cookies

*waves to 2022* *Welcomes 2023*

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As I struggle to write this last post of the year, I think on the last few weeks. (Because honestly, I can’t remember much further back from then without looking at my calendar or camera roll.) My husband and I started watching Wednesday, the Netflix series. I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch it, but one episode later, and I’m hooked. We’re also finishing Derry Girls and tonight we’ll be watching Banshees of Innisherin for our New Year. This is the first year we are home alone with no kids, and I have a series of stress induced stomach flips thinking about where they are and if they’re safe. One is at a hockey game, and two are out with friends. They’re all responsible, but I still worry. That’s the nature of parenting I suppose.

So a few pictures:

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Friday Food: Super, Simple Super Bowl Snacks

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With New Year’s just past and the Super Bowl coming up in a few short weeks (Feb. 2), I thought I’d share some of my family’s easy to prepare foods. For New Year’s this past week, we actually cooked very little. Most of our food was simple, store-bought, easy to prepare, easy to clean up, and best of all, yummy.

1. Dip. We love the dill dip from Marzetti. It can be found in the refrigerated area of your grocery’s produce section. We like to pair it up with a variety of items to dip, including: pretzels, crackers, bread chunks, raw snow peas, raw green beans, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, potato chips. If you want to dress up your table, scoop out the insides of a round bread loaf and put the dip inside. Looks great, no clean up!

2. Hot dogs wrapped in crescent roll dough. You can buy these premade (we like the Hebrew National ones) or you can make them yourself. I’d recommend cutting the hot dogs in three, and cutting each crescent roll triangle in two. You get twice as many little dogs and it’s not over doughy.

3. Mini quiches or mini potato puffs. Again, you can buy these premade or make them yourself. For either of these, use a mini muffin tin. Put in a puff pastry square and add your ingredients. For quiches: eggs, cheese, onion, bacon. For potato puffs: mashed potatoes, bacon, cheese. Delicious.

4. Cheese and crackers. In addition to cheese cut in chunks, there are also cheese spreads that are very good on crackers. Add pepperoni to the platter for a little extra.

5. Dessert. Break and bake chocolate chip cookies. Brownie bites. Ice cream. Mini cheesecakes are also an excellent option. Use those mini muffin tins again. Put some crushed graham crackers in the bottom, use your favorite cheesecake recipe, add whipped cream when serving.

Moon Landing and Safe Return

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I discovered these mere days after the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing by the Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM) and its crew.

Today is the 50th anniversary of their safe return to Earth. We are all grateful to be commemorating and celebrating both milestones.

Oreo brand, limited edition, Marshmallow Moon with three space themed designs in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 crew and the first men to land on the moon, and safely return, July 20, 1969. (c)2019

Apple Things

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I don’t know about other parts of the country, but fall is filled with fall foliage, back to school, sweater weather, and of course, applepicking.

A few scenes from the apple orchard. (c)2017


Clockwise: Sampling different varieties of apples, from under my umbrella (it was raining off and on the whole time, but our time in Ireland made it tolerable), flowers in the bench planter, bright flowers on a dreary day, Bear with apple statue that greeted us when we arrived at the orchard’s store, hanging planter. (c)2017


L-R: 1. Apple Blossom, 2. Apple Crisp Cookie, 3. Cider Donut, R: 1. Snapdragon apple*, 2. Apple Cider.(c)2017

*I first discovered snapdragons when one of my writing group members brought one to try. It was perfect. Bright red, creamy white inside, crisp. It snapped when you bit into it. I’m not sure if that’s where its name came from, but it fit.

I always try to get a few snapdragons. They are good for pies or just to grab one for a snack.

By the time we went picking this year, combined with the summer weather not cooperating, there were very few of them in the field. We walked about halfway down the aisle, and I was about to give up when a young boy, about twelve on the other side of the fencing heard me, and offered that there were snapdragons further down, and pointed out where we should go.We thanked him.

And then, he turned back and offered me the apple that was in his hand.

Really? I asked.

He nodded, and I took the apple.

I thanked him profusely, and added that snapdragons were my favorite. All the rest of the day, I thought about his generosity, and I enjoyed that apple more than any other that I’ve had in the past few years.

That is the apple in the bottom picture.

It’s perfect.

32/52 – Oatmeal Cookie Surprise

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We had a few minutes before our tour began at the Titanic Experience in Belfast, Northern Ireland and made the decision to preview the gift shop. It was one of those perfect tourist attraction shops that had ranges of items from keeping the peace with the children to native Irish crafts; with prices ranging from  £1 to over £100 for woollens. We took a quick look, made our mental notes of what we definitely wanted to check out, and began our tour.
On coming back down to the shop, the first think that I noticed were the two racks of postcards. After pins, postcards are where my attention goes. Behind those racks were three long shelves that helped to form the checkout line on the opposite side. This side held all manner of small foods – cookies, candy, chocolate, Guinness infused, Bailey’s infused, mints, tins, and the like.

I passed it by about ten times in looking around, and trying to see where my kids had gone, and what they were now begging for, but I kept coming back to the cookies.

I mean, Grace’s Irish Oatmeal Biscuits, made with Irish butter, in the shape of shamrocks – you can’t get much more touristy than that. They were £3. I know I could get biscuits in any grocery, but they wouldn’t be Irish made, shamrock shaped, tourist biscuits.

And £3 wasn’t a bad price for what they were. And the tourist in me really needed to get them.

Instagram, you know.

I bought them, I packed them, I took them home with the rest of my candy.

I finally sat down on a quiet afternoon, and opened the box. Carefully pulling apart the ends, separating the plastic wrapping, I didn’t expect much.

I took a bite.

I sat there, in stunned silence, and took another, smaller bite that I could savor a bit longer than the first.

These were the BEST oatmeal cookies I have ever tasted.

No lie.

The. Best.

I still have two left because I don’t want to finish them.

They’re just the perfect amount of butter, oats, and crunch.

They are truly heavenly.

My recommendation for anyone visiting anywhere in Ireland that sells these is to buy as many as you can squeeze into your suitcase.

Seriously.

Holiday Traditions – Christmas Eve

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​Before we moved and had children, my husband and I would spend Thanksgiving with my parents and Christmas Eve and Day with his parents. My sister always alternated Thanksgiving with her in-laws and I thought our way made things much simpler and fair for everyone since my family didn’t celebrate Christmas. After we moved and decided to stay home with our kids for Christmas so they could wake up in their own house, things changed for us, but we still kept several, if not all of my husband’s family’s traditions that my husband  brought to our family.  Continue reading