recipe time

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Okay.  I am on an airplane and kind of freaking out.  All of my folders from September –> December, in Adobe Lightroom, seriously disappeared.  Lightroom is the program I use to edit my photos and every time you import photos it puts them in a folder and the whole catalog has always been there.  I am missing ohhhhh about 90 folders!!  I am not freaking out too much because I always export the photos I want to keep and put on the blog to another folder on my computer.  However, they are jpegs and not in the RAW form that I shoot in.  Basically it’s not too big of a deal, but just really odd.  The only thing I am realllly mad about is that for December, I only have the folders for the last 3 days and since I was so busy I haven’t had time to edit + export all the photos I wanted to keep.  This includes the photos from the Baptism that I didn’t finish editing.  They seem to have vanished!  I’m going to have Chris look at it as soon as I get home, because I am stumped. grrrrrr

On to the main point of this post…RECIPES!

Molasses Cookies – Yields appx. 5 dozen cookies - This recipe has been altered from my great grandmother’s just a tad to be a little more natural/organic.  I really liked the result!

  • 1 1/2c. butter [instead of vegetable shortening]
  • 2c. organic sucanat [try the bulk bins at WF or in the baking aisle at most natural grocery stores]
  • 1/2c. organic molasses
  • 2 eggs
  • 4t. baking soda
  • 4c. unbleached/unenriched organic white flour
  • ~1t. cloves
  • ~1t. ginger
  • ~2t. cinnamon
  • 1t. salt
  • ~1/2c. organic cane sugar [for rolling the cookie dough balls in before baking]
  1. Preheat the oven to 350* and make sure all of your ingredients have come to room temperature, even the eggs. 
  2. Cream the butter + sucanat until light and fluffy [about 5min]
  3. Beat in the eggs and then the molasses, until just combined.
  4. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, soda, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and salt.
  5. Stir the dry into the wet, 1/3 at a time.  You might have to use your hands to finish and get everything thoroughly combined.  This dough is extremely thick and heavy. 
  6. If the dough seems too wet, you can add up to 1/2c. extra flour.  The dough should be able to be rolled into balls.
  7. You may need to stick the bowl of dough in the fridge/freezer [covered] for 10-30min to stiffen it up a bit, so it is easier to roll.
  8. Roll dough into walnut sized [or a little larger] balls and dip one side in the bowl of cane sugar. 
  9. Place on a baking sheet, leaving about 2” in between each cookie.
  10. Bake for approximately 7-10min.  The cookies should spread nicely and crack on the tops quite a bit when finished. 
  11. Let them sit on the cookie sheets for a good 5min before transferring to a cooling rack.

Bowl of sugar + dough balls

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Roll action

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My dad rolls the dough much larger and likes the cookies to bake into each other.  I prefer a smaller cookie with the nice round shape :)

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My version.  These cookies had great flavor and they baked perfectly!  The had a nice crusty [but not too thick] exterior with a soft + chewy inside.  They were still just as chewy 4 days later.  Molasses cookies are nice to make around the holidays, because they literally stay good for weeks!  It must be the molasses?

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Photo shoot with the finished product.

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If you can’t find, or don’t want to use sucanat, you can sub 1 cup of organic cane sugar + 1 cup of organic brown sugar.  The sucanat does not completely dissolve when you cream it with a mixer, but don’t worry, it dissolves when the cookies are baked.

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I lost count of how many cookies I ate while I was home. 

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Playing around with the cookies + camera.  Let me know if you have any questions about the recipe!

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Christmas tree ornament in the background :)

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Anyone interested in making puppy chow?  It’s so so easy and a major crowd pleaser, especially with kids!

Puppy Chow -     

  • 6 cups Crispix cereal
  • 1c. organic powdered sugar
  • 1/4c. organic pnut butter
  • 1/2c. salted peanuts
  • 1c. semisweet chocolate chips
  1. Slowly melt chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave.  If you’re using the microwave, be sure to do it in 30sec. increments and stir in between so the chocolate does not burn.  [When fully melted, take off the heat, if using the double boiler]
  2. Stir in the pnut butter + peanuts, until fully combined.
  3. Carefully fold the Crispix into the chocolate/pnut butter mixture.  Using a LARGE bowl definitely helps.  Make sure the chocolate is spread evenly.
  4. In a large plastic bag [I forgot the gallon size…but just BIG] add the powdered sugar.
  5. Carefully [easier with 2 people] dump the Crispix mixture into the bag.  Seal or tie off the bag and toss until completely coated with powdered sugar.  You might need to add a few more tablespoons of powdered sugar to fully coat the cereal.
  6. Spoon into containers and pass out to friends!

When I make this I usually do 3 batches and it takes about 1hr.

Stirring in the peanuts and pnut butta’

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I added a little more powdered sugar.  My mom and I like when it’s really bright white! hehehe

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Greek pastries, mmmm.  I did not make these!  I really like the braided cookie.  I know how to pronounce the name but NO clue how to spell it and I’m sure spell check won’t work for any of these.  The braided cookie is crunchy and awesome with coffee!  The powdered sugar cookie is a loooong time favorite of mine.  It is also a harder cookie but so delicious and buttery.  This is why I keep cookies off of my shopping list and out of my oven!!  I will eat them all.

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The cutest decorated sugar cookies I have seen in a long time.  My parent’s neighbor brought them over.  I obviously ate like 4 of them and they were delicious.

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so.cute.

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I feel like there was one more recipe I was supposed to share with you guys, but I can’t think of it!  Let me know if you can.  We are descending into Denver now.  I love getting my blog done in the air!  It’s so weird gaining back 2 hours.  It will only be 10:30am when I get to Denver, which is a good thing because I have a million things to do!!! Imagine that, hehe.  I need to shop for Christmas dinner [Chris already got the turkey], pick up a few presents for Chris, and wrap a LOT of gifts. 

My plan for the turkey is to throw it in the crock pot!!!  I have never heard of anyone doing this but found a lot of recipes online.  I haven’t cooked a turkey yet, and figure this is a sure fire way to keep it nice and moist.  I found a blog where a girl did crockpot meals for 365 days, and sure enough she cooked a whole turkey.  It seems pretty darn simple too!  Natalie has a crockpot as well, so I might do crockpot stuffing too.  Not sure what else is on the menu at this point!

Hope you all have a fabulous Christmas Eve with your family and/or friends!!  The next few days are going to be a bit hectic.  We’re moving the day after Christmas!  I may have some short posts coming up, and maybe a day or 2 missed until we get internet.  Keep checking back though!

I also just wanted to thank everyone for their comments recently [and in the past].  I really love hearing from my readers and have had so many comments that literally just make my day.  You guys rock :)

~Ashley

It is after midnight CO time right now when I’m going to post, so MERRY CHRISTMAS :)  Hope everyone has a great day!  I’m glad to be back with my hubs! He also thinks he’ll be able to find my photos on my hard drive, yay!

Niiight!