Sugar and Spice Cookies

Let me start with a disclaimer: we have actually been really healthy eaters as of late. I have mostly limited my baked-good making to healthy muffins and breads. I feel all warm and fuzzy when I send Jeffrey off to school with a blueberry oatmeal muffin or pumpkin pancake rather than a poptart. True, we usually add chocolate chips to the pancakes, but still...

Yet this recipe is definitely a dessert, no other way of looking at it. Yet it's also a wonderful, Christmasy cookie, and ever since our storage unit got flooded, prompting me to put up our Christmas tree several weeks early, Christmas has been on my mind.

Now, Jeffrey isn't usually much of a cookie-eater, but this recipe is possibly his favorite. It comes from his childhood best friend's mother, and it is super quick, easy, and delicious. AND it makes your house smell wonderful! So without further ado:

Sugar and Spice Cookies

Look at me! I totally did one of those "I'm going to take a picture of all the ingredients" pictures! Mostly I wanted to take a picture of the shortening sticks to comment on how I LOVE that they exist! I don't often bake with Crisco, but I would never use it if I still had to scrape it out of the giant tin cans.

• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp cloves
• 3/4 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp salt

Cream together the first 4 ingredients: shortening, sugar, egg, and molasses (isn't molasses gloopy?)

Sift together the dry ingredients and then add to the creamed mixture. Combine well. (Full disclosure here: I rarely actually sift the dry ingredients together. Ergo there's no picture. I just added them individually to the same bowl. I just haven't ever noticed a difference from when I do sift and don't, you know?)

Form into walnut-sized balls and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-8 minutes. If using a dark or coated pan (like I did), reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Actually, I reduced mine to about 360, which was perfect. But since when does a recipe ever tell you to bake things at 360? Never. Better not start now. Something drastic could happen.

They should come out cracked on the top and soft. I removed mine fairly promptly from the pan to cool, and they came out perfect. This recipe usually yields 20-24 cookies.

They're so good, I promise, and are disappearing embarrassingly fast from our house. Mmm...

Soy Wax Emergency Candles

Last weekend the four of us got together for our annual "Girls' Getaway." It was sooooooo much fun. The agenda included yummy food, a Christmas craft, a bit of singing, a couple of sappy movies, a lot of talk and laughter, a mini book club, some family history, and soy emergency candles. Soy emergency candles, you ask? Why, yes! Delys found a great "how to" website, and we thought we would give them a try.

I will include the link to the original site at the end of this post, but just to show you how easy it is, we will walk you through the process.

You will need soy wax, candle wicks, heavy duty glass jars (pint size or smaller), a glue gun and glue, a #10 size can, and a roll of masking or painter's tape.

I purchased the soy wax and wicks from Amazon. They were much cheaper online than at any of the local craft stores I checked--even factoring in coupons. We used a variety of jars. I already had some small canning jars and purchased others from a thrift store for 25 cents a piece. We also used some empty salsa and pesto jars that I had saved. The key is making sure that they are thick enough to withstand high heat, first when the hot wax is poured into them and then later when the candle is burning.

To make a pouring spout in our large can, we simply put it on the floor and stepped on it gently near the open end. It wasn't elegant, but it worked :) We filled a large pot about half full of water and then, using an old measuring cup, we scooped the wax flakes into the can. When we placed the can in the water, it tried to float. so we wedged a jar between the side of the pot and the can to hold it in place. We set the stove at medium high heat.

While the wax melted on the stove, we used the glue gun to anchor the wicks by placing a dab of hot glue on the metal bottom of each wick and then sticking it quickly to the inside bottom of each jar.

When the wax was ready, we carefully filled each jar, leaving about 1/2 inch of room at the top of the jar. (Be sure to use hot pads; the can is hot.) To hold the wick upright while the wax cooled and set, we tore a strip of masking tape long enough to go across the top of the jar, taped it in place, made a small slit in the tape where the wick should go, and then threaded the wick through it.

Once the wax was cool and hard, we removed the tape and trimmed the wicks. We put lids back on the jars to keep the candles clean until they are needed. The website we used said that candles made in 1/2 pint size jars should burn for up to 50 hours. We didn't test that, but we did light one of ours and loved the fact that it burned clean--no odor or noticeable smoke.

Kind of a nice thing to have around on a dark night when the lights go out. . . .

Here is the link to our inspiration site: http://happymoneysaver.com/happy-homesteading-making-50-hour-soy-survival-candles/

Kit's Spicy Pumpkin Soup

It is almost November, and it finally feels like Fall! So, this is the perfect time for Kit's Spicy Pumpkin Soup. Kit is not only a truly amazing woman, she is also one of the best cooks I know. (Thank you, dear friend, for this taste of autumn. I think of you every time I make it.)

This recipe is easy, nutritious and delicious:

Spicy Pumpkin Soup

1 T oil (I use olive oil)
1 T garlic powder
1 T chili powder
1/2 t ground cumin
4 c chicken broth (from bullion cubes) or vegetable broth
1 15 oz can solid pack pumpkin
3/4 c bottled medium spicy salsa
1 19 oz can chick peas, rinsed, (or black beans, if you prefer)
1 c corn kernels, canned or frozen

Heat oil in a 3 quart saucepan. Add garlic and chili powder and ground cumin. Stir over medium heat for one minute. Add broth. Stir in chick peas, pumpkin, corn and salsa. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes to develop flavors. Serve with cheese and sour cream.
Note: You can add cooked, diced chicken for the meat-lovers in your family.

This soup pairs beautifully with biscuits, yummy rolls, tortilla chips, or crusty artisan breads. For a sweeter mix, make up a batch of these easy Two Ingredient Pumpkin Muffins. (Make that three ingredients if you throw in a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips--which, of course, you should.)

1 Spice Cake Mix
1 15 oz can solid pack pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry cake mix and pumpkin well with mixer. (Add chocolate chips, if desired.)  Fill muffin papers 2/3 full. Bake 14 to 17 minutes.

Enjoy!

Toddler Time - Making Patterns and Pictures with Shapes

These little beauties have been some of my best friends lately. My 2-year old loves to play with them. And the best news of all is that I found them in the dollar bins at Target. They are basically inch-long multi-colored shapes that come with multi-colored shoelace strings. My little girl does like to thread the shapes onto the strings (although I had to wrap tape around the top of the shoelaces a few times so that it was easier for her to get the shoelace through the holes). But I wanted to find different ways to use them. So I decided to make some basic pictures using the shapes that she could then use as patterns. I laminated the pictures I made and now she can play with them by putting the correct colored shape onto the corresponding one in the pictures. 

Below are some examples of the patterns I came up with. (Important reminder: I am NOT an artist or graphic designer nor did I spend much time creating these. I usually leave the crafty blog posts to my very talented sisters and mother. So don't expect amazing. I just wanted to give you examples of things you could do--and yours will probably turn out a lot better than mine. Luckily, my 2-year old can't see my artistic deficiencies....yet.)

  

My 2-year old has been having a lot of fun with these. She likes to put the wooden shapes onto the patterns and she likes to make pictures of her own by putting the shapes on blank white pieces of paper.

Another fun thing to do is string some of the blocks onto one of the shoelaces into a pattern: i.e. yellow star, blue circle, green star, red circle, blue star... and then have your child choose what shape should come next. Then they can recreate the pattern on their own shoelace.

Anywho, just wanted to share some fun we have been having at our house these last few weeks. There are similar things like this that you can buy, but they cost $15 or more...which isn't a ton, but I made mine for $3. So go find some jumbo lacing beads in the dollar bins and have some fun!

Toddler Crafts: Halloween Pumpkin

So I had the great privilege of nannying a sweet and precocious 2.5-year-old last autumn. Blue-eyed and curly haired, she was the kind of 2-year-old all mothers dream of having: beautiful, energetic, and very smart. It quickly became apparent to me that Hannah wasn't going to be content playing with the same toys and following the very same routine every day; I needed to find new and interesting things for us to make and discover together.

Ergo, I starting coming up with crafts for us to do together. I'm all about frugality, so I loved using materials that I either already had on hand or that are cheap and convenient to buy. I also needed each project to be toddler-friendly, something that could be completed before an eager little girl lost interest and without the prospect of incidental injury. I also found it helpful to theme our crafts around the seasons or upcoming holidays. Kids love holidays, right? And so do I! So, without further ado...

Halloween Pumpkin Craft
(for Toddlers!) 

 What You'll Need:

• A new roll of toilet paper
• Orange tissue paper
• Green and black construction paper
• Glue (or tape, if you prefer)
• Scissors
• Pencil

For the pumpkin: Smooth out your tissue paper on a flat surface (I found that my particular sheet was large enough to fold in half). Place the toilet paper roll upright in the center of the rectangle (or square) of tissue paper. Starting with the center of one side, pull the tissue paper up against the side of the toilet paper roll and tuck the excess into the hole at the top. Continue to smooth the paper up against the roll and tuck it in the top until the whole roll is covered in paper. For a smoother look, you can pleat the tissue paper as you go.

For the stem: There are lots of different approaches here. You can fill in the top hole with a tuft of green or brown tissue paper if you have any handy. I personally like a more solid stem, so Hannah and I cut a long rectangle of green construction paper approximately 4 inches wide. We rolled it into a cylinder and put it into the hole at the top of our pumpkin to judge how thick we should make our stem. Once we determined the right fit, we glued the stem to size and put it back in the top hole. With the tissue paper packed around it, the stem didn't really need anything else to keep it in place. However, if you want a sturdy pumpkin, you can glue the stem to the cardboard toilet paper roll; you just need your paper cylinder to reach past the tucked tissue paper.

For the vines: Cut long, half inch strips of green construction paper. Place the end of a strip against the flat side of one of the scissor blades. With the end in one hand and your thumb keeping the paper in place against the scissors, pull the scissors up the length of the strip of paper (like you're curling  wrapping-paper ribbon!) Did you know construction paper curled like that? I had no idea. I like the effect, though. Glue or tape the vines to the stem (or if

All that is left is to cut out the jack-o-lantern features and glue them to the front of your pumpkin (meaning the smoothest part you can find, probably.) I let Hannah pick the shapes for the eyes and nose as well as how many teeth our jack-o-lantern mouth would have. She did an excellent job, n'est pas?

That's it! Our pumpkin Jack sat proudly on the mantel all the way into November, and we were awfully proud of him. You and your little one will be, too.