Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

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• For a delicious holiday treat, try baking these amazing molasses cookies. They come out soft and chewy. (Unless you over bake them, of course, and then you can call them ginger snaps!) They have become a holiday favorite! For an extra hint of Christmas cheer, try rolling the cookies in red or green (or both) sugar. Yummmmm!!
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• 1 1/2 cups shortening, melted and cooled
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon salt

Direction

-Melt the shortening in a large pan on the stove, and cool.

-Add sugar, eggs, and molasses, beat well.

-In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients together and add to the pan. Mix well and chill 3 hours or overnight.

-Form into walnut-size balls. Roll in granulated sugar. Place on greased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart

-Bake at 375 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. 

-Store in an airtight container to keep from getting overly crisp. If they do lose their softness, an easy way to restore it is to place one slice of fresh bread in the container with the cookies for a couple of hours or overnight and they will be soft again! (Say what!? Great trick to know!)

Nashville Musician Shingles Roof With Records!

Nashville Musician Shingles Roof With Records

This is so awesome. I hope I remember it forever, so that when I own my own place, I can make this bad ass patio. Seriously; who doesn't dig this!?

My Christmas Wish List

Let's see....I'd like:

• World Peace
• Population control
• Eco-friendly everything
• Every vinyl album ever released by Lee Dorsey

Okay. Enough of the pipe dream wishes. Here's what I'm REALLY hoping to get:

• Old, working type writer! (I'm thinking, Freecycle.org!)

• A Marrianne-Made watch. God these are amazing. When I dropped my HTC Hero in the toilet last week, I finally realized, "Yes, I really do need a wristwatch." (Check them out on Etsy.com; seller revolt70)

• This adorable owl tote bag, even though I do not need any more tote bags....(Also from Etsy...seller Sweetharvey)

• I really love these sweet ass lamps. The coolest shit ever. I found these awesome lamps on anthologymag.com....They have the most captivating style there. If I had a home of my own (sniffle) I would absolutely decorate along these lines. (Check out the work of JamesPlumb.... I love those who re-purpose! www.jamesplumb.co/uk

• A papasan chair! I had one when I was growing up and need desperately to fill the hole in my life that was created the day we got rid of it.

• This adorable "envelope template"! How cute and creative is this! It's perfect, because I love making envelopes for cards from sheet music..This is just too cute! :)

• I fell in love with this coat while attempting to holiday shop for my friends and family. It is absolutely gorgeous..I wonder if it's warm? (Found at www.fredflare.com)

• Pioneer Postbound Scrap Book....I filled mine all up, and this one is just so awesome. (Even available from WalMart.com!)

I guess this is all for now....I'm sure there are plenty more things I would like to have, of course. :)

Another Reason to Love The Arm & Hammer

If you are one of the unfortunate souls, like me, who suffers from at least one urinary tract infection (UTI) a year, this is some very interesting, valuable information! I am not one to run to the doctor for ANYTHING if I don't absolutely, positively have to, so this just happened to be a fantastic solution to my ridiculous uncomfortable problem.

We all know how awesome baking soda is. It's great for whitening teeth, cleaning, baking, and now....treating a UTI!

I started feeling symptoms of a UTI a couple of days ago. I jumped online, looked up natural cures for a UTI and of course found all kinds of things. Everyone knows about cranberry juice helping a UTI, but I saw a mention of Echinacea, too. I had both cranberry pills and Echinacea at home, so I began taking 3 Echinacea and 6 cranberry pills each day. Sadly they seemed not to help. I also read something about drinking a 1/2 tsp of baking soda in a glass of water, and that it should help return your acidic urine to a reasonable pH for your body. I drank a glass yesterday...and well...no more screeching in pain when I pee! How amazing is that!?


(Update) After a more persistent UTI, I had been trying the baking soda trick every other day or so. I find that it is NOT a cure for a UTI, but does absolutely reduce the pain and discomfort associated with a typical UTI. If taken religiously during a UTI it may actually cure it, but I have yet to find that this is certain.

The Cocoa Chewie: Delicious & Gluten Free!

This just happens to be our new favorite cookie. It is a knock off of a cookie I love to get from Whole Foods. They are so undeniably delicious. I'd never have tried them if it wasn't for those free samples Whole Foods is always giving out...but, my, they are absolutely fantastic. I had absolutely no idea that they were gluten free (no flour used!) and low fat (no butter, either!) and they still come out ridiculously amazing! Only trouble I had was getting them off the foil. The recipe called for parchment, I used my last sheet, and still had trouble getting it off the parchment. The greased foil, on the other hand, well, that was a totally different story. They wouldn't even BUDGE! Ugh. (Not to mention I obviously did not space that batch sufficiently!)

(Okay, so that batch was a disaster....but it still tasted great!)

3 cups walnut halves, toasted & cooled

4 cups/(1 lb) powdered sugar 

         1/2 cup + 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

          scant 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

4 large egg whites, room temperature

1 tbsp vanilla extract 

Preheat the oven to 320F. Position the racks in the top and bottom third. Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper. You're going to want to use a large cookie sheet as these cookies spread out quite a bit. You can toast the walnuts in the oven while you're preparing the cookie dough. When you begin to smell the walnuts, it's time to pull them out of the oven! Let them cool and then coarsely chop them.  

Sift together the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, and salt. Stir in the chopped walnuts, then add the egg whites and vanilla. Stir until well combined. Remember that these cookies contain no flour and the batter will not turn out to be a typical cookie dough. It is very loose and runny, but bakes into the most delicious cookies ever!

Spoon the batter onto prepared cookie sheets, using about two tablespoons for each cookie. Do not attempt to put more than 6 cookies per sheet, or you'll be sorry! Bake until they puff up, get shiny on the top, and then crack. This should take about 15-18  minutes. I had trouble baking these bad  boys all the way through (and knowning when enough baking was enough), so don't be surprised it if takes 20 minutes or more to bake a batch. You don't want them to be gooey inside, but you certainly don't want them to come out of the oven hard, either. These are CHEWY cookies, not crunchy! They will keep in an airtight container for about three days. (Bet you can't make them last that long!) Enjoy!!

Makes about 18 large cookies.

Easy Cider Beer

Here at our house, in the Big Easy, we like to doing things for ourselves, if we can. My boyfriend just loves home brewing craft beers. I'd like to think that I help a little in his endeavors. (though he would probably tell you otherwise!!) 

This is a very easy way to home brew cider beer. Pictured is a small one gallon glass jug. You will need a rubber stopper, a plastic airlock, priming sugar, a gallon of apple cider, and wine or champagne yeast. We purchase all our brewing supplies locally at Brewstock, however there are many online brewing supply stores to choose from. The yeast packet will specify how much yeast to use per gallon, and just pitch the yeast accordingly! Be sure to sanitize all your brewing supplies before using them, as fermented beverages can become contaminated easily. A brewing supply store will also sell a one-step sanitizer that does not require rinsing.

A day or so after you pitch your yeast, you will notice that the yeast is kicking ass inside of that glass jug, bubbling things up like crazy! The reason you need an air lock is to allow the oxygen to escape the bottle. If you chose to brew without an airlock, your carboy would likely explode due to all the pressure. The bubbling is caused by the yeast feeding on all the sugars in the cider.

After a week of fermentation, you can bottle your hard cider. If you already have brewing supplies, you can bottle your cider in glass bottles after adding your priming sugar. You can also use old wine bottles, or even liquor bottles, if you're one of those people who loves to keep all their Jack Daniel's bottles. ;) Let your bottled cider age for another couple of weeks, and voila! You have made your very own hard cider!