My furnace wouldn’t kick on yesterday around 6pm so it was a chilly evening, luckily we have some electric heaters. This morning was very cold!
The Luikart man came out and fixed it right up! Now it’s toasty warm!
Here’s 2 pics from Crest View;
January 30, 2009
January 29, 2009
The snow finally stopped…
The snow finally stopped and the sun came out
The snow plows finally came to our road!
My wonderful brother came and plowed the driveway!
We cleaned off the car
Had some time for some photo shots
Of course the typical ice storm photo…I think they are so cool!
And then I locked the keys in the car, lucky for me that Margie is a wiz getting keys out of cars!
And that was a snow day afternoon.
January 28, 2009
Winter Storm
My alarms were going off and then the phone rang. I thought it would be the recorded voice of Scott Prebles telling me that school was canceled but it wasn’t, it was my boss from work. I sleepily said hello, realized that there was a real, live human being on the other end and frantically turned off my three alarm clocks.(those of you who know me can appreciate that detail)
“We’re closed?” I said
“Yes, closed”
I said, “Like an inclement weather day?”
He said, “No, like closed”
I scrunched my face and tried to comprehend what that meant
“So, I shouldn’t come to work?”
“No, the building is closed!”
“Closed? Oh…okay…well, Thank you for calling”
The Mechano-Scott Prebles called a few minutes later to tell me that school was closed too. Should I clean my car off? Or have another cup of coffee and look out my window, willing the snow to stop. Praying for mercy! Below is what I see when I look out my windows because I’m not ready to go outside yet. And a picture of the kids doing the paint by number thing which last like 2 minutes!
Hankerin’ for cookies…
Yesterday at work I had a low blood sugar attack and by time I got home I was ready to pass out. I ended up eating some marshmallows and ice cream to bring it back up but not before I got a hankerin’ for some Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies.
I was going to make some of them but took a nap instead.
So tonight, after dinner, I made some. Now, the important part here, is that it was after dinner. After the oven cooked dinner. At 450 degrees.
I mixed up the cookie dough and set the oven to 375, as it was called for in the recipe that I got from Cindy McCain herself. (Google Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies and read how Cindy stole the recipe from Nestle…probably cost her husband the election…you don’t mess with the Toll House) So, put dough on pan, pan in oven, set timer for 9 minutes and wait.
Beep…Beeeeep….Beep…Oh! Scurry to oven, open door and look in. They look a little bit overdone, that’s okay, because, ta-da! I followed the directions!
Okay, so taking the cookies off the pan was a little difficult. This isn’t lifting the cookie – this is scraping…in fact the last one was chiseled off the pan (that pan is still soaking) and only the top part came off. It’s the one on the top right in the picture below;
I consider all experiences an opportunity for learning, so you ask, “What did you learn?” I’m glad you asked…
1. To make a tasty granola; heat oven to 450, mix up some Oatmeal Butterscotch cookie dough, change oven temperature to 375 right before you put the pan in the oven and bake for 9 minutes. This is a tasty granola that makes a wonderful snack on the back packing trail. (Yea, I don’t know so much about the whole trail thing but it is a tasty, granola like snack)
2. When chiseling cookies off a baking pan do not press your side against the pan for leverage. The pan is hot and will burn you. If you let the pan cool you can place it against your side, however you will need a Dremel Multi-Max Grout Removal Power Tool at this point because the cookies will harden after cooling.
3. A good activity while waiting for an oven to cool down is reading The Tale of Despereaux to your kids. It’s a great book, only 10 minutes of reading time turned into 25, but I was able to start with a cool oven and heat up to 375.
4. When the recipe instructs you to cream the butter and sugar together, I’m pretty sure it means that the butter should be softened to room temperature, not melted. I’m guessing this because even after changing oven temperatures from 450 to 375 the cookies taste a bit dry. I’m gonna try the softened butter thing next time.
Finally the last thing I learned…nothing beats a warm cookie! The light at Krispie Kreame or the beep of my oven? I’d take the beep over the light any day or night.
And if you want the recipe for these cookies just google Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookie, read about the Cindy McCain cookie scandal, then back up and go to the Nestle site.
