44 away recipes

The Winter Wonderland continues here in Upstate NY, and for those who aren’t lucky enough to be somewhere tropical right now…well…we wish we were. Though I can’t get to somewhere warm right now, I rounded up the most sunshine-inspired ingredients in my kitchen and combined them with mega-vitamin packed kale for a tasty tropical treat.

Melt-away butter cookies with vanilla and almond extract, pressed with a cookie gun and optionally dipped in chocolate with chopped pecans. Yields 7 dozen.

No-bake melt-aways with white chocolate, peanut butter, crispy rice cereal, peanuts, and mini marshmallows. Five ingredients, no thermometer, no stovetop fuss.

Classic pecan melt away cookies made with cake flour and unsalted butter for an ultra-tender, powdered-sugar-dusted shortbread. Drop cookies that dissolve on the tongue in seconds.

Silky peppermint chocolate squares that literally melt on your tongue, made with sugar-free milkcote chocolate coating and dipped for a smooth, snappy shell. Makes 8 dozen candies. A dietetic candy that tastes like pure indulgence.

Dietetic melt-away mints: sugar-free chocolate mint squares made from milkcote coating, shortening, and peppermint extract. Dipped in more chocolate for a crisp shell.

Parmesan break-away rolls dip quartered refrigerator biscuits in garlic butter and roll them in Parmesan, then bake in a sandwich maker until golden. Pull-apart cheesy bites in 15 minutes.

Decadent chocolate mint melt-aways: tender piped mint shortbread topped with white chocolate mint ganache and dipped in bittersweet chocolate. Three layers of cool mint and rich chocolate in one cookie.

Cincinnati 5-way chili: cinnamon and allspice-spiced beef chili ladled over vermicelli, then crowned with beans, onions, and cheddar. Greek-influenced Midwestern original.

Pan-Fried Salmon Cakes

Vegetarian Chili with bulgur and vegetables--Vegetarian chili: hot satisfying dish for fans of meatless mains.

Eggless chocolate chip cookies built on butter, brown sugar, water, and chocolate chips. A no-fail, no-egg cookie recipe with deep caramel notes and a soft chewy bite. Forty-eight cookies per batch.

Always loved manicotti stuffed with seasoned ground beef, mozzarella, and a soft bread filling, then slow-baked in a from-scratch tomato-mushroom sauce. The Italian-American Sunday-dinner classic that needs no pre-cooking of the shells.

Biscotti Napoletani: traditional eggless Italian almond biscotti with whole and ground almonds, sweetened with corn syrup. Twice-baked Neapolitan cookies built for dunking in espresso or vin santo.

Classic cinnamon-sugar snickerdoodles with tangy cream of tartar. Soft, chewy centers with crackled sugary tops that everyone loves.

Always popular sausage is homemade breakfast sausage patties seasoned with sage, thyme, allspice, nutmeg, and a little brown sugar and cayenne. No casings needed, just mix, shape, and freeze. You control exactly what goes in.