Ready for their close up

Just over six years ago, I wrote a post about these cookies.  Blandly listed in the Recipe Box as "Autumn Spice Cookies" right after the very distracting Amaretto Brownies with a Cream Cheese Swirl, they've been hiding in the archives like a little undiscovered nugget that only I knew about.

I was 100% fine with that, because they were my private, personal favorite cookies, and I loved them enough for all of you*.



Then, I went and made them better. I threw in some homemade apple cider syrup and it got ridiculous how good they were. It was just plain wrong to keep them to myself.



So I put them on the menu over at Mom in the Mail as a seasonal special, secretly hoping that no one would notice them in the midst of the adorable apple pies.

They noticed.

But maybe, just maybe, I could have kept the lid on 'em.

Until the burnt sugar bits went in and it officially became a crime for these not to be famous.  Kind of like when that indy singer who's been playing for years at the bar down the street hooks up with Disclosure and suddenly becomes Sam Smith.

This is clearly something that Cheesy Pennies is not equipped to tackle alone**, but thanks to the 5th Annual Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap***, I don't have to. It is a responsibility that Julie, Anna, Chrissy and I now share****.



If you make them, you'll have to spread the word, too. They truly deserve their shot at the big time.

Grumpy Old Lady Makes Gluten Free Cookies

I have felt A LOT like Grumpy Old Man lately.

All these KIDS going to COLLEGE and AFRICA and DRIVING and dating WOMEN FROM FLORIDA.

All these puppies who eat SCREEN DOORS and VALUABLE SUCCULENT PLANTS.

 Sure, they're cute and happy, but they are TOTALLY NOT DOING ANY CHORES RIGHT NOW.  

I want things the way they used to be. When kids stayed home and paid attention when you talked to them. When dogs stayed, period. When life was simple and cookies were made with a crapload of gluten and WE LIKED IT!

Friggin' progress.

Honey, I burned the sugar*

...and baked it into cookies.

Burn, baby, burn!

Burn that motha' down!

Sweet Corn Sugar Cookies

I feel awkward talking about cookies today.  It seems more trivial than usual to be focusing on butter and sugar when people have been buried and found in the mountains by earthquakes and another city has gone feral in front of TV cameras.  In a week where marathoners ran in defiant celebration, and the supreme court is deciding whether people can love each other legally, the relevance of a recipe is negligible at best.

And yet, it is what I have*.

It is, at least, an outstanding irrelevant recipe.

Better Together

With apologies and much respect to Jack Johnson:

There is no combination of words I could put on screen of my MacBook 

No song that I could sing, but I can certainly cook

These dreams, and they are made out of real things 

Like chocolate chip cookies 

Smushed with deep dark chewy brownies 

These are the answer, 

At least for most of the questions in my heart 

Like what's for dessert? And can I have two? 

And is making them not too hard? 

It's actually easy, and

They're so darn great you must believe me 

I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when they're together 

Mmm, it's always better when they're together 

Yeah, we'll be licking our lips when they're together 

Well, it's always better when they're together 

Yeah, it's always better when they're together 

Mmm, mmm, mmm 

I believe in Brookie Bites 

They are so, so tasty just to eat 

Plus, when I wrap 'em up, 

They stay delicious, all the way to N.C. 

Now these are favorites of mine 

And there is no, no better mash up I've seen

Caramelized cookie dough and intense chewy brownies

Yeah, I had to tell you this thing 

They're better together.

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm ,mmm...

Expectation-Defying Evil King Body Part Cookies

Just the beginning of a recent rant in my newsfeed 

Dear college friend on Facebook who hates hamantaschen*:

You are wrong.

Love,

Sharon
 

Sometimes you just can't bake it

There are times when life is good.

Work is interesting and productivity is high.  Your teenager smiles at you for real.  Your bank account balance is surprisingly fat, and your thighs are surprisingly thin*.

At times like these, one can tackle epic, multi-step dessert recipes with aplomb. Store-bought ice cream?  Caramel from a jar? Puh-lease! In fact, I'll just be making my own damn mascarpone cheese and zabaglione for that tiramisu, thank you very much.

Then there are times when life is just plan f$@%ed up.

People who are supposed to love you are impossibly cruel and the cat barfs on the carpet and despite your best intentions, your email box is the one on the right.

From this posting on Twitter

For those days, and for someone I love very much who is having a particularly cat-barf-y time of it right now, there are these No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Nut Butter Instant Happiness Treats.

I found the recipe online, and made a batch almost on a whim.  But the minute I took a bite, I was immediately transported back to a summer during elementary school.  I'd been sent away to a science and nature camp for city kids with a bunch of people I didn't know and they were all really mean to me.  I hated everything about it...the dingy bunks, the creepy-crawly woods, and the smelly labs, but more than anything, I loathed the girls I was grouped with. I was utterly miserable the entire time, except for one day, near the end of camp, when the cafeteria ladies served these exact same treats at lunch.  I vividly remember the taste and how happy I was, just for a minute, to be eating something so delicious in the midst of that horrible place.  I swear these saved me by making the experience, if not good, at least bearable.

I polished off my treat. Only the happiness and none of the hurt came back to me.  Life really is good sometimes.

Believe me, I do not wish the horrors of pre-teen peer ostracism or any other kind of emotional turmoil on anyone**, but just in case, it's good to be able to make your own instant ray of hope out of chocolate, peanut butter, and sugar***.   While you're waiting for the pain to fade away with time (and getting that inbox cleared out) these will definitely tide you over very nicely.

P.S.  If you are truly having a tough day, I found watching this video made me ridiculously cheerful.  As in, howling with laughter. Via Kottke.

Good grains and healthy fats

This month, I've been (roughly) following an eating plan that has you rotate what you eat based on a seven day cycle. Mondays and Tuesdays you eat fruit, veggies, protein and good grains, like barley and brown rice. Wednesdays and Thursdays are protein and veggies only. Then comes the weekend, where you get all of the above, plus healthy fats, like olive oil, avocado, hummus, and nuts.

My Wednesday breakfast as seen on Instagram: 
Egg white omelet with smoked salmon and scallions

It's Friday, so I'm giving you a recipe with fruit, good grains and healthy fats.

If brown butter were a healthy fat, that is.  

You're terrible, Muriel*.

Care Packages

I don't know about you, but when I was in college, there was nothing more exciting than seeing a flash of pink peeking through the little window in your PO box.

The slip that meant: YOU HAVE A PACKAGE.

It meant a brown paper box with Mom's neat handwriting on it and stamps clustered in the corner was waiting for you behind the counter.  It would be filled with homemade treats, a clever note, a forgotten special something.  The goodies would be shared, of course, but the feeling of being unexpectedly touched by home was a magically selfish thrill.  Everyone else at the post office would look on enviously, waiting for their own miracle package slip to appear*.

Of course, that was a long time ago.  Before Amazon Prime and drone deliveries.  Before FedEx. Before email and Skype and the Internet.  Before parents and kids could text and talk with unlimited minutes any old time they wanted to.  Times have seriously changed.

I'm all for convenience and online everything, but when this company sent a brochure touting their "automated care package delivery service",  my heart broke just a little.

Then I shredded the damn flyer and started baking.  No kid of mine was going to get a pre-made box of corporate crap.  He was going to get a good, old fashioned, Mom-turned-on-the-oven-and-then-went-to-the-actual-post-office-so-I-could-get-a pink-slip-in-the-mailbox** kind of day.

I sent his favorite chocolate chip cookies*** and waited for the grateful call.
Instead, he posted this tweet.

Upstaged by my daughter's two second strike of the pen.  Hrumph.

Then I sent deep dark chocolate brownies****

I got this text:

Not exactly gushing.

I sent brown butter cookie brittle with mini chocolate chips*****

Silence.

But when I sent this pre-packaged corporate crap for Halloween?

I get this:

Sigh.
Too bad, kid.  These are on the way.******

My Funny Valentine

He makes me smile with my heart.

The hands down best version of this song, ever.  Dare you to listen and not get goosebumps.

Every single day.

A simple request

We went a little nuts with the baking for this year's Holiday Open House, even more so than usual.

Mini pecan tarts.  Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt.  Peanut Butter Fudge Bars.  Mocha Cupcakes with Peppermint Chocolate Buttercream Frosting*.  Lemon Icebox Squares. 

Apple Molasses Cookies**.  Crispy Chocolate Truffle Shortbread Bars.  Mom's Christmas Cut-Out Cookies with homemade icings.  Butterscotch Cherry Granola Cookies with Lemon Drizzle.  

Thumbprint Cookies with Fig Butter.  Apricot Rosemary Cocktail Cookies.  Two different kinds of challah. And my sister's famous Cream Cheese Pound Cake.

My husband was appalled.

Him: Why do you do this to yourself? I think the ovens have been on for a week straight.  I'm begging you, please, for Christmas Day: keep it simple.

Done***.

These still involve the oven****, but are about as uncomplicated as you can get.  

Here's to a notably simpler new year all around.  

Handle with Care

These are The Traveling Wilburys.  They contain George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison.

These are The Traveling Cookies.  They contain butter, sugar and pecans.

As long as you pack them well, they're good to go pretty much anywhere by USPS, and arrive as delicious as the day they left.  No special handling required.

Plus, unlike the Wilburys, they'll definitely stay together*.

You don't even need the cocktail part

Shriveled up baby sausages floating in warm barbecue sauce from a jar?
Ew.

But, add a jaunty frilled toothpick, and call 'em Cocktail Weenies?

Now they are adorable, slightly naughty, and imply I will soon be having a frosty martini.
Sold.*

That's the power of marketing**.

These delectable, sweet-savory cookies, on the other hand, did not even need to be called Cocktail Shortbread. They could have been called Shriveled Up Baby Sausages in Warm Barbecue Sauce From a Jar with A Side of Tepid Tap Water and the stack would still have flown off the tray.  They are that delicious.

The implied frosty martini is just a lovely bonus.

Sliced bread did not make the cut either

The Atlantic just published a list of The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel*.

On it:
Paper (#6)
Refrigeration  (#13)
The automobile (#18)
Anesthesia (#46)
Alphabetization (#25)
The pill (#20)
The Internet (#9)

Not on it:
Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks**

So just calm the f#%$ down, people.

It is OK, though, to get a little happy about this (Pumpkin) Spiced Brown Butter Cookie Brittle.

Falling Back

Here's the thing about blogging, at least the way I do it.  I cook something, and then I write about it after we eat it*.   Days, weeks, or even months pass between consumption and posting, because honestly, that's just how s@#$ goes around here.

The problem with this system** for the reader***  is that there can be a bit of a timing issue. For example, last year I posted the recipes for a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner shortly before Christmas.  I have been known to suggest making eggnog scones when the aisles of the grocery store are full of frilly red boxes of chocolate.  And recently, I dangled tantalizing images of heirloom tomato pies just in time for people to head out to their local U-Pick apple orchard.

As Charlie Brown**** would say, "Argh!"

I think about this sometimes and despair.  Like today. I was driving through vast stretches of the midwest admiring the spectacular foliage while having a mild panic attack about the fact that daylight savings time is ending soon and I'm still grappling with a post about summer corn salad.  Then, it hit me.

I could truly fall back.
As in, resurrect some autumn favorites from the archives, and share them ahead of time*****.

Good grief, Charlie Brown! Why didn't I think of this sooner?******

Carpool Wars: Cease Fire!

WE INTERRUPT OUR NORMALLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING TO BRING YOU THIS IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT.

Anchor:  There has been a startling development in the long-running South of the Boulevard Carpool War hostilities.  For more details, we go live to our reporter on the ground.  Are you there?

Field Reporter:  Indeed, I'm here in Encino, where we have learned that a cease fire has been declared by the warring Carpool Moms.  The impetus for this radical shift in the tenor of the dispute was, I am told by my sources, bacon.

Anchor:  Would that be Kevin Bacon? I had heard that both John Kerry and Hillary Clinton have Bacon Numbers of 2 . Given his relatively close connection to those diplomats, is it possible he was involved?

Reporter:  They are not ruling that out, but for the moment, it appears that regular, smoked bacon is responsible.



Anchor:  Can you give us some background here?  How did things reach this critical juncture?

Reporter:  If you will recall, during the most recent skirmish over the braising title, the combatants vowed to take up their oven mitts again, waistlines and livers be damned. Ensnared by the spatula-wielding women and the promise of yet another outstanding meal, innocent children and husbands chose to remain in the thick of the conflict as well. It certainly seemed that there was no end in sight to this dire situation.  In fact, the stakes were raised even higher when it was suggested by a bystander that the next confrontation be focused, not on a particular dish, like bolognese, steak, or tacos, the type of meal, or even a proscribed preparation method, but on just one, single ingredient.  That ingredient? Bacon.

Anchor:   There is precedent for this on the Food Network, I believe, but that battle is massively edited for television, and they have trained staff with them in the arena. These brave women probably had no idea of the danger they were setting themselves up for.

Reporter:  That's exactly right. The whole plan was fraught with peril.  But, as we know, bacon does exert an uncanny power over the human brain.  Experts now believe that just the idea of a bacon-based meal somehow created a unity of purpose in the minds of these former enemies. Instead of pitting their bacon creations against each other, in an unprecedented step, they agreed to collaborate on the dinner.

Anchor: What about the coveted "taste" prize? This is one of the most divisive issues of the whole campaign, is it not?

Reporter:  Stunningly, that was thrown out completely. There was no vote. I repeat, there was no vote, rigged or otherwise. They just happily stuffed themselves and went home.  I spoke with one of the diners on condition of anonymity, and she said it was a tremendous relief not to feel disloyal for voting against her mother, and also that the bacon potato things were really good. Apparently, the new mantra here at Carpool headquarters is, "Everybody wins when dinner is full of bacon."

Anchor:  Incredible. How long can this cease fire possibly hold?

Reporter:  I have it on good authority that Carpool Wars, as we know it, is no more, but that we can expect many more Carpool Truce dinners in the months and years to come.

Anchor:  I think I speak for all of us when I say, "Phew." Thank you.  We'll be following this story closely, very closely, in case they have leftovers, and will bring you updates as we have them.

THIS HAS BEEN A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.



Carpool Wars:  The Bacon Accords

We did, indeed, come together and lay our Le Crueset cookware down for greater glory of an entire meal honoring bacon.  It was a moment for the ages.

The appetizer course was Christy D.'s drool-worthy and addictive Bacon Wrapped Potato Bites with Spicy Sour Cream Dip.  Recipe from The Kitchn.

Christy F.'s tender, smoky bacon-braised chicken dish.   Find the recipe from Fine Cooking here.

Christy D's spectacular BLT salad with Feta, Candied Bacon and Cherry Tomatoes. 

My Mac & Cheese with Bacon, after two teenagers had been through and helped themselves.  

And yes, there was bacon dessert.

Maple Bacon Sugar Cookies 

And the over-the-top Vanilla Ice Cream Sundaes with Pecan Bacon Crunch* and Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce.

Peace out.