Best Sorghum Cookies: Foods Made for Family and Friends

So...I am finally back on my feet, but two things conspired against my blog. A: I had to go back to work and have been doing a couple of hours overtime every day. B: We had a crazy electrical storm that knocked out the internet two days ago. For no apparent reason, it is back on for the moment (I am not cancelling the service call tomorrow because it will definitely go out again if I do.  Thank you so much for your good thoughts during my recovery. I can't wait to get back to your blogs!

I have mainly been sharing recipes with you that were made for people who had a medical event (childbirth, catastrophic accident) or some personal troubles. These were made for a bit of a different reason - they are "I'm sorry" cookies. I have no idea where my head was and am so embarrassed to admit it, but I completely stood someone up for an appointment. In addition to apologizing profusely and losing sleep worrying about my mistake, I also made her cookies.

These delicious little gems were made using the recipe from the bottle of Muddy Pond sorghum molasses that I purchased at the farmer's market.

Best Sorghum Cookies
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup sorghum
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground cloves

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in sorghum and eggs.
2. In another large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. Blend thoroughly.
3. Gradually mix flour mixture into creamed ingredients until smooth.
4. Roll dough into 1 inch balls; dip tops in granulated sugar. Place 2 inches apart on baking stone or greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350F for 11 minutes.

Banana Cookies: Foods Made for Family and Friends

If things are going as they are supposed to, I should be back to visiting your blogs today. Surgery Monday; in bed Tuesday; able to sit for a while Wednesday. That is my plan. If you are still not hearing from me, assume that I am fine but not quite ready to sit up yet. (Since it is Saturday, you will surmise that things did not go quite as I planned - today is my first day sitting up. I will spare you the blood and guts of it, but it was not a pretty week. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers.)

These cookies were made for a friend who was just out of the hospital. I love to make these because they have the same flavor of a good banana bread without the v e r y l o n g cooking time, and they come in nice, portioned servings.

Banana Cookies
3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup mashed bananas
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add egg and vanilla, blend well.
2. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Stir into sugar mixture. Add mashed bananas, nuts, and oats. Stir just until blended.
3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto stone or greased cookie sheet and bake at 400F for about 12 minutes. Cook on rack.

A Random Post Including Wild Flours, No Bake Chocolate Chews (3 points), and Elmo

I am so proud of myself for getting up extra early to make sure that I could get to the Farmer's Market and back before taking my nephew on a "date". Look at my great haul - bok choy, local honey, ground beefalo, two dozen farm fresh eggs, and a loaf of the best whole wheat bread money can buy. There were so many beautiful things at the market today - with more money and more time I could have really cleaned up.

There are some great vendors at the Farmer's Market, and one of my favorites is Wild Flours (click on the name to see their blog, with a mouth watering list of available products). We tried their cinnamon rolls two weeks ago and were blown away.

Look at that list of ingredients! Nothing I have to pronounce syllable by syllable. All good stuff. We were on a family jaunt that day and my nephew completely loved his Wild Flours (click to see their Facebook page) muffin.

The whole wheat bread was one of the reasons I got up so early this morning. I knew that I could not wait another week for a loaf. It is super-duper good. If you live in this area, this would be my top recommendation for Saturday morning breakfast, hands down: Wild Flours at the Farmer's Market on the square.

The "date" with my nephew was a I Am the Best Aunt Ever trip to see Elmo Live. Floor seats, baby. How cool am I?

We had lunch at Panera Bread (the closest place to eat that is not on insane-on-Saturday Broadway) and Simon was fascinated with the building across the street.

After dropping off Simon and taking a major power nap, I whipped up some no bake cookies for my overworked grad student hubby.

I have posted a healthy version of these superb, chewy, chocolatey, sinfully easy cookies before. This is the old-school, full on butter version that I grew up on. 


No Bake Chocolate Chews from In the Kitchen with the AWA
4 tbsp cocoa
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup lowfat milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
3 cups rolled oats

1. Combine first four ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly,  for one minute. Remove from the stove and then add the next three ingredients.
2. After the peanut butter is melted, add the oats. Beat until the mixture starts to set (just a few minutes). Spoon out on waxed paper by teaspoonful and let cool.
3. Yields 39, 3 point servings

These poor things never get cooled before Stone steals one.

Wow! That was a long post. I could go on because I really wanted to share my weekly menu. But, I had better stop it - you never know what Bob Newhart might do to me otherwise.

Egg Yolk Cookies - 4 points

For two recent recipes (Shaum Torte; Mushroom and Swiss Frittata) I used 12 egg whites. One of my favorite bloggers, yummychunklet, wanted to know what to do with 12 leftover egg yolks. My Weight Watchers answer is - throw them in the trash (which is what I did when I made the frittata). However, I hate to leave people in a lurch - so here is an irresistible recipe from In the Kitchen with the AWA.

Now, while I feel that this recipe should come with a warning from the American Heart Association, the cookies truly taste amazing. Because of their high fat content, they are beautifully crispy on the outside and perfectly chewy on the inside. Their flavor is light with just a hint of lemon. I could go on with my own description, but I will steal one from a friend who told me last week that they are like, "A warm hug in cookie form".    

Egg Yolk Cookies
5 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
2 cups butter
3 cups sugar
12 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon flavoring

1. Combine flour, soda, and cream of tartar; set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar; add egg yolks. Stir in the flour mixture and mix well. Add the vanilla and lemon flavoring.
3. Roll into small balls, dip in sugar, flatten on a cookie sheet with the bottom of a glass. Bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes.
4. Yields apx 60 cookies

Gingerbread Modeling Dough for Random Recipe Challenge

I love Dom's Random Recipe Challenge. It truly forces me to be brave and creative. This time, the challenge was to pick a random recipe from your very first cookbook. Well, I am so lucky to have a wonderful mother who bought me a fabulous cookbook for my first forays into independent cooking. Without further ado, I present Loaves and Fishes: A Love Your Neighbor Cookbook.

 
That this was my first cookbook is in complete keeping with my parents who, despite their conservative outside appearance, are truly hippies on the inside. The authors of this cookbook for children were hoping to educate young people about the realities of world hunger and the need for sustainable agriculture. In the educational preface, some facts are given concerning American over-consumption and world hunger. THe authors also state three goals for young people (rephrased for space).

1. Become educated about world hunger.
2. Become advocates for healthy eating in schools.
3. Make healthy, careful food choices at home.

The book has great pictures and a cute little, hand-drawn ladybug who follows you throughout the book.

I made a big deal of opening the book after dinner one night to choose my random recipe. When the pages fell open to an old favorite, "Gingerbread Modeling Dough", I was simultaneously excited and terrified.  I will tell you more about that later.

First, the recipe. It is a fun recipe that encourages kids to work with their hands and to craft their own, original gingerbread men. I thought it was great fun to make all kinds of gingerbread shapes when I was younger. The texture of the cookie is very chewy, almost doughy. The flavor starts with the spicy ginger and then begins to hint at the sweet molasses until you are engulfed in the very taste of Christmas.


Gingerbread Modeling Dough
1/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup water

1. In a large bowl mix well the margarine and sugar.
2. Beat in the molasses.
3. Add the flour, soda, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.
4. Add the water and mix well, using your hands to mix the flour in when the dough becomes stiff.
5. Now the dough is ready to model into gingerbread boys or girls or anything you wish.
6. Place modeled dough on greased cookie sheet. Bake the dough at 350F for 8-10 minutes or longer depending on its thickness.
7. Yields 20, 2 point servings (#7 is not from the cookbook.)

Here is the gingerbread boy I made for Simon (with raisin face and bellybutton,  and sesame seed hair).

Now, obviously I was excited to make this recipe because it is one that is familiar - one that I even love. But terrified? Well, that is another story. I try to keep my blog a happy place, but part of this bit is sad. Trust me, however, that the end is - I think - affirming.

In another life (aka for almost ten years, until three years ago) I was married to another man. Let us call him The Dark. During the first year of our marriage, I made these cookies to share with him. I wanted to share part of my childhood with him - part of myself. He hated them. He not only hated them, but he said degrading things about them. Things I won't put on a blog.

These are not, perhaps, the world's best cookie, but they don't deserve to be defamed. The Dark was defaming them because insulting what someone loves is a way of undermining their self esteem and keeping them in your control. The cookies were something sort of small, but there were bigger things as well. There was Africa. We went there, for him to see my roots, and he hated it. He hated all of it, every place and sight and sound and taste that was the fabric of my heart. He told me that we would never, ever go back.

Fast forward to now. I have a new life, and now a new husband. He wants to go to Africa. I won't take him. I will not take him because I can't risk him hating it. He keeps telling me that he is not The Dark. I know that. But, still...

I set this glass of milk and these star shaped gingerbread modeling dough cookies in front of my husband, who had no idea the emotion behind them. He took a bite. He smiled. He mmmmmed. "Oh. Oh, wow. These are spectacular. I mean, these are amazing. They are so moist! They are so chewy! Can I really only have three?"

He loved them. And, he didn't just love them because they were good. He loved them because I made them. He loved them because he loves me.

So, maybe someday I will take him to Africa. But not yet....

Dark Chocolate No Bake Cookies - 2 points, Menu, Baking Votes Needed!

This is a twist on my husband's favorite cookie - the chocolate no-bake cookie. I adapted this from Health magazine because I needed a cookie recipe that my students could make at school. That means - no oven, ready in less than 20 minutes, and acceptable for a diabetic. This recipe fit all three requirements and got all - around approval from a group of adolescents who will freely complain if they do not like what you feed them! Stone even says that these are just as good as the classic, less healthy version, (which is high praise indeed).

Dark Chocolate No Bake Cookies

4 tbsp creamy peanut butter

4 tbsp soy milk, original flavor, light

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats

1. Place peanut butter, milk, and chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high 45 seconds; stir. Continue to heat at 15 second intervals, stirring each time, until chips are completely melted.

2. Stir oats into bowl. Mix until coated.

3. Drop by spoon fulls onto waxed paper. Refrigerate 10 minutes before serving.

4. Yields 16, 2 point servings

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday

macaroni with tomatoes

Monday

crock pot black beans

Tuesday

apple cinnamon muffins (for work event)

sushi

Wednesday

salmon burgers

Thursday

crock pot chicken

Friday

night out

Saturday

Sunday School Picnic

grilled Italian chicken

mojito cupcakes

Baking question: My church is having a baking competition. I know I won't win, but I would love to partake and help raise money for the church mission trip to an Oklahoma reservation this summer. What should I make? Right now the votes are between Strawberry Brownie Bonbons (Stone, fab friend Lisa, and super co-teacher Carr) and Dulche de Leche Bars (that one is just me). What do you think?

Cake Mix Cookies - 2 points

Simon (my adorable 2 year old nephew) is going to be spending some more time with me. Due to a work schedule issue, I will now have the privilege of picking him up from day school and spending 30-45 minutes with him before Alanna comes to pick him up. I am sorry that Alanna is having to work late, since I know that she would like to be the one spending time with Simon. Simultaneously, I feel lucky to have this time with my favorite toddler.

Yesterday, Simon wanted to bake cookies when we got home. It had to be something fast if they were going to get done. My usual quick cookie is a cake mix cookie. You mix 1 box of cake mix with 1/2 cup oil and two eggs; roll into 36 teaspoon size balls; flatten with a glass dipped in sugar; and then bake at 350F for 10 minutes. They are very good, but I felt they could use a little less fat. So, I made the recipe below.

The cookies turned out to be fabulous; they are very moist and taste like tiny banana bread treats. Simon took them to school to share with his little friends.

Cake Mix Cookies
1 box white cake mix
1 large banana, mashed
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup olive oil
2 egg whites

1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.
2. Drop by teaspoonfull onto a dry stone or a pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Bake at 350F for 15-18 minutes. (I did half on the stone and half on metal. The stone version took 15 minutes, whereas the metal needed 18.)
4. Yields 36, 2 point servings

Please note that my cookies have black and orange dots because the cake mix had Halloween sprinkles in it (they were on clearance in December - I am nothing if not thrifty).