Bake for 12 to 15 minutes (10 to 12 minutes for soft, chewy cookies) or until golden brown. Cool for 5 to 10 minutes on baking sheets. Remove to baking rack. Cool completely.


Optional add-in’s: Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks. Chopped peanuts. Toffee bits. 

I spent a fun hour or so in Edom, Texas this morning. I love these tiny towns that seem to be bursting with artists. One is the man who makes these AMAZING birdhouses/fairy houses. You can see other examples here… http://www.arborcastlebirdhouses.com/id3.html I hate myself for saying this, but there are days I’d like to be able to make something like this so much I’d be willing to trade my writing for it. Of course, then I shake myself and remind myself to be thankful for what I have and thankful that there are such amazing artists out there making things simply because they are beautiful. 


I love that. Art just to make art. 


That is what I keep telling myself today. I will make art for art’s sake. 

Okay, this was one of those — WOW! Let’s do that even though we could just pop down to the grocery store and buy them for like a dollar. It’s way fun and not terribly hard to do…. and just think now we don’t have to wait all year for these!

• (1/2 cup) light corn syrup 
• (1/4 cup) butter, room temperature
• (3 cups) confectioner’s powdered sugar (icing sugar)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• yellow food coloring
• 1 (12 ounce) bag milk chocolate chips — we used semi-sweet. You could also use tinted white chocolate. That would be sort of awesome.

To make actual hollow eggs with the filling inside, you’ll need to acquire some egg molds.  Alternatively, you can form the filling and dip it in the chocolate. We did the dipping method. It just seemed easier… although probably less ‘pretty’.


Another idea would be to put these on sticks like lollipops, but I’m thinking that might just ruin the sticky fingered awesomeness…

It’s just too beautiful here to stay inside all of the time, so we’ve taken some of our projects outside. Of course the beginning of the week was horrible: tornadoes, thunderstorms, flooding, trees falling on houses. But now it’s beautiful. And the upside of the rain has been that our veggie garden is going nuts!
This year we are growing: peas, purple green beans (do you still call them green beans?), honeydew melon, cantaloupe, cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and well blah blah blah. The really interesting part is the scarecrow we pulled together out of an old, rusty trashcan, plastic Easter eggs, a old pot, and some assorted kitchen gadgets. Here he is… isn’t he beautiful?

These are possibly the most dangerous Easter eggs ever.

I knew I had officially crossed over into Geekville when I actually had a very strong opinion about whether the Dalek or the Cybermen would win in a battle.

Me: “Well, of course it would be the Dalek. I mean, they defeated the Time Lords.”

In case you haven’t discovered the wonder and awesomeness of Doctor Who, you MUST. Old episodes are available on amazon and you can get all of the discs from Netflix.

Here’s the latest:

The plan for me is to re-watch Season 2 without interruption so that I can savor it. I cannot wait until Season 3. Is that wrong?

1.  Do anything you can that promotes creativity – for instance brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand.
2. What do people who put up Christmas lights for a living do in the off-season?
3. Why has no one invented square or triangular crayons? I mean, come on.
4.  Who decided that blue raspberry was a flavor?
5.  Would one list “Rose Queen” under employment history on her résumé?

1.  A girl “hock a big loogie” on the ground and her boyfriend gaze at her lovingly and say, “Nice one, Babe.”
2.  A guy who has chosen to live with a severe lisp because he wanted to get his tongue pierced.
3. Two squirrels sitting on my back fence while unknowingly making a heart shape with their tails.
4.  The words “git her done” repeated over and over in a non-ironic way.
5.  A recipe for black bean brownies that I may have to try.

I know it sounds bizarre, but then think of all the things we eat now and don’t even think about it. Artichokes? Fiddle Ferns? Buddha’s Hand? (Okay, this weekend my friend, Kathy, and I were told that this last one really is a novelty and that we’d probably be better off using Meyer Lemons. ) But anyway…I’ll post my recipe, but you must see this video. If you love it like I do, take a look at their other videos at tiger in a jar

So, here is my version of Beet Cake:

This was a crazy weekend. My sister, her oldest, her youngest, Harrison, and I all visited my mother this weekend. It was a blast, but at some point I think I lost my mind because during dinner preparation on Saturday, there were six people in my mother’s 10 x 10 kitchen. I was making two versions of gingerbread (Yes, two.) My mom was actually cooking dinner. My sister was cutting up fruit for a salad with one hand and holding her daughter with the other. And the boys decide they want to “make something — something weird.” Sigh. We land on kitchen sink cookies –probably not my most inspired moment, but we had limited time (no Harrison, we aren’t going to make Danish pastry), limited resources (Yes, the chocolate chip cricket recipe looks interesting, Ryan, but we don’t have any crickets), and limited space (the two of you get this much — 2 feet — of counter. Keep the mess here .)

So, here’s the basic recipe. Below are some of the wonderful add-in’s the boys decided to use.

Ingredients:
1 stick of softened butter (salted is fine, but then leave out the additional salt)
1/2 c brown sugar — I like dark brown, but go with what you like
1/4 c granulated sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla — yes, pure vanilla.
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 c plus 2T whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Method:

1. Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and the vanilla and mix until incorporated completely.
2. In a separate bowl combine the flours, soda, and salt and stir until combined.
3. Gently fold the dries into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir until barely combined. Don’t over mix — they’ll be chewy and awful. 
4. Gently mix in as many or as few add-in’s as you want.
5. Mound evenly spaced on a lined baking sheet. And bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes.

YAY! Love? Maybe is finally out. I am so, so happy. This was definitely a long haul with lots of different editors and drafts. But, this time around I really learned attention to detail and how to be patient (two lessons I pretty much hate.) I think it came out really great though. Here it is:

Every year I have this urge to go back through all of the photos I’ve taken over the months. There are a few that stand out. Here’s one from Halloween. It makes me smile. One ninja and one? Ummm. Well, I just pulled some things out of my garden and added a couple of fake bumble bees and butterflies.

This week we made something new –roasted vegetable cake. I know it sounds gross, but it was AWESOME. We messed with it a lot from the original recipe, adding more carrots and taking out the sweet potato. I know… I just don’t like sweet potato. I know I should because it’s so good for you, but I just don’t.

So here it is. We’re going to focus on Valentine’s over the next few weeks both because of my new novel and because I do like any chance to give  out (and receive!) candy.

Roasted Vegetable Cake
Courtesy of http://trissalicious.com

Ingredients:

• 8 eggs
• small container of part skim ricotta cheese
• 8 oz cream cheese (we used low fat, but you could use fat free (eww) or regular.
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper to taste
• 4 Tolive oil for drizzling over the vegetables
• 2 grams butter to saute the spinach
• 3 large waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced (this is where the sweet potato comes in if you want to substitute one or more for the regular potatoes.)
• 1 red pepper, roasted, skin removed (or do what I did — I just bought a jar of roasted red peppers.)
• 1 onion diced
• 3 large carrots diced
• 6-8 oz baby spinach leaves

Method:

1. Place the eggs, ricotta, cream cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper in a food processor and mix until smooth — With a minimum of help, H was able to do everything with the food processor — easy and it was fun for him.) If you don’t have a food processor, all of this can be done by hand. It just takes more time.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Peel and slice the potatoes (and sweet potato if you are using one.) Drizzle with some olive oil, season with salt and pepper and bake for 25 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft enough that you can pierce through them with a fork.
3. If you are roasting the peppers yourself, char each pepper over an open flame using a pair of tongs. When the peppers have blackened, place them in a large bowl and cover with clingwrap for a few minutes. Carefully peel the skin off the peppers. Otherwise, you can use store bought peppers as well.
4. Heat a pan with some olive oil and saute the carrots and onions until soft.
5. Heat a pan with some butter and lightly saute the spinach. Remove from heat and set aside. (You can just use the same pan as above. No need to clean it. Just dump the onions and carrots out.)
6. In a large round cake pan (I used a nine-inch spring form pan.), layer the potato slices, the sweet potato, red peppers, cubed pumpkin, and then pour over the egg mixture. Finally, add the sauteed spinach. Allow the mixture to settle for around ten minutes.
7. Bake the frittata for around 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when you insert this through the center of the cake.
8. Remove from the oven and slice and eat it.