Cookie Break-Through

Setting the stage: Snow day last Thursday without enough snow for sledding. So after our snowball fight we came inside for some indoor fun. I have to say I LOVE LOVE LOVE snowdays where you can ignore the calendar and all of our regular "duties" and expectations. So baking was one of the requested activities. SUPER, I never turn down baking cookies. BUT then Nora stated she wanted to make cookies she could frost. UH OH, the dreaded sugar cookie. One of the few times I consider going with the refigerated dough by the Pillsbury Dough Boy. I don't know what it is but I have such a hard time with these. The mess of the flour all over the counter, the frustration of the dough crumbling as I roll it out, the disaster of having the girls try to cut out the shapes and then transfer them to the cookie sheet.

BUT I had a major break-through. Now maybe I am the only one with these problems, but in case I am not I would like to share with you my AH-HA moments.

1. The Recipe - Once again, Our Best Bites came through with an AMAZING recipe. You can find it here and it was perfect. The consistency of the dough was great and they were so YUMMY. In fact I ate them without any frosting and didn't feel like I was missing anything. Another revelation I had with the recipe is they recommended to spoon the flour into the measuring cup instead of scooping. WHAT???? I have been measuring flour incorrectly for 20+ years?? Am I the only one who missed this information? Not sure if it made a difference but I am now spooning my flour with all my baking.

2. The Rolling - In the past I chilled the dough and then would sprinkle my counter with flour and attempt to roll the dough out while trying to not think about how dirty my counter may be. Here is where my cookie rolling world changes for the better: enter parchment paper!! BEFORE chilling the dough I put it into a ball and sandwiched the dough between 2 sheets of that fabulous paper. Then I rolled the dough out between the paper. FAB U LOUS! The dough didn't crumble at the edges and seemed to be much more consistent in the the thickness. I then placed the sheets into the fridge for a quick chilling. Another bonus to this method is the chilling time is cut down to only 15-20 minutes, which is great for the impatient young chefs.

3. The Cutting - I then took the sheets out of the fridge and peeled off the paper and laid the flattened dough directly onto the Silpat mats on the cookie sheets. And if you don't have Silpat mats, that is a cookie revelation in itself. GET THEM NOW!!! The girls were able to cut out their wanted shapes and just tear away the excess dough around the shape and leave the ready-to-bake cookie right where it is at. No dough sticking to the counter and shapes losing parts. HOORAY.

Then it just went straight to the oven and out for the fun part. DECORATING. Though I really think the girls enjoyed the cutting out part just as much. For decorating we used this tool that Madison go for Christmas. I think I mentioned it before but it really is fantastic for the girls to do some special details without any help. I highly recommend it. Although, it looks like it may be discontinued or out of stock so you may want to ignore my recommendation:-)

So with this amazing epiphany I may be making sugar cookies from scratch more than once a year. And yes I am truely this excited about such a silly thing. So humor me and pretend that you are impressed:-)

Cooking Plan

I am loving my new Our Best Bites cookbook that arrived yesterday. It fits all of my criteria for a good cookbook: LOTS of photos, special tutorials to help me learn new cooking tips and techniques, easy and practical family-friendly recipes and lots of yummy treats. I also like the fact that it has a hardbound cover but is spiral bound to stay open while sitting on the counter. I will say that many of the recipes may not fit under the healthy, low-fat/calorie menu plan but there are some and nothing wrong with an occasional splurge. Most of the recipes in the book can be found on their website but I enjoy having the nice pretty cookbook to leaf through instead of the ugly printed papers that scatter across my counter so often.

So after having the cooking blahs for quite sometime, I am now energized for a full week of cooking meals and treats. Here is what I have planned and I just returned from the store with all the necessary supplies. Links to recipes on the blog by clicking on the photos. Photos and recipes courtesy of Our Best Bites.

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos

Smoky Bean Soup with Ham and Bacon

Hot Fudge Sauce

Guiltless Alfredo Sauce

French Dip Sandwiches

Fauxtisserie Chicken

Cadbury Egg Cookies

Cheesy Garlic Swirls

Streusel-Topped Blueberry Muffins

I made these last week, but am making another batch as a thank-you for someone at school

Also on the plan are a few new recipes in the book that aren't on their blog: Stuffed Apple Cinnamon Rolls, Cranberry Orange Chicken Salad and Pineapple Ginger Flank Steak.
I will return at the end of the week to give a review of the recipes.

Princess Birthday Cake

Nora found a photo of this cake 9 months ago and declared it WOULD be her birthday cake. I have had it taped to the inside door of a cupboard since then to make sure not to lose it. She stood firm on her princess themed party, though it changed from a princess tea party to a princess pool party in the last stages of planning. So after 8+ years of being a mommy to girls and escaping all things princessy I had to step up to the plate and create a pink, sparkly castle cake. And I have to admit that it wasn't that bad:-)

I think the best part about the cake was the pink "glittery" turrets. I found the pink cake cones and then regual sugar cones. To get the needed sparkle factor I warmed karo syrp and brushed it onto the sugar cones and then rolled them in pink sugar. I used a coarser decorating sugar and colored it with powdered "cherry pink" food coloring.
Then I baked 3 circle cakes of large, medium and small sizes.
I then stacked and frosted the cakes.
Then to add the the final touches I added the towers and an assortment of candy. My only disappointment was I had gotten bubble gum tape to edge each layer. But I didn't pay attention to my frosting coloring and the 2 pinks were so similar that there was no contrast betweent the two and I couldn't even tell the tape was there so I removed it.

February Ten on Ten

Birthday Princess

Happy Happy Birthday to my sweet Nora! I can't believe you are six years old and I am not sure I am ready for you to grow up, but I guess I have no choice in the matter. We love you so much. Your wonderful personality, sweet smile, funny laugh, sparkling eyes..... Everything about you is so special and unique and I can't imagine life without you. Thank you for putting a smile on my face each and every day.
photo shoot with her new Mulan "princess" costume Nora has been told many times that Mulan isn't a true princess but she doesn't want to believe it and I am just fine with that. Since I am not a real fan of the Disney Princess scene, I can at least be happy that her favorite is the most independent and unique one of the bunch. So I will encourage the attachment as much as I can!

January ReCap

The last day of January is here so I figure I better catch up with things on the blogging world. I have started up "Project 365" for this year again so I will share some of my favorites from this month to give a glimpse on what we have been up to. Prepare yourself for photo overload!

Working on Staying Warm at the start of the month

My New Scrapbooking Buddy

Increasing my workout routine
Last week was my best week yet with 2 swims, 3 runs and one outdoor ride. Still need to up it a bit more but it is a good start for January.

Doing the mundane day to day stuff
Matching socks

Learning dishwashing skills from the master

Piano Fun

We have all been enjoying our "new piano" (brought it back from Montana at Christmas, it was my childhood piano). Madison is enjoying playing the few songs she knows and is looking forward to starting lessons. She enjoys holding "concerts" for us complete with admission tickets. Tom is transferring his musical knowledge to the ivory. I am dusting off my skills and find it very relaxing to sit down and play a few songs. And Nora enjoys singing along and playing chopsticks!

Basketball

Madison has started her first season of basketball and is making good progress but there is ALOT to learn! I think Tom and I are having many flashbacks to our playing days. I know the first game she had when I walked into the school gym, the smells and sounds brought back a rush of memories.

Fort Building

I am becoming a master fort builder as Nora requests one almost everyday after school. I build them in whichever room I am working in and then she sets it up with lunch, comfort items, books, toys and coloring items. She can often spend the rest of the afternoon in them. The key to good fort building? Tom's woodworking clamps from his workbench. Daisy Club

Madison has started a little craft club with a group of friends. We had our first meeting this week and each girl made their own sewing kit complete with pincushion and needle book.

Mad Science

Madison has been studying chemistry at school and this has spurred lots of expirements in the bathroom

Ooh - La - La Nail Spa Cupcake Decorating

I LOVE this cake decorating tool that Madison got for Christmas so much that I bought a second one. It makes treat decorating very easy for the girls with very nice results.

New Reader

Nora is really transforming into a reader and it is so fun to watch. It is a much different process than it was for Madison and it is great to see and hear her progress.

I am obviously in a bit of a blogging funk lately. Not sure where this blog is heading or what my future plans are with it. I have been at this for almost 3 years now and am not feeling too inspired. I have lots of posts started in my head and even a few started on the computer but just don't feel energized to get them completed. It may be a bit of January blues so we will see what happens in the next month. Not sure if anyone but my mom is missing my posts, so I dedicate this one to her:-)

Bookless in Seattle

Help a lady out! The last six months I have caught the reading bug and have probably read more over that time frame than in the last 3 years combined. It started with The Hunger Games trilogy and moved into The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. The last 2 that I have enjoyed are these: Have thrown in a few mysteries and other random finds but need help coming up with a new one. I like most anything, probably prefer just a good dramatic type novel I guess. So please share, what good books have you read recently?