Happy Holidays

I decided to become a vegetarian pretty young in life, and as a result when I learned how to cook, it was all veggie food. I was pretty psyched to forgo the carcass end of cooking, and that is all I'll say about that because this blog isn't about preaching. But the downside to this is that I come from a long line of great Italian cooks, and there are a lot of traditional recipes that have been rendered moot by my renouncing meat. Maybe that's one of the reasons I like baking so much. Sometimes you just want to make a recipe your grandma made, in the pan she made it in. (Sometimes you want to smoke a J and eat half a bowl of raw batter which is something you doubt grandma ever did, but I digress.)

These toffee squares are something we only ever made in my family at Christmas time, but they are really easy, really delicious, and yes, the pan pictured is the one that has been making these guys for generations. Sweet! Here's the recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg yolk

1/4 tsp salt

3-4 milk chocolate bars

1/2 cup chopped nuts for top (we always use walnuts)

Set oven to 350. Cream together brown sugar, butter, vanilla, and egg yolk. Add flour and salt, mix thoroughly. Mixture may appear crumbly-- don't worry. Press into a 13 x 10" baking pan, or whatever approximate size works for you. Bake for about 25 minutes, until just golden around the edges. When you remove the pan from the oven, let it sit for a moment, but before it cools too much place squares of chocolate on the top. The heat will melt them and you can spread the melted chocolate evenly with a knife. Hint: don't spread it right to the edges, it will make them harder to chip out of the pan later. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and let cool.

Check out the original recipe in grandma's handwriting. I like that

she indicates what size chocolate bar to use by noting "5 cents"