Day 2

Not technically a cookie. Or maybe it is, since it has ‘cookie’ in the title? So easy. So good. So addictive.

I thought I got this recipe from my friend Natalie (Hi, Nat!) but she said it wasn’t hers. So this one came from a mystery person at a cookie exchange I attended a few years ago.

Ritz Crackers Cookies

• Ritz crackers
• peanut butter
• chocolate almond bark
• sprinkles (optional, but who doesn’t love sprinkles?!!)

Put a piece of wax paper on a cookie sheet. (This will make clean-up and thus your life so much easier. Skipping this step is not advised.) Spread peanut butter between two Ritz crackers. I used one whole sleeve of crackers, plus a few more I had stashed away in a ziploc bag and made 28 sandwiches.

Melt chocolate bark as directed on package. I used the microwave and added a spoonful of shortening (as stated on package directions) and it worked like a charm. Dip Ritz/peanut butter sandwiches into melted chocolate and put on wax paper to dry. Add sprinkles before chocolate has set, if desired.

I had never, ever in my life made anything using almond bark before and I have to say, it was the easiest thing ever. No wonder this stuff is clogging the aisles everywhere you go this time of year. It was so simple! It melted in about 2 minutes, it didn’t harden up at all and was so easy to work with. I think I’m using this for my truffles this year. (Recipe to come later) I always thought using actual chocolate tasted so much better (chocolate snobbery + Martha Stewartitis), but it is such a PAIN to work with. Almond bark, I’m sinking to your level!

Day 1

I pulled this one from the recipe vault, written on a faded, stained index card in my 12-year-old handwriting. A classic butter cookie with a pop of colorful flavor. Mmmm. Bubby doesn’t like these, so they’re mine! All mine! Except for the 17 that Arwyn has tried to confiscate. Is it wrong to lightly tap your kid with a yardstick if they try to eat all of your cookies?? Hypothetically speaking? I’ve had this recipe for years. I believe it originally came from Juju’s sister when we were wee lasses.

Jelly Circle Cookies

(I’m pretty sure I made that up and these are more commonly known as Thumbprints)

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• your favorite jam, jelly or preserves (I used apricot, blackberry and strawberry)

Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour and salt. Stir until combined. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet (I use a baking stone). Bake 5 minutes. Remove from oven. Make a small indentation in center of each cookie with a spoon. Add a small dollop of jelly and bake for 7 more minutes. Cool on wire rack.

I started out using my medium scoop, which turned out to be too big. I didn’t figure this out until the last pan was ready to go in the oven. You should learn from my mistakes and use a small scoop. And don’t add too much jelly or it will run all over your pan as they bake. Small dollop. Very small. Seriously small. Makes approximately 4 dozen non-gigantor cookies.

All of the cookies can be seen here (eventually).

12 Days of…Cookies!

Lots of blogs around the interwebs are putting up a special little “12 days of something” for the holiday season. Giveaways, crafts, gift guides, what-have-you. I’ve never done anything like this before and it dawned on me just now (as I set the timer for the cookies in the oven) what I should do. 12 Days of Cookies! I’m sure somebody out there has thought of this before, but I’ll see if I can’t put my own snazzy leta joy spin on it. It may or may not involve jazz hands. Just sayin’.

I’m getting a bit of an early start so you’ll have time to make some of the recipes before Christmas, if you so desire. And also because I am ready for Christmas cookies. Bring on the grub! I’m sure I will regret this decision come January, but I refuse to be a slave to my scales over the holidays. PPPPBBBBBBBTTTTTTTHHHHHH!!!!!!!! (There’s no written sound effect for flipping the bird, is there?)

If you’re a lover of cookies and candy, check back in tomorrow for the first day of 12 Days of Cookies!

A Spot of Tea

After playing this game with the girls today, I decided we had to have a tea party lunch. I love it when I have ideas like this and am actually able to pull them off immediately. Nothing fancy was required. I pulled an actual tablecloth out of the cabinet, put some water on to boil and we had ourselves a tea party lunch. The hostess served heart-shaped cream cheese and jam sandwiches, organic grapes, mini vanilla wafers, and black cherry tea with milk and honey.

I’m not much of a frou-frou, princessy-type mama but I do love a good cup of tea.

Pizza Friday

The past few weeks, I’ve been making some sort of pizza for dinner on Friday night. Partly in an attempt to conserve funds, partly in an attempt to keep my fingers from speed dialing Domino’s and ordering the Exit 7 Special (thin crust, mushrooms, black olives, green peppers, onions). Tonight I’m breaking from tradition because I have chicken thawed out and no pizza dough in the house. I could make my own dough, but I’m not really feeling up to it. Snot has taken over my head and made it difficult to breathe, much less think hard for prolonged periods. Anything that involves me creating a dough-type substance typically results in me in the kitchen cursing loudly, and I just don’t have that kind of energy to expend today, so chicken it is.

BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza

• 1 pizza dough (I use the kind in the packet that you mix with water–shhh don’t tell anyone)
• bbq sauce (I used whatever partial bottle of Kraft I found hiding in the back of the fridge)
• 3/4 lb ground beef
• shredded cheddar cheese
• shredded mozzarella
• bacon
• thinly sliced onions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Slap a few slices of bacon on a cookie sheet and pop in the oven until crispy. Remove to paper towels to drain and cool.
2. Mix up the dough. Let it rest in the bowl for 5 minutes.
3. Roll out dough on pizza stone. Randomly poke holes all over it with a fork. Bake for 8 minutes. While dough is baking brown ground beef and drain.
4. Remove pizza crust from oven and spread bbq sauce over the top. Sprinkle some cheddar cheese on, then add ground beef, onions and more cheese. Sprinkle crumbled bacon on top. Brush edges of crust with olive oil. Bake for 10 more minutes or until golden brown.

Can you believe it is going to be September next week?! If the end of August means that my allergies will GIVE IT A FREAKING REST, ALREADY then I welcome Monday with open arms.

Don’t Try This at Home. Seriously.

We were feeling a little adventurous yesterday and decided to make something from this book:

The recipe was very similar to this one. So we whipped up a ball of dough, we kneaded it and let it rest, then rolled it out into thin pancakes and tossed them in the skillet.

I busted out an old cast iron skillet that I bought at a yard sale. I now know why the previous owner sold it. It smoked  so much and made such an awful stink, I was sure the smoke alarm would go off and wake up the baby. But, thankfully, it didn’t*.

When they were finished, we each tried a small triangle with a little butter. I was able to choke mine down by adding some sugar and cinnamon on top. Arwyn decided she didn’t care for hers much. Now I know Indian flatbread is not typically this disgusting, so I’m not sure where we went wrong unless the funky old skillet contributed to the nastiness factor somehow. Because they were seriously pretty gross. I threw the rest in the garbage and chalked this one up to experience.

*No sleeping babies were mistakenly awoken in the making of these chapatis.

I Finally Used Some of My Basil

Only four leaves, but still. Friday night’s dinner: Roasted Red Pepper pizza and a little adult drink (in a souvenir cup from our weekend in Louisville) in front of the computer while I waited for Bubby to arrive so we could head out for a [pitcher of] beer at Deerhead. I’m not a huge fan of basil and really only planted it to help ward of mosquitoes. Any ideas for what to do with the rest of it before it withers on the vine, so to speak? Anybody local want some?

I Scream You Scream…

Bubby has been harassing me to make some homemade ice cream. I’ve never been a big fan of the stuff. When I was a kid my mom made it all the time, but it was always runny and tasted kind of funny. I’d rather eat the salty ice from the bucket. Seems like a lot of time and trouble when you can just go through the drive-through at Baskin Robbins. But after coming across this recipe and borrowing an old school ice cream maker from a friend (thanks, MW!) I decided to give it a whirl.

The final verdict: the ice cream is good but it took forever. I went to the store to buy supplies (snagging the final container of blackberries in the place) and THREE HOURS later had something resembling ice cream. It took a loooong time to cook the custard and it took a REALLY looooong time to churn the ice cream. It is fun to make something like this yourself from scratch every once in awhile, but I don’t know that I’ll be giving up my 31 flavors any time soon. This really made me want some Graeter’s. Road trip, anyone?

Breakfast

When it is really, really hot, I want nothing but lemonade and popsicles. So why do I not lose 20 pounds in the summertime? Because after a day of nothing but lemonade and popsicles I am starving and start to graze as the sun goes down. (The beer and cookouts probably don’t help matters much, either.) Welch’s makes a fantastic real-fruit pop. And it only took me five years of parenting to figure out that if I give the child a bowl to put her popsicle in, there are many fewer drips on furniture/carpet/clothes. I share this hard-won knowledge with you in the hopes of fewer curses coming from the laundry room as you stain-treat yet another kid-sized shirt.

My Kitchen Still Smells Like Tandoori Chicken

I love it when friends spontaneously call and want to come over. Seriously, I truly do. Well, as long as I like whomever is inviting themselves over. What better way to spend a Monday evening? Our friend Matty B rang me up and offered to bring some chicken if we’d provide the grill + charcoal. How could I possibly deny that? He also brought a box of mysterious sauces and spices, so I showed him where the pots and measuring cups are located and set him loose in my kitchen (scary! for me anyway. I don’t share “my” spaces very nicely–just ask Juju). He concocted something so hot and spicy, even he couldn’t eat it. I took one sniff that practically singed my nosehairs off and opted to stay far, far away. But it sure was nice to have a few drinks, watch the kids play outside, stand by the grill and chat and then sit around our table together. It made the weekend seem to stretch out into the week a bit and it felt like a good old fashioned summer evening.