11.11.2013

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. 

11.06.2013

Every Time

If for no other reason than to simply remember a Sunday evening when the sky colors came an hour earlier than they did the week before.  

If for no other reason than to take one quiet moment before rushing off to the next scheduled thing, to reflect in those seconds about how rewarding it feels to push yourself hard.  

If for no other reason than to always know this corner of the world is home, with its gravel roads and tall ditch grass and surly sloughs.  

If for no other reason than to remember every sunset I experience is a gift and a true wonder.   

If for no other reason than to just be really really grateful.  To be given the chance to do every day.  Maybe the same as I did the day before.  Maybe much different than tomorrow will be. 

11.05.2013

As of Late

Currently...

I'm obsessed with banana chips.

And dried blueberries from the bulk section.  They don't have added sugar which deserves a twirl and a foot stomp, however they are pricey.  Let's just say there was a moment to the cashier of say what now?  Those berries were twenty-six dollars?  Clearly, I can't really be obsessed with them so special occasion treat it is!     

I have been pulling that old new to me rocker over to the fireplace in the morning to read and it's rather lovely having a place to rest my arms while they hold my book and it's been mighty fine having toasty toes.  

Trail mix is no longer on my favorites list because it betrayed me.  I cracked a tooth on the junk a couple of weeks ago.  Favorites to junk.  That's right.  It happened on a Thursday.  On a Friday, I was certain the right side of my face was losing feeling and I would have a brain infection by Saturday.  I called the dentist and started with, "I'm sure I'm just being my kind of crazy but I'm fairly certain my face hurts..." and ended with being in his chair.  Once reclined, we chatted for a bit and I reiterated I was certain I was being overly anxious and analyzer-ish.  To which he looked at me and smiled because he knows.  So I thought for sure and since he knows, he thought for sure that it would be nothing.  Then I heard the word crown and I couldn't help but tell him, "Crap!  I wanted to just be crazy.  It really does all start to fall apart after you turn 30 doesn't it?"  Cracking teeth now and I don't want to know what's next.  

Remember the time I ate my memory card instead of the trail mix?  Just had to throw that in because it still makes me shake my head.  

My legs are super sore.  The good kind of sore where you have to lower yourself in stages to the sitting position.  The good kind of sore that comes from getting your hiney running again and muscle pumping again.  Can someone tell me why I thought it was appropriate to take two and a half months off?  Also, I've added in some Zumba and my that's fun!  I'm the most uncoordinated person on this side of the Red River, but I sure am enjoying making a fool of myself.  Plus I think forcing myself to learn to look at person in front of me and copy their actions at a high speed rate is doing things to my brain.  What things is yet to be determined, but I believe in learning new and making the brain work.  

I refuse to skip over November.  It does not deserve a skip.  It does not deserve talk of red and green and twinkly lights.  I love me the twinkle, but I'm holding firm on this.  Being thankful is what this month is for and I find myself thinking about blessings, both big and little.  Like the blessing of banana chips.  Or maybe more so, the blessing of feeling each morning that I love what I do.  And the blessing of decaf coffee.  

Especially when it's enjoyed in large doses by friends and family with pumpkin marshmallows on Halloween night.  


Overall, Halloween was a win.  


I really do love seeing the costumes and the excited faces and hearing the funny mixed up thank yous with trick-o-treats along side a few blank stares.  I also love that family and friends stay a bit and there's the complete chaos of pizza eating and door bell answering by whoever is closest and that at the very end of the night, Karen sits and visits but never takes her stocking cap off or her puffy coat.  It's those types of things.  They make a holiday...a holiday. 



And let me just say this, Billy makes friends with everyone.  He was like the trick-o-treat king.  


As for me, I feel the nerdiest of nerds on Halloween, on most holidays if I'm being honest.  Thinking about all kinds of ways to make or do or wear.  

Really, one could say I'm fairly nerdy on all days, even a Tuesday.  So maybe I could have summed all previously stated words up by saying this...

Currently, I'm a nerd.  

I never have been one to be succinct though.