Tag: food

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Telephone!

The girls and I invented a new game while I was baking Christmas cookies this week. Telephone! Wait, you say, that isn’t new! Oh, yes, it is! Here’s how you play: Get your Fancy Nancy telephone. If you don’t have one, you’re going to want to go out and get one, or decorate an old phone with ribbons, flowers, and anything pink. Take a notepad and a crayon. Pretend to answer the phone for Mommy and take a message. This game may also be known as Secretary! Administrative Assistant!

From the picture above, you can tell Emmy’s had a cold this week. She was banned from the cookie-making process after she sneezed on all the chocolate chips I put into her little bowl. She didn’t mind; instead of putting the chocolate in the cookies, she got to eat the chips instead!

Here is the recipe for one of our favorite cookies at Christmastime:

Ruby Sparklers

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted regular flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond extract
semi-sweet chocolate chips
colored sugar (I used red and green–ooo, Christmasy! To make colored sugar, I pour a small amount of sugar into a bowl and mix with a few drops of food coloring.)

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Sift flour and salt; set aside. Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and almond extract. Stir in flour mixture a third at a time.

Press dough (about a teaspoon) around three chocolate chips to make a small ball. Roll in colored sugar. Place one inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 25 minutes. Yield: about 4 dozen cookies

And there you have it. A new game, PLUS a cookie recipe.

Happy baking!

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Random Tuesday Thoughts: Too Much Salad!

Ed ended the weekend by telling me he’s got to eat better. On Saturday he ate his weight in Whoppers (that’s hard to do–malt balls aren’t exactly the heftiest candy). On Sunday, I made him a yolk-in-the-middle for breakfast, we stopped for burritos after church, and went to his sister’s to eat bratwurst for dinner.

Last night Ed walks into the kitchen while I’m chopping up vegetables for dinner. He looks longingly at the stove. There’s nothing there. No pots or pans. He says, “Whatcha doing?” I say, “Making dinner.” It dawns on him that we’re having salad for dinner, and he is none too pleased. I say, “I’m going to put chicken on it, and we have croutons.” Ed still pouts. “Do you want a cheese stick with your salad?” That’s better, but he is still not happy with my choice of dinner. “You said you wanted to eat better!” I retort. “Well, yeah, but I didn’t really mean it!” he says back. He is a meat and potatoes and more potatoes guy, and when I don’t supply enough carbs he tends to get a little cranky.

Crabby Bunny

I want to start cooking healthier meals, but once the cold weather starts I turn to creamy casseroles and soups. Mmmm…comfort food. Grilling in the summer makes healthy cooking a whole lot easier. I really need a few good recipes–the baked chicken breasts I made last week flopped. They were dry like the desert. Ed brags that I’m a good cook, but I haven’t been lately.

On to other randomness…I have half my kitchen windows washed. I have half my daughter’s birthday invitations filled out. I have half my Halloween decorations put away. See a trend here? Either I am easily distracted, or I have two small children who are always bugging me. Or both.

At least Ed is the crabby one this week, and not me! I think he’s coming down from his Whoppers high….

For more Random Tuesday Thoughts, visit Keely at The Un-Mom!