Sugar Cookies for Sasha

I promised my niece I would post this recipe on my blog. It is an old one also. I always loved Grandma Bs pink frosted sugar cookies. I desired to re-create such cookie perfection, and my freshman year at BYU I found a recipe that was very near to it, and required only minor tweaking.

These cookies are my most-requested, but I don't make them too often because of the extra step of frosting them. Once again, there is no secret--just follow the recipe. And a KitchenAid helps. They are the ultimate Valentine cookie!

Jill's Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 c butter

2 c sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

5 1/4 cups flour (add 1/4 cup at high altitude)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Directions:Cream cold butter and sugar in Kitchenaid fitted with paddle attachement. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients and add to butter mixture. Mix well. Chill dough. Roll out 1/4 inch thick and cut into shapes. Bake at 400 for 8 minutes or till barely set.

Frosting: 1/2 c softened butter

1.5 (approx) pounds of powdered sugar

milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

food coloring

I keep saying I'm actually going to measure my ingredients the next time I make frosting, but I never do. Just mix the butter, vanilla and salt, and add enough milk to make it turn into frosting. More powdered sugar, more milk, more powdered sugar, more milk. It works for me!

At long last

I love Indian food. I like almost every item on the menu at Indian restaurants, except for anything with paneer. I have little problem with american cottage cheese--I have a big problem with Indian cottage cheese. But one of my very, very favorite dishes is Dal Makhani.

When we had our court trial a few years ago with the city/county/developer (the short story is they sued us, we countersued them, they all sued each other and they all got their butts kicked), I spent 2 weeks downtown at the courthouse, and I had an hour and a half each day to cruise for lunch. I discovered an Indian food trailer in a parking lot where there are lots and lots of different ehtnic food trailers a few blocks from the courthouse. I ordered dal makhani one day, and I was absolutely in heaven. It looks totally disgusting, but it is so satisfying. I had not ever had such an excellent version.

I have been trying for years to re-create such happiness in my kitchen. Each time I have tried or tweaked a different recipe, the results were lackluster. OK, but not great.

Until now. I found a recipe online called "Butter Chickpea Curry." I made it one night about a month ago, and discovered that the creamy, yummy sauce was exactly what I had been needing for my dal. Last night I made the recipe, but substituted whole urad dal in place of the garabanzo beans, and the results were breathtaking. Seriously, my mouth is watering thinking of the leftovers I will have for lunch today. Our kids love this stuff, too.

If only I had a tandoori oven I would cook some chicken and try tandoori chicken in this, too.

Dal (or garbanzo bean) Makhani

8 medium potatoes, cubed

1/4 cup canola oil

2 medium yellow onions, diced

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon curry powder

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon garam masala

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons salt

2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed tomato soup

1 cup cream or milk

2 (12 ounce) cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained

OR

1 1/2 cups dry whole urad dal (black lentils) cooked (I used a pressure cooker for 15 minutes)

Directions:Place potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil over high heat; simmer until the potatoes are tender. Drain, and set aside.

Warm oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic, and cook until the onions are soft and translucent. Stir in curry powder, garam masala, ginger, cumin, and salt. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes, stirring. Pour in soup, cream, and chickpeas or dal. Stir in potatoes. Simmer 5 minutes. Serve over rice. Garnish with cilantro if desired.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was making cookies this morning for Abram to take to school, and I thought I should post the recipe, because this is one of my all-time-most-requested cookies.

I have been accused of leaving out an ingredient so that nobody else can make the cookies turn out like mine. I would never do that. My secret to making these cookies (and all my cookies) is that I follow the recipe. I can't tell you how many times I've had people say, "My cookies didn't turn out like yours." I then ask whay he or she did, and many times he or she will say, "I used margarine," or "I used crisco." DUH! The recipe calls for butter! They are not interchangeable! I haven't bought margarine in decades, and the only recipes I used crisco in are snickerdoodles and oatmeal raisin--1/2 butter, 1/2 crisco. For some reason that works out better with those cookies. I suppose my other "secret" is that I use a KitchenAid, which is really no secret at all.

One time I was assigned to bring 10 dozen cookies to the Pinewood Derby (I detest the Pinewood Derby, but as we have 5 boys, I am doomed to attend one for the next long, long time). One other person from another pack was also assigned the same. I walked in with my beautiful cookies on my Jill signature tray (people have come to know which tray my cookies are on), and set them on the table next to her flat, pale, disgusting cookies on paper plates. She looked at me like a puppy dog and said, "Do those cookies taste as good as they look?" I told her politely that most people really like them. The dinner began, and when it was all over, my 10 dozen cookies were long gone, and she had to take hers back home. Even hungry little cub scouts wouldn't eat her cookies.

My philosophy is that if you're going to eat a cookie, it has to be worth the calories. These definitely are, especially when they are warm. It's a recipe I took off of the back of a Gold Medal flour bag my freshman year at BYU 19 years ago. Still a classic.

Jill's Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 sticks of butter-not melted, not room temperature--slightly cold

1 1/4 c sugar

1 1/4 c brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

4 c flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

4 c chocolate chips (yes, 4 cups!)

Mix butter in the KitchenAid until it is smooth. Add sugars, eggs and vanilla and mix well. Whisk dry ingredients together in a separate bowl (flour, soda, salt) and add to the butter mixture. Mix well, add chocolate chips and mix again. Use a 1-oz. (2TBSP) cookie scoop to make balls of dough, placing each about 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Before putting dough into oven, smash each cookie slightly with the palm of your hand. Bake at 350 for 12-13 minutes, until lightly browned.

My new favorite picture

I have a lot of favorite photos, and this one is right up there at the top of the list. I have always loved Zack's sideways smile when he is being silly or witty and he knows it. Mark snapped this shot of him haphazardly as he was testing the flash settings on his camera. This is the face I love to see every morning and play with all day. It's hard to get a photo of this face, because he usually gives a big, cheesy smile for pictures. I love my Zacky.

Facebook

My computers are 5 years old. I have been trying to get facebook to work since October. I was somehow able to create a basic profile, but any time I tried to confirm a friend or post a photo, it would cause the computer to freeze up. And I was never able to see the actual real facebook screen--just basic words and boxes with a red x inside. I gave it up.

And then over the past few weeks, I got a lot of friend requests. I tried and tried to confirm, but I couldn't. I was so worried that people would think I was blowing them off. I'm pretty computer savvy, but I couldn't make it work.

Yesterday at my in-laws house, my father-in-law was on facebook and so I bumped him out of his chair and posted a photo and confirmed my friends. Now at least they know I still like them and they can see it is me. There was one other person with my name on facebook and she had a photo, and I sure as heck didn't want people thinking that was ME! I added my maiden name so there can be no confusion now. So now I'm there, and I might even figure out how it works one of these days.

In case anyone is reading this because you googled this same facebook problem, my secret for getting past the "done with errors on page" and that stupid yellow triangle with an exclamation point inside of it that was stopping me from seeing facebook, is simply this. It's a pain in the neck, but for some reason it's working for me: in the web address bar, change the http://www.facebook.com to https:// and hit enter. I have to do it every time I change the page, but at least I'm there now!

Betsy, I can't find you, so send me a friend request!

Valkyrie

I am a sucker for a good World War II movie. There are so many I have loved for many years: Where Eagles Dare, 12 o'clock High, Kelly's Heroes--I could go on. This past week we watched The Battle of the Bulge and The Longest Day on Blu-Ray. It was awesome. I think I have a new favorite, though.

We saw Valkyrie on New Years Day. I was a little leary, knowing that the attempted assasination of Hitler portrayed in the movie was unsuccessful. I wondered, "How can they possibly make a movie interesting when you know how it ends?" Still, I loved the story of the heroic men who knew that Hitler had gone too far and they were willing to die to save Germany from Hitler, so I knew I had to see this movie.

From the opening minute of the movie, I was on the edge of my seat. It was amazing. The acting was great, the directing was perfect. The story was so suspenseful, even until the last minute. I loved it.

It made me think about some things. When did the German people realize that Hitler had gone too far? Did this July assassination attempt, although unsuccessful, give courage to other Germans and residents of other occupied nations to join the resistance? How difficult was it for this group of men to do what they knew was right in the face of pure evil, knowing that they would likely pay for it with their lives? Would I have the same courage?

Most of all, it made me even more proud of Grandpa B. who came onto Omaha Beach in an M-18 and did many heroic things to help our country defeat such an evil man. Gramps has pictures that make me cry every time I see them of his tank squadron coming upon the survivors of Buchenwald just after the nazis has abandoned it. Mostly, I love his pictures of him sailing into New York harbor on the way home with all his buddies and the Statue of Liberty in the background.

Aebelskivers

A long time ago, way, way before Willaims-Sonoma started having aebelskiver pans on the front page of their catalog, Mark's aunt Judy gave us an aebelskiver pan for our wedding. I had never been acquainted with aebelskivers; however, they were a very fond memory of Mark's childhood. I did (and still do) have a fondness for unique kitchen dishes/pans/gadgets, so I was excited to try out the recipe as soon as we moved into our apartment in Omaha. At first, I would make 1/3 of the recipe, which was enough for the 2 of us. I got pretty dang good at flipping the 'skivers over to make them into round balls. We had these for breakfast once a week.

Then Abram came along, and Aubrey, and Jacob. Aebelsivers for 5 required more batter and more time. And an aebelskiver pan only makes 7 at a time, so each person had to wait patiently for his or her turn. By the time Joel came along, I rarely made them because it just wasn't an efficient use of time. We had a Mickey Mouse waffle iron by this time that cranked out waffles faster than you could say "Steam Boat Willie." So waffles became our preferred fancy breakfast.

Mark's grandma came to the rescue a few years ago and gave me her old aebelskiver pan, so now I can make them 14 at a time. That was great for a while, but by the time I was making them for 9 people, that still seemed to create a breakfast bottleneck. It had been at least 1 year since I had made aebelskivers for breakfast--until this morning.

Jake asked so nicely, there was no way I could refuse. We had kind of a staggered breakfast, so it worked out fine. So yummy. I think I'll have get them back in our lineup.

The perfect accessory for an aebelskiver pan is this great batter dispenser. I bought mine years ago from Williams Sonoma, but now they only sell a lame, weeny version. You can still find these good ones around, though. I used to make a mess dripping batter all over the pan, and on the way to the pan, but this little gem makes aebelskivers, pancakes, crepes, and even cupcakes a very clean operation.


Here's the recipe, in case you have an aebelskiver pan sitting around:
3 cups sour milk or buttermilk
3 eggs
3 c. flour
6 Tbsp oil
1 1/2 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp nutmeg

Officially, you are supposed to separate the eggs, and whip the whites separately. I generally skip that part, in favor of speeding breakfast along.

Mix milk, flour, oil soda, salt, sugar and nutmeg. Fold in egg whites, if you have done this seperately. Otherwise, just add the eggs in with the milk and flour to begin with.

Heat the aebelskiver pan and grease each indentation with butter (I just hold a stick of butter and touch each hole in the pan for about 1 second each with the butter). Fill each hole 2/3 full of batter. When the batter is bubbly on the top, flip each aebelskiver over and cook until done in the center.

Serve with syrup, or be fancy and fill them with jam.