Sun of Cheese, Moon of Cheese

As it would seem, all the big grocery stores around here are out of farmer's cheese. If this is a problem, it must be getting close to Christmas, the one time of the year I can justify dragging out the recipe for deliciously cheese-stuffed, butter-fried lumps of wonderful. I could make them stuffed with something else—like many things, they are traditionally filled with whatever you have in abundance—but the family recipe calls for farmer's cheese and sautéed onion, and it just wouldn't be the same without it. And still, I can't remember a Christmas Eve without pierogi.

The traditional Polish Christmas is a Christmas Eve celebration called wigilia, which involves a "meatless" meal of seven fishes and sharing a wafer called opłatek. In my family it has evolved from this into some Polish-Irish-New-England-Hippie take on this, which still involves the fish-focused meal (most years we build a fire and put a fish in it, though this year we're making a festive Christmas jambalaya), but it also regularly involves colcannon, an Irish mashed potato and kale dish with a ring of golden-fried onions on top. And pierogi, which I usually do ahead of time. I suppose I haven't yet totally exhausted my options to get farmer's cheese and make several dozen pierogi before tomorrow night.

I'd offer up the recipe—I don't believe in secret recipes—but, like so many of the things I make I have difficulty quantifying it and writing it down. Also, I can never make the right amount of dough for the amount of cheese filling, so I wouldn't necessarily trust my numbers to work out perfectly anyway. In lieu of that, I offer up my somewhat unique recipe for Sundrop Cookies, which I developed several years ago because I wanted to make a cookie for solstice that tasted like sunshine.

Sundrop Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen 2½-3" cookies

• ½ c. butter (1 stick)
• ½ c. shortening
• 1½ c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. lemon oil or 2 lemons' worth of minced zest
• 2 tsp. lemon juice
• ¾ tsp. turmeric
• ¼ tsp. cayenne (turmeric and cayenne add the color and heat of the sun, respectively, but without one or the other, you still have a pretty good lemon cookie here)
• 1½ tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 2½ c. flour
• ½ c. finely ground coconut (optional—replace with equal flour if you leave it out)

1. Cream butter, shortening and sugar.
2. Blend in eggs, lemon oil and lemon juice.
3. Blend in turmeric and cayenne, if using.
4. Add baking powder, baking soda and salt.
5. Mix in coconut (if using) and flour.
6. Roll into 1½" balls and place on parchment-lined cookie sheet.
7. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes.

Et voilà! Dozens of little suns! Happy Holidays and wishes for a sweet New Year!