Tis the Season for Cookies

Last night, I made my friend and fellow writer Marye Audet’s recipe for Rollo (Rolo) Cookies. I didn’t have silpat mats (baking mats) and the cookies needed another 5-6 minutes of baking time to come out just right. They are extremely sweet, but the layers of peanut butter cookie, chocolate and caramel can’t be beat. The full recipe is on Marye’s blog, Restless Chipotle, and in her published cookbook too.

Whenever I bake, Shadow sits next to the kitchen island and just begs and begs. Because of her allergies, I make homemade peanut butter dog biscuits for her, so whenever she hears the baking sheets come out of the cabinet she thinks she’s getting cookies!

I don’t bake as often as I would like. Because of our ongoing slow and steady move towards eating healthfully, I have really cut back on the home baking. I love to bake, and thankfully the Christmas season gives me the opportunity to make all those homemade goodies I love to create but try not to eat anymore. So my nieces and nephews were blessed with care packages this year. I get to create in the kitchen, and they get to eat the results!

It felt so wonderful to just relax last night. It has been many weeks since I had an afternoon and evening off. I shut down the office around 4pm instead of working until dinner, and working again after dinner. I am blessed beyond measure to have work that I love and many freelance projects on my desk right now, but I’ve definitely been burning the candle at both ends as well as in the center, and setting fire to the candle holder too in the process (to really s-t-r-e-t-c-h that metaphor). I can do that only for so long. I found myself getting short tempered and cranky. So I took a wee bit of time to myself last night. I baked the Rolo cookies. I made garlic infused tomato sauce and pasta for dinner. We lit a fire in the fireplace and sat on the couch and read in the warm pools of light. I started a new P.D. James mystery I hadn’t read yet.

Later, I escaped upstairs to fold laundry and practice piano. After warming up with some good old Hanon exercises and a few my piano teacher had taught to me that I still recall, I sat down to play the Speer piece again from The Joy of the Baroque, a favorite piano book. Time flew by. I didn’t realize it but I practiced for well over an hour. John came upstairs at one point and he was lurking down the hallway, listening. I fiddled around with the settings on the electronic keyboard AJ left to me, and found a harpsichord setting, and then I really had fun (Okay, so my idea of fun is to read books from the 17th century like those by Francis de Sales and play music from the 17th century…..party animal that I am). My high school had a small, modern harpsichord, and I used to love playing the pieces in that book on it. Shadow didn’t like the harpsichord. She likes Grand Piano setting on the keyboard. But when I switched to harpsichord, her ears pinned flat back and she left the room. Seems like everybody’s a critic these days….

Today it is snowing, with six inches expected. As long as it stays about that we will be fine. I am cozy and warm in my office, listening to some Bach, and working today on writing projects. Life is good!

For those who haven’t given feedback on the blog, please see yesterday’s open thread. Thank you to Liz for the personal email; for Jessica and the Gardener on Sherlock Street for leaving comments. Won’t you let me know what YOU would like to read on this blog in future?

Happy Snow Day!