cookies! number seven

Yesterday was a slow day in the field; after an eternally long night of fractured sleep pieced together with long, loud screaming sessions courtesy of Hobie, I wasn't quite sure any of us would even make it to morning. Alas, saved by Pop Tarts and Coke and a healthy dose of ibuprofen, onward I baked.

First, I have to get this off my chest. I use the fresh butter wrappers from each recipe as a spatula/beater rest. Call me crazy. Oh, and I couldn't live without my cookie scoop. Unless a cookie calls for being rolled into a ball or rolled out, I use the scoop. Mostly because I'm lazy. You should get one - I think I paid like $8 for mine at Target a few years ago.

Yesterday's cookie is one of my all-time favorites. Orange Almond Drops are some of the sweetest, moistest, most cake-like cookies I've ever tasted, and such a great citrusy addition to a typically chocolate-heavy cookie tray (not that I'm complaining about chocolate, mind you). In previous years I could go right out in our backyard and pick fresh oranges for this recipe; I'm not sure anything is as good as orange juice just minutes apart from its tree. Since we moved to our new place we no longer have that advantage, although we do have a lemon tree that drops fruit bigger than cantaloupes. I'm not kidding. I'd take a picture to show you but it's freezing outside.

Back to the cookie. The cookie gets frosted with a thick, creamy, dreamy mild orange frosting that is so delicious there will be fights over who gets to lick the beater. And spatula. And bowl. I'm pretty sure everything would taste better frosted with this creamy orange frosting. Don't skimp on the frosting! And if you like to freeze your cookies like I do, just freeze these in a single layer for 30 minutes before you stack them in a storage container, and you won't have any worries about how to keep all that frosting from making a huge mess.

If I can peel myself away from the baby later, I'll be making a new recipe that calls for frozen lemonade in the dough. It sounds different and promising! Or very, very disastrous.

cookies! two more

If ever a day in Florida were made for baking, today was the day. Did you know we can have days in December with a windchill factor of 32 degrees? No? Well, I'm glad to see I'm not alone here. That kind of cold is typically reserved for our annual three-day-long "winter" in late January, and then we pack away our pants and closed-toe shoes and welcome summer. But not this year, apparently. This year, tonight, mid-December, we're going to be getting down into the TWENTIES. Did you know the baby doesn't even own a pair of feetie pajamas, and my older kids don't have any matching socks? So cranking up the oven was a welcome sight.

Today I only plowed through 2 of my recipes (both double batches), but the cookies were tasty! And I rarely have an excuse to dance around the kitchen, singing along to Christmas tunes (well, plod clumsily. And my singing is more like humming). My day was cut short by Hobie's twelve-month checkup - you mean we have to go outside in this weather? - and the ministrating of several sickies. I missed this evening's 4-H meeting but in this cold I'm not so sure I didn't get the better end of the deal.

Enough yammering. The first cookie I whipped up was the White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies. I omit a lot of the ingredients (coconut, apricots, macadamia nuts) but the white chocolate combined with my secret weapon (aka Craisins) is so good you don't need the extra confusion. I bet these would be wonderful with a little dark chocolate tossed in! Of course that probably holds true for most things.

I also trudged through the Turtle Cookies. I absolutely loathe making these cookies, I won't lie. The dough has to refrigerate, they have to be rolled, dipped in egg, dipped in pecans, flattened, baked, they stick to the pan, I always have to re-flatten the thumbprint while they're hot (a rubber baby spoon works great for this!), and then they have to be filled with caramel and finally drizzled with chocolate. And if you aren't drooling by now, there's something wrong with you. This is why I make them every year, even though they are a tremendous pain.

As I make my Christmas cookies, I take a photo of one of each variety on a white napkin, which makes it easy to drag into an editing program like Photoshop later on. Then it's a quick cutout and I can add tiny photos of my cookies to a cute little cookie card that I print out and attach to each gift tin or box we hand out. This was the card page ready for printing out, from a few years back. Cookie names are subject to change depending on my whims.

Stay tuned for more! And if you're looking for the recipes from yesterday's post, I went back and added the links for you.

cookies! the first four

Christmas would not be Christmas without cookies. This year, I'm busy baking up The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies to give as gifts to family and friends. Not that it has anything at all to do with the twelve days of Christmas, or the song, but there will be a dozen kinds of cookies and it does sound rather festive.

I got a late start this year; last year I managed to finish up the final batch the day before Hobie was born. Our freezer literally did not have another inch of room to spare. We had to forego our storage drawer, our frozen vegetables, and our Eggo's for a few weeks. The kids muddled through the sacrifice.

Today, I spent 7 hours in the kitchen whipping up the first four recipes on my list, in six batches. You should have smelled my kitchen.

 First, there were the Chocolate Bliss Cookies. Chewy middles, crunchy edges, rich, crackly goodness. These cookies are basically chocolate chips swimming in melted chocolate, with just enough egg and flour to hold the things together. I like to make mine sans nuts, because I already have enough of those to go around. In a word, heavenly.

Next we had Almond Sweets. I make these every year; they're so pretty and festive, and just look like they belong on a cookie tray. In spite of the name the don't contain almonds; the cookie is like a little shortbread with an almond extract-flavored icing sprinkled with red and green sugar.

Then, there are the Oatmeal Twinkles. Basically they're just peanut butter oatmeal cookies with chopped pecans and M & M's, but these are a real kid-pleaser. They remind me of that scene in The Parent Trap Two (remember that movie?) where the kids are making cookies and add various candies to the dough (marshmallows, gum drops, M & M's). I like how colorful they are!

Finally, today I made Peanut Butter Madness. These cookies are soft, almost cakelike peanut butter mounds stuffed with chocolate chips, honey roasted peanuts, and chopped peanut butter cups. Yes, they are delicious.

The best part of cookie baking days are the plates of rejects. Runaway icing, bottom-of-the-bowl dregs, and cookies that spread too far do not go to waste in this house!

Four down, eight to go!

Manlet turns one

A year ago, he came into this world.

A day from now, he'll be eating this.

I fear for all of us.

Happy birthday Hobie!

Christmas in Florida

While I enjoy being sick, you can enjoy these photos from our weekend. And for the record, it was about 65 degrees. And that's really, really cold for us this time of year. I swear the gloves aren't ours.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Some days, it would be nice to just stay in, wrapped in a soft sweater, sitting cozy by the fireplace.

But we live in Florida. In Florida, a sweater is a person who has constant pit stains. And the only fireplace I've seen around these parts is at Cracker Barrel. And they don't even have a fire in it, just some decorative logs.

So, yes, two days ago we were all sweating to death. It was 90 degrees. We were in shorts and flip flops, the state shoe. Most of our kids can't tie shoes at age ten. I kid you not. What's a shoelace?

And then today, today, this morning, it was an ugly fifty degrees with a stiff breeze. Socks had to be procured. Shoes were dug out of closets. Pants were tried on and found to be too short, leftovers from last February. They would have to do. Jackets were hunted down and rounded up. The kids really wanted snow hats and mittens, and down parkas, but we didn't seem to have any of those. Onward we struggled, into the nippy morning chill. I'm pretty sure some tears were shed in honor of the bitter, arctic cold.

Being Thursday, we had to pick up my niece and head up to Orlando and the kids' homeschool PE class. Me, five kids, long drive, lots of red lights. We finally make it over to the park, my attention straying between the gas gauge doing its best impersonation of empty, and a sheriff's helicopter circling overhead. The park where we attend PE is hidden behind a high school, and we ran into the school's security patrol blocking the access road.

"The school's on lockdown. You can get back to the park but just drive slow - my people are everywhere."

My people. Yeah. I've seen Mall Cop.

"Is there anything we should be worried about?" I asked, mesmerized by the police chopper pounding above our heads.

"No, it's fine."

Okay then. We made our way back to the park, exceedingly, painfully early. As usual. We were, of course,  the only ones there. No one else was dumb enough to drag five kids out into the freezing cold with a police helicopter watching our every move. I thought to call my husband, and he checked out the news online. Yes, the school was in lockdown, along with other schools in the area. Something about armed robbers on the loose, fleeing the scene. Police were out in force. Great.

Some friendly parks and recreation fellows pulled up alongside us, and echoed the news. Armed robber, suspected to be in the woods, maybe we shouldn't be there, yada yada. Those would be the woods directly flanking the park. Nice.

I herded the kids together and, per the parks guys' suggestion, we walked over to the recreation complex building, intent on getting inside. The doors were locked and no one answered our knocks. They probably thought we were armed robbers.

Just then, my brother-in-law called to let us know PE had been cancelled; they'd just called him. It was dawning on me that everyone else seemed to have fled the area, and no one was coming in. We hightailed it back to the car, the police chopper now seeming just feet above our heads. I maintained the calm, steady force holding the wee ones in check and preventing panic.

Actually, I think I stepped on one of them in my haste to get back in the car. I know it wasn't the little ones because I had one dangling from me and the other held in a death grip by the arm. My voice may have been a teensy bit higher than usual.

Doors slam, seatbelts click. The engine revs.

"I have to go to the bathroom."

I was gracious and didn't flatten the police officer now guarding the exit. Where were you ten minutes ago, buddy?

Fast forward to Seven Eleven. I managed to squeeze about 3 and a half gallons of gas out of the lone ten dollar bill in my wallet, bladders were emptied, and only once did I hear the plea for Slurpees. I piled a mountain of Cheerios on the car seat between the baby's legs, hoping if he couldn't reach them he might at least stop screaming long enough to try to get them. No such luck.

The drive to park number two went something like this :

"Feliz navidad! (ba da ba da ba da da) Feliz navidad! (ba da ba da baaaa)"

"Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Waaaaaahhhhh! Waaaahhhhh!"

"I wanna wish you a merry Christmas!"

"Waaaaaaaahhhhhh!"

"I wanna wish you a merry Christmas!"

"Waaaaaaaahhhhhh!"

"I wanna wish you a merry Christmas, from the bottom of my heaaaaaart!"

"Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Waaaaaahhhhh! Waaaahhhhh!"

The boy is a natural singer.

And I am a natural attractor of red lights. I'm pretty sure we hit every single red light between Orlando and the new park. And slow tourists. And several patches of closed road. Apparently December 2nd is Annual Road Sodding Project Day. Who knew. 

An hour at the park, a dropoff to four children, and a scream-filled drive home later, I needed a nap. 

"What's for lunch?" 

"Can you help me with my English lesson?"

"I want to watch Strawberry Shortcake!"

"Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Waaaaaahhhhh! Waaaahhhhh!"

Check please.

I've become one of those people

I never imagined it, but it somehow has happened : I've become one of "those" people. The people who cause massive eye-rolling in the checkout line as they sift through a coupon holder. The people who scour online deals and combine manufacturers' coupons and store coupons. The people who actually buy a newspaper. Did you know they still print newspapers?

So yes, I'm resigned to being one of those people. But it's strangely addicting - I was previously enjoying saving about $40 a month with grocery coupons (plus hitting up all the BOGO deals at the local grocery stores) and I figured it wouldn't go past there. We're not really the kind of family that tailors our purchases to what's on sale; we find coupons for the things we're already buying. It's fun - sort of like a treasure hunt. A really, really boring, routine, danger-free treasure hunt.

And then Christmas started creeping ever closer, and nothing we wanted was showing up in the Black Friday ads. That's when we discovered the power of the toy coupon. Santa would have been pleased to discover the $49.99 GoGo My Walking Pup could be had at Target in the week before Thanksgiving for $29.99 ($5 off sale price + $10 off Target coupon + $5 off Hasbro coupon). Certain games went from $14 to $2, no mail-in rebates required. Right now we're sitting on $20 in coupons for a particular toy that starts with an L and ends with an eapster and is followed by a word that rhymes with dexplorer, and with any luck it will be had for $39.99.

If we can find the stupid thing locally because everyone else and his brother is now one of those people, too.

It's strangely addicting. It makes me want to go to Vegas or something.