The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies …

I have come full circle in my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie.  After trying dozens of recipes over the years, I have returned to the first chocolate chip cookie recipe that I ever made.  I have determined that everyone’s opinion of “the best” chocolate chip cookie depends on what kind their mothers made.  If your mom made well done, crispy and crunchy chocolate chip cookies, then that kind is your favorite.  If your mother made the kind of chocolate chip cookie that is a little under done and chewy, then that is your favorite kid. 

For years, I’ve tried new recipes for chocolate chip cookies.  I’m always in search of “the perfect” one.  (Which is really going to mess up my kids, because THEIR mother doesn’t have that ONE kind that they were raised on)  It’s been difficult, because Ron and I were raised on different types of cookies. He likes his crisp and crunchy, and I like mine super soft, chewy and gooey.  So I’ve been trying for almost 25 years to find one that makes us both happy.  Each recipe that I’ve tried, I make half or so that I underbake for me, and half or so that I “burn” (as I lovingly call it) for him.

I’m not going to search any longer.  I have made my decision and counted to ten (anyone know what movie that quote comes from?")  I have found the perfect chocolate chip cookie FOR ME, and it is my mom’s recipe for soft chocolate chip cookies.  Especially when they are just warm from the oven, they are crispy on the outside and chewy and gooey in the middle.  So if you like chewy and soft….TRY this recipe.  I think you will love it!  (and I will  continue to “burn” a couple of cookie sheets of them for my wonderful husband !)

This is a picture of my mom and dad on “their bench” at the Fulton County Fair.  I LOVE this picture.  This is my 15th Mother’s Day without my mom, and tomorrow will be the second May 13th without my dad (his birthday).  I love and miss you both!  Happy Mother’s day, Mom, and Happy Birthday, Dad!

SOFT AND CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

• 1 c. unsalted butter
• 1 cup vegetable shortening (I like butter flavored Crisco sticks)
• 1 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1 1/2 c. white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 t. vanilla
• 5 c. sifted flour
• 1 t. salt
• 2 t. baking soda
• 1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips (I might be guilty of using more!)

Cream butter, shortening and sugars til light and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Beat again til light and fluffy.  Sift together flour, salt and soda; stir into creamed mixture.  Add chocolate chips.  Drop dough by rounded teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake in 375 degree oven until cookies are brown around the edge but centers are not done, Between 8 and 9 minutes.  Makes 96 cookies.

YUMMY!!

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

…it’s what’s for supper tonight!
Ingredients

• 4 large green bell peppers
• 1-1 1/2 lb  ground beef
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup chopped onions
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 (12-14 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 1/2 cups cooked rice
• 1/2  pound raw bacon
• 8 oz. tomato sauce
• 2-3 chopped tomatoes (or a can of tomatoes)
• up to 2 cups shredded cheddar (optional)

Directions
Cut tops off peppers and set aside (for later use).  After removing seeds/membranes, cut each pepper into 8 pieces.  Cook peppers in boiling water for 3-5 minutes.  Remove and place in the bottom of a casserole dish.  (A 7x11 pan would be a good size.  This dish is EASY to add to if you want to use a 9 x 13)

Brown ground beef and onions.  Add salt, pepper, rice, corn, tomatoes and sauce.  At this point you can also add black beans if you like them…or pinto beans…and we really like it with jalapeno peppers sliced into the mix as well. Heat through.
Spread hot filling on top of peppers. 

Top with pepper tops, (only 4 pepper tops is never enough to cover the whole casserole, but it looks nice)  raw bacon slices and cheese (or cheese and then bacon…whichever you prefer.)

Bake stuffed peppers at 350° for 30 minutes, or til the bacon is done.

ENJOY!

Life…just keeps on going…

even when I don’t make the time to keep up with this blog!  I had really good intentions with the project 365 thing, and did end up taking photos for almost 3 months straight!  But then life happened, and it went from busy to busier around here and not only did this blog suffer, but so did my “project”.  Oh, well.  It was fun while it lasted.  And I’m sure I’ll try it sometime again.

In the meantime…I’ll try to do a few catch up posts in the next few days. 

The BIG event around here this spring happened on April 1. (yeah…it really has been that long since I updated here!)

I got a new grill!  And Ron and Bill put it together!  Isn’t that exciting???

Ha…just kidding.  Well…I’m not really kidding…I DID get a new grill, and Ron and Bill DID put it together, but that wasn’t the real excitement of that weekend.

It was Ethan’s confirmation! 

We had a great weekend.  It was full of lots of food, lots of family, lots of friends, and lots and lots of fun!

Ethan and Aidan, and Ethan and Uriah.  Great friends!

Ethan, Madi and Jordan!

my kiddos!

The family

Soon to be “Uncle” John, Aunt Martha and Grandma

with Aunt Sue Ann, Uncle Bill, Jordan and Madi

Aunt Martha, Kelly and Bill.

Grandma Marge and Grandpa Richard

We also had a “flarp” contest that weekend, compliments of Kelly!  What FUN!

 

And some of us visited the Little Brown Church.

It was a wonderful weekend, and we are so happy that so many made the trip here for the celebration!

College Visit Weekend (part 2)

Even after getting home late on Friday night, a laid back and relaxing Saturday was not in the cards.  Rachel and I, along with another member from our church, Lucas, were on the road by 10:30 to Iowa City to attend the college weekend hosted by St. Paul’s Chapel.  It was a super time, filled with devotions, an overview of what campus ministry is, a college student panel on college life, a tour of the University of Iowa, and all kinds of fun and games (otherwise known as chapel mayhem) 

Caleb and Cameron attend St. Paul’s, so this was a great time to have a chance to visit with them while Rachel and Lucas were getting to know other high school students, college students, and learning what the University of Iowa, and St. Paul’s Chapel has to offer them.

One of the activities over the course of the 24 hour visit included a “Nerf Dual”.  It was the chapel’s version of a western, gun draw dual.  A double elimination bracket was drawn up.  The participants put on goggles, stood in their assigned spots and waited for the bell.  Then, they fired their nerf gun at the competition…with the first one being hit by a bullet being out.

Rachel made it through the first round…and the second…and had to face Lucas in the final round on Sunday afternoon.

Saturday evening included all kinds of fun, like the ever popular game “Sardines” ("but “it’s best not to scare a high school girl so badly that they CRY”, says Rachel to Nate!) and the new game “Telephone pictionary”.  That was a HOOT!  Everyone in the group writes a phrase on a piece of paper.  The next person has to draw out that phrase, as in pictionary.  That is passed to the next person, who looks only at the picture (not the words written first), and writes what they think the picture is.  That is passed to the next person, who draws a picture….and so on, until it gets back to the original person.  It was hysterical to see the way it all changed from person to person.  Lots of laughter!

Sunday morning included a Bible Study, Divine Worship including the Lord’s Supper, and a yummy fried chicken lunch, followed by the final dual.

which Rachel WON!  Woo HOO Rachel!  She came home with a Chapel t-shirt! 

It was a great weekend for Rachel and the other high school students to get an overview of college life and how being involved in the church while at college can be a really fun thing.  Ron and I, as parents of 2 students at the University of Iowa, are tremendously thankful to the work of Pastor Mons and those at St. Paul’s Chapel, to provide a church home away from home for our kids!

And speaking of our kids, I had plenty of time to chat and catch up with Caleb and Cameron, too.  It was fun to visit with them, and also watch them have fun and worship with their friends!

A College Visit weekend (part 1)

Wow….it’s Tuesday, and I’m just now beginning to feel semi-recovered from my weekend!  We had Friday off from school, so it was a 3 day weekend.  But we covered LOTS of ground in those 3 days!

Rachel has been wanting to do a college visit to Concordia University, St. Paul, Minnesota, so she could do some comparing and contrasting to our campus visit at Concordia Univesity, Wisconsin this summer.  It all worked out (sort of at the last minute) for Rachel to get an appointment with the admissions folks for Friday afternoon.  We were kind of interested in attending a chapel service on Friday morning, but since it was a day off school, NO ONE wanted to get up super early to hit the road.  With that in mind, Ron hit Priceline.com and scored us a very reasonably priced hotel in the St. Paul area for Thursday night.

We didn’t really make these plans very far in advance, (hey…we are spur of the moment kind of people), so we ended up getting home from school on Thursday at 3:30, and all packed our bags and were on the road by 4:10!  How’s that for speedy packing?

As soon as we realized we’d be eating on the road, Rachel and I immediately knew where we wanted to eat.  Rochester has a NOODLES and Company!!!  One of our FAVORITES!  We were SO excited, and HUNGRY by the time we got there.  Everyone was VERY, very happy with their meal!

Next stop, (much to the dismay of our anxious to swim in a hotel swimming pool children) was Trader Joe’s.  Ron had never been to Trader Joe’s and was more than anxious to hit their “beer room”.  He thoughtfully perused the selection…and then thought some more….and then studied the labels, and then perused some more…and…well…you get the picture.

When he was finished, we made a fairly quick trip through the rest of the store, and headed on our way to St. Paul.  The kids did get a swim in before we hit the sack.

Friday we attended chapel services at Concordia St. Paul, and then took a very quick tour of St. Paul’s Cathedral, before heading back to the university for a 1 pm tour.

( I took lots of pictures this day…it was hard to pick just ONE to be the photo of the day!)

We had a nice tour, and received lots of information about Concordia, St. Paul.  It definitely gave Rachel more to think about!

Following the campus visit, which included sunny and beautiful weather, I thought it would be a perfect day for a quick visit to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.  But WOW it got cold.  We didn’t stay there very long!

yeah…we don’t get it either…

We were FREEZING, so we quickly got back in the car and went to one of Rachel and my favorite places ever!  The Mall of America.  We knew ahead of time that it would be a quick trip, so we had to strategize which stores we were going to hit.  We each ate our favorite foods at the food court (Ron had sushi, I had OPA! gyros and fries, and Rachel and Ethan ate at Panda Express) then Ron and Ethan went their way, and Rachel and I power shopped.  We left around 6:30 and made it home by 10 or so. 

That sums up the FIRST HALF of my 3 day weekend! 

….to be continued.

(Almost) Every Girl’s Dream Valentine’s Day

includes sitting in her room with a box of chocolates. 

And (almost) every mother’s dream Valentine’s Day includes her kids doing the dishes for her!

Oh, happy day!

Icky, Icky, EWWWW!

I don’t get it.  It’s weird.  It’s gross.  It just was NOT meant to be this way.  But…my kids think I am the best mom EVER, when I come home with these two items…

No, you don’t have to look twice.  You really ARE seeing one of MY children’s hands squeezing E-Z Cheese onto an Oreo cookie.

(EDITED TO SAY...this is REALLY the Feb. 12 photo of the day.  I don't know how to change the watermark)

and then they EAT it….

shudder…

On A Roll!

Rachel is “On A Roll”!  She was recognized at the basketball game the other night, for participating in a sport and keeping her grade point average high.  This is the 2nd year (I think) that she has received this award!  She is having a TREMENDOUSLY successful junior year, and we are SO proud of her!

Speech ROCKS!

Our SF Speech group did an absolutely FANTASTIC job at the speech competition on Saturday!  The 2 hour later start due to snowy weather didn’t fluster OUR amazing kids any!  We had (I believe) 11 out of 13 of our entries that got a I rating, and will advance to STATE next week! 

Rachel was in a group that performed mime, and they were GREAT!  We laughed the whole way thorough (and so did the judge!  We could tell she enjoyed it!)  All of their hard work and practices paid off, because they were awesome!

Rachel and her MIME team.  Great job, ladies!

I didn’t get a picture of Rachel and Jenny, but they did a …skit? (Bad mom…I don’t exactly know what it was, other than that it was a 2 person ensemble).  They were SOOO good.  Again, we laughed and laughed!  What FUN to watch!

Good luck to ALL of our STATE qualifiers!

SNOW DAY!! (and my Mom’s Bread Pudding)

I said earlier as my status on facebook…the ONLY good thing about snow is the occasional snow day.  And today was one!  We did get a good bunch of snow, starting in the wee hours of the morning.  Poor Rachel was up, dressed and at the middle school in the vehicle that would shuttle her to the High School for an early morning practice, when the bus driver got the call that their was no school.  She came home and promptly went back to bed. 
Ethan got up at 6 am, to do some homework that he left in the vehicle when I went to a friend’s house last night.  He was sitting on his bead working on homework at 6:30 when I went in and let him know there was no school.  He put his homework away and came out on the couch to watch tv…and fell asleep for a few more hours.
I just stayed in bed.  I LOVE being able to do that!  Ron stayed up for a bit and then he slept a bit more, too.  What a great way to start a weekend!
Ethan is at a friend’s house, but before he left, I had him shovel a little bit.  He did a good job, but didn’t come close to getting it all done.  There was a BUNCH of snow!

Rachel woke up and wanted to make something.  She asked about bread pudding, and I said… “I have my mom’s recipe”.   She went through my recipe box and found it, which really made me laugh, because when I was a kid and we had a snow day…the first thing I did was went through my mom’s recipe box, looking for something to make that day!  Like mother, like daughter!

So, I taught her how to make my mom’s bread pudding.  It is SOOO yummy, and such a comfort food for me.  I have my mom’s original recipe…in her handwriting, even!

It’s a well used recipe, isn’t it?  It was one of the things that my mom made quite often. 

So, first I taught Rachel how to scaled milk, as she has never done that step before.  If you are unsure of what it means, there is a good “how to” on this page.  But it is EASY, and don’t let it scare you away!

She made toast, and buttered it.

Then she tore it up into little pieces and put it in the greased casserole dish. 

When the milk was scalded, we mixed the eggs, sugar and salt.  We added a little of the scalded milk into the eggs, and kept stirring while adding the rest of the hot milk.  Then, Rachel poured the milk over the toast.

And then (I didn’t take a picture of this) Rachel sprinkled cinnamon sugar over the top of it all.  And then we baked it.  The recipe says for 25 minutes, but I had to go closer to 35 or maybe even 40 minutes today. 

Oh.  Yum!  YUM!  YUMMY!!!

Wish you could have had a bite!

Catch-up Part II

So I guess I don’t know exactly what the point of this Project 365 is supposed to be.  For someone like me, who takes lots of pictures, without prompting and encouragement, perhaps the challenge should be to LIMIT myself to only one photo a day.  Hmm.  But that isn’t how I chose to interpret it.  Because I CAN’T. 

I can’t decide which of the next two pictures should be my picture for January 15. Therefore, I’m going to share TWO for that day.  Because I CAN! 

Rachel begged Caleb to play Just Dance II with her on the wii.  They did GREAT and it was fun to watch them enjoy a few minutes together!

And this was also taken on Jan. 15.  Cameron wanted to learn how to make beer, so Ron obliged.  They brewed it a couple of weeks ago, and the 15th was bottling day.  Ron tried to act disappointed that he didn’t save any water back to get the siphon started…but really?  I don’t think he minds having to get it started this way!  It looks to me like one great, big, giant straw!

January 16th was a crazy day for this mom!  Ethan had a wrestling meet here in town, and his first match was  #53!  After sitting at the meet for almost an hour and 45 minutes, it was finally his turn!  Then he had a little break until match #80somthing.  Fortunately he was finished by about 6:30 so I could run him home and then drive to watch Rachel’s UIC Honor Band Festival. Where she was chosen to be FIRST CHAIR for her section of clarinets!  It was a tremendous concert, with hugely talented young people from our area!  I really enjoyed it!  Great job, Rachel!  We’re proud of you!