Secondary Injuries and Oatmeal Cherry Walnut Cookies

Have you ever counted how many times in the course of a day you can be mildly injured by little boys? If it isn't someone banging his head into the corner of your glasses or dropping a train on your kneecap, it's someone else stepping on your little toe with a sneaker or running up the back of your heel with a big wheels. Sometimes it's stepping on a lego in the middle of the hall or sitting on a tow truck under a blanket on the sofa. Little raggedy fingernails scratch your face in the middle of a hug, and little teeth bite your finger because they're so excited about oatmeal cookies.



Oatmeal Cherry Walnut Cookies

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups uncooked oats (quick or old fashioned)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup walnut pieces
1/2 cup dried cherries

Heat oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, shortening and granulated sugar until creamy. Add egg, water and vanilla and beat well. Combine oats, flour, salt and baking soda. Add to rest of ingredients and mix well. Stir in cherries and walnuts.

Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Move to wire rack to cool.

If you feel like you've been run over by a truck at the end of the day, these will probably help!

Fence-post French Fries

Pa has been laying fence-posts all week so I made him some french fries for lunch.



I mentioned a while back that we were redoing our backyard. Because we live with two people who love to run and run and run and run, we needed to build a fence near the stairwell in order to relax when we're out in the backyard with said two people.

Pa is doing this this work, so I started peeling potatoes.

I used nice big russets, and sliced them into long strips. Then I put them in a bowl of water to soak. Soaking them in water for 10 minutes before frying gets them nice and crispy.



So does Evil Chef Mom's method, which I tried today. ECM recommends frying the fries twice--and you know what, ECM is right! This is a really great way to make french fries. (Of course, ECM is always right!)




Here they are frying happily the second time around.



Don't they look yummy? Nothing better than potatoes, oil, and salt...

Fog

It is so cold and drippy and grey here that we are all feeling the weight of a sunless summer.

This is what it looks like. ALL THE BLINKING TIME!!



It's so depressing that I've been playing lots of irish music, and I added lavender to my oatmeal this morning. It was so delicious. Along with a little bit of honey, it was almost as good as Lavender Shortbread.



Bet you didn't know I was an irish dancer many years ago. Trophy and everything. I'll have to try and find some photos.

On a Lavender Kick

Do you like lavender? Try it in your tea: Earl Grey with Lavender, or Chamomile with Lavender. They are the perfect accompaniment to what my family says are the best cookies I have ever made in their whole lives.



Lavender Shortbread

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
juice of 1 lemon from the backyard tree
3 cups of flour
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of dried lavender buds

Preheat oven to 325.

Cream together butter, sugar, and lemon juice.

In another bowl, sift flour and mix in salt and lavender.

Slowly add dry mixture to butter, in three additions, scraping the sides of the bowl carefully. Do not over mix. Batter will be lumpy because it is buttery. That's the good part.

Press batter into a 9-inch pie plate or cake tin or a 9-inch square baking dish. Prick top of cookies with a fork, marking where you will cut them when they're done.

Bake at 325 for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown around the edges. Let cool for a few minutes before cutting. Let cool a few more minutes before eating!

I've been reading about lavender a lot lately. Check here for some lovely photos, and here for an exposé.

Coco is back!

With some interesting and artful adventures under his belt, Coco is home with his boy.



Come in and tell us about it, Coco.



"Everyone was very nice to me," Coco said.



"When they found me on the floor in the crayon department they said, 'Look at this guy -- he has lost most of his fur! His must be very well-loved and sorely missed. We'd better take care of him for a few days.'"



"They were nice to me, but I missed having someone kiss my nose."



What a happy reunion!

The Further Adventures of Coco

Coco escaped yesterday. Last seen at Caffe Trieste on Market Street, he seems to have given Pa and Louis the ditch and gone off to do his own thing.



It's a good thing Coco is a San Francisco native, and he knows his way around. He'll never go the wrong way down a oneway street!



I expect after leaving Trieste he probably first went for a walk, maybe to the playground on Octavia Street? I hope he didn't get hit by a car on his way -- traffic moves pretty quickly through there.



I wonder where he went next. Where would you go if you were Coco? If I were Coco, and I got a day to myself, I might go shopping, and then I might go get my hair done, and then talk a walk around the Ferry Building, and then I might go to a movie. After the movie I would pick a lovely place to eat, and have a glass or two of wine. I would stop and get a good book to read with my dinner. I would pick out some place to go after dinner, just to prolong the feeling of being on vacation.

Maybe Coco went over to Flax and explored the art rooms and coloring tables. Or maybe he met some friends for dinner at Zuni Cafe, and ended back up at Trieste for coffee and jazz in the evening.

I don't know if we're ever going to find him. I hope he comes back. Maybe we need to consult a professional.



Coco! Somebody sure misses you and was looking everywhere for you last night!


Stay tuned for updates.....

Yikes

Check out this recipe from the LA Times. I was intrigued when I saw the headline -- who doesn't want a nice home-baked chocolate fix for under 200 calories?

But then I read the list of ingredients. Who wants to cook like that? Who wants to eat like that? Would you feed your kids all of that chemical junk? Forget it!

Architecture

Check out this nicely done article, written and photographed by someone very close to me. I borrowed a photo - I hope he doesn't mind!

Learning How to Play Hide-and-Seek

Rafa is teaching Louis how to play hide-and-seek. It's a good thing that Rafa has more patience than I do, because Louis only wants to do what Rafa does, not what Rafa says.

Case in point:
Rafa wants to play hide and seek, so he explains to Louis that he, Rafa, is going to stand in the kitchen doorway and count to 10, and Louis is supposed to go hide somewhere and wait for Rafa to find him. So Louis nods and says, awethome! and Rafa commences the counting. Louis looks up at Rafa, goes over to the other side of the kitchen door, and starts counting too. One, touw, free, fow, fiy.

No, Louis, Rafa says. Go somewhere. Don't stand here with me. Go hide. Then I'll come find you. So Louis goes over to the other doorway, still in the kitchen mind you, but a little further away, and starts to count again. One, touw...

Okay, Louis. I'll hide, then, if you want to count. You stay here and start to count. One, says Rafa. Touw, says Louis. Rafa runs down the hall to hide. Louis runs down the hall after him, Coco in tow in his left hand.

No, Louis! You said you wanted to be the counter. Stay there! I'm hiding. Louis! Stay there. Papa, will you tell Louis to stay and count?

And Louis just giggles....

Pancakes on a Thursday

This morning Rafa and I both woke up early. He come in to talk to me, about dreams mostly. Then he asked for pancakes.

It was a work morning, a middle-of-the-week morning, and there were things to do. But we made pancakes anyway, just because we could.

Here are some of our favorite pancake variations:

Oatmeal pancakes
Replace half of the pancake mix with quick-cooking oats, and make as usual.

Lemon pancakes
Squeeze the juice from a lemon from the tree in the backyard into the mix. This only works if you use pancake mix and water, not pancake mix and milk!

Cinnamon-raisin pancakes
Pa invented this one day when there was no more raisin bread. Stir in a half a cup of raisins and a couple of shakes of cinnamon into the mix.

Mixed berry pancakes
Fold some berries (fresh or frozen) into the batter, after you've done the rest of the mixing, or they will fall apart. The berries, that is. And the pancakes will turn out purple.

I guess, since we had pancakes for breakfast today, we really shouldn't have pancakes for dinner too, should we?