There is just no pleasing everybody.  It’s impossible.  I give up.  This is a cookie that to ME would be wonderful because it has a little bit of everything.  Raisins, chocolate chips, oatmeal, coconut, nuts, cinnamon.  Yum!  Except that I make my cookies to bring to our regular Saturday night game nights.  One friend hates coconut and most nuts.  Everytime I make a cookie with those things in them, he looks at me like I kicked his favorite puppy.  Like I made them just to punish him.  I’m just making the cookies as they come in the Taste of Home magazine, good or bad.  It’s not as if I’m deliberately picking the things he hates.  This time, I figure I will be nice and leave out the coconut and nuts, since they are bonus ingredients anyway.  The REAL treat is the combination of the chocolate and raisins.

At game night, friends start to sample the cookies.   One friend takes a bite, makes a face and says, “EW!  Why did you put in RAISINS?  I thought these were chocolate chip!”  He wasn’t impressed at my argument that raisins were “Nature’s Candy”.  He gave the rest of the cookie to his wife, and ate the other goodies there.  He would have been happier with the coconut and nuts.  And the friend who hates the coconut and nuts?  He wasn’t there.  He’d have liked the raisins.

This cookie has everything in it, and that means that probably somebody in your family will hate something in it.  You will have to figure out which things to put in and leave out.  I should note, that this is a cookie recipe designed for bake sales because it makes TWELVE DOZEN COOKIES.  I did not make twelve dozen cookies.  I cut the recipe in half, and that was plenty of cookies all by itself.  If you are making these for a bake sale or something, please remember that this cookie has everything in it which means that most people will hate something in it.  You can’t please everybody.  Don’t’ even try.

And as a note to my friend who hates nuts- next week’s cookie has pecans in it.  Stop looking at me like that, I didn’t kick your favorite puppy!

Raisin-Chip Oatmeal Cookies

2 cups butter, softened

1 2/3 cups sugar

1 2/3 cups packed brown sugar

4 eggs

3 tsp vanilla

4 cups flour

2 ½ cups quick cooking oats

2 ½ cups old fashioned oats

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

3 cups chopped nuts

2 cups raisins

1 cup coconut flakes

Cream butter and sugars.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg.  Beat in vanilla.  Combine dry ingredients.  Gradually add to the creamed mixture and mix well.  Stir in chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, and coconut.  Drop by Tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown.  Makes about 12 dozen.

I have seen several versions of this cookie floating around the internet, and I have been excited to try this one.   This is an orange cookie with vanilla chips and the idea reminds me of a dreamsicle- orange on the outside, creamy vanilla on the inside.  Mm.  Dreamsicles.   I think this is why these cookies are named Orange Dreams.  I’m pretty sure.

The cookies were a little dry- they stayed roundish instead of flattening out the way I like them to.  They tasted very good, and most everybody liked them.  I wanted MORE orange, however.  There’s only a bit of grated orange rind in the dough, so there was the occasional hint of orange, but for me there wasn’t enough.  Maybe a splash of orange juice and bit more orange peel would add more flavor, and solve my dry cookie problem in the meantime.  I would say, however, that this is a cookie that would be pretty reliable- it tastes good, and is unique enough that people will be impressed with it.

Orange Dreams

1 cup butter, softened

½ cup sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 Tbl grated orange peel

2 ¼ cups flour

¾ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 ½ cups vanilla or white chips

Cream butter and sugars.  Beat in egg and orange peel.  Combine the dry ingredients, and gradually add to the creamed mixture.  Stir in vanilla chips.  Drop by rounded Tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.  Makes about 4 ½ dozen.

So what was your Mother’s day munch?

Cheese Sauce

1/4 cup butter

1-2 Tablespoons Flour

3 cups milk

Salt

Pepper

1/2-1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Ultra Gel

In a small sauce pan melt butter on medium heat.  Add flour and whisk well, cooking until a pale tan.  Add milk a little at a time whisking well with each addition until completely smooth.  Add cheese and spices, stirring constantly until cheese is fully melted.  Add Ultra Gel as needed to reach desired consistency.  Serve over vegetables or combine with cooked pasta for killer mac and cheese.

For a gluten free version omit the flour and increase the Ultra Gel to compensate.

I always enjoy Mother’s Day as a time to pay a little extra respect and attention to the wonderful women in our lives and, honestly, I enjoy getting pampered by Bunneh which he is very very good at.  This I type as the smell of ribs fills the house…ahh…love…

Though we are fortunate not only to have mother’s in our own lives, but as a part of where this company started.  I will always remember watching my grandmother work candy on a marble slab and my dear mother twisting long ropes of dough into knotted rolls and I hope to instill the same memories into my kids.  Cornaby’s isn’t just a company, but a family and a farm that all started with a pretty blonde girl and a handsome boy…it’s a pretty good story…

Have a marvelous day out there!

This is not a cookie experiment, because it’s a basic shortbread cookie.  I’m sharing it however, because it was my daughter’s birthday, and she wanted a Lord of the Rings party.   There were a bunch of teenagers coming over to my house, and I figured food was probably a good idea.  We set up a Lord of the Rings feast, with foods that may have been from, or at least inspired by the events of The Fellowship of the Ring.  We had meat pies from the Inn of the Prancing Pony, crisp fried potatoes from the Shire (aka potato chips), Dwarven Ale (homemade cream soda), Vegetables from Farmer Maggots crops, Apples from Buckleberry Orchards, an Elven cake from Rivendell, and of course Elven Lembas bread.

In the books, Lembas bread is supposed to fill you up after just one bite.  It is made by elves, so it’s probably pretty yummy.  I figured that Shortbread cookies would fit the bill pretty easily.  It’s yummy, and it has a ton of butter in it, which is enough to fill you up after just one bite.  Perfect, right?

There are no surprises here with this recipe.  I made the dough, rolled it out, cut it into squares and baked it.  If I had looked harder, maybe I could have found some banana leaves or something to wrap them in, but I was satisfied with just putting them on the plate.  Five teenagers were there at the party.  Except for a few my husband and I snitched, they ate every cookie.  About two dozen of them.  They also ate both bags of “crisp fried potatoes”, all but two meat pies, all the vegetables and left two apple slices.  I’m glad there weren’t six of them!

Either way, the “Lembas Bread” was a hit.  It will be for you, too.

Shortbread Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

¾ cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

¼ tsp salt

Beat together the butter and powdered sugar until smooth.  Beat in vanilla.  Mix the flour and salt together, and add to the creamed mixture.  Mix until just combined.  Roll into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for an hour.    Roll out onto a floured surface, and cut into desired shapes (in this case, square).  Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 325 for 10-12 minutes.  Makes about 2 dozen.

This is a beautiful cookie.   Lovely Cornaby’s raspberry jam sandwiched between two square ridged cookies, the ends dipped in chocolate, then dipped in chocolate sprinkles.  This is the kind of thing you make for a wedding, served on a doily with fresh raspberries garnishing the side.  It’s also a delicious cookie- raspberries, chocolate, and butter cookie.  Yum!  It’s also a pain in the behind to make!

I have a cookie press.  I won it at a basket auction many years ago.  It’s a pretty darn good cookie press for the hand-pressed variety.  I don’t use it.  It drives me crazy.   I struggle to get the mechanism working right, and end up holding the cookie press down, and pushing the plunger down with my chin until it finally clicks into place and produces a spritz cookie.  It takes several attempts like this until I can finally get it working correctly.  Please note, I am not suggesting at all that the cookie press is in any way defective or inferior to other cookie presses.  The problem doesn’t lie with the cookie press.  The problem lies with me.  I might be cookie press challenged.  Hello, I write a cookie blog and cannot use a cookie press.  This cookie requires that you use the ribbon disc, and press a long stream of cookie dough, then cut it into 2 inch pieces to make lovely rectangular ridged cookies.

Yeah.  In theory this should be easy.   In practice this took a LOT longer than it should have because I had to wrestle with the cookie press to get the dough and the plunger working just right.  Trying to keep a stream of cookie dough coming out without breaking while using your chin to press down the plunger was just as much fun as beating my head against the counter a dozen times.  I DID finally get a system down where I could churn out the cookie dough easily, but it took awhile.  I think there may have been swear words.

If you are not cookie press challenged, or if you have a super deluxe battery operated type of cookie press, then you won’t have a problem with this.  If you are like me, however, this cookie might be more trouble than it’s worth.  Maybe it would be easier to just roll the cookies out and cut them into squares and forget about the cool ridges.  Maybe it would be easier to make the ridges with a fork.  The cookie IS yummy and pretty, so the decision is yours.

One final note:  Make sure you serve these cookies right away.  They are much better fresh.  After two or three days the jam in the center makes the cookies get a little soggy in the middle, and they aren’t nearly as satisfying.

Raspberry Sandwich Spritz

1 cup butter, softened

¾ cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 ½ cups flour

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp baking powder

1 cup raspberry jam

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Chocolate sprinkles (or whatever other color you want if you want to change it up)

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, and gradually add to the  creamed mixture.  Using a cookie press fitted with a ribbon disc, form dough into long strips on ungreased cookie sheets.  Cut into 2 inch pieces.  Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.  Cool.    Spread one cookie with jam, and top with another cookie until sandwiches are formed.  In a microwave, melt chocolate chips, and stir until smooth.  Dip the ends of the cookies in the melted chocolate, then in chocolate sprinkles.  Place on waxed paper and let stand until firm.  Makes about 2 dozen.

The base for this is just a couple of thin beef steaks, in my case I used a couple of cube steaks I had in the freezer.  We’ve been working hard to avoid too many white starches, so we served up with steamed broccoli and some baked brown rice. The Ultra Gel replaces cornstarch which is often used in this kind of application and makes it so that we don’t have to keep the sauce at a boil which breaks down the veg too much for my taste. It made a nice total meal with a peppery tang from the tarragon.  We’d eat it again.

Tarragon Beef

1-2 Tbl olive oil (I used our herb oil)

2 4 ounce beef steaks

1/4 cup red wine

1/4 cup beef stock (Homemade gives an awesome depth to the dish)

1/4 cup water

2 teaspoons fresh tarragon, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh chives, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

4 ounce sliced button mushrooms

1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced

1-2 Tbl Ultra Gel

Season steaks on both sides with salt and pepper.  Heat a cast iron skillet and add the oil, giving it just long enough to come to temperature.  Add steaks and cook for 2-3 minutes per side.  Remove from pan and hold in a warm oven.  Deglaze pan with red wine (I just use a cooking wine), beef stock and water.  Add spices, mushrooms and onions and cook until the mushrooms and onions are soft.  Add salt and pepper to taste and thicken with Ultra Gel.  Serve sauce over beef with rice or potato.

I love sugar cookies.  I love frosted sugar cookies.  I’m not such a big fan of rolling out and cutting out the sugar cookies.  This is why I save sugar cookies for a holiday like Valentine’s Day because a holiday makes the labor more fulfilling.  I don’t really make them any other time of the year.  This recipe, however, changes all of that.  Sugar cookies in bar form!  Make the dough.  Press in the pan.  Bake, frost, and cut in squares!  No cookie cutters!  No rolling pins!   No fuss!  If I want something seasonal, I can just color the frosting and add the sprinkles I like.  No problem!  Completely Delicious, the lovely blog where this pin comes from has a great thing going here!

One problem.  One tiny problem.  These sugar cookie bars are also substantial.  They are heavy and thick and rich and super filling.  I cut these generously, and I shouldn’t have.  These were a LOT of cookie, and much smaller little square servings were definitely required.  Friends weren’t finishing the one cookie they got- not because they didn’t like them, but because….wow….this is a LOT of cookie.

Serving size aside, I can see turning to this method to get a sugar cookie fix on occasion- especially for a husband who adores sugar cookies and hopes that some neighbor makes us some for Christmas, because I don’t do sugar cookies until Valentine’s Day.  I may try to use my favorite sugar cookie recipe, perhaps using a bigger bar pan to press them thinner.  Either way, sugar cookie bars are a great idea!

You can find this recipe here:  http://www.completelydelicious.com/2010/03/sugar-cookie-bars.html

This is how I feel most of the time…

This means I’m working harder at planning meals ahead as my days are a little unpredictable and my nights even more so.

So, dear reader, what are some of your favorite go to meals which should go into my rotation?  Anything you just can’t live without?

I’m leery of homemade sandwich cookies.   This is because they taste fabulous, but you are technically eating two cookies, which, if you are watching what you eat, is cheating.    In the case of these Buttercup cookies, two rich buttery cookies with a brown butter frosting sandwiched between them and a dollop of jam on top is a LOT of two cookies to be eating as one.  I ate three.  That’s six cookies, if you are doing the math.  Then I ate two more the next day, which is four more cookies.  Sandwich cookies are dangerous traps, my friends.

And they’re worth it.  This is a very tasty cookie.  I loved the brown butter filling, and using Cornaby’s raspberry jam gave it a lovely burst of fruity flavor.  There was just one problem.  I needed way more jam.  There were arguments among my friends how best to eat the cookie.  Some were for eating it in a circle to get a little bit of jam in each bite.  Some were for eating all the cookie section, leaving the little circle of jam for one delectable bite of fruity goodness.  My strategy became more of deconstructionist strategy.  I sucked out the jam, separated the two cookies and licked off the brown butter frosting, then ate the cookies.  I needed to make the center of the second cookie bigger to make room for more jam so there weren’t these issues.  I also really need to get me some scalloped cookie cutters in varying sizes to make it easier and prettier.

Definitely try these.  Play with different flavors and shapes.  Plan on giving them away or sharing them because when one cookie is really two, you can find yourself eating a lot more than you planned on!

Buttercups

1 cup butter, softened

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 ½ cups flour

Filling:

¼ c butter

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

¾ tsp vanilla

5 Tbl water

¼ cup Cornaby’s raspberry jam

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Gradually add flour and mix well.  Divide dough in half, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 2 hours or until easy to handle.  Roll out each portion on a floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness.  Cut with a floured 2 ½ inch scalloped cookie cutter (I didn’t have one of these).  Cut a 1 inch hole in the centers of half of the cookies.  Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.  Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.  Cool.  Heat butter in a small saucepan until golden brown- about 7 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Gradually add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and enough water to make it spreadable.  Spread on the bottoms of the solid cookies.  Top with remaining cookies.  Place ½ tsp jam in the center of each.