SATURDAY'S ROCKIN'
RECIPE SHARE


I first made these Stained Glass Cookies in 4th grade 4-H. Not only do they catch light beautifully, but it's really fun to hammer the Life Savers and Jolly Ranchers. I recognize the satisfying glimmer in my kids' eyes as they whack those things.

Here's the recipe we're using tonight. It's probably not what Audrey Raymond set us 4-H'ers up with back in 1980, but it'll have to do. It's from elise.com's Simply Recipes.

I'm practicing with Dane and Aubrey tonight because I'm teaching Dane's 3rd grade class to make them on Tuesday.

We're going to our neighbor Paul and Beth's Soup and Sing-along tomorrow afternoon -- maybe we'll show up with some of these pretties.

STAINED GLASS COOKIES

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 30-40 hard candies (such as Life Savers), preferably in several flavors/colors

Method

1 Pre-heat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat.

2 In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add molasses and vanilla extract, mixing until incorporated. Add egg and mix until light and smooth, about 1 minute on medium speed.

3 Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Fold dry ingredients into wet mixture. Use electric mixer to blend just until flour is incorporated. Divide dough in half and flatten into two disks. Wrap disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least an hour and up to 2 days.

4 Remove any wrappers on candies and separate them by color into plastic bags. Using a mallet to crush candies.

5 Place one disk between two large sheets of waxed paper and roll to 1/4-inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut dough into desired shapes. Transfer cookies to prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. Using a smaller cookie cutter or a knife, cut shapes into centers of cookies, reserving these center bits to add into extra dough.

6 Use a spoon to sprinkle the crushed candy into the hollowed-out centers of the cookies, filling to the edges. Try to keep the candy within the centers. Any candy specks that fall on the cookie will color the cookie.

7 If cookies will be hung as ornaments or decorations, poke a small hole in the top of each cookie before baking.

8 Bake 9 to 10 minutes. The candy should be melted and bubbling and the cookies just barely beginning to brown. Remove baking sheets from oven and place on wire racks to cool. Allow cookies to cool on pans at least 10 minutes; otherwise, the candy centers may separate from the dough. When cookies are completely cooled, remove and store in an airtight container. String with ribbon if you want to hang as an ornament.

Makes 2 to 4 dozen cookies, depending on how large you make them.

BAKIN' BACON

Monday's Rockin' Recipe Share

He can bring home the bacon,
fry it up...

...in some chocolate chip dough.*

That's right. Bacon with anything is all the rage these days, so Mick threw together some Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies yesterday.

They were delicious.

It's a little bit weird to understand it, but imagine sweet/salty with chocolate chips and alternately the chewiness and crispiness of bacon pieces.

Mmmm...

And so I bring you Monday's Rockin' Recipe Share, courtesy of Pete Bakes:

bacon chocolate chip cookies and candied bacon

candied bacon
1 pckg thick cut bacon (about 10 strips)
brown sugar for sprinkling

chocolate chip cookies
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
12 oz toll house semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1. make the candied bacon: preheat the oven to 350 F. lay bacon on a parchment covered baking sheet so they are not overlapping. sprinkle about 2 tsp brown sugar evenly on each strip of bacon. bake for 12 minutes, remove from oven, flip bacon and drag it through the syrupy liquid that’s collected on the baking sheet. put the bacon back in the oven for another 12-15 minutes, until it is fully cooked and very dark (mahogany). remove the strips from the sheet and cool on a wire rack. after they have cooked, chop them or quickly food process into tiny pieces.

2. make the cookies: combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. beat butter, both sugars and vanilla in a large bowl. add eggs, one at a time, beating well. gradually beat in flour mixture. stir in morsels and bacon pieces.

3. spoon dough (about a Tbsp per cookie) onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 375 F for 9-11 minutes. i tend to go a little under 9 minutes so they come out just underdone. remove to cooling racks or eat immediately with a tall glass of cold milk.

*Re: photo - Again, ladies, I married for love.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: Last Month's Poll

A big hearty thank-you goes out to the eight voters who weighed in on my poll. Yes, all eight of you -- you know who you are...

Essentially, the big issue was whether to have each kid play two sports this spring.

What we came up with:

Both kids are playing pony league baseball - coach pitch, everybody bats, no one keeps score, everybody wins - ON THE SAME TEAM. Easy-peasy so far. Practice two nights a week, a game on Saturdays. In the next week, one of those practices will become a game and eventually the second practice will get dropped. This goes on until June 4.

The clencher: the coach knows the kids will miss games in parts or as wholes - and is a-ok fine with it. After all, Ashland Little League prides itself on being flexible, in the interest of kids simply getting out and playing sports.

Cool.

Aubrey will still do a gymnastics class once a week at the Y. Soccer conflicted completely with practices, and that turns out to be okay. She loves gymnastics, and baseball and soccer might've been too busy for her.

Dane plays on the Y's soccer team - same team as last fall. They've changed their name from the Dangerous Jedis, though, to the Oregon Outlaws, in case you're following them. He's delirious with joy. Seriously, the boys are giddy out there on the field, and their skills are leaps and bounds improved over last fall. It's totally exciting.

Soccer practice is two nights a week - one practice overlaps with baseball, no sweat for either coach if he misses - and a soccer game on Saturday. This goes on into late-May.

Cool.

What last Saturday looked like: Dane soccer game 10am - 11am; both kids played baseball 1pm - 3pm. Full day, but manageable. And if it ever feels unmanageable, we just choose one to miss. No biggie.

Cool.


Next Up: Watercolor project

When Mick was gone for a long weekend at a dental convention, I found this neat looking watercolor project I wanted to have the kids do. They did it.

Aubrey made a couple sheets of the flowers and added some text:



Dane tried the flowers, but was unhappy with the result, so he broke away and went for a Halloween scene:

He's way into mummies lately (notice the little guy under the tree) and has been researching them in his Mummy Club that he set up at school with some classmates. (Aubrey joined, too.) I walked into the classroom one day to drop something off and found him and four pals reading a Magic School Bus Pyramids book out loud to each other - they didn't even notice me standing behind them because they were absolutely riveted.

Here's the link to Dane and Aubrey's current favorite mummy information site, if you have an interested kid at home: Discovery Kids - MummyMaker.


Last Up: Cooking

The kids concocted this dish (I'll avoid putting an adjective before it, letting you be the judge once you read the recipe!). They kept meticulous notes as they put it together, so you, too, can enjoy this, um, cake, if you ever need a new baking idea:

3 t. salt
Just a little under half c. sugar cane [sugar]
3 dabs of haf n haf milk
3 t butter
1 Lime sqwees jusie out
8 spoons of flour

Bake at 350 for an indeterminate number of minutes.


We all tried a bite. 'Nuff said.

Camp Food

Dane and Aubrey have been making food in a cooking class at camp* every day. They've made banana-strawberry milkshakes, berry cobbler, banana pancakes with strawberry topping, and spaetzle. Every afternoon they excitedly recall ingredients and procedures for us.

Here is a "recipe" they created themselves this morning (Sunday) for breakfast. They wrote it down so I could make it myself sometime. Here it is:

two Rise Cakes crubld. - Ster it - Put serl in - Brown ShuGr - milk - razins - ster - then-eat-up.

[rise = rice, crubld = crumbled, serl = cereal]

Be sure to let us know if you try it. We'd have two very happy cooks here.

*Dane and Aubrey attend Mill Valley Rec Center's day camp 9-noon M-F. I work 9:30-11:30 with pre-schoolers at the camp, and in addition to my wages, my kids attend their camps for free. They're attending 4 weeks of this day camp, and 2 weeks of Splash camp in August, which will be from 9-4. These are fabulous camps and we are really, really lucky.

In other news, Friday night's Mama Monologues was a huge success. If you want details, email me!