Making cookies... why?

If you've eaten my food, you know I'm a decent cook.  I make a mean pot of soup and that could be from almost anyone's fridge.  No recipes, recipes are for whimps.

And bakers.  I am not a baker.  Abby is a baker. A great baker.


Well, back to cookies.... a recently released man stood up in church and got all choked up remembering when he was "inside" and people brought homemade cookies to the prisoners.  He's spearheading the cookie drive from our church to give out cookies, HOME MADE cookies to men and woman still inside- is there  a prison nearby that I don't know about? Hmm.

So, an appeal for cookies for people locked in jail/prison for Christmas.... even I'm not that hard hearted. Of course, I'll make cookies!  I make good peanut butter cookies. Hear the music swell.

The kitchen is ready to be cookie land.
 Check out my cookbook in foreground.
And it plays Messiah!
I have  five different versions, I love the Messiah. 

I do love my Jenn Air oven with grill cook top.
Best electric range I've ever had.
 It does not play music.

Remember, I moved here in August and grocery shopped for my kids. Shopped again for Thanksgiving. And in between, a spoon of Nutella sounds pretty good. Dump some leftover cranberry relish in steel cut oatmeal- that's good for a week of breakfast. You get the idea.

I love this stuff- it's my "Coke".
 My plan is to make my own.... but it cannot get cold when it's brewing/fermenting.
 Right, Janet?
 We killed the "mother", actually the "baby" or  the SCOBY.

Look it up.
How's that for random info?

 I do have peanut butter. I do not have butter but I have this horrible coconut BUTTER my mom bought by mistake. I fry eggs in coconut OIL because it's a healthy oil - The medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) in coconut are unique in that they are converted in the liver into energy, not fat. The easily digested and absorbed MCFAs in coconut provide readily available energy that can boost the metabolic rate. 
Shameless plagerism. Small font indicates a quote.   


Coconut butter and coconut oil are not the same, trust me.  

It's really crunchy coconut butter. Who wants crunchy butter?
And yes, I did add fermented kombucha- hey, the batter was dry.
Turns out I forgot to add the sugar.... ahh. 

I must quit singing Messiah while attempting cookies.

I do love internet recipe sites- type in kale (ha! for those who remember my kale stage), eggplant and peanut buter and someone has done something with them. In this case, it would likely pretty inedible but there's no accounting for what people put on the internet.  Especially on private blog sites.



Well,  here's a great recipe for cookies with coconut BUTTER !   I borrowed crisco (I know, I'm shocked, too), some flour since I had about one cup in the house. No white sugar- let's spin turpinado sugar in the super blender.  What? LIME zest? Who on earth has four limes sitting around in the winter in South Dakota?  How about orange zest instead? and let's add some almonds for crunch (and to cover the texture of the weird coconut butter).

All that creative work and it looks like... gross. 
And doesn't even taste good raw.
What's the point?

Helpless prisoners, Christmas.... keep focused, Kathryn

  
Still looks bland- how about some chopped apricots?  Hey, it's how you make great soup. 

When the batter is dry and you add another egg, the cookies kinda get flat and runny.

Baking is unforgiving.

No fun to experiment.

Wow- lots of cookies. Only a couple too crispy.

Sample?... that's right. I'm off dairy.

 Yum- weird cookies with almond milk. 

Shoot me now.  

Here's his recipe. My reaction to the finished product wasn't his.
 http://www.themanlyhousekeeper.com/2011/11/10/my-cookie-tin-coconut-butter-cookies-with-lime-zest/

And the fun part of the internet recipe sites is the reviews-

"This marinara sauce recipe is great! - I did change the basil to thyme and added mushrooms and bananas and we don't eat tomatos, etc.... my family just raved. Said it tasted just like MY recipe"  Fancy that.

This would be mine... "I don't know why people raved about these cookies. They tasted weird to me. I did change the lime to orange zest, substituted turbinado sugar for that crummy white sugar and added chopped almonds and apricots and fermented health drink, etc.... " That would be my review if I had that kind of nerve.

 So if you want the Manly Housekeeper's Coconut LIME cookies, move to Key West and knock yourself out.  Just don't change the recipe and blame it on him.

If you want to experiement AND confess on a recipe site, stick to soup.

SO....

 in the end, you have a sink full of dirty dishes.

A trashed kitchen.

And finally.... a LOT of cookies for those poor captives.
If there's a breakout attempt, my lousy cookies could be a contributing factor. 

So ends Christmas cookie saga 2011 

We're counting on you, Abby - Cleveland family baker!

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Dinner.
And turn that stupid Messiah off!