It is Magic

OK confess you did some sort of computer voodoo, didn't you? What ever the reason it worked and I'mmmmmmm baccccck.

"Best" Oatmeal Cookies

Typing recipe as given originally with my notes in parenthesis.

3 Eggs, Well Beaten
2 cups raisins
1 Tbls Vanilla
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 cup White Sugar
2 1/1 Cups Flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Cinnamon (I use the Penzey's Baking Mix)
2 tsp Baking soda
2 cups Oatmeal - Old Fashioned, not quick cooking
1 cup chopped nuts (I've used both walnuts and pecans.)
1 cup margarine (I use unsalted butter. I don't like cooking with margarine.)

Combine eggs, raisins and vanilla. Let stand for 1 hour covered with plastic. Cream margarine and sugars; add rest of the ingredients. Mix well. (I do this in my mixer as it's a bit stiff by hand.) Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

(I cover my cookie sheet with parchment paper and use tablespoons to drop. This makes roughly 2" cookie and makes about 3 1/2 dozen. Also watch your first batch. My old old oven isn't the most accurate in the world and I found I needed to bake about 15-16 minutes as they weren't done at 12 minutes so cooking time may be off in the recipe or my oven is just goofy or she does them in teaspoon sizes.)

Paula's Note at the bottom:

Sometimes God calms the storm and sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms his child.

A brief preview of later notes!

The really rotten thing about getting older is you never remember anything anymore! I received the best oatmeal cookie recipe and meant to carry it with me so I could send it to you today but noooooo----I forgot. I will dig it out soon as I get home today and post it up. It's really yummy.

I wandered around igourmet last night. My goodness they have a lot of good looking stuff! Cheese to make your tongue fall out. Here's that cheese that America's Test Kitchen said was the best for the buck. http://www.igourmet.com/shoppe/prodview.aspx?prod=208 I think I'm going to order a pound and see how it is. Though they've got a rather neat "Grating Collection" that has a half pound of it in it as well as some other things. I wonder if that might be a better deal? What do you think? Grating Collection

More to come later. It's started sleeting and I need to dash outside and chip out the car. Brrr!

Only four more days to go

I must tell you how much our phone chats mean to me. It is so nice to hear your voice and the subject matter we discuss is of little importance to me, it is the contact with you that I treasure.

That being said I thought I would share what is going on today. It is very cold and tomorrow is supposed to be even colder, so I know that it is worse there. BRRR. I have church duty tomorrow, but want to get in the kitchen and bake up some cookies. I have really gotten interested in cooking this past year (better late than never I guess) I would like to get over to Barnes and Noble and check out several cookbooks that were written by some of the folks that I watch on TV. I am especially interested in Ina Gartner's books at the moment. I have a very dirty house that needs attending to and there is always the call of the sewing room. Right now I am machine quilting. I really do like that and can tell that I am improving in my skill level. It is such fun to have toys to play with. I want to make up a lot of greeting cards to have on hand for various occasions too and with my Sizzix and my Cricut, it should be a snap to do that. Guess I will never outgrow my love of cut and paste. Did I pass that along to you? I sure do hope so as it is so much fun. I really hope that there is a large craft room in heaven that opens into a garden and that I will get to play in both for eternity. It is for sure that I will not make the music room. HA.

I so hope that this week end allowed you some down time to rest up, and if not maybe this short work week will. It sounds as if K is really improving and I know that is great news for you both. I need to scoot and get busy on some things. I have a big pot of beans cooking and they smell wonderful. Wish you were here to share a bowl a little later.

Monday!

Boo on Mondays!

I did get by the soap company and picked a few things out for you. I hope you like them. I did from fondling them in the store. I'm having them ship it to you since they'll ship for free over X amount and that's a better deal than UPS will give me. It's a holiday gift from me to you. Not much of a surprise, I know, but something to smell sweet during the long gray winter months. She told me it should be there in just a few days so I'd hope they'd be on your doorstep by the end of the week. The owner told me she does not publish a list of her soap fragrances and the best way to keep track is to visit the web site (or come into the shop!).

I'm running short on time since I need to hightail it up to the license department to get Kevin's temporary handicap placard. Then it's off to find a couple of little girl outfits for the family his office is adopting for Christmas. More later!

Thursday

We have had a couple of days of some real cold weather, so I bet you have really been on the chilly side. Brrrrr Except for walking Bridget (I left Molly at home) I stayed in yesterday and was very domestic. I made home made peanut patties and got everything that I have so far wrapped. Today I need to do some errands and finish up the laundry, but hope to get time to do some more creative things. I got the Cricut set up, but have not had time to play with cutting out anything yet. Maybe this afternoon if all goes well. I need to mail off a package to Aunt Toni. It was snowing the last time I talked with her.

Assuming that you had the time, would you have any interest in cardmaking or paper crafting? Have you had the opportunity to go by the soap place? I am not nagging, but was just curious if the soap list was headed my way.

The learn at lunch on panini was wonderful and I bought a cookbook by the chef that conducted the class with 200 panini recipes. Do you have a panini press? I talked to the chef after the class about the best model and she said she had tested hundreds of different kinds and her favorite was the Cuisinart Riddler. They have two models, but the right one has three dials under the press and I found it for $106 on Amazon. That is quite a lot lower than the department stores and speciality stores around here, but is the same model. I went ahead and splurged and ordered me one. Wow, that is two nice gifts for me. Now I am feeling guilty!
The nice things about panini's is that they are designed to serve two, which means for the effort of one, two meals for me. You can do savory as well as dessert panini's and they make for elegant entertaining with little effort.

I am putting the finishing touches on some handmade goodies for you two, and hope to get you package mailed by the 19th or 20th. No where nearly as nice as the stuff I got me I am afraid.

I hope that Kev is continuing to improve and get around more and more on his own and that you are remembering to take really good care of yourself.

Cricut Machine

That is a cool machine. And it has serious accessories. I love anything with serious accessories! I was looking around and found ohmycrafts.com. That's a neat website on it's own since they appear to have anything and everything related to papercrafts but they have what looks like the same Cricut machine for $139.00 - Machine Page Is that the same thing? It looks like it but they appear to have a lot of flavors of machines.