By Early December. The cold fronts arriving in pulses. Houston winter — never severe, occasional brief freezes, the trees mostly evergreen, the cardinals at the feeder all winter long. The smoker compound has its winter posture: longer cooks, more wood, the kettle for back-up small items, the cabinet for cold smoking the holiday cured meats.
This week's project: holiday gift planning. I've been thinking about it for weeks but haven't pulled the trigger. The grandkids — Marcus, Jade, Ava, Ruby — get small things. The kids — Tyler, Emma, Lily — get experiences. Tyler is getting a custom welder's apron embroidered with the Tran family name in Vietnamese (made by a local Vietnamese-American leatherworker named Trang Pham). Emma is getting a year of weekly meal-prep delivery from a Vietnamese mom-and-pop place near her house — she has been complaining she does not have time to cook with two kids under three. Lily is getting a vintage cookbook from the 1960s — a Vietnamese cookbook published in Saigon that I found in a used bookstore in Bellaire. The book is in Vietnamese. Lily reads Vietnamese well enough to navigate it. The book is from before the war. The book is from before the family fled. The book is from Mai's era. Lily will love it.
Made banh xèo Saturday for myself and Smokey (who got a tiny piece — smaller than a quarter, plain, no fish sauce). The crispy turmeric-coconut-milk pancake with shrimp and pork and bean sprouts, eaten with lettuce and herbs and nuoc cham. The post-Vietnam-trip version. Better than my pre-trip version. The trip continues to influence the cooking. The trip influences everything. Vietnam is in the food. Vietnam will be in the food until I stop cooking. Vietnam will then be in someone else's food. The chain.
The grandkids — Marcus, Jade, Ava, Ruby — get small things, and this year the small thing is going to be cookies. After a Saturday spent making banh xèo for myself and thinking about Mai’s cookbook and Trang Pham’s leatherwork and Emma’s meal prep, I needed something simple and immediate and joyful, and these soft, puffy peanut butter coconut oil cookies are exactly that. The coconut oil in the dough is a quiet nod to the coconut milk still on my mind from the pancake batter — the kitchen carries its own chain.
Soft and Puffy Peanut Butter Coconut Oil Cookies
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted and slightly cooled
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Mix wet ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, melted coconut oil, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until smooth and combined. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after each addition, then stir in the vanilla extract.
- Add dry ingredients. Sprinkle the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt over the wet mixture. Fold with a rubber spatula until just combined — do not overmix. The dough will be soft.
- Chill briefly. If the dough feels too loose (coconut oil consistency varies with kitchen temperature), refrigerate for 10 minutes to firm it up slightly.
- Scoop and bake. Use a 1 1/2-tablespoon cookie scoop to portion dough onto prepared baking sheets, spacing cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake one sheet at a time on the center rack for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the tops look slightly underdone.
- Cool on pan. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack — they firm up as they cool and will be soft and puffy once set.
Nutrition (per serving, 1 cookie)
Calories: 165 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 10g | Carbs: 17g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 105mg