The Keeper of a Tradition

The cookie exchange is my own personal kick off to the real deal holiday season, it's what sends the red and green flare signals to my brain.  The predecessor to the internal glitter throwing.  Danae hosts and therefore, she is the keeper of my every beginning of every Christmas.  (No pressure girl)

I have no doubt in my mind this tradition is in safe hands.  And let me tell you this, it's so good oh so good to sit around a table with hot coffee steaming and girlfriends.  

Eleven dozen cookie making is worth it to have those moments and memories.  If you are my sister-in-law, you make twenty-two dozen because in a homemade Oreo there are really two cookies.  That woman is absolutely a wonder.  

Lemon spritz was my cookie of making this year.  They are the squares with a diagonal line of dark chocolate, which was supposed to be more of a half dipped affair but that was too much fuss for me.  It is not too much fuss to align the edges of rugs over and over again but dipping cookies?  Not for me.  

So the cookie exchange happened.  The holiday season is in swing.  Full swing.  Crafts!  Crocheting!  Cooking!  List making!  Also I need to state here for the record, I won the door prize this year.  Thank you very much.  After a lovely little prank pulled by Danae and Sil, but still.  I won.
   

Cookies all Around

Happy Veteran's Day!  Teaching on an Air Force base has given me much perspective on how thankful we all should be for the men and women who serve this country.  We should be thinking of them and their families every single day, not just on a holiday.  I wrote about it a long time ago and it still holds true.  Absolute true. 

If you are at home today, you are in luck because here's where I get back to the sharing of the cookie recipe from the night in which I baked cookies with only the under cabinet lighting, because it was prettier.  

Chocolate Chip Fabulous-ness should be the title but it's really Chocolate Chip Cookies Doubled (Debi) in the book.  Which means they came from Momma D. and they have been made more times than one could count. 

2 cups softened butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 cups packed brown sugar
4 eggs
4 tsps. vanilla
5 cups all purpose flour (I tend to lean towards a solid 5 1/2)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsps. baking powder
2 tsps. baking soda
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
2 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.  In another bowl, mix together the flour, salt, soda, and powder.  Combine the wet and dry ingredients.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Scoop dough onto cookie sheet.  Bake for 9-10 minutes or until edges are brown.   

There's more butter and sugar than ever should be allowed but trust me on this. 

And flour will fly all over hell because it's a gigantic doubled batch.  Taking deep breaths and thinking of the end products works to combat the white mess. 

Because of the enormity of the dough, the spatula will break.  Which will cause you to get out the supposedly fancy pink one from a certain store, the one nobody likes because it doesn't really work.  That's what fancy gets you.

After that, you will run out of normal sized semi sweet chocolate chips and have to add in mini chips as a substitute and then you'll always want to do that, serendipitous surprise.  

The wooden spoon you inherited from Grandma Gladys will need to come out to do the final mixing as you stand on a chair because it's that serious.

Finally, you'll scoop and scoop and scoop because the batch goes on forever.

And if you are named Amy and an absolute bottom of the ninth-er, you will pull a comfy chair into the kitchen to sit and read your book club book while you wait in between oven dings because the next night is book blub Friday.     

Why couldn't one read the book in the living room?  Because the World Series trumped all, that's why.  Improvising is the name of the game around here.  

After the whole ordeal is said and done, you'll have enough cookies to bring a large container to work the next day, send two plates to Billy's work, and freeze three containers to be shared at a house warming party on the following Sunday. 

 

Plan appropriately.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

These gems are chewy and freeze like they were born to freeze.  Sometimes it's a good idea to do a little tester cookie or three to see if you need to add flour.  They run on the flat side but you don't want them to be run over style. 

A Smattering of Sorts

'Twas the night before Halloween and all through the house, Billy was watching the World Series while Amy was finishing up the last round of orange treats for the little trickers and pumpkin cookies for the big trickers.

I've decided I really am a sucker for holidays.  Give me a reason to theme and the rest is history.

I've been drawing pumpkin faces on mandarin oranges for the past three nights and making more batches of Halloween Bark from that party because it was a hit and then tonight, I found myself first admiring the prettiness of a bowl of ingredients and second making quite possibly the best pumpkin treat yet.  

There's this odd little being inside me which finds things like flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, soda, powder, and salt something worth looking at.

But for some reason, the wet ingredients weren't quite as appealing.

However the end product hit it out of the park.  Notice my slight baseball innuendo there.  Patting myself on the back.  

These pumpkin cookies, goodness gracious.  Although they are more like a cakinie -- a hybrid between a cake and a muffin and a cookie.  But totally delicious.  I had one.  I mean really, you can't serve a new recipe to people without sampling first.  Feel free to make these.  Your house will smell like a slice of fall festival.

Wet
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups sugar
1 can pumpkin
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Dry
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1. Combine wet ingredients
2. Combine dry ingredients in separate bowl
3. Add the dry to the wet & mix together until smooth.  Add as many chocolate chips as your heart desires (1 cup milk chocolate and 1 cup of mini semi sweet was a win)...drop onto pan.  Bake @ 400 / 10 minutes.   

Here's where I say, eating these cookies with coffee just might be the ticket.  Possibly even a home run of sorts.

Here's where I also say these will be making an appearance on Thanksgiving week.  Family, be ready.  Coffee and pumpkin cookies and sun.  It's happening.  

I have fourteen more pumpkin faces to draw so I best get to it.  And there's one inning left in this game.  Top of the ninth for him.  Bottom of the ninth for me.  Promise that's the last one.     

I'm sitting here writing this from my new favorite spot, an old rocker which came home with me on Saturday morning.  Because if you give Amy twelve minutes in between packing for an overnight trip, getting ready to take pictures at her uncle's wedding, and dropping off family pictures at her boss' house...she will jump in her friend Brittany's van and find the rocker.  

Then she'll come home and have to figure out where to put the rocker and that starts a whole other story.  One which involves a hijacked trip to Target on the way home from Bismarck and mild living room rearranging during Sunday night's baseball game.  Like I said, a whole other story entirely.

Who Me?

I've done two ridiculous things today that are totally out of my character.  Number one.  I baked.  Number two.  I ironed. 

First the baking.  I made an angel food cake.  Yes, it was out of a box, but I did have to read the directions and mix it up and pour it and pre-heat the oven and ok fine, it was the easy way. 

I decided to make an angel food cake because I have my grandma's angel food cake pan.  She did not use a box mix and her angel food cakes were simply delightful. 

The whole making of the cake went quite well but really, who can't add water and beat for 1 minute?  I can't give myself too much credit...yet.   

I even poured it into the pan quite nicely.  Again, though, not giving myself credit...yet. 

I was about to throw the box away when I read this.  The part next to "immediately."  I panicked.  A glass bottle?  I don't have one of those.  I was in a fit of being flustered until it dawned on me. 

Hello.  Use this.  Now this is the part of the baking an angel food cake I give myself credit for.  Thinking on my feet and using my resources.  I can say with fairly decent certainty that Grandma did not use this kind of a glass bottle.  But hey, it's a new era! 

Crisis was averted and I was pleased as punch with myself.  Then, I looked to my left and was reminded of why I am not a baker.  I can't imagine what my kitchen would have looked like if it had been from scratch.  You can tell I am definitely not a seasoned pro.  Rookie status for sure. 

While the cake was baking, I ironed the apron I have hanging on the wall.  Yes, I took it down first.  I may be domesticatedly challenged, but I'm not stupid.  Although, a co-workers husband once asked her this about me, "Can she handle boiling an egg?"  I tried not to take offense. 

Anyways, I may be cooking, baking, and ironing challenged, but I am not decorating challenged so I do have a cute ironing board. 

On a side note, I am also not cleaning challenged, in fact, quite the opposite.  I take pride in my cleaning abilities.  But, today?  Today, I tried to clean my wood floors approximately 3.4 times.  I can't for the life of me get them non-streakish!  Then, when I think I have them looking marvelous I walk on it and it's all over with.  Hence the 3.4 times.  I finally decided to quit looking down and to just look up instead.  Therefore the 0.6 of the time that didn't get finished.  

Wow, sidetracked once again.  Back to ironing. 

The only reason I even thought about ironing the apron that hangs on my wall is because Mom said to me last time she was here, "You know Grandma would hate having that apron wrinkled."  To which I said, "Say what?"  To which she said, "Grandma ironed her aprons before she wore them and it would drive her crazy to see that you have hung a wrinkled apron on the wall."  To which I said, "Oh."  

So here I am today, ironing the dang apron.  I wouldn't want to not honor Grandma correctly.  Although, I can't quite believe that a person would iron their apron?!  One more thing to check on the Grandma was Amazing checklist.

I checked on the cake part way through my ironing and thought to myself..."Houston we may have a problem."  There's a reason they tell you to put your rack down all the way.  I'll try and remember to follow that direction next time.  I said a prayer and went back to ironing. 

The little strappy things that tie behind one's back were a bugger, but I'm not a quitter. 

I finished up the apron in just enough time to hear the timer beep for the cake and I was very pleased to see that it did not hit the top of the oven.  Also, I know you are excited to see how that "glass bottle" worked for holding the cake up. 

Pretty good people.  Pretty good.

The apron is ironed and the angel food cake is baked and I have survived both.  My floors are slightly streaky and it is driving me slightly bananas but like I said, my new approach is to just look up unless any of you have any tried and true suggestions to help.  Maybe I will also drink the bottle that is holding the cake up.  That ought to help me not notice the floors so much.