Gifts of Taste : IN THE KITCHEN : I Bake You a Merry Cookie

There are many good reasons for giving homemade Christmas presents, not the least of which is the fact that they’re inexpensive.

I don’t know about you, but my house isn’t the kind of Martha Stewart wonderland where we spend endless days spray-painting pine cones gold. When times are flush, we are as apt as anyone to send sweaters. With two parents working, time is more valuable than money, and even the couple of hours it takes to go to the store can be a luxury. These are the times we marvel at the world of catalogue shopping, where a simple phone call nets a boxed, wrapped present already in the mail on the way to Grandpa--just give them a credit card number.

But these are not those times. And so we bake. And we can. And we preserve. This year, Grandpa and the assorted aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors are going to get jars of Meyer lemon marmalade, strawberry preserves, olalliberry jelly or plum butter, and, of course, big tins of cookies.

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While this is more time-consuming than picking up the phone, it is not all that difficult. The jars represent a year’s worth of putting by, each made in its time of abundance. The lemons came from our back yard--at peak season we were going through them by the sinkful. The strawberries I picked whenever I saw a particularly nice flat at a good price at the farmers market. The olalliberries I gathered one hot early summer morning at a U-Pick in Moorpark with my sister and our daughters. The plums were waiting for me when I got back from vacation--when you’ve got a yard full of fermenting plums, you’ve got to do something quick.

The best thing about all of this is that for the entire year we’ve been breakfasting on the Christmas gifts. Call it quality control.

The only thing that’s left for us to do now is bake cookies. And that’s something we usually do anyway. Already, there’s a tray of my wife’s “hello dollies” in the fridge and a bag of cut-out sugar cookies in the freezer.

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And, finally, I’ll spend a night making these little Italian cookies. There’s nothing particularly Christmas-y about them, really, except that they can be made easily in great quantity and their clean taste and chewy texture always seem welcome at a time when simply sweet is the rule.

They’re based on a recipe from Mary Taylor Simeti’s wonderful book of Sicilian cookery and lore, “Pomp and Sustenance” (Alfred A. Knopf: 1989; $25). There is a wide range of Sicilian convent cookies, everything from minni di vergini (virgins’ breasts) to fedde del cancelliere (chancellors’ buttocks). The sisters of the Badia Grande at Alcamo, being either more chaste or less imaginative, call these bocconetti di mandorla (almond kisses) and stuff them with zuccata , a stiff preserve made from baseball-sized zucchini. This is one jam I haven’t gotten into, so I substitute tart-sweet dried sour cherries instead. Feel free to improvise.

I’ve adapted the recipe so the whole thing is made in the food processor. Grind the almonds and sugar together--they make a terrific roar at first, but then quiet down. Add the egg whites and leave the machine running until the dough forms a ball that runs around on top of the blade. This should take about a minute.

Of course, should you elect to make these the more traditional way, you can finely ground the almonds by hand before mixing them with the sugar and then folding in beaten egg whites.

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Forming the cookie kisses is a breeze; the only trick is pushing the dough into pyramids. After a couple of kisses, you’ll get the knack. Do rinse and dry your hands every half-dozen or so cookies--the residual stickiness that builds up will start to hinder the shaping process.

The only thing simpler would be if you could order them from J. Crew.

CHERRY-STUFFED ALMOND COOKIES

1 pound blanched almonds (about 3 cups whole nuts)

2 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3 egg whites

2 cups dried sour cherries, soaked in warm liquid and drained

Grind almonds and sugar to fine meal in work bowl of food processor fitted with metal blade. Add vanilla and pulse to mix. Pour in egg whites, distributing evenly across top. Process until ball forms on blade.

Remove dough from food processor and tear off walnut-sized piece. Roll briskly between palms into ball and use your finger to poke hole into middle of ball. Stuff 1 to 2 cherries into center and press to seal hole. If desired, form into rough pyramid, using 3 fingers and thumb.

Bake on greased and floured baking sheet at 300 degrees about 25 minutes or until delicately browned. Cool briefly on pan before removing to rack. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Each serving contains about:

192 calories; 52 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 10 grams fat; 22 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams protein; 0.45 gram fiber.