st. patty's day cookies

I checked the freezer.

We were out of ice cream.

And it was an ice cream kinda day.

I eat ice cream most days.

But especially on my bad days.

The tough days.

The cry-till-your-eyes-are-puffy days.

Necessity breeds invention.

And I needed a major soul-nourishing treat.

Realizing that large doses of sugar consumption should be included.

I turned to my Gramma's famous sugar cookie recipe.

But yesterday I was lazy.

Like....really lazy.

I didn't want to put the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.

I didn't want to flour a cutting board and roll the dough out.

I didn't care about cutting out shapes.

I just wanted to eat some cookies.

A lot of them.

Now.

Can you tell I'm really big into instant gratification?

Just blame it on my generation.  Generation X, that is.

So here's my solution:

 I whipped up the sugar-cookie dough.

Added in some green food coloring.

I scooped out the dough (about 1 rounded TBL) with my small Pampered Chef scoop.

I plopped it in a dish of sugar.

I proceeded to completely cover the ball of dough in sugar {mmmm...sugar}.

 I then put each sugar-coated ball of dough onto my cookie sheet about 2" apart.

I pressed each ball of dough down so it was flat and about 1/2" thick.
(I used one of my fondant tools, but using the bottom of a drinking glass works just as well!)

I placed them in the oven and baked them for about 9 minutes.

(Your oven may cook differently than mine, so be sure to pop in on them every so often to check and adjust as needed.)

You want them to be **slightly** browned on the bottom.

Transfer to a cooling rack.

 Now you could just eat them this way.

Which would be super lazy easy and just as yummy.

But that little leprechaun bit me.

and I decided it would be nice to go one step further.

 I had some left over icing in the fridge from a birthday cake I just made the other day for a friend.

So I took it out of the fridge when I started making the cookies;

 this way it would be the right consistency when I would eventually need to use it.

I kept it in the plastic zip-loc bag I had originally stored it in,

snipped a small portion off the corner

and used that as my "pastry-bag".

I hand sketched a four-leaf clover

(you could just print off one from your computer's clip-art collection, too)

and cut it out (see picture below).

I used it as a guide to draw a clover onto each cookie.

And, voila!

My sugar therapy fix come to life:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

66° Rainy and wet.

softening butter

All of a sudden it hits you.

That craving.

That intense craving for a batch of your favorite chocolate chip cookies.

And you need them now.

Actually, you really needed them yesterday.

You gather your ingredients.

And as you do, you realize something.

The butter.

That stupid stick of butter is still in the fridge.

You realize that in an ideal situation, that butter would have already been sitting on the counter for the last hour, doing what it does best to soften itself up to the perfect consistency to make the perfect cookie.

You know that if you don't soften it up enough, your cookies will be round hard lumps.

You also know that if you stick it in the microwave, you, more likely than not, will soften it too much, creating cookie puddles.

Yet you realize your life is never really an ideal situation.

You want to eat a warm, fresh from the oven, cookie.  Now.  Not in an hour.

Waiting for that stick of cold butter to soften will feel like forever.

So what to do?  What to do??

Here's an answer to your baking prayers!  One I found in a little book titled "good things for the kitchen" by Martha Stewart.

It explains a super easy way for you to hurry the process along without sacrificing the integrity of your cookies 

(or whatever else you may be craving today):

Grate the butter into a large mixing bowl.

The little pieces will soften faster than a solid stick.

In no time, the butter will be at room temperature!

photo credit:  Martha Stewart Living

I know.

Your welcome.
Happy baking/eating!!

72° (!!!!!)  Very warm. Sunny. Perfection.

We will be outside today as much as possible.  

In fact, we have plans for a walk, kicking the soccer ball around the yard, blowing bubbles, and some time at the park once Daddy/Mike gets home.

I am so happy for the chance to soak in all that vitamin D!  

(and maybe the start of a tan??  maybe that's just wishful thinking...)

See you tomorrow!