My friend Scott strongly hinted that he would love for me to make him some of the Sweet Black Pepper Fish that he saw on this site last week. I complied, because I love getting requests for dishes (no menu planning), and this one was really easy to make. -I used orange roughy, because the grocery only had halibut steaks. I think I like this with halibut better, but it was still good. Also, I think this dish benefits from big chunks of cracked pepper. – I’ve wanted to make these cookies for a long time, and once I saw that Amy had made something similar, I became obsessed with making them. Amy’s recipe came to her via Cookie Madness. I like that hers are more shiny – probably from using egg whites instead of whole eggs. Mine included a bit of butter and a LOT of chopped bittersweet chocolate (along with regular sugar). It was also a batter, not a dough. I tried three methods of dropping them onto the cookie sheets: using a pastry bag and large decorating tip (ick – nuts have to be chopped tiny to use this method, and it was way too messy), using a tablespoon (hard to make nice round piles of batter), and finally a small scooper. The scooper was the winner. I didn’t think I’d like the pecans that much, but they are nice in the cookies. These are really my kind of cookie. Luckily I gave most of them away (Scott and Brian were the lucky recipients), because I can’t keep my hands off of them.

• Sweet Black Pepper Fish (Cooking Light, January 2004)
• Wilted Spinach with Sauteed Garlic
• Chocolate Brownie Cookies (Fine Cooking #34, September 1999, p. 49)