenderloin with Balsamic Cranberry Sauce

'Autumn Joy.' It’s a happy handle for the fat-leaved sedum whose blossoms are aflutter with butterflies this time of year. I think it also conjures the reasons why so many name fall their favorite of the seasons. It’s as if life has returned to normal. The kids are long settled into the rhythm of after-school homework, baseball’s end and soccer’s start. The days are warm, easy to lose (or find) an afternoon in. The nights are cool, perfect for windows-open, deep-dream slumber. Yet I find myself planting autumn-joy sedum for winter interest not fall color. As leaves give way, tall stems remain, each topped with a flat crown the size of a small plate. They last through winter and then in early spring, emerge from the earth as peculiar-looking polyps. There must be a lesson in there, you know, autumn joy that in turn delivers winter interest and spring life. ALANNA's TIPS To 'sear' is to quickly cook the outer edge of a piece of meat at high temperatu

Dutch Apple Puff

Sunday dinner. Roast beef or roast pork. Baked ham, the layer of fat scored and pricked with clove. Fried chicken some times and mashed potatoes, always. Pickles from the cellar. A vegetable or two, mostly lapping in mushroom soup and topped with cracker crumbs. In summer, sliced tomatoes and fresh lima beans or sweet corn. Do families still gather round big tables after Sunday church, three generations at least, so many aunts and cousins that it’s nearly as certain the meal will end with birthday cake as it will start with grace? Growing up, some weeks Mom cooked Sunday dinner. Mostly though, it’s Sunday suppers that I remember. If it were just the four of us, or five including Gramma who lived in town, Mom would send my sister or me to the basement for the waffle iron. In minutes, we’d sit down to plates of steaming waffles, sugar-crisp on the outside, soft in the middle and topped with fat scoops of vanilla ice cream and a few drops of precious maple syrup. It must be

Fat Rascals

The Recipe: My cousin Laura's rendition of an old-fashioned biscuit from Yorkshire in the north of England, peppered with dried currants. The dough is mixed by hand (so, hey, no mixer required!) and rolls out so easily. At Christmas, I especially like to make Fat Rascals in small star shapes just a bite or two big. But first, let me tell you a story about a boy on my street. Would cookies help, even a little? Mornings, I watch a boy trudge up the street on his way to school. He’s maybe nine. His backpack hangs low, his head bends downward. Delaying the inevitable, he kicks at leaves, a rock, the curb. Afternoons, I watch the same-but-different boy head down the street toward home. His steps are quick, his shoulders thrown back, his face lifts to the sun. Still heavy, the backpack now bounces. School may be hard for this man-in-the-making. Perhaps his classmates tease or the learning comes slowly. But my own wish for the nameless one is that his lively homeward ste