A friend recently asked me how I choose what to make on my adventures in baking. Well, occasionally I whip up family favorites or requests, often I play around with tastes and textures in baking experiments, and sometimes there are recipes for desserts and confections that have long been on my “to bake” list. And then — increasingly as my baking prowess swells — there are those fresh and boxed treats that I come across in my daily trips to local food shops and down grocery store aisles when I taste and peer at the item, inspect the food’s list of ingredients and say to myself: “I can make that… and without all those nasty preservatives and unpronounceables, at a fraction of the cost.” And so I was inspired to make biscotti…

These lovely confections — which happen to be my father’s favorite Christmas cookie — go by many names: thumbprint cookies, Swedish tea cakes, and bird’s nest cookies, to name a few. But whatever moniker you give them, you will surely call them delicious.

Yes, it can get expensive feeding your family organic, whole, healthful food, but you don’t have to break the bank in order to do so. Baking and cooking your own meals and snacks is s far more cost-effective way to eat well. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with paying $7.99 for a 500g bag of organic granola.