Yesterday Sarah and I discovered a new guilty pleasure.
The Game Show network.
The gateway drug was clapping and jumping up and down yelling "good answer! good answer!" to old Family Feuds. Then today I turned it on to find a classic Match Game. Now it has been determined that we need to go see if Target sells the Password Game before we leave for camping tomorrow. I just want to see if I can get my brother to give a clue like, "Foooooo Fooooooo...." to the word "bunny." Seriously, have you met my brother? That would totally make my year, maybe my entire life worth living.
Because I won't be bringing a 55 gallon drum of Stoli this year I had to come up with another contribution.
Cookies! Allow me a bit of bragging right here right now. I make quite possibly the best damn chocolate chip cookie on earth. Screw DoubleTree and those cookies made from the stolen recipe that everyone emails around all the time. I will even share my trade secrets because my name isn't Mrs. Fields.
#1. The Basic recipe from the "red plaid cookbook" better know as the Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook. (Not sure how "new" it can be considering my Mom's is probably close to 50 years old by now.)
My Mom had this cookbook and it was the first thing I asked for when I got married. I have lots and lots of other fancier, specialized cookbooks and this is the one I go back to again and again for good old fashioned basic food. (My pie crust recipe is in here too.)#2. Butter flavored Crisco. The only change I make to the recipe is instead of the recommended part butter - part shortening is a cup of this instead. I like my cookies to stay plump and butter makes them spread out flat and get too crispy. The butter flavored Crisco gives them the flavor they miss if you just use plain shortening.
#3. Heath Chips. I just add a half a package of these and it is like I added crack AND meth. Trust me, just try it you'll never go back to chopped walnuts again.
#4. AirBake pans and a convection oven. These pans really do keep them from burning on the bottom and with the convection fan setting on my wall oven I get perfectly browned cookies that are crispy on the outside and still chewy on the inside even when I bake two pans at the same time.
The other dirty little secret I have is that I always leave just enough in the bowl to eat raw. I know, I know! SALMONELLA! E. COLI! TAPEWORM! (I could really use a tapeworm right now actually.) I've been eating raw cookie dough for 40 years and have never had more than a sore tummy from eating too much and a need to drink a glass of milk and brush my teeth.
The girls and I (plus Sarah's best friend) leave tomorrow for camping in Michigan with my siblings and their kids. It started out as "Sister Camping" then we added one of our adult nieces and before we knew it our brother and sister-in-law and adult nephew were coming too. Unfortunately Mom & Dad will be on the other side of the state this weekend and won't be joining us in their luxury land yacht (they bought a new-to-them class-A motor home this spring.) I'm really looking forward to it because I love camping but hate cooking. All of my family are veteran campers so there will be plenty of people to do the cooking and other camp stuff. I get to be the entertainment as usual.
Have a great weekend!
I have my mom's BH&G cookbook from when she got married in 1953, some of the recipes are dated, but the Snickerdoodle is a classic! It's like looking into her kitchen reading the recipes.
ReplyDeleteAnd Heath Chips! I've never actually seen those, we always buy a Heath bar and smash it up! I'll have to hunt those down.