Gingerbread Cookies

**Warning**
**This is a public service announcement**
**These cookies are ADDICTIVE!!!**

No seriously, they are.
They disappear immediately from our house.  I think the problem is that you know they are cookies, but they don't scream "cookies" at you.  There is no chocolate, there are no M&Ms, no nuts, no frosting, they're practically healthy for you!  Lol, well I wish they were.  But I'm just trying to warn you, you will eat these for breakfast, and lunch, and snack and dinner and midnight snack and and and just be careful!

Ok.

Here's the recipe.

Don't say you weren't forewarned.

Here are the ingredients: Flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, ginger, allspice, cloves, pepper, vegetable shortening, butter, brown sugar, molasses, and an egg.

Start with the dry ingredients:
 

Put them all in a bowl, and mix with a whisk (this is so you don't have to sift them, because I think sifting is a waste of time, and I don't exactly own a sifter.  Honestly if anyone tells you that sifting makes your baked goods fluffier when you're just going to mix them in a mixer anyway, question their motives.  They're just trying to make you waste time!) 

 

Next, add the butter and the shortening to the mixer and beat them until they are fully mixed together and creamy.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Then measure out half a cup of brown sugar (be sure to measure it in a one cup measuring device because you are too lazy/your hands are messy and you don't want to walk across the kitchen and get the half cup measuring device.  Hey, you're saving dishes.  You're welcome dad!).  Add the sugar to the creamed butter and shortening and mix it together.

Now add the egg and molasses to the sugar/butter/shortening mixture and mix together.  Now let's be clear, the recipe doesn't call for vanilla, but that doesn't mean you can't add it, right?!  I mean EVERY baked good that I make includes vanilla, since vanilla is the elixir of life.  But you don't have to add vanilla if you don't want to.  But if you were going to, now would be the time to add it.

Here's what it looks like when it's all mixed.

Now, by hand, mix in the flour.  Don't worry about getting it all incorporated with a spoon because that's hard.  It's just as easy to mix it mostly together, then dump it out onto the counter and knead it all together.

Then, divide the dough into two balls and put the balls into two bags.

Now here's my trick.  The dough needs to go into the fridge/freezer if you're impatient like me and chill.  Well it's hard to chill a ball all the way through since it's four inches thick.  If you instead flatten the dough in the bag it's going to be only half an inch thick and will chill faster.  Again I'm impatient and want to make the cookies pretty much as soon as I make the dough!

When the dough is done chilling (about an hour or so or up to a few days if you really plan ahead.  Which I do not) take it out of the freezer so you can roll it out.  Here is the other part of my trick.  Have you ever tried to roll out a chilled ball of dough?  Doesn't work too well does it.  It splits apart and you get these big cracks where you have to press the dough back together.  The beauty of flattening the dough when it was warm and then chilling it, is that the rolling out portion is almost done!  All you have to do is cut the bag off the dough.

Then roll it out flat, and then cut pretty shapes in it.  Notice I'm using flowers and bunnies and ducks because these gingerbread cookies are not just for Christmas time!

Then bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

They'll come out of the oven and smell heavenly.

Now you can leave them plain, but I like to mix some powdered sugar and water and make a frosting/glaze to put on top.  It keeps the cookies moist and not stale for a lot longer.  Not that they will last that long . . . but dang it people, everything tastes better with frosting!

Here are the ingredients (recipe courtesy of Food Network.com)

 3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (trust me you can't even taste it)
8 tbs butter
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup molasses
1 egg

Harvest

Here are just a few pictures of the harvests we get on any random day.

We were getting a few zucchini before I ripped all the plants out.  And some yellow squash too.

The cherry/lemon drop tomatoes are just everywhere!

We planted raspberry bushes this year in hopes that we'd have some fruit for next year but they started growing berries right away so I harvest a few a day.  My plan is to keep them in a plastic container in the freezer and keep adding to it daily.  By the end of the season I could thaw all the raspberries and make something yummy with it :)

Look at the color of these zebra tomatoes!  That yellow and the green and the striations are pretty cool.

And this it what happens when your garden is exploding and you can't find anything through the foliage.  The green bean on top is the size you're supposed to harvest aaaaaand the one on the bottom is the size of a few of the beans I've found this season. 

No difference in size.  None at all!

Garden Update

Since I last updated the garden, things have changed a lot.  We went through a massive heat wave in the middle of the summer where temperatures were in the upper 90s and low 100s for a few straight weeks.  I think this stunted our garden a bit.  The plants started growing aaaaand didn't do much.  They weren't growing that big and they weren't producing fruit.
























These were our pole beans:

Demon beans

These were our green beans and their beans:

Our tomato plants were sitting all nice and pretty in their wittle cages:














Here are our baby zucchinis:














Here is daddy cutting our first inaugural  zucchini lol:

Action shot!  (staged)

Smile for the camera Daddy!

Then the heat went away and BOOM!
I could no longer walk into the garden.


















I could no longer walk around in the garden.



























Aisles, what aisles?!?






































Remember those little tomato plants?  Well they have now grow over their cages and over and down on top of the zucchinis!


















Side Note:

Let us stop for a moment and acknowledge the fact that I finally was able to grow a big tomato!  For ever dad has only wanted to grow little cherry tomatoes, mainly because he eats them like candy.  Walk through the kitchen to the laundry room, pop a tomato or two.  Walk from the laundry room through the kitchen, pop a tomato.  Stand in the kitchen and watch as Sarah and I cook dinner, pop, pop, pop.  He just can't pop big tomatoes as easily into his mouth.  So we've never grown large tomatoes, but I'm TIRED of cherry tomatoes.  Sure it's nice to go into the garden and harvest fifty million but they're so easy!  You plop the plants in the ground, water them, and voila, tomatoes.  It's not like the big tomatoes are taken care of any differently, but I feel like I've accomplished more since the big tomato is about 40 times larger than the little cherry tomatoes :)

I shall call him mongo.

Ok, back on the subject of the garden.  Well it grew and grew and grew, but to my frustration we weren't getting that many vegetables.  I blame the heat, I think it stunted the plants in their initial fruit producing stages.

I'd also like to admit that I'm not the most . . . um . . . accepting person when it comes to production.  My motto: if you're gonna stay, you're gonna work.  And the beans were not working.  Remember those pole beans barely brushing the bottom of the poles?  Well they grew taller than the 6' poles, tall enough to fall over, after which they started to twine around the tomatoes and the sunflowers and anything within reach, which created quite the maze.  Not only did they grow and grow and grow, but they produce one dang bean, not one and I gave them MONTHS to come up to scratch.  Months I tell yeah!

So I ripped them out.

And I ripped out the zucchinis because they had vine bores and leaf mold.

Let me tell you this REALLY opened up the garden and I could breath again.

















Don't worry, it's only August and won't get really cold for another two months.  So . . .

I planted them again!

Here are the baby zucchinis sprouting:














And here are the baby beans (above which I PROMISE to build a trellis so they can actually grow tall and not fall over):














The tomatoes are still growing big and strong.














And they are still massive and falling over, but I can live with this.
I only have to army crawl underneath the plants to rescue the ripe tomatoes through spider webs and the like.  No biggy. Cough cough.

Overgrown tomatoes

So there you have it folks, the last few months of the garden.  It started at the beginning and has now come full circle!

Master Suite Makeover: Part 1

Hey y'all! It's Sarah again. (Although I'm pretty sure you could tell from the Texas that has found it's way into my speech. Yes, I do get poked fun at on a regular basis. As in, every time I say, "Y'all." Which is a lot. Love y'all too Beth and Rebecca!! :P) 

This post is the beginning in the documentation of a long, arduous journey (aka, "home improvement project") that is still a work in progress as we speak. (Or as I type... and you read... if we want to get technical about this.) This time, we're tackling the master bedroom and bathroom!

DUH DUH DUH!!

Now that my random, dramatic tune has you excited about long, arduous journeys in a bathroom, let's get started!

*Disclaimer* This post contains disturbing images of not one, but three kinds of offensive wallpaper. (And the mention of quite a few more.) Do not read late at night, while home alone, or right before you go to bed. If you are easily frightened or extremely sensitive to poor decorating decisions, this post will make you want to crawl under a rock. 

This is the bathroom! Our current house is the first one we have actually gotten to paint, decorate, and make our own in about 25 years. While I do hate the wallpaper that the lovely *cough* previous owners did not take down for 16 years, it has given us very good motivation to get the home improvement ball rolling. (That, and Aunt Mary introducing us to her beloved steamer. It has powers, my friends.) We've completed taking down horrendous wallpaper/painting the kitchen, office, family room, powder room, sun room, and all three of the benevolent daughters' *wink* rooms. So it was only a matter of time before we got to the parental units' quarters, and their trip to Canada a couple weeks ago gave us the perfect opportunity to get construction underway.

Now, the image above does not give you a complete picture of the weirdness of this wallpaper. From far away, it's not too bad.  

 Then, you get closer.

(The demon border.)

 (The main course.)

I mean, seriously, what is this stuff? Not only do the two not match at all, the border looks like it had an identity crisis x 5 and the main wallpaper looks like veins. Or neurons. It reminds me of the movie, "War Of The Worlds." (Which dealt with said veins, is really creepy, and gave me nightmares... if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. I'll spare the rest of you who haven't a description. You're welcome.)

This wasn't the only nightmare inducing wallpaper around the house though.

 This lovely specimen could be found all over OUR bathroom. The shower curtain valence matched. 

Two things. One, shower curtain valences are weird. Second, there is a fish in a party hat smoking a pipe in the upper right hand corner. I tried to come up with a good explanation for that fish. And an explanation on why someone thought this wallpaper would be a good choice to pay money for and put on a wall. Ever.

I failed to come up with a reason on both counts.

Ah, memories.

Anyway, back to the current project.

This is the magical steamer Aunt Mary is lending us until we get our wallpaper problem under control.

This problem included;

1. Watercolor flowers in the sun room.

2. Horses in the powder room.

3. Fish, in party hats, smoking underwater, in the girls' bathroom. (See image above.)

4. Dogs and cats playing baseball, basketball, and soccer in Rebecca's bedroom. (Yes, all three.)

5. More watercolor flowers and creepy fairies in my bedroom. (The fairies were in a border above the chair rail, so they were the first thing I saw every morning. I'm scarred.)

6. The demon border and veins I just took down in the parents' bathroom.

Now, that was just the first and second floors. Sub- level is another story. Our basement is currently sporting;

1. A beach scene border with seersucker blue stripes underneath in the exercise room.

2. A print in the bathroom of conquistadors on horses hunting lions, tigers, and bears. (Oh my.)

3. A border of the same conquistador wallpaper in the guest bedroom.

I'm completely confused.

But I digress.

Here is the start of me steaming! (It's a very exciting action shot, I know.)

This was the first strip I took down...

 (The carnage.)

 ...And this is where I started to cry. 

 Good thing its a bathroom.

I started crying for a couple reasons. The previous wallpaper we encountered in this house fell into two categories. The first (the watercolor flowers in the sun room) had a sticky back that came off cleanly even when the magical steamer was applied for just a few seconds. Angels sang, the heavens opened, and I'm pretty sure all the stars aligned just for good measure.

Then we got to the other rooms.

These weren't bad, they just had two layers; a top, vinyl-y layer that had the offensive pattern and a paper backing that was left behind after steaming the vinyl-y layer off. It wasn't really a problem, you just had to steam the paper backing again and scrape it off with a putty knife. In my naivete, I thought the wallpaper in the bathroom would be the sticky back kind because the little bit I tested (aka it was already coming off) pulled back easily. But I was wrong.

Oh boy, was I wrong.

This wallpaper not only had a paper backing, it had literally melded with the wall. Steaming got most of it off, but certain areas (the entire room) tore the actual wall if you tried to take it down.

 Cue the crying.

 The identity confused border was even worse. Wallpaper clearly not meant for a humid room with temperature fluctuations does strange things after almost 20 years. The backing, glue, and wall pretty much had a party and congealed into one substance. Weirdest... party... ever.  So I just had to leave the border backing on most of the walls. It was pretty smooth, but just bubbled because steam found its way behind it. And it still wouldn't come off without tearing the wall. Hence, why I call it the, "demon border." Cue more crying.

Eventually, however, this is what it looked like.

Wallpaper is not nice. It steals your soul, makes you cry (noted), and takes your first born child. (I guess it's a good thing I'm the middle sister.) And makes you smell like wallpaper glue, but that's just a bonus.

 (The aftermath.)

The next stages were spackling, sanding, and taping for paint.

 Spackle...

 Spackle...

 And more spackle. 

(I bet the word, "spackle," looks funny now how, huh?)

 We went though a lot of spackle.

And a lot of my sanity. 

But this insanely long detailed post is now finito! Part 2 will feature painting, staining, and hopefully some new mirrors and lights! I know. I'm sad the brass boxes with exposed bulbs are gone too. *sigh* Oh well. :P

One last word of caution; Stay away from wallpaper as much as humanly possible. Coming into contact with or having to remove wallpaper can include side effects such as; 

1. Nightmares. 

2. Breaking out in a cold sweat when you walk into the offending room.

3. Running away in screaming terror at the sight of a wall that needs to be spackled.

4. The need to do bodily harm to designers on HGTV who decide to put up wallpaper in a poor,

unfortunate soul's home.

5. An insatiable desire to take a steamer and putty knife to everything in sight.

(Not that I've had personal experience with any of these... *cough* )

Part 2 coming soon! :)