Anyone LOVE Oatmeal Cookies?!?!

As 8 inches of snow fell to the ground on Sunday, we skied our hearts out (read: skied two runs which was plenty for the little guys) for the first time this season. So on the way home, JP treated us to a gigantic "Sow Your Oats" oatmeal cookie from our favorite bakery in town simply called Bread. They make these GINORMOUS, ridiculously perfect oatmeal cookies, chocked full of nuts, flax seeds, sesame, fruit and just all around delicious. Hubby says, "I sure wish we could figure out a slam dunk recipe for oatmeal cookies. You think Bread would give us theirs?"

So with our tea hosting that comes up once a week at Fort Lewis, I always have an excuse to get out the butter, sugar and flour. I found a recipe on the web, modified it some for high altitude and came up with a delicious second to a bakery version of Oatmeal Cookies. Check it out!

Best Bakery Oatmeal Cookies

2 eggs well beaten

1 cup raisins

1 Tablespoon! vanilla

1 cup butter (3/4 cup high altitude)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

3 cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup walnuts

1/4 cup sesame seeds or flax or both!

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup wheat bran

Beat the eggs well, add the vanilla, stir and then add the raisins. Allow to soak for an hour or two.

Beat the butter, add sugars. In separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, soda and spices. Add the dry mixture to the butter and sugar. Mix well. Add the bran and mix well. Then add the eggs with raisins. Mix well. If you like large chunks of nuts, them mix the remaining nuts in, along with the oatmeal, by hand. It makes for a pretty stiff dough.

Shape into 2" balls, place on a greased air bake cookie sheet and then flatten a bit with the back of a spatula. Bake 350 for 18 min., remove and let sit on the pan for 4 min. (My times are high altitude. You flatlanders may need to adjust that on your first batch to get a correct time). The recipe made 24 too-large-to-dip-in-a-glass-of-milk cookies.

They turn out huge, soft and delicious. The recipe made 24 too-large-to-dip-in-a-glass-of-milk cookies. Try it and let me know how they turn out. That picture is one I took this afternoon!

Cranberry-Apple Pie

Here's a new twist on an old favorite.

4 large Granny smith apples, peeled and sliced

2 cups fresh cranberries

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Frozen double crust package (the kind you just unroll)

Press one of the crusts into a deep dish pie pan, pinching the edges to create a boarder. Mix the fruit together in a large bowl. Mix all of the dry ingredients together then toss with the fruit. Dump in the filling. Take the other piece of crust and use a cookie cutter of your choice ( I used a maple leaf cutter to be extra festive!) to cut shapes out of the dough. Starting from the edges and working toward the middle, layer onto the top of the filling of the pie overlapping each piece a little as you go. You can re-roll any extra out to get a few extra shapes. Brush with half and half and sprinkle the top with sugar. Bake at 375 for 30-45 min. You know it's done when the cranberries have baked long enough to cause the juice to turn pink and bubble out of the spaces in the topping.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

DELICIOUS!

A Fall take on Lasagna

Butternut Squash with Sage Lasagna!

(photo courtesy of MarthaStewart.com, we were all too floured in the homemade noodles to manage the camera!)

I made this lasagna tonight and it was delicious. The roasted butternut squash sort of caramelized in the roasting pan with the help of the olive oil and almost didn't make it into the lasagna. I'm convinced this is the best way to fix all that winter squash in a way that is so yummy. Toss it with olive oil, salt and pepper and bake it for 30-40 min at 425 or so. YUM!

OK, so here's the recipe from Martha herself. It's fun to make pasta from scratch and the boys had fun rolling it through the pasta machine but if you don't have one then don't bother. Just go for the boxed noodles. Enjoy!

Martha's Butternut Squash Lasagna

Aeneas on his bike

Here are some recent videos of Aeneas on his bike. His famous last words are "Hey watch this!" I think it's funny how he kinda checks out the college girls as they go by.

Here he is playing it off like he meant to fall. He needed to check out this hole in the ground.

And here he is doing some tricks. Dragging his feet to sort of skid and popping a wheelie. Ahhhsemmmm!