Not for the lactose intolerant

Last night we ate a very late dinner of potato soup and rosemary cheddar biscotti. The soup was supposed to be Florentine, but, alas, I cooked all of the spinach with the orecchiette and butterbeans for lunch, so... it became potato soup with leeks, herbs, and cheese (plus quite a bit of butter and milk). And I got to use my new toy-- an immersion blender! (Thanks, Rob & Marty!) The soup was such a departure from the recipe that I'm not going to post the recipe. I only made one substitution in the biscotti-- rosemary for thyme-- and it was so delicious that Nick, Meghan, John and I ate almost an entire batch!

Notes and recipe:
Savory Cheddar Thyme Biscotti (from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics)
yields 12 biscotti prep: 20 mins bake: 35 mins

1/2 c butter, melted
3 eggs
1/2 ts minced garlic
1 ts minced fresh thyme
1/2 c grated Cheddar cheese
2 c unbleached white flour
1 1/2 ts baking powder
1/2 ts salt

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil a baking sheet.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter and eggs with an electric mixer or whisk. Mix in the garlic, thyme, and cheese. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt directly into the wet ingredients. Fold in until the dough is uniform. Press together with lightly floured hands.
Use a spatula and your floured hands to scoop the dough onto the oiled baking sheet. Form the dough into a 12x3-inch diameter log shape; then press down on the log, flattening it to a thickness of about an inch. The flattened log should be about 14x4 inches.
Bake on the top rack of the oven for 25-30 mins, until the dough is firm and just slightly brown. Remove from the oven and carefully transfer the log to a cutting board. When cool enough to handle, slice on the severe diagonal into about 1-inch pieces. Arrange the biscotti cut side down on the baking sheet. Bake for about 5 minutes on each side, using tongs to flip them gently. Cool completely on a rack and then store in an airtight container for us to 2 weeks.

I use King Arthur flour. Crazy as it sounds, we can really tell a difference in pizza crust, bread, etc. My biscotti turned out a little crumbly, so I wouldn't recommend tongs to move them. I used a serrated bread knife for slicing and baked the biscotti on a Pampered Chef baking stone. (Speaking of Pampered Chef and biscotti, TPC has a really great orange almond biscotti recipe; I'll post it soon.) Cool completely and store? Good luck with that. We ate them straight from the oven!