Double Chocolate Walnut Biscotti

These crunchy hard cookies are used all over Italy and are perfect for dunking in coffee, tea, or hot chocolate! BTW, biscotti means “twice cooked” – the secret of their crunchy goodness! 😀

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened pure cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
6 tbsp. (¾ stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup walnuts, chopped
¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips

(NOTE: Here & Europe, 1 cup = 240 milliliters).

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In Comments Kryten42 has been sharing his Grandmother’s recipes and they deserve to be seen by all:

Mediterranean Chilled Stuffed Tomatoes (Serves 4)

Fresh tomatoes are often prepared simply to bring out their natural flavor around the Mediterranean. To make this, use the reddest, juiciest, freshest tomatoes you can find (organic fresh picked have the best flavor). This is an excellent side dish, or snack, on a hot day.

Ingredients:

4 medium or large tomatoes
3 cloves fresh garlic
4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
3/4 tsp. ground rock or sea salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
3 to 4 cups fresh parsley and/or basil, shredded or chopped (the proportions are up to the individual).

Preparation:

1. Cut the tops off tomatoes and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and pulp inside. Be careful not to break through the tomato skins.

2. Using a large mortar and pestle, or a medium bowl and the back of a spoon, mash the garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper together. Add parsley and/or basil and mash to combine well.

3. Fill tomatoes with garlic and herb mixture. Refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours and serve cold.

Bon apetit! 😀

CNN reports Air Force officials ousted over nuclear gaffes

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The top military and civilian leaders of the U.S. Air Force were forced out Thursday over the handling of nuclear weapons, the Defense Department secretary said.

Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael W. Wynne resigned over the department’s concern over two incidents, including the August flight of a B-52 bomber that flew across the country with nuclear weapons.

“Focus of the Air Force leadership has drifted” in terms of handling nuclear weapons and equipment, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

Gates also cited this year’s discovery that four nuclear warhead fuses were accidentally shipped to Taiwan in 2006.

It’s a start, but the commanders of the Air Combat Command, Eighth Air Force, and Fifth Bomb Wing also need to be shown the door, to prevent another unacceptable failure.

I was literally on the edge of tomorrow flying from an island that was only technically on the same side of the international date line as the US because of a jog in the line. By the time you climbed out after take off, you were in a different day, which is why we used Greenwich Mean Time, which is now formalized as the Coordinated Universal Time [abbreviated UTC for political reasons].

We didn’t discuss politics in the military except in groups of equal rank because it was a violation of military rules, and we had all the fighting we could handle on duty, but there were a lot of us with our hopes pinned on Bobby Kennedy. If he won California, the traditional Chicago-Boston alliance would give him Illinois to go with the Northeast and he would be the winner at the end of the convention.

The country was in trouble and so was the military. After the MLK assassination and the riots people weren’t sure who they could trust, and that included people in uniform.

We got the high of the win, and then the low of the shooting. I remember one of the guys saying “Please, G-d, don’t let the killer be black.” Of course, it was another day before he died, but the hopes died on the 5^th. His brother’s grave had an eternal flame, but most of us felt that the candles that we used for guidance were being snuffed out one after another.

This is the BBC reporting on the events of June 5^th, as BBC shortwave was our primary news source [no one believed anything on Armed Forces Radio].

Mustang Bobby also remembers That Morning.