CAST IRON CHOP HOUSE RECIPES

Steps:

• Cream butter and brown sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, salt, and liquor (if desired). Blend in.
• Now it gets to be fun. You have to work in all five pounds of flour little by little by hand. It will work in but it takes a while. You'll wind up with a BIG mixing bowl of dough.
• Refrigerate dough overnight.
• Have plenty of people to help with the cooking. Lightly grease and heat the empty cookie iron over a gas burner. Start with a tablespoon and a half of dough rolled into a little "cigar" shape and vary amount to fit the size of your cookie iron. It takes from one to one and a half minutes to cook each cookie - it's a trial and error process at first till you get a handle on the temperature of the gas burner and the heat retaining capabilities of your iron. A properly cooked cookie will be golden and after cooled, crisp.
• This a family holiday tradition for us and we spend a whole day cooking cookies with lots of testing to make sure they're as good as last year's. The cast iron cookie irons work best, but I have seen people make them with the aluminum pizelle "irons". Ask for a krumkokie (croom cockie) iron at a gourmet cooking shop. We put them in tins and store till next Christmas, eating last year's cookies.

Steps:

• Pre heat oven to 200šC/gas mark 4. Place the pepper & onion halves (cut side down) along with the plum tomatoes & garlic cloves into a baking tray & drizzle with the olive oil. Bake at the top of your oven for 30 mins or until the vegetables are roasted & tender.
• Meanwhile melt down the butter in a large pan over a medium heat and saute the chopped celery for 4-5 mins. Not too hot, don't burn the butter.
• Make up the vegetable stock adding the tomato puree, sundried tomato paste & the chilli flakes. Mix well and then add to the sauteed celery. Remove from the heat.
• When the baked vegetables are ready remove the peel from the onion & garlic cloves roughly chop them & add them to the pan along with the plum tomtoes. Place back on to a low to medium heat & using a hand blender blend until the soup is smooth.
• Season to taste & gently simmer until the soup is at a comfortable edible temperature. Do not allow the soup to boil. Serve with ciabatta bread & enjoy the moment.