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This is another one of my really old recipes. Also from the Pillsbury Cookbook I received as a wedding present, and then lost on one of our many moves. I'm including two versions of it, one plain chocolate chip and one chocolate chocolate chip. That's right, double chocolate, baby! I've tried others over the years, but always come back to this one.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cream together 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, and 1 cup of butter. (That's right, a whole cup. I kind of feel like Paula Deen or Ree Drummond with this recipe. Who uses a whole cup of butter? It's just plain decadent. Nevertheless, a cup of butter is called for.) Once the butter/sugar is creamed, add one egg and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and mix well. Add in 1 3/4 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix well. Then stir in 1 cup of good chocolate chips, and some nuts if you're so inclined. Drop by tablespoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. You know your oven best, so pick the time that will work for you. According to the recipe this should make 2 1/2 dozen cookies. I've never made 2 1/2 dozen cookies because I live in a house with barbarian hordes that sneak in behind me and steal spoonfuls of dough when I'm distracted. And I'm talking about the husband, not just the children.
Now for the chocolate chocolate variation. Cut the vanilla to 1 teaspoon, and add 1/4 cup of cocoa with the sugar and butter mixture. If you feel really fancy, add white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts, it's to die for.
This is not so much a tip as it is a confessional. People. Learn from my mistakes. Do not - DO NOT - do not - (do not) let your laundry get ahead of you! You will regret it. If you take a load out of the dryer, for pete's sake fold it right away and put those socks right where they belong. In the midst of a very busy gardening weekend, I processed lots of laundry. I sorted, washed, dried. But did I fold? No, I did not. And now, I am facing a herculean task, two huge piles of clean, completely wrinkled clothes waiting to be folded. Not to mention my eighteen year old working man son of mine took a load of wet clothes out of the washer, and set them on top of the dryer, so that he could start washing his work clothes. So there they sit, sort of dry on the top and wet in the middle, waiting for a chance to go in the dryer. Sigh.
I have a family of seven, one of whom does his own clothes. Mostly. This means I do a minimum of three loads of laundry a day, one white, one dark, and one colored. Not to mention the days when I have extra stuff to wash, like bedding, or curtains, or the worst days of all in the laundry room, when the kids come home from camp. Did you know that boys wear the same clothes the entire time they're at scout camp? Their socks can stand up on their own by the end of the week. Yet their entire pack of clothes needs to be washed because they reek of campfire and bug spray, plus all the wet gross food they jam in their pack as the week goes on. Blech.
So please, dear friends, learn from my mistakes. Take a few minutes and fold every load as it comes out of the dryer, you'll be ever so glad you did. I'm off to dive into the mountain of socks and towels, say a prayer for me!
This is a fun, quick family night game. You will need paper, pencil, ruler, and some candy or chocolate chips or other small treat.
Make a grid on the paper with pencil and ruler. I usually make a 5 x 5 grid, 25 squares. Place a candy (like smarties or m&m's) or chocolate chip on each square. Designate one person as "it" and send them from the room. Everyone else then decides on one square that is called "Pete". "It" is called back into the room. Ready, set, go, "it" begins to eat one candy at a time, while everyone else watches for "it" to reach out and grab "Pete". If "it" grabs "Pete" everyone shouts "Don't Eat Pete!" This game can be played with everyone in the family has a turn. It's a silly game, but it sure is fun, and the little ones love to shout out the refrain when "Pete" gets picked up. Try it for some goofy fun!
Saturday night Scott, Jeffrey, Joshua and I curled up in the family room to watch Nanny MacPhee Returns. I found it on sale at Blockbuster in the previously viewed section, and I really enjoyed the first one, so I thought we'd give it a try.
To briefly sum up, the story is about a mother who is in charge of the family farm while her husband is away at war. She has three rowdy children of her own, and is also taking care of her niece and nephew, who have left London because of the bombing. Her brother-in-law is harrassing her to sell the farm, her children are running wild, and she works for a shopkeeper who is extremely aged and forgetful. Into this mess arrives Nanny MacPhee, who says she has been sent by the War Office to help out.
Nanny MacPhee comes to stay when you don't want her but need her, and leaves when you don't need her but want her. She teaches the children five important lessons, like sharing, faith, working together, not fighting, etcetera. There are some wonderful humorous moments, and the movie is touching but not preachy. Emma Thompson is amazing, of course, as Nanny MacPhee, and Maggie Gyllenhall (sp?) is wonderful as the stressed out mother. Rhys Efans is so great as the sleazy uncle, he steals the scenes he's in. The children are all charming, and the special effects are really fun.
My boys really liked this movie, and mentioned it again the next day how much they enjoyed it. It does not talk down to children, and despite the magical story line, shows how real problems can be faced with courage, faith and good manners. I would recommend this to any family.
One of the apple trees in our garden is blooming, and it's so beautiful! As I was admiring the blossoms yesterday, I remembered another bit of old farmers wisdom passed on by my Uncle Rick. Along with his "don't plant until after the full moon following Victoria Day" rule, he also has told me it's safe to plant once the apple trees are blossoming.
I also harvested my first little bit of rhubarb last night. Rhubarb and asparagus are the earliest crops in the garden, I think. I recently heard from another experienced gardener that you can cut a slit in a rhubarb leaf and place it around a bean plant, kind of like a skirt. This will protect the plant from all sorts of evils, apparently. Rhubarb leaves are toxic, and can't be composted, so this is a good way to use some of them, instead of just throwing them out. My beans have just been planted, and aren't up yet, so I will have to wait til later in the season to try this tip. I'll let you know the results.
Yesterday I made a big pot of beef barley soup for supper. With tea biscuits. Yum! The weather is starting to warm up, so I'm sneaking in a few last winter type meals before it's all salads and grilled food. I love this recipe, my friend Stacey first made it for me eleven years ago when Sarah was very sick and in the hospital. I make it a fair amount in the winter, my oldest, Jason, is particularly fond of it.
This recipe is kind of a guesstimate, so bear with me for the measurements. It's soup, so nothing's written in stone.
Beef Barley Soup
6-8 cups water
2-3 cubes (or spoonfuls) of beef bouillion
round steak, cut into small squares
1 onion, diced fine
1 stalk celery, diced fine
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 carrots, cut into small pieces about the size of the round steak
2 potatoes, cut into small pieces about the size of the round steak
1/4 cup pearl or pot barley
bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
As I mentioned before, chop up the onions, celery and garlic quite fine, and cut the steak, potato and carrot into uniform pieces. I like mine cut fairly small. Pour a little oil or a combo of oil and butter in a pan, and heat. Add the onion, celery and garlic, and saute in the oil until translucent. Add the meat, and cook until all the juices evaporate and the bottom of the pan begins to get a golden brown coloring. This is very important, there's lots of flavor in the drippings stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the water, bouillion, carrots, bay leaf, barley and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover pot, and let simmer for at least 1 1/2 hours. Half an hour before serving the soup, add the potatoes, return to a boil, reduce heat and cover again. Check the seasoning before serving, and skim off any excess fat. This goes great with tea biscuits and a salad. You can use beef stock instead of bouillion as well.
One of my oldest, beloved, most used cookbooks is called Muffins &More, it's a Company's Coming cookbook by Jean Pare, the third in her very large series. Jean Pare is from Alberta, a real prairie success story. The page that this recipe is on is dog eared, stained and parts of it got stuck together. That's how good this recipe is. I can always tell if a recipe is good by how trashed the page is. I'm hard on my recipe books.
I use this recipe regularily, actually I have it memorized by now. I use it for tea biscuits to go with soup or chili, and as a topping for chicken pot pie and other meat pies. It's delicious. De-li-cious.
Here goes:
Rich Tea Biscuits
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp. white sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 cup cold butter or margarine
1 cup cold milk
Put first five ingredients into bowl. Stir thoroughly.
Cut in butter until crumbly.
Pour in milk. Stir quickly to combine. Dough should be soft. Turn out on lightly floured surface. Knead gently 8-10 times. Roll or pat 1/2 to 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick or half the thickness you want the baked product to be. Cut with small round cookie cutter. Place on greased cookie sheet close together for soft sides or apart for crisp sides. Bake in 450 degree F oven for 12-15 minutes. Brushing biscuits with milk before baking will produce a pretty brown top. Makes 10.
My own little changes are #1, I grate frozen butter into the flour mixture and then toss. This is quick and easy. #2, I always forget to buy cream of tartar, and so I never put it in. It doesn't seem to make any difference. #3, I also use different sized and shaped cookie cutters - square ones and round ones. 4) When covering a meat pie, I roll out the dough rather thin, cut some slashes in it to let steam out, place the pan over it and cut off the excess. Then I roll the dough back over the rolling pin and roll it out over the casserole. I usually bake it for 15 minutes at 450 degrees F.
