Resentments: Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

There's a lot being said these days, about dear old Charlie Sheen.

How he's gone crazy... how the drugs have finally done their job... how he's a sex addict. Or an alcoholic. Or addicted to the Internet. Or chocolate. Or peanut shells. Or eating the dadgum stuffing found inside your living room couch. (Did anyone see that special on TLC?)

I don't agree with any of these assertions. I think... he's an overpaid punk that's never had to work for the life he lives and can't comprehend the normal boundaries which the rest of the world (either willingly or reluctantly) lives within.

But that's just me.

What can I say? Compassion is not my strong suit.

I say... put him in one of these get-ups for a few weeks. And lets see what happens?

"Resentments...are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my saber." (C. Sheen, 2011)

Yeah. You don't know how many times I've heard that, this past week.

Ignore this who-haw, and bake some cookies.  Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies.

What you'll need:

2 Cups all purpose flour

2 1/3 Cups old fashioned oats
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon salt
2 Teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (it's like, the bottle that never runs dry!)
1 Cup (2 sticks) butter - softened
3/4 Cup dark brown sugar
3/4 Cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons honey
1 Cup pumpkin puree
1 Large egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Extra bits: cranberries, chocolate chips, walnuts, pecans, etc.

Preheat your oven to 350* and line the baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add egg, pumpkin, vanilla, and spices and mix until just combined.  Add flour, baking soda, and baking powder, stirring until combined... then add your oats.

Divide your batter and add your "bits" accordingly. I put cranberries and walnuts in one batch (Yum!)... semi-sweet chocolate chips in another (meh.).. pecans and milk chocolate (okay)... plain pecans (the best!)... just throw in whatever your little, crazy heart desires.

Bake each batch 10-13 minutes.

And by the way, for those of you who know the cone head above... he is doing well. He's certainly not fixed, but at the very least, we bought some more time.  Time... to live with his incoherent rantings, hotdog binges, and shady behavior with Princess, the street-dog from down the road.  Sigh.

Rock and Roll Cookies

Lock your daughters in the house and pull out the earplugs... cause the Jam Cookies are in the house!!! Wooooo-whoooooo!

Grandma. Seriously. Put your shirt back on. No one wants to sign your bra.













Jam Cookies.

Get it? Rock and roll cooki... No? To much of a stretch?

Ooookey-dokey. Obviously, some jokes fall on deaf ears.

I've got quite a bit of seriously expensive jam in my house... so it's time to figure out how to use this stuff.

Enter exhibit A: Blueberry Jam Cookies (some folks 'round these parts, call these Thumbprint Cookies).

What you'll need:

2/3 Cup shortening (you can use butter, but they will spread a bit more)
1/3 Cup sugar
2 Egg yolks
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 Cups flour

Preheat your oven to 350*. Cream shortening and sugar until creamy. Add egg yolks, vanilla. Beat well. Gradually add flour, mixing well. Make into 1" balls. Press down centers with thumb and you can either fill these little rockers with jam now (which will make the jam slightly chewy) or wait until the cookies are done, pull them out of the oven, re-indent (not sure that's a word, but go with it) and then fill them with jam. This is what I did and I like it best that way... the jam warms up and starts to seep into the still-warm cookies. Either way, bake your cookies until they are slightly browned.

These are okay... B/B- kind of okay. Won't bring down the house or nothin'.

Bird Lovin' and Other Things That Scream Spring

Bird lovin' is in the air. Just outside my window. At 4:30 in the morning.

We have a Boy and a Girl Cardinal in our back yard... and they MUST get together. Seriously, I'm about to set up a Match.com profile for one of them, just to get the ball rolling. Boy Cardinal screams and squawks and flutters around like she's the last Girl Cardinal on the planet. And the Girl Cardinal coyly twitters and giggles in the bows of the overgrown willow tree in our back yard. Flipping her tail feathers, batting her eyelashes, and playing hard to get. I swear... she's been reading too many teenage romance novels.

And Boy Cardinal is chatty. I mean, REALLY freakin' chatty. All day long... starting at the crack of dawn and quiting sometime after the sun goes down. And I'm about to go insane. Think Cathy Bates in Misery, insane. I'm plotting things in my head, that no good human being should be plotting. In might involve BBguns or major explosives... I haven't decided yet. It really just depends on what's legal.

Lack of sleep, has made me a very cranky girl.

But all that's to say, with Spring most certainly in the air... and one more pumpkin recipe to go... I needed a new project (that didn't include the demise of woodland creatures). And so I've started our garden. And I "may" have gone a little overboard. But I have it in my head, that I'm going to CAN this year!

*Hey, wipe that smirk off your face!*

We've been nurturing the compost for a full year now... and have planted every bloomin' seed in northern Missouri... so we feel really equipped. Despite the fact that we can't agree where the garden should go. Or that we lack the tools of harvest. Or canning. Or that, come July, I will despise every livin' minute out in the heat. But otherwise, we're good to go.

I've named that one on the left, Hope... and the one on the right, Promise. Brett has named them Ha, and Ha. We'll see if he gets to eat any of my canned Squash Butter, on those long winter nights...

So, here's to minor strains of botulism and a new lease on my blogging-life.

And in the biggest stretch ever, to relate a recipe to what I've just blogged about... here are Compost Cookies! Now that Christmas, New Years, Earth Day, and Easter are all over with... it's a great way to get rid of all the leftovers. And now that Brett's triglycerides are twice what they should be... it's a good way to get all the junk out of our house.

Here's what you'll need:

1 Cup butter

1 Cup sugar

3/4 Cup light brown sugar

1 Tablespoon corn syrup

1 Teaspoon vanilla

2 Eggs

1 3/4 Cup all purpose flour

2 Teaspoons baking powder

1 Teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 Cups baking leftovers (I used white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, toffee pieces, and bittersweet chocolate. I wish I had put some coconut in them.)

1 1/2 Cups snack foods (I used pretzels, almonds, and whoppers. David Lebovitz suggests using potato chips. Your call.)

Cream the sugars and butter together for about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and eggs, and no joke, cream those guys for 10 minutes. I literally ran an errand while they were creaming. Add the flour, soda and powder and just barely incorporate. Fold in all the goodies.

Refrigerate the whole mess for at least 1 hour (and up to, a week). Preheat oven to 400*. Ball and bake for 7-10 minutes. Cool completely on the pan, before removing them.

They were okay... they're flat, chewy little things, with lots of stuff. I don't really ask for much, when it comes to my cookies... sugar cookies with a little icing are money for me... so these were a little over the top. I'd give them a B. Good enough to give to someone you're trying to impress, but maybe not so good, that there'll be any expectations later.

May you find love this beautiful Spring day... just please... don't do it outside my bedroom window.