Friday Fragments - December 21, 2012

Aha!  We survived the Mayan apocalypse.  So, are you disappointed or relieved?  Personally, I think we missed a golden opportunity to consume massive amounts of Mexican food.  We thought it was a grand idea at work but we had a whole buffet of food left over from the potluck the day before.  Maybe on Wednesday when we return we'll celebrate the Mayans.

Last weekend my older son got married.  It was a beautiful wedding and a very fun reception. 

After much coaxing my daughter got the teenager on the dance floor.

 

 Of course the star of the show was my grandson, the ring bearer

He promptly passed out

Daddy posing by him

Because our groom had been a ring bearer 20 years ago and also passed out at the reception

Movie suggestion for the Christmas Season - The Bishop's Wife.  I see it's scheduled to play a couple of times on TCM today (Sunday) at 7pm and midnight.  I thought it was a sweet film that captured the Christmas spirit very well.  Please make a point of looking for it.

My plan for the weekend is to make cookies!!!!  Hubby doesn't want me to go overboard, except of course, to make plenty of peanut butter.  I figured I will make the batters and probably use only half of each, freezing the rest.  Then I can have fresh baked cookies later on.  We'll see.  I might just go overboard after all.

May everyone have a very merry Christmas!

Baking

Don't get all excited, these items weren't done all in one day.  I've been sitting on the pictures for a while.

First up, one of the prettiest pies I have ever made.  I tweeked the recipe a little... a lot.  On the upside, it was beautiful and tasted wonderful.  Downside?  When I sliced into it, it was basically apple soup.  It was a great way to use some of the oodles of apples out of our CSA box.  I also added a dash (or a bit more) of apple cider also out of the CSA box.  Next time I'll have to cut back the liquid a bit. 

Next up - COOKIES!  I was excited to use my new Pampered Chef baking stone.  We were very pleased with the results despite not having room for more cooking implements of torture.

Because I'm not a fan of peanut butter cookies, I make two different batches - peanut butter for him and chocolate chip for me (no nuts).  For the peanut butter I used some of the peanut paste from our CSA box (they called it peanut butter but it's a little too organic for my tastes, but great for cookies!) along with Jif and a cup of roasted peanuts.

I have to show off my cooling racks.  I bought these ages ago, probably from Pampered Chef, and use them allllll of the time.

Finally, the beginning stages of fruitcake.  If you've been following my blog for any time you know that I do a homemade fruitcake that has received lots of favorable feedback from friends and family.  In previous years I buy dried fruit and spend approximately forever chopping it up.  While picking up our CSA box one weekend we decided to load up on the dried fruits.  We turned a corner and found these pre-chopped trail mix bags.  Total time saver!  AND they cost less!

I added some of the leftover dried fruits I still had from last year along with more raisins and cranberries.  Then I added the spices, rum and wine.   Everyday I shake the tub to mix them up as the fruits soak up the liquor.  It really takes only a couple of days but I won't make my cakes until next week so more shaking.

Get Well Cookies

On day one of my recovery there was a woman standing at my front door holding a bouquet of cookies from my coworkers.  Get Well Cookies!  My reaction was to burst out laughing, maybe not the best thing to do 24 hours after lapriscopic surgery.  But it didn't matter, I loved it!

I had to explain to both my son and my husband that those were not TURKEYS but buzzards.  Neither one got it - why would anyone send BUZZARD cookies?  I just shook my head and said my friends understand me and knew how much I would enjoy these. 

Oatmeal Cookies

I'm not the best cooking blogger as I didn't bother to snap pictures as I was concocting so you'll just have to fly blind like I did.  This particular recipe was in the bigass haul of clipped recipes I bought at an estate sale.  I have no clue where she got it but it's clearly clipped from a magazine therefore I'm unable to credit the author.

3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter or margarine, at room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup granulated fructose (since I really don't stock that on my shelves I took a wild guess and substituted brown sugar.  Do this.  It was awesome.  Seriously, who has granulated fructose? And if you're all smart and know they are the same thing, don't say anything.  I'm feeling smart and smug)
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
1/4 cup water
1 cup raisins
1 1/4 cups coursely chopped walnuts.  (I used whole pecans because that's what we had on hand - I'm allergic to walnuts- and he likes big pieces.  OH maybe I should note that I never sampled these cookies because of the nuts.  I can eat very small amounts of non-walnuts and I put a shitload of them in the batter -more than the recommended cup and a half, like covered a baking sheet)  Spread the nuts in a shallow baking pan (like I said, I covered that bastard).  Bake in 350° oven, stirring often, 10 to 15 minutes (or SEVEN, seriously when it gets a pleasant fragrance pull them out) until a rich golden brown.  Cool before using (so don't be a dumbass like me and mix all of your shit and then read the goofy note at the bottom of the recipe about toasting your nuts, thus the reason I put this little detail at the beginning of the ordeal.  I'm a giver)

Heat oven to 350°.  Mix oats, flour, baking soda and salt (isn't that all of the dry ingredients?  Bet the next set of directions is to mix the wet stuff).  In a large bowl beat butter, sugar, fructose/brown sugar and vanilla (mmmhmm) with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy.  Beat in egg and water until blended.

With mixer on low speed gradually add flour mixture; beat just until blended.  (They're high, this is kind of a dry dough and I eventually had to use my hands to get it fully mixed)  With a wooden spoon (or your hands since they're already dirty) stir in nuts and raisins (oh I didn't have any raisins so we just did without - poor hubby). 

(Stash the bowl of dough in the fridge for 10 minutes before baking and return it to the fridge between batches.  My SIL taught me this little trick for drop cookies and they turn out with a nice soft center so I do this for all the cookies I ever make.  So do it because I said it works)

Scoop dough (it has some note referring to page 79 but we're both SOL on that since granny didn't bother to keep that info) or drop by heaping tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  (make sure to kinda smash them down because these don't spread out).

Cool on sheet about 1 minute before removing to racks to cool completely.  Makes 36 (I think I made mine larger and I didn't bother to count)

The Husband LOVED these.  He liked that I used pecan halves and he REALLY liked them toasted.  He said that released a flavor that made them very yummy.  Which means I'm going to have to toast those fuckers every damn time now.

Enjoy

Friday Fragments - Mar 26, 2010

Check out everyone else posting their fragments - stuff that doesn't quite fill a full post.  And then join in and post your own!

*Week 4 of starting a new business:  Permits cleared, utilities on (without any sexual favors in exchange).  Still things are moving in fits and starts.  Equipment delivery was delayed 3 days due to a truck break down, wrong parts were ordered, the consultant may have a conflict of interest... blah blah blah.  Three days this week were hard manual labor getting the shop and trailer set up, today is another hard long day and I probably won't see The Husband until late this evening.  Next week promises more of the same.  I designed the business cards, but that didn't happen smoothly as we were using an online service and it took two days before I could figure out how to load our own design and not use one of their templates.  The webpage is still needing an update.  We're so busy with the here and now that we're failing to look up and see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It's getting closer.

*For over a week my youngest has been hankering for homemade cookies.  Despite the fact I have several cookbooks and BOXES, literally, of recipe cards, I directed him to look online for a chocolate chip recipe.  OMG total success.  These are by far some of the best cookies we have ever made!  Click Here for the recipe.   I used 2 whole eggs instead of one egg and 1 yolk.  I found we had to kind of flatten the cookie on cooking sheet because they don't spread out a lot.  OH!  And a tip my SIL gave me for chewy cookies - put the batter in the fridge for 10-20 minutes before baking.  The Kid gets a gold star for finding this!  He also made the cookies and I didn't do anything other than answer questions and sample the goods.  

*The Christmas Cactus at work that never blooms at Christmas that this year bloomed for Martin Luther King Day?  Yeah, that bad boy started budding for St. Patricks Day and has three beautiful red blooms in full glory this week.

*Last week we came home to a set of boxes on the front porch addressed to my son.  He ripped into them to find that my dad has unloaded his firetruck collection.  Another three boxes arrived this week.  This kid is in total awe.  These aren't old toys, but a collector set of truck replicas.  Many of the trucks are still in their original boxes so I had to explain why he needed to leave them in the box.  Then I encouraged him to clear a dresser and set up a proper display.  It looks pretty awesome.