Valentine (sugar) Cookies

Happy Valentines Day!  I hope you have a good one.  We're not doing anything exciting.  Poor people can't partake of the flower and chocolate frenzy that most people do.    I have a long history of really horrible Valentines Days.  Illnesses, blind dates, crummy boyfriends, etc.  I actually smugly thought that my days of having a rotten VD -my affectionate name for the day- were over once I was married.  It's especially easy to enjoy it when your expectations aren't high.  All I ask for is a Dr. Pepper and maybe a shoulder massage.  Got the massage first thing this morning and the Dr. Pepper not long after that. 

Know what else I got for Valentines Day?  A cold sore.  How nice.  It was shaping up to be the best V Day in my history.  Until my lip started hurting.  And then it exploded into a big puffy, painful lump on my lower lip.  Now I'm getting some chills and body aches.  I swear I just recovered from something like this and now here I go again.  My poor husband won't even get a kiss for Valentines Day.  He will get cookies though.

Growing up, it was always tradition to make sugar cookies and cut out holiday related shapes for several holidays through the year.  Easter, Halloween, Christmas and Valentines Day.

My daughter and I planned on making these cookies a week ago, until I discovered that my stash of butter was gone.  The dancing queen has been begging to make "cutting" cookies everyday since I bought butter.  I finally promised her that we would make them Sunday afternoon, IF she took a nap first.  She really wanted to make them, apparently.

After all that, I realized that I don't own a heart shaped cookie cutter.  Oops.  I really thought I had one.  It must be at my mom's.  Not to be discouraged, my kids happily used the Easter shapes.

Soft Sugar Cookies
1 cup sugar
1cup butter
3 eggs
1 Tbs baking powder
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp vanilla

Mix, roll out, cut and bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes.  It helps to refrigerate the dough a bit, but you don't have to.  The dough keeps well in the fridge for quite a while, if you can keep people out of it.  This made 5 dozen cookies, with some dough left over to snack on.

Baking day Tuesday...on Thursday

I realize I'm late this week.  It's been that sort of week.  I did not win the sweater I wanted, which didn't really surprise me, but sometimes I fool myself into thinking I'll become one of those lucky people that win things.  But then I did win something!  I entered a giveaway over at boboloo and I won some cute little crayon rolls, which I always have thought I would make, but I never do.

Today,  someone managed to lock us out of the bathroom.  Nobody is fessing up, but I can't pick that dang lock.  Bobby pin is too short, paper clip is to flimsy and nothing else will fit in that dang little hole!  There is no key to it here and from the looks of the door knob, this has happened before to previous tenants.  There's lots of little scratches, and the hole is a bit stretched from something being forced in there.  If I don't get this figured out soon, I may be taking the entire knob off.  That, or busting through with my body.  Fine day to actually drink as much water as I'm supposed to.  So here I am, trying to take my mind off of this situation for a bit.

It was a big baking day today, not entirely on purpose either, but first, a story:

About a decade ago,  I was a college student.  Every once in a while some friends and I would go to an little cafe/ice cream shop for a change from all the fast food that college students seem to live on.  It was attached to a gas station and decked out with coca-cola paraphernalia from top to bottom.  At first, it was just an ice cream run, but then we noticed the other menu items.  It was run by a little old lady, in fact I think the name of the place was Gramma's Ice Cream, or something similar to that.  She appeared to be a sweet little grandmotherly lady, but she had quite the sharp tongue -never approving of my friend's hairstyle- and such a funny sarcastic sense of humor.  I think that's why I liked her so much.  She would make any variety of baked potato you could think of, polish dogs, with all sorts of toppings and she introduced me to something called a bier-rock.

I had never heard of it before.  Cabbage and burger, wrapped in bread dough and baked.  It's like a self contained sandwich.  I guess snowmobilers would stop to get them, wrap them in foil and put them in the engine area while riding their machines.  Then when they were hungry, their lunch would be all nice and warm for them.

When I  left school I basically forgot about them.  That is until I was perusing through a cookbook that I have, and I came across a recipe for runzas, which are the same thing as far as I can tell.  I guess it's been about a year now that I have been making them.  They are quite labor intensive, especially with small hands helping, but judging by how quickly they disappear, they are quite a hit.  I really like to make them for those long work days on the ranch because they are so contained.  We don't have to have a cooler to hold all our sandwich making supplies, which is always a mess.  And I can easily hand one to my dad when he is needing to refuel, but not yet ready to quit and get off his horse.  He can eat while he rides.

It occurred to me this past week, as I kept forgetting to find things for my husband to take to school with him to eat, that these little runzas are the perfect answer.  I can make a bunch, freeze them and then send one or two with him in the morning.  They will be defrosted by the time lunch comes around, and there is no shortage of microwaves on campus for him to warm them up with.  So, I made some.  A bunch.

I figured that two loaves worth of dough would get me through the two pounds of meat I had browned, but I was wrong.  Maybe if I had stuffed them a little more.  We have also, in a pinch, used frozen roll dough, as well as biscuits in the can for the bread part of the recipe.  All have worked, but I prefer to make my own dough.

I had not planned to get so crazy in the kitchen today, but I ran out of dough.  Originally, I planned on two loaves of bread, the runzas, and maybe some buns if I had left over dough, and some cookies.  I ran out of dough with just a bit of meat left, so I decided to whip up some more dough.  Only I forgot to half the recipe and ended up with tons more dough, hence the many buns.

The cookie recipe, I got here.  They are mostly peanut butter, and not getting my fill of my last batch of peanut butter cookies, I decided to try these.  Wow.  Even my husband admits that they are rich, and he never admits something like that.  I do like them, but I think I'll stick to the spoon method when I want that much peanut butter again.  I used to scoop out some PB and then dip it into some chocolate milk mix when I was a kid.  These reminded me of that, just a bit more sophisticated, I suppose.

Here's the runza recipe:
adapted from the centsible nutrition cookbook

1 lb sausage
1 lb hamburger
1 onion chopped
8 cups chopped cabbage
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
cheese -I used mozarella
approx. two loaves worth of dough.  I used my favorite bread recipe.
Brown meat  with chopped onion.  Add cabbage and cover for 5 minutes.  Drain liquid and add salt and pepper.
Pull off a piece of dough- egg sized is what I did- and roll it out in a sort of rectangle.  Put a bit of cheese down on one side and top with a good pile of meat mixture.  Fold the uncovered side of the dough over and seal the edges together.  The recipe I got this from suggests dabbing water on the edges before folding it over, but I found it stuck better without.  Let rise on a pan for as long as it takes you to finish making them all, or 20 minutes or so.  Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

I have never frozen these before,  but I'm going to give it a try today.

My first ever baking day Tuesday!

Maybe.  Tuesday might not work every week.  It felt like I was baking almost every day, and there are other things I want to do with my afternoons, so I declared yesterday baking day for the week. 

Originally, I had planned to get started immediately in the morning, but my brain doesn't kick in till about 10, so I got a late start.  My 4 year old helped, so that took a bit more time, but we made a lot!  We made bread dough and then made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies while the bread was rising.  Then we punched down the dough and made these oat muffins -still using up apples-while the bread rose again.  Then I remembered that hubby's birthday is this week and I should have made a cake instead of cookies, so after the kids were in bed, I made a little chocolate cake.

The grand tally:
3 loaves of bread
8 rolls (because I only  have 3 bread pans)
2 dozen crumbly cookies -not sure what happened
18 muffins
1 9x9 chocolate cake
1 bowl of cookie dough, because it makes me happy

I wanted to share my cookie recipe, because I love these cookies so much, and with the oatmeal, I can pretend that they are healthy.  I've honestly been making this recipe since I was a little girl.  I'm not sure why they fell apart, maybe I didn't let them sit on the pan long enough.  They still taste good though.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 Tbs milk
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips, or raisins if you really want to be healthy, or dates or nuts...

Preheat oven to 375
Sift flour with soda and salt into mixing bowl.
Add butter, sugar, brown sugar, egg, vanilla and milk.  Mix until smooth.
Add rolled oats and chocolate chips.
Drop by spoonful on ungreased cookie sheet about 2" apart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes

*food storage friendly changes:
add egg powder, butter powder, or milk powder with dry ingredients, then add needed water when recipe calls for milk.
I used 4 Tbs egg powder and 1/2 cup water in place of the eggs, and 8 tsp powdered milk and 1/4 cup water.

Happy harvesting

I almost had one of those days where I get so much done and it all works out great... almost. I actually got up early today! That's hard for me, but today I did it and I headed out to the garden to do some much needed weeding. I came home with more than I expected. It was such a fun morning in the garden. The peas that I gave up on actually had some pea pods ready to pick. Those wonderful 'one ball' squash had two more for me, I picked a head of lettuce and all my beets --nine total. Not a good beet year. One and a half pints of pickled beets is all I got. We use the greens too. Surprise! One of my mystery squashes is an acorn squash. I don't know much about them. I think it was ready to pick. Do they store well? Guess I'll be doing a little research. I also accidentally broke off some green cherry tomatoes. I doubt they'll ripen, but we'll see.

Garden tended, two loads of laundry, canning, cookies, bread, dishes, dinner started... of course something had to go wrong. Somewhere in there, I killed the bread. It started out so great, but it ended up two ugly, stubby loaves. Not my greatest baking moment.

First Harvest and oven blues

Technically, my first harvest was a few days ago, when I ate the turnip thinnings and one radish, but this was the first thing that I could actually fix for dinner. Two, 'One Ball' squash. I have lots of these coming, which is wonderful, since my yellow crookneck plants don't even have any blossoms yet, and my son's zucchini are still very small. These are the first summer squash I've ever grown and harvested. I sauteed them with some onion and Cajun seasoning. Yum! Except my mommy brain struck again (just like today, when I burned the cookies and left the lid open on the washer) and I cooked them longer than I wanted to. I thought I turned the burner off, but I guess I just thought about it and didn't do it. So, they were a little overcooked, but they still tasted good. My husband humored me and tried a bite.

Here's the garden a few days ago. The corn is more impressive now and growing fast. Hope it makes it before the frost! I'm going to take a picture this week again, because we're going on a week long trip and I want to see how much it grows while I'm gone, or if it just can't possibly grow with me not being there to look at every single plant and blossom.

I think I identified the mystery squash. Judging by the size and shape of the little green squashes, I'm guessing it's a pumpkin, which will make life a little difficult as it smashes the other squashes in that row and takes over the pathway. I need to figure out some ways to protect the other plants around it. The poor cucumber plant behind it is struggling as it is, poor thing. I'm just not good at cucumbers or beans yet. One thing at a time, I guess. Hopefully, when I get back, I'll have some cherry tomatoes waiting for me!

On another note, my mom's new oven has stopped working properly. I say properly, because it sucks you in by preheating normally, so you think all is well, but then it never kicks on again, so you put your cookies in, for example, at 350 and watch as the butter melts and runs out of them and they slowly flatten out, but never cook. Then you open the oven, which still says it's at 350, and notice that it just feels a little warm, not enough to actually cook anything. Luckily, or unluckily, I'm not sure which, mom still has an old stove in the basement that she uses for canning. So I preheat and take the already melty, runny cookies downstairs and put them in to bake. Then, my baby wakes up and needs attention. Sometime later, I remember that I'm baking, or shall I say, burning cookies downstairs. They probably would have been a failure anyway, but the extra baking time sure didn't help.
On to the bread catastrophe! Once again, it preheats wonderfully, so I pop five loaves of bread in. 30 minutes later, I notice that they haven't baked, but have now risen five inches. Downstairs we go again, unfortunately, they crashed, since they were partly baked, but mostly dough. I have a timer set this time, so even though the bread will look terrible, at least it won't taste burned. I hope.
I really have a hard enough time surviving day to day as a homemaker when everything goes smoothly. I don't need the appliances to sabotage me just for fun.