CookieD-oh

Good morning! I made cookies the other day!  I have been meaning to try this recipe for a LONG time, and I never had an occasion.  But yesterday one of the gentlemen at my job moved on to greener pastures (he found a better job) and to celebrate we threw him a party. I am so sorry for the wretched photography. I did find my camera this morning, so there's hope for the future. Anyhoo, I used this recipe from Baking Joy . It was an adventure because I don't have a good scale and the recipe is European, with the ingredients listed in grams.  In fact, here is an approximate representation of my scale.  Only mine is a little chintzier. Really. It's a wonder anything I make turns out. But I'm happy to say the cookies came out perfectly! I did not use caster sugar, as the recipe says, because I've never in my life seen caster sugar in the grocery store. I also could not find Cadbury Chocolate Caramels, so I used Dove. I was out of chocolate chips (that ...

So we've been going to this awesome little cafe lately. It's called Portia's Cafe , and Portia serves mostly raw, totally gluten free, mostly soy free, completely vegan food. She's a lifesaver. And very nice, to boot! Unfortunately, she's on the other side of town, so we are limited to one visit every week or so. On second thought, that's probably fortunate. Now, my absolute favorite is her raw Pad Thai served over kelp noodles. It's not technically on the menu, though.  It's frequently on the "Specials" board, but sometimes I can't get it. So on one of those shattering occasions, I ordered a NoTuna Wrap (a.k.a Sunny Walnut Pate), and I fell in love. So I came home and figured out how to make my own.  It's not exactly like Portia's, but it's close. It kind of looks like tuna salad. It doesn't taste much like it. Which is good, because I'm not a fan of tuna. I piled it on some Ezekiel 4:9 bread with shredded car...

Well hello there!  It's been a while.  Again.  Sorry about that. Anywhoo, it's Harvest Party season.  We have two kids in school this year, so I got to make cookies for two classes instead of one.  WooHoo! Actually, it wasn't so bad. The boy's class has six kids.  You heard me. Six. Kids. And because the class is so small, I decided to go a little crazy.  The boy is really into tic-tac-toe right now, so I made cookie game boards and cookie game pieces for everyone in his class. All six of them. Each kid got one board and 10 game pieces. When I got ready to bag them it was dark. And I couldn't find my camera.  And it was dark.  I was very frustrated by my inability to take a decent picture. Like, not gonna blog anymore frustrated.  I need some natural light, people. It's dark at 5:30. OK, whinefest over. Sorry you had to see that. The girl wanted happy candy corns.  I told her no tic-tac-toe for her class because th...

I admit it, I was completely out of ideas for fall/Halloween cookies.  So I made zombie candy corns.  I think I just took corny to a whole 'nother level. Then I did some little spiderwebs with spiders. Because I saw some spiderweb cookies at www.cookiedecorator.com that were adorable, awesome, and amazing.  So I had to make a bad copy. Anyhoo, I boxed these up and shipped them off to Afghanistan for Operation Cookie Takeover II.  Operation Cookie Takeover has a Facebook page, if you want to check it out.  I don't Facebook, so I can't provide a link or anything. That's all I've got for now. Still been crazy around here. Even when I do bake, I don't have time to take pictures.  But Christmas cookie season is fast approaching, so I have high hopes for future blog posts. That's all for now. Enjoy!

It's been a busy few weeks here in the D-oh household. Lots of stuff going on.  Nothing exciting, just lots of stuff.  *sigh* But I did find time to make some cookies!  Two of the boy's classmates tested for their black belts this weekend, so the boy wanted to take cookies to the belt performance.  He is only three months behind these kids, so now I have to think up something to take to HIS performance.  Eek. I was not terribly thrilled with how they came out, but they were fine.  The kids loved them. I used the Ninjabread Men cutters (again) because they're perfect, even if my cookies aren't. I made sixty of these bad boys, so I was pretty glad when it was all over.  Almond cookies with vanilla icing.  They were supposed to be lemon, but apparently "lemon" and "almond" look the same when it's written on an extract bottle. Anyhoo...that's all for today. Enjoy!

So we're on this whole food, plant-based eating regimen (I don't like to call it a diet because we don't plan to stop...it's a permanent change as far as I'm concerned...don't tell the girl), but I still want to give the young'uns regular food so they won't feel deprived. So we have pancakes for dinner every now and again.  Because breakfast for dinner is awesome. The problem was finding an acceptable pancake recipe. The whole grain recipes called for eggs and milk, and the vegan recipes called for sugar and oil. We're not using any of those things. I never found an acceptable recipe, so I made my own. I only remembered that I should probably blog about it once I was about halfway through the process, so forgive the lack of step-by-step. I made the batter with whole wheat flour, almond milk, honey and ground flax seed meal. I read somewhere that you can substitute 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal and four tablespoons of water for 1 egg. So I tr...

My, it's been a little while since I've posted.  Things have been rather up-in-the-air around here lately with school starting and our schedules being upended. I'm sure we'll adjust eventually, but right now we're just trying to work it out. A coworker of mine was throwing a bridal shower for her sister and asked me to make cupcakes.  She sent me a photo of some cupcakes and asked me to recreate them. I did my best, and I think they came out kind of cute. They're high heels!  I had never seen such a thing.  If anyone knows who came up with this idea, please, let me know.  They're cupcakes with Milano and Pirouette cookies. Making them fit in a cupcake box was an experience. The lid just barely fit over them without squishing. Anyway, these were a lot of fun, but rather time consuming.  Sorry for the awful pictures.  I fell off the wagon and went back to using my phone.I need to charge my camera. Well, that's all for now. ...