Chocolate Chip Cookies & Thoughts on Normalcy

Sometimes life gets so busy that it gets the best of me. I forget that it's not normal that dishes are left undone, and meals are hastily prepared, and the bathroom is left dusty. Bill's been filling in as I run from work to school to yoga. It's the kind of life I tried to avoid ever since I graduated from college.

It took a batch of chocolate chip cookies to remind me what is normal. Normal is freshly baked breads and family dinners and board game nights and drinks with friends. And time to breathe. It's time to work on getting life back to normal.

This is just Hersey's chocolate chip cookie recipe with walnuts. The recipe makes 5 dozen, and we had enough for the weekend my mother-in-law visited, a BBQ dinner with church friend, and camping with my sister-in-law.

My mom is visiting soon. I hope she will enjoy the chocolate chip cookies!

I also made white chocolate macadamia nut cookies with some leftover ingredients.

If you have a busy life, slow down and enjoy a cookie. You deserve it!

Get Well Soon Sugar Cookies

Okay, let me try to catch up here. This month is going by so quickly. Since our trip to Maine, we went to Connecticut and attended a beautiful wedding. We were just as busy when we lived in Alaska, but we couldn't travel to different states just for a weekend!

In family news, my cousin is expecting! She took a year off with her husband to tour Australia while pregnant. What a brilliant idea. I'm going to have to start knitting baby things. I'm so excited. You know what else is great for babies, or baby showers? Sugar cookies! I saw these GORGEOUS sugar cookies yesterday and was just blown away. Especially now that I've tried making them once.

What gave me the idea was my father-in-law's unfortunate accident breaking his wrist. He had a good sense of humor about it and donned a Hulk glove on his cast after his surgery. So we sent him sugar cookies to wish him a speedy recovery!

The royal icing recipe I used is from The Joy of Baking. I love how she describes every baking process in detail. I chose to use the royal icing recipe with egg whites because I didn't have any meringue powder on hand. So I started with a bunch of gingerbread men using Holiday Sugar Cookie dough from flour. Chilled for half an hour, then baked at 350 degrees. The recipe says 15 minutes. My first batch was very brown. So it turns out 8 to 10 minutes is more reasonable.

Outlined with royal icing in piping consistency.

Then flooded with thinner icing. The icing dries out fast. Remember to cover it in between batches.

Then I played with colors. Decorating sugar cookies is harder than it looks. Another reason I was amazed by Glories Treat's sugar cookies.

Finally I decorated the rest of the "gingerbread" men. And some of them turned out well. I hope you can tell the top ones are medical personnel with stethoscope. The bottom ones are suppose to be my father-in-law with a broken wrist. I know, you've got to use your imagination there. 

It was a ton of fun, although very messy, and time-consuming. Maybe one day I'll get much better at it and I'll be able to make cookies for all occasions!

Friday Flashback: Making Christmas Cookies

This time two years ago, we were busy making Christmas cookies for our family. Because we lived so far away, we had to make it early enough for airmail. This year, we can just bring the cookies to them! There weren't many pictures of the finished product because we were so exhausted after making 20 batches of cookies. At the end, I vowed I would never make Christmas cookies again. But as the time gets closer, I'm getting tempted again, especially after looking at some wonderful pictures at I Am Baker.

Reindeer or moose? We prefer moose

Some honey drizzling action

The kitchen overflowed.

Will you be making any Christmas cookies this year?

Midweek Pick-me-up

I don't know why it took me so long to try a gingersnaps recipe. Bill and I both like eating them and have bought them from the store on many road-trips. Perhaps it's the thought of having to buy molasses. What will I do with a bottle of molasses besides making gingersnap cookies? I think about shortening in the same way, but at least shortening can be substituted without losing much of the flavor.

Well, I'm glad I tried! These gingersnap cookies shared on allrecipes.com are delicious and the cinnamon sugar was a nice touch (I did substitute the shortening with butter). The best part...the cookies came out perfectly round!

Looks like a good treat for Santa

As these are so well-received, that bottle of molasses will get used up pretty soon!

Last time I mentioned we made pumpkin cheesecake using a whole sugar pumpkin. The recipe is from momswhothink.com. There was some leftover filling so I decided I would make mini cheesecakes for a midweek dessert.

I mashed the gingersnap cookies in a baggie, mixed it with some butter, and pressed the mixture onto the bottom of two ramekins lined with parchment paper. Poured in my filling and baked them the same way as the cheesecake.

They didn't turn out exactly how I envisioned since I don't have mini tart pans (next time I will grease the bottom of the parchment paper). But, hey, food doesn't have to look perfect to be tasty, right?

Saving half for dinner

I have another sugar pumpkin! What to do next...?