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Sunday, December 5, 2010
Biting Off More Than You Can Chew: A Cookie Exchange Lesson
My ambitions for a Christmas cookie exchange are not unlike my ambitions for writing a story. I don’t want to just have a love story—I want to do everything in it. I want to wow and impress and blow people away with my Martha Stewart skills. I don’t want to deliver just one great cookie; I want to satisfy your sweet tooth with variety. So it can’t just be about falling in love—I must have comedy, action, adventure, and perhaps a bit of horror as well as the romance that is near and dear to my heart.
But let me show you what happens when I do a cookie exchange.
Monday, Cindy emails us to say we’re doing a cookie exchange on the 6th. I am completely stoked. I start reviewing recipes and going through my mental handbag of delicious treats that will have everyone begging for my recipe and asking me to bring in more.
Tuesday, I have narrowed the field down to about ten recipes. I have to get serious now. I clearly can’t do ten types of cookies. This is a cookie exchange. I don’t need to make cookies where I only need to exchange among myself. Maybe I should make fudge? I mean, am I confined to only a cookie recipe?
On Wednesday, I go to Aldi’s (known for being even cheaper than Walmart) and stock up on baking goods. I realize before I have even checked out that perhaps I am getting a little carried away. I’m opening a bakery, after all; I’m just supposed to bring a couple batches of one kind of cookies to exchange at work. At most, this should probably have cost $5. I spend about twelve times that, but boy did I have a good time.
Thursday, I’m still psyched. I have narrowed the field to about four different things. A drop cookie recipe, a shortbread/bar cookie, and two types of candy. I can make the candy on Friday, the cookies on Saturday, and then Sunday I can bask in the joy of having been Ms. Christmas.
Friday I go to Gerbes to pick up the few things Aldi’s didn’t have. I fix supper. I read. I’m feeling a little tired from the week at work. I can work on the candy tomorrow. It only has to be cooked a few minutes then left to set up. Yes, tomorrow is fine.
Saturday, I invite Sin over to make cookies and have our writer’s meeting, which went excellently, though possibly a little late in the day to accomplish everything. Oh, well, I can still make candy on Sunday, right? I make the first kind of the cookies. A double batch of White Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies. They come together easily, as drop cookies do, and I bake them. I take a break; we worked on other stuff. Sin goes home, and around 7:30 or so, I decide to work on the shortbread cookies. Dough comes together good and this needs to be refrigerated for 30 minutes before baking. They come out wonderful, but by the time I was done with the shortbread project, it was 10:30 and I was too tired to bake anymore. Screw the candy.
Sunday, it was noon and I was lying in bed going, “I am not making candy. I do not want to get up. Laundry and the farm to visit Dad. No one needs candy. I can make it later.”
Does any of this sound familiar with your writing—or are you guys the type that gets excited about doing everything in your story that you actually do it? Because I’ll get ideas for a car race or a huge fight or a funny kitchen scene where they’re cooking together, and around mid-book, as I’m elbow-deep in characters and angst, I’m thinking, “I don’t need a car race and screw the kitchen scene. They can order take out. I just want to finish this project and get some sleep.” Or I’m so busy trying to make everyone laugh, I end up forgetting to make everyone cry. (Pulling my punches as Bo’sun calls it.) I have big, big plans for my stories—but in the end, I only manage to do one or two of my big plans with any sort of effectiveness before the deadline hits.
And yes, this was a real stretch, but it’s nearly 1 am and I spent my weekend making cookies, cleaning, doing laundry, and writing (as little of that as I managed but still did). Work with me.
Did you ever bite off more than you can chew because you were excited—but then finished the task with less than perfect results but satisfied that at least you finished?
Recipes:
Oreo Truffles
1 20-oz package of regular oreos, crushed
1 8-oz package of cream cheese
Almond bark (white), melted
Mix the oreos and cream cheese. Form into 1 inch balls and dip in melted almond bark. Allow to set. Makes about 50, I think. I'm not sure. Making them is a lot like picking blueberries, you always end up eating a lot more than you ever bring home.
White Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies
Take chocolate chip cookie dough recipe--like off a package of the chocolate chips--only instead of using brown sugar, use all white sugar. Also add 1 tsp of peppermint extract in addition to the vanilla. Instead of chocolate chips and walnuts, add 1 cup of white chocolate chips and 1 cup of peppermint chips (Andes, available this time of year). I use 1 stick of butter and 1 stick of margarine. I recommend letting the dough be refrigerated; they won't spread as much when they're baked. If you use dark pans, watch carefully--they like to brown.
But let me show you what happens when I do a cookie exchange.
Monday, Cindy emails us to say we’re doing a cookie exchange on the 6th. I am completely stoked. I start reviewing recipes and going through my mental handbag of delicious treats that will have everyone begging for my recipe and asking me to bring in more.
Tuesday, I have narrowed the field down to about ten recipes. I have to get serious now. I clearly can’t do ten types of cookies. This is a cookie exchange. I don’t need to make cookies where I only need to exchange among myself. Maybe I should make fudge? I mean, am I confined to only a cookie recipe?
On Wednesday, I go to Aldi’s (known for being even cheaper than Walmart) and stock up on baking goods. I realize before I have even checked out that perhaps I am getting a little carried away. I’m opening a bakery, after all; I’m just supposed to bring a couple batches of one kind of cookies to exchange at work. At most, this should probably have cost $5. I spend about twelve times that, but boy did I have a good time.
Thursday, I’m still psyched. I have narrowed the field to about four different things. A drop cookie recipe, a shortbread/bar cookie, and two types of candy. I can make the candy on Friday, the cookies on Saturday, and then Sunday I can bask in the joy of having been Ms. Christmas.
Friday I go to Gerbes to pick up the few things Aldi’s didn’t have. I fix supper. I read. I’m feeling a little tired from the week at work. I can work on the candy tomorrow. It only has to be cooked a few minutes then left to set up. Yes, tomorrow is fine.
Saturday, I invite Sin over to make cookies and have our writer’s meeting, which went excellently, though possibly a little late in the day to accomplish everything. Oh, well, I can still make candy on Sunday, right? I make the first kind of the cookies. A double batch of White Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies. They come together easily, as drop cookies do, and I bake them. I take a break; we worked on other stuff. Sin goes home, and around 7:30 or so, I decide to work on the shortbread cookies. Dough comes together good and this needs to be refrigerated for 30 minutes before baking. They come out wonderful, but by the time I was done with the shortbread project, it was 10:30 and I was too tired to bake anymore. Screw the candy.
Sunday, it was noon and I was lying in bed going, “I am not making candy. I do not want to get up. Laundry and the farm to visit Dad. No one needs candy. I can make it later.”
Does any of this sound familiar with your writing—or are you guys the type that gets excited about doing everything in your story that you actually do it? Because I’ll get ideas for a car race or a huge fight or a funny kitchen scene where they’re cooking together, and around mid-book, as I’m elbow-deep in characters and angst, I’m thinking, “I don’t need a car race and screw the kitchen scene. They can order take out. I just want to finish this project and get some sleep.” Or I’m so busy trying to make everyone laugh, I end up forgetting to make everyone cry. (Pulling my punches as Bo’sun calls it.) I have big, big plans for my stories—but in the end, I only manage to do one or two of my big plans with any sort of effectiveness before the deadline hits.
And yes, this was a real stretch, but it’s nearly 1 am and I spent my weekend making cookies, cleaning, doing laundry, and writing (as little of that as I managed but still did). Work with me.
Did you ever bite off more than you can chew because you were excited—but then finished the task with less than perfect results but satisfied that at least you finished?
Recipes:
Oreo Truffles
1 20-oz package of regular oreos, crushed
1 8-oz package of cream cheese
Almond bark (white), melted
Mix the oreos and cream cheese. Form into 1 inch balls and dip in melted almond bark. Allow to set. Makes about 50, I think. I'm not sure. Making them is a lot like picking blueberries, you always end up eating a lot more than you ever bring home.
White Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies
Take chocolate chip cookie dough recipe--like off a package of the chocolate chips--only instead of using brown sugar, use all white sugar. Also add 1 tsp of peppermint extract in addition to the vanilla. Instead of chocolate chips and walnuts, add 1 cup of white chocolate chips and 1 cup of peppermint chips (Andes, available this time of year). I use 1 stick of butter and 1 stick of margarine. I recommend letting the dough be refrigerated; they won't spread as much when they're baked. If you use dark pans, watch carefully--they like to brown.
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Captain's Quarters (Hellion)
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53 comments:
Hellie, I'm really impressed with your culinary ambitions.
I often visit a small bakery that makes choc-chip cookies that are out of this world. They always make me crave for more.
The cookies have small chips of white Belgian chocolate and I wonder how on earth they stop the chocolate from melting during the baking phase.
Then I twigged it. They must fire the choc chips at the cookies when they are cooling but still malleable.
I asked the girl serving them, what impact velocity was used when firing the chips but she just stared at me with gorgeous blue eyes, fluttered her long black eye lashes and pushed a persistently stray strand of blond hair away from her nose. When she smiled and said "how many would you like luv?" At that moment I knew that I was not alone in admiring her cookies.
Helli, I'll bet yours taste just as nice and will be filled with dreams and fantastic story plots.
You know, I'm starting to get in a Christmasy mood!
Fabulous Monday morning blog. *huge smile*
OMG - have you been looking over my shoulder and STEALING MY LIFE for your post???? I LITERALLY laughed out loud - not the trite "LOL" kind, but the "ahaha-heeee-hahaha-HAAAW" laugh - causing DH to run into my office, nose hair trimmer in hand, towel around his waist, saying "What are you laughing at? Tell me!" (Like he'd understand).
Seriously? You outlined my entire life in one post. Ask Donna. I will outline for her my plan, down to the minute, of what I am going to do, how I am going to do it, what it will look like when it's done and, well, you get it. She will ask me the day after my deadline "How did it go" and knows from the momentary silence on the other end that I have once again winnowed my master plan down to a quick trip to Target. God bless her though; she always lets me run my fantasy plan without rolling her eyes or giving me a single "Gurrrrrl??".
Take holiday baking for example; I too have my list of no less than 18 things I am planning for holiday gifting - I share your vision, Hellion; Oh yes I do! Kicky holiday music as a backdrop, fat fluffy flakes of snow falling as I, in my fun santa hat, proffer plates of holiday sprinkle embellished assortments of irresistible treats adorned with Martha Stewart quality tags and bows to my friends and neighbors. Yeah, I got a plan.
So that means you will see me the night before said delivery should take place frantically dipping store bought cookies in melted chocolate bits, spastically throwing pinches of whatever NON-pastel sprinkles I can find over them, and chucking them all willy-nilly into the overpriced holiday baggies from the dollar store.
So yeah, I think I know what you mean.......
Yum... Coookiees. :)
I do tend to have delusions of grandeur when cooking or baking. I make too much food for parties by a LARGE amount. As in, I could generally host two or three parties on the amount of food I make for one party.
Cookies, I think it'll go a lot easier than it usually does. Mostly because baking requires cleaning as you go or you look like the cake baking scene from Sleeping Beauty. All covered in flour and sticky stuff on every surface.
This week I baked sugar cookies with the oldest sprog and it was a LOT of effort for the number of cookies produced. It was sweet to see his little face as he was decorating. :)
In writing, I think I do it like you too. Everything's got to have everything all the time. Sadly, at this point, I haven't fully succeeded. I will though. *stubborn tilt of chin*
Every Christmas I remember the month long baking fest that my grandmother put on. There must have been twenty different cookies, from rum balls to nut rolls to sugar cookies and pitzells. The nut rolls were an assembly line endeavor where one person rolled the dough into balls, another rolled those out with a rolling pin, someone else slathered on the filling and rolled them up. Man, I miss those days.
And my grandmother was extremely fastidious while cooking or baking. Never a stray speck of flour anywhere. Even with two or three of us kids helping. No idea how she managed that.
I think I do write the way I cook, which is cluelessly. When writing, I have all these things I want to include in the scene. Then I sit down to write thinking it's going great. But upon re-reading, half of what I wanted isn't even in there. This is when I sit back and think, "How did that not turn out?"
I have issue with forgetting ingredients. In writing, in cooking. Thankfully, you can revise a page much easier than you can revised a finished cookie. :)
Q, I *do* have tasty cookies. The coworkers oohed and aahed over the White Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies, of which there are an obscene amount.
I do imagine they mix the chips into the batter and bake--the chips would probably survive. :) White chocolate chips are kinda delicate (like to burn) and they usually survive cookie baking. It's sometimes a matter of having the right temperature and the right kind of pan (light and shiny)--you know SCIENCE stuff. :)
However, she is never going to share her secrets. That goes against the grain of being a mysterious girl--plus, if you made your own cookies, you'd never come back for hers!
I'm glad you're getting in the Christmas mood. I think you should hang some mistletoe and kiss Mrs. Q thoroughly!
I went home more like almost 9. LOL
It was a wonderful day. Almost like the writing meetings of old. We actually accomplished stuff. I'm quite proud of the Hellie.
Should I start shouting "Deck the halls with boughs of holly.... FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA!" yet?
I'm going to attempt to make a new cookie at our next cookie meeting. I mean, writing meeting. A variation of my double chocolate pudding cookie. Since I have no recipe you and the GPS will have to be guinea pigs.
Those peppermint cookies were EXCELLENT! If you have leftovers, I will take them off your hands.
Bren! Hello! I'm glad to have a fellow member at Overachievers Who Underachieve Anonymous. And I definitely know all about the dipping storeboughts in chocolate and putting them in overexpensive bags. I thought I invented that. Hmmm.
Friends are always the best about not doing the "Grrs" in the phone. People like Donna are gold! *LOL* My mistake is I tell people like my Deerhunter about my plans of grandeur and he'll thoughtfully ask how they went, all excited, and I'll have that awkward silence on my end. But he questions--he's a guy--and I get all cranky. So now he's learned not to ask. If I don't talk about it, clearly it didn't go well. (He's also disgusting in the sense that he makes grandeur plans and he usually pulls them off. Ugh.)
I too have my list of no less than 18 things I am planning for holiday gifting – I share your vision, Hellion; Oh yes I do! Kicky holiday music as a backdrop, fat fluffy flakes of snow falling as I, in my fun santa hat, proffer plates of holiday sprinkle embellished assortments of irresistible treats adorned with Martha Stewart quality tags and bows to my friends and neighbors. Yeah, I got a plan.
God this sounds soooo familiar. Meeting's at 6 pm on Wednesdays.
PS, I'm totally going to try the peppermint cookies. Though, maybe I'll do it with regular choc chips? I don't love white chocolate.
I do tend to have delusions of grandeur when cooking or baking. I make too much food for parties by a LARGE amount. As in, I could generally host two or three parties on the amount of food I make for one party.
I do this too!! I used to do this at the farm when I lived there, and it was only me, Dad, and my brother--and my Dad eats like a bird, and while my brother eats like an army, the food I made (nightly!) could have fed about four times our number. It was nuts.
Now I live alone, but even then I can end up cooking something that I have to end up eating all week. It better be something you like!!! *LOL*
I did clean my messes as I went. In fact, before the Writing Crew came over, I had cleaned and vacuumed the place--and it was so noticeable that Pixy asked me if I was sick, running a fever. I did not enjoy her sense of humor for at least 30 more minutes. Anyway, I have to say cleaning as you go is the best way. I've heard other cooks emphasize it, but now that I've actually done it, I have to reluctantly agree. Since I loathe cleaning, but it is easier a little at a time than all at once.
However, if you're making rolled out, sugar cookie cutouts, I don't know how to do that without making a mess. Impossible. And why I didn't choose to make sugar cookie cutouts even though they are my FAVORITE Christmas cookie. Too much work and too much mess.
But kudos for you for doing it and making fun childhood memories. Some of my best memories are cooking with my mom and doing stuff like this!!
I think they'd be great with choco chips, Marn.
Some of my best memories are cooking with my mom and doing stuff like this!!
Mine too, that's why I did it. But baking with kids is no taste for the faint of heart. I wonder if my mom ended the day feeling like a train hit her too?
I think I do write the way I cook, which is cluelessly. When writing, I have all these things I want to include in the scene. Then I sit down to write thinking it’s going great. But upon re-reading, half of what I wanted isn’t even in there. This is when I sit back and think, “How did that not turn out?”
*LOL* Exactly! Actually I'll do everything according to the directions, but it NEVER looks like the picture in the cookbook. What is up with that?
And then there are the times that I burn the whole thing to dust!!
And true: it is easier to revise a written page than a finished cookie. *LOL* Maybe this means, technically, writing is easier...or at least more forgiving than baking. :)
Sin, was it NINE? Seriously? No wonder it was like 10:30 or so before the damned cookies were done. Sheesh. Though Pixy and I did enjoy the warm shortbread in the small pan.
It did feel like a meeting of old. I loved it. All the talking and brainstorming. It just felt productive. We should do it more.
I did miss you in my yard this morning, singing that. Where were you? *LOL* Though I have to say my neighbor didn't bang on my wall this morning when the Christmas music blasted at 6 am. I slept until 7 and ran 10 minutes late. I swear to God I'm turning the radio to 106.9 until December 26. I cannot go on like this!
For our next 'writer' meeting, I think I want to do something with coconut and pecans in a drop cookie. We'll see.
Though, maybe I’ll do it with regular choc chips? I don’t love white chocolate.
I think they will ROCK with regular chocolate chips. Sorta like a york peppermint patty cookie. I just went with white chocolate chips because they felt like cookies that would go well with hot chocolate.
Delusions of grandeur!
I wonder if my mom ended the day feeling like a train hit her too?
*LOL* YES! Yes, she did! *LOL* But that's what a nap is for...and with all these things in motherhood that take so much more time than you thought, they always end up being worth it. Right?
Hell, I don't know. Reading that blog about the God of Cake has shriveled my uterus from ever wanting to reproduce.
I'm seriously buying peanut butter cookies on the way home. (The kind you lift from the cardboard and place on the cookie sheet.) I'm off chocolate by doctor's orders but I want cookies!
Kiddo and I could probably make sugar cookies, again, by cheating. I may get some of those too.
I like the peanut butter cookies you peel off the cardboard. The payoff without the workout beforehand. It's win-win.
And even I can't screw them up! LOL!
Making peanut butter cookies is so messy. It's measuring the peanut butter!! *LOL*
Oh, I do this so often. With food more than writing, but I'm sure with writing too. Every time I have to host a "small reception" at work, it somehow turns into me making absurd amounts of food from scratch. I have this one recipe for shrimp bread sticks that includes pureeing raw shrimp and then rolling it up into phyllo do sheets and slicing it into cute little bread sticks. It takes DAYS, but I keep right on doing it, every year. And always, but the night before, or that day, I'm exhausted and swearing up one side and down the other about how next year, I'm buying all pre-made appetizers and never again touching raw shrimp....lol
I gotta try these peppermint cookies. Esp with chocolate chips - the idea of a York Peppermint pattie in cookie form is just too yummy to pass up!
I used to know how to make peanut butter frosting for a cake. That was messy, but so damn good.
Bo'sun, I think peanut butter frosting would be sugar coma inducing. *LOL* Holy cow.
I remember having a peanut butter pie once...and it was the richest thing ever.
Oh, but a moist yellow cake covered in peanut butter frosting is to die for. Seriously.
Hal - I'd NEVER do that. LOL! I book all our events here, big and small, and everything is ordered in. Always. Except when the guys decide to grill in the summer and then it's all up to them.
Hal, the shrimp appetizers sound divine. (Unfortunately I'm allergic to shrimp so I have to imagine a little, from when I used to be able to eat shrimp *LOL*) But yeah, those things that take DAYS to prepare and are wolfed down in 15 minutes. WTH! *LOL*
Sorta like spending 6 months writing a book, another 3 months revising it, and the attention spent on it in the publishing world is about 2 weeks.
I mistakenly cooked all the food from scratch about 5 years back to help save money, so now it's turned into one of those expected things. lol. How does that always happen?
And yeah, 15 minutes flat and the food is gone.
I think that sometimes -- "I spent a year of blood and sweat writing this book, and you're going to red it in 6 hours and set it down. Totally not fair"
I think that sometimes — “I spent a year of blood and sweat writing this book, and you’re going to red it in 6 hours and set it down. Totally not fair”
Worse: and then they say, "Eh, it was okay."
O-KAY? I nearly died writing this thing. Are you kidding? It's better than okay, my friend, it's the best damned book you're ever going to read!
I have the dubious honor that my baking has never killed anyone (that I know of) but it always looks like a train wreck.
This is why my pies are always cobblers.
I am duly jealous of your cookie expertise!
Maria, my pies rarely come out like they're supposed to. My apple pie at Thanksgiving looked rather anemic, but everyone ate it just the same.
I've never been a big cookie making fan actually. Cookies are fussy! You have to be paying attention all the time! *LOL* If you lose track, you'll burn your 8 minute cookies! *LOL* Cookies have always struck me as a lot of work for small results. :)
I know I had such expectations of what my cookies would look like and I was disheartened to find them all spread out...and a little brown around the edges. I wanted magazine picture cookies! *LOL*
But I soon found around batch 3 that I was like, "Good enough. What the hell ever...they'll eat 'em and like 'em".
I've forgotten to check in on your contest, how's that going, Maria? I need to hop over there and see if the hero/heroine round is still going. I bet we've moved to the next one.
I mistakenly cooked all the food from scratch about 5 years back to help save money...
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! You never do this. Never ever ever. Even *I* know this. LOL!
Maria - I have never even attempted to make a pie, so you're one up on me.
I just checked the RT site and looks like they're between rounds. We'll have to keep an eye out to see what's next.
Where did Hellie go? Think she's in a sugar coma from all the cookies?
Almost. I need to find something non-cookie to eat.
Lord love a duck! All you overachievers out there! Well, kitchen overachievers! I did the cookie, cinnamon rolls for everyone schtick once. Well, maybe twice...then I stopped.
Last time I made cookies I bought the already made roll out dough from Pillsbury, cut the cookies out, baked and viola! I think I frosted them, I'm not sure...
I can totally see the comparison to writing. All those plans and schedules and components and when I'm done? Hopefully, I made a nice tasty caserole of some sort. Even if it was going to be a five course meal...instead, all in one pan!
I love my crock pot...
I have a crockpot cook book. Never opened it.
I do like the idea of a book being a casserole.
2nd, the cutting out and baking is the hard work of the sugar cookies. I'd rather mix up the dough and make someone else roll, cut, and bake. And ICE. I hate icing the bastards. Love eating them, hate making them.
And there was the year Holler roped me into making a gingerbread house. Man that was funny, but never again.
Crock pots rule. If anyone has a no fail crockpot recipe, post it!!
Ahoy, pirates, it's been a crazy day--pass me some cookies! And then I'm gonna pass out. LOL (I didn't sleep much last night.)
I don't do much cooking (obviously!), but when I do, I enjoy baking. I remember my mom being absolutely MANIC about doing her Christmas baking, with certain cookies that HAD to be made--I was probably in my 30s before I realized, "Hey, we could make these during the other 11 months of the year, ya know!" LOL
As for my writing. . .I enjoy what I "bake", but afterwards I always wonder if it's "big enough", like it's a souffle that's just a leetle bit deflated. :)
I hate rolling and cutting and icing too. It really was a giant pain. The little guy liked it though.
I am using my crock pot today actually! :) Stew. Yum. It's a warm stew kind of day here. I just use the McCormick Stew packet. It's yummy.
I have a crock pot meal I adore.
Start with cooking up some spicy sausage, drain then toss in the bottom of the pot. Next, drain two cans of French style greenbeans and toss in. Then two cans of little cooked potatoes, drained, and cut into smaller pieces. Then two cans of Mexican style stewed tomatoes. A can of Mexican style corn, the one with little red peppers in it. Then a can of diced tomatoes with jalapenos. Cover and cook on low all day... Stir and mix ingredients up about fiftenn minutes before ready to serve. Serve with corn bread.
I always have the stuff to make this in the cupboard come winter...
The further I read Chance's recipe, the more I gagged.
LOL!
I'm hopeless, I know. I was thinking, throw in a whole chicken, some water or chicken stock, let cook all day.
That's my recipe.
I forget, vegetables are anti-matter to you! Sorry! I do have a good hoisen pork one...but it has onions in it!
;-)
What's the hoisen pork one? I would substitute beef, of course, or chicken but I imagine it would work just the same. And I love onions.
Don't have that one with me, Hel. I'll send it to you when I get home. It's tasty! And the more onions...oh, making my mouth water...they just absorb the hoisen sauce and get so sweet and lovely...
If the onions are small enough and added only for flavor, then I'm not against them. (Provided *I* am not the one who has to chop them. NEVER AGAIN!)
I'd be nice and throw some little potatoes in with the chicken for kiddo. That's extravagant for me. Though I used to do roast and potatoes in the crockpot all the time back when I was married. You let that cook all day and it just melts in your mouth. Kiddo wouldn't eat it and I would likely never find a roast small enough to make it worth trying now.
They are the baby onions, so no slicing or dicing. Though you could add extra onions, like I do and make it a maui sweet onion, or a vidalia.
Did someone say COOKIES?!?!
Okay, I'll confess that I actually BAKED this year! 2 loaves of banana nut bread for T.giving and it turned out great.
Haven't baked cookies in about 3 or 4 years, so if Aunty were invited to a cookie exchange (only happened ONCE in my life), she would head straight to the bakery counter at the grocery store! I know they are nowhere near as good as homemade, but we are talking QUANTITY here after all.
Happy Holidays, Revengers!
AC
Aunty is guest blogging at CheekyReads, pirates!
Gods, you're so right. I'd probably end up buying them somewhere, Aunty. Or I might grab a tube of the chocolate chip ones at the store and do them...
You're right, AC, it is all about the quantity here. *LOL* The quantity of cookies, the quantity of rum, the quantity of HOTTIES. Quantity, quantity, quantity...
Is she really, Chance? Crew! Get your bums over to CheekyReads if you haven't and say hello to Aunty!!
Hey! I think the quality of our Hotties is pretty darn good, thank you. LOL!
Damn it, I just hit the grocery store and FORGOT the cookies. Stupid swiss cheese brain.
*waves to AC*
Ho there, Aunty C! I meant to hop over to Sabrina's earlier and check in. I'll do that soon, as soon as I get this water on to boil. I have a hungry kid growling downstairs.
BIG THANX to my mateys for turning out on Cheeky Reads!
And yes, quantity is what this season is all about... NOT that the hunks aren't also verra high quality, Bo'Sun. Oh no, Aunty would NEVER question the quality of scantily clad hunks!
less than perfect results but satisfied that at least you finished?
Finishing something … anything … Means that you are a Winner! Even if you have to crawl to your goal on your hands & knees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzQkOz1wRcM
And
One person’s less than perfect is another person’s Great Invention. Puff Pastry and Chocolate Chip cookies are examples of epicurean delights that were created because the cooks made mistakes.
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