Big Ginger Cookies

I meant to post this recipe during the holidays, since the flavors just go so well with the holidays, but they are fabulous at any time of year.  I always make a double batch because they seem to disappear faster than cereal around here (and that's saying something).

Big Ginger Cookies
INGREDIENTS
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

 In a small bowl, combine dry ingredients and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add egg and molasses and stir together slowly.  Add dry ingredients, a little at a time.

Dough will be thick--makes it easy to roll

Shape into 1 1/2" balls.  Roll in sugar.

A light coating of granulated sugar

 Place 2" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.  Bake at 350 F for 10 minutes or until brown and slightly puffed.

For chewy cookies, remove from oven when
the centers still look slightly uncooked--
UNLIKE THOSE PICTURED!
(They are still good if cooked fully, they'll
just be crunchy instead of chewy.)

 These do keep rather well if stored in a sealed bag or container, but good luck keeping them around that long!  These guys are addicting.

Gingerbread and Stockings

Decorating Gingerbread Houses is one of those fun Christmas traditions that the kids never want to miss out on. Why would they? They are miniature sugar castles! All the sugar aside, they do really enjoy the creativity involved. I wanted to let them each do their own miniature house, but I just didn't have the time and brain cells to make it happen this year. There's always next year, right? They did a great job working together (after the initial frustrations were addressed) and came up with a very fun design.

Our time in Tahoe was filled with great food.  I love it when Chris has time to cook!  Oh, the things he creates!  Pictured is a bowl of soup that could have won awards it was so yummy.  All of the kids agreed that it was delicious.  That's saying something!  I liked how the tomatoes and zucchini made it look all Christmas-y, Chris liked how the stock was made with the leftover turkey wings and pieces we froze after Thanksgiving. We had so much good food during these two weeks...now we get to go back to me "cooking".  (yes, those quotes were absolutely necessary.)

I also ended up reworking Audrey's stocking, since it had been completed in such haste last year (I think it was last year...?) that it needed some attention.  I'm now happy with the four stockings, though they are heavy in beauty and light in capacity.  I was looking for pictures of them on my blog and computer and didn't find what I thought I'd find, so here they are for the record:

Eventually I will get caught up with all these Christmas posts, I promise!  Next up, family time and presents...and then the lovely, gorgeous, fabulous snow.

Upon Our Return

I thought I'd provide a snapshot of our garden on returning from our vacation. It fared remarkably better than it did last year, (though in need of some TLC) with the only casualty being the butternut squash:



We didn't arrive too late to harvest tomatoes, and we ended up pulling the corn off the stalks because they looked like they were dying...funny looking little things:



Our bell peppers and melons are still growing, though they are small.



It's been a great first gardening year. We've discovered that we need to plant much more than we did in order to get the harvest we were thinking of. Also, a drip system would be fabulous. I'm ready to start planning my fall garden!

Day-After-Christmas-Resolutions

Why wait until New Year's Day?  I feel like I've eaten so much sugar and junk in the last week or two that the day after Christmas is a great day to start a Better-Eating-Resolution.  Of course, this is the morning that Chris declares that he is going to make Eggs Benedict for breakfast.  Way to test my resolve, mister!  And so, to combat the yumminess, I have decided to post a couple of fabulous book quotes.  Maybe I'll print them out and tape them to my fridge.

First, is a depressing one (in case I find myself entering the happy delusion that fudge doesn't have calories and cinnamon rolls are practically vegetables)  from So Long See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell:

"Without meaning to, she has grown heavy but she eats so little that short of starving to death there doesn't seem much she can do about it."

And next is a funny one to cheer me up after being so depressed...from Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout:

"Olive is a big person. She knows this about herself, but she wasn't always big, and it still seems something to get used to.  It's true she has always  been tall and frequently clumsy, but the business of being big showed up with age; her ankles puffed out, her shoulders rolled up behind her neck, and her wrists and hands seemed to become the size of a man's.  Olive minds--of course she does; sometimes, privately, she minds very much.  But at this stage of the game she is not about to abandon the comfort of food, and that means right now she probably looks like a fat, dozing seal wrapped in some kind of gauze bandage."

And with that, my friends, I'm off to find something to eat for breakfast that will rival an amazing hollandaise sauce or the best cinnamon rolls on earth with a negative amount of calories.

Let Me Sum Up

I was going to explain, but there is too much so I will just sum up. In other words, I am going to combine a whole bunch of little things into one blog post and just pretend that they all go together somehow.

First, please remember that we are in the process of trying to sell our house. Yes, our house is currently on the market, and I have had the pleasure/stress of having it shown fairly often. The kids have done quite well keeping their beds made and rooms picked up, and typically the majority of our mess has been in the kitchen or dealing with school books being strewn all over the living room. Recently, however, I walked into our [in]formal living room to find that kids finally couldn't stand it any longer. They HAD to make Something messy.


Next up in the news, I made my first Lemon Meringue Pie. I'm glad to say that it wasn't too difficult, nor did it turn out horrible. (I also made a beautiful and delicious apple pie this weekend. I like making apple pies, although I dont usually like eating them. This one was amazing though--I was shocked. If I could make it like that every time, I'd be an apple pie convert.) And now, since I don't have a picture of the Amazing Apple Pie, here is one of the Lemon Meringue Pie:


Another interesting tidbit involves some sort of fruit tree we have in our front yard that has remained frustratingly unidentified until recently. Timothy was drinking a bottle of juice and realized that one of the fruits on the label looked like the ones on our tree. This is how we discovered that there is such a thing as a Yumberry Tree.





And that, I believe, is all I am going to cram in for now. I love all of those Little Things!

Fruitless Tree Bears Fruit

I've heard rumors that this could happen, but nonetheless I was shocked to find a small plum on my fruitless plum tree whilst gazing off my deck today. I proceeded to practice some balance beam exercises on my fence rail in order to capture my prize (don't tell my dad, I might get the headshake-sigh-rolling eyes-"melody"). Of course we had to taste the fruit. It looked oddly beautiful, and tasted fantastic. It almost made up for having to mop floors today.

The Cookie Without a Name

I am on a quest. I received this cookbook for my birthday:


And I am determined to try every recipe in it. I have made 5 so far. Out of 1001. This may take me a little while.

So far we've had one loser, three that were okay, and one amazing winner called Sunflower Bran Cookies. The problem is that I made some substitutions and it would be false advertising to say that they have bran in them.

So I am not only on the Quest of 1001 Cookie Recipes, but also the Quest of the Nameless Cookie. Here's the altered recipe (as I made them):

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup quick oats
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 375. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl; mix in oats. Beat butter and brown sugar in large bowl with mixer on high speed until creamy. Add egg and vanilla, beating until just blended. Mix in dry ingredients, then add chocolate chips and sunflower seeds. Drop tablespoons of dough onto greased cookie sheets and bake 8-10 minutes.

I made a triple batch of these for a pool party, and by the time I took a picture--that evening--only one was left.


Name ideas anyone?

Silpat or Stoneware?

I love my Pampered Chef stoneware--especially for baking cookies. I've been curious about Silpats, though, (nonstick silicone baking mats) because I seem to see them used everywhere. I've finally gotten the chance to use one, Since my mom and dad got me one for my birthday. I made three different batches of cookies today! The Silpat really is amazing for nonstick purposes, although I must say that there really is nothing like stoneware for even cooking and no burnt bottoms. It was kind of fun using one of each--I just may continue to do that!












-- Post From My iPhone

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Andrew and Melinda dug out the Mrs. Field's Cookie Book and (once permission was granted) made Double Chocolate Chip Cookies. They did it all themselves, from start to finish! I, wisely, stayed out of the room while this was going on (I'm too much of a control freak otherwise, and run myself completely out of energy). I only kept my ears wide open to recognize the sound of imminent disaster--of which there was none. They set the oven temperature themselves, made the batter, put trays in and took them out. There was a bit of mess, of course, but nothing too horrendous. I found out later that they had some minor mishaps (the butter was melted instead of softened, and they added the brown sugar to the flour mixture instead of the butter) but employed their problem-solving skills quite efficiently. Good job kiddos!

An Apple a Day

My kids have been on an apple kick for 2 months at least. I keep waiting for them to have their fill and move onto something else. It's only a matter of time--I know from experience (having lived through The Great Banana Craze of 2007). We've sliced and cored so many apples recently that we've streamlined the procedure to the point of having only 1 piece of waste per apple, even without using the apple corer (a huge improvement from the 2,000 pieces we started at). We've eaten so many apples that my sons are beginning to discuss the subtleties of different varieties. Here's what we ate yesterday:

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
6 Tbsp. brown sugar-packed
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt
dash cinnamon
dash nutmeg
1 3/4 cups buttermilk
3/4 cup canned pure pumpkin
3 large eggs
2 Tbsp. butter-melted

Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl. Combine remaining ingredients in another bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry all at once, whisk until smooth. (Add more buttermilk if necessary for desired consistency.)

Cook over medium heat on a buttered nonstick skillet. Turn when bubbles form, cook until bottoms are golden brown. Serve with hot maple syrup.

Mmmm...Comfort Food

Anyone know what this is? Well, as far as I know it's something that my mom came up with, so most of you are probably missing out. This is Comfort Food--HEALTHY Comfort Food. This is Eggs and Rice...this is something that every single one of my children enjoys eating. Typically this is something my mom would throw together for breakfast if she had leftover rice. I always have to make a ton in order to keep my boys happy, so I usually have to make rice specifically for this purpose. I'm sure my mom probably cooked it a bit different, but here's how I make it:

-2 cups of dry rice, cooked (usually cooked a day ahead and refrigerated)
-4 Tbsp butter
-9 eggs

I get my huge 12" deep dish non-stick skillet and heat it over medium heat. I add in the butter, wait until it's melted, and throw in the rice. Stir this around until the rice is mostly separated and coated with butter; cook until heated. Meanwhile, beat 9 eggs in a medium sized bowl. Add all at once to rice, stirring to combine, and occasionally while cooking (like scrambled eggs). Add salt and pepper to taste.

I was thinking of home, eating comfort food, and decided to share. Yum!