Rainstorms

It has been raining, actually storming, no make that a torrential downpour. As in monsoon. As in "Honey do we have a canoe cause I need to go to the store!"

Really bad timing for my family, great for my garden (well - until today when I noticed mushrooms had popped up everywhere). My sister is getting married in 5 weeks (yeah!). She's having the ceremony and reception on my parent's property. They have been working to get the rest of the outside prepared, and the house repainted. All really difficult in light of the aforementioned weather!

Anyways, so yesterday, I made a batch of monster cookies with Mickle. Shortly after putting the second batch in the oven- we lost power. Mickle was already in bed.....it was sooo late, but not asleep. He came out to inform us that the power was out. We were so grateful for his help, I'm sure you know- all parent's are dumb and ignorant, and we would have been clueless without his announcement. We let him know that we were aware, and it was ok, and sent him back to bed. Looking very worried, Mickle announced that he "could NOT sleep if the power was off!!!" His daddy and I found this quite funny- since he sleeps in a dark room without a nightlight. If I had him in bed just a little bit earlier, he probably never would have even known.
Allan and I stumbled around in the dark, trying to find a flashlight with some small amount of battery power left. There is something genetic, I am convinced, in little boys that draws them to all items battery powered and compels them to mess with it to the point of total battery drain!
We managed to find one flashlight- and then a lighter and lit some candles. After laying a towel down in the office- water was leaking down from the ac vent, and locating a bill- we called the power company. Upon entering information for our location, an automatic recording assured us that they were on top of it- and our power would be back on at 1:00am. Um No. Someone at the power company needs a watch. I should know- I have a 5 week old who likes snacking every 2 hours. Power finally came back on about 7:00am. Then about 7:30 the announcement rang out "Mom, Dad, the power is back on!" Thank you Mickle......what on earth would we do without your keen observations????

Monster Cookies

I came across a recipe on a blog, while I was surfing, about two weeks before petal was born. The recipe was for Monster cookies. I had never heard of such a cookie. I became intrigued with it as soon as I saw the ingredients. I mean, come on! How can one not LOVE a cookie with peanut butter, chocolate chips, m&m's (I care the least about this part) and oatmeal! I made the recipe, and with the first bite -and all other cookie recipes faded away from my memory. Ok, Ok, so maybe I am exaggerating a little, but these are seriously my favorite cookies now.
Fast forward to yesterday. I had a serious hankering for some monster cookies. So I started going through my favorited page to find that blog. I looked, and looked, and looked, and LOOKED! But alas, apparently the page was an unknown casualty of my previously pregnant brain. I thought I have saved the page- but it was gone. After hours of blindly using google to try and find the page again(who was I kidding?)- I gave up. All I could remember was the ingredients listed above- and that there was no flour. So I began to search for a new recipe, and after a while was rewarded with one that I felt was a great option.
Mickle and I began making the cookies. Always fun baking with a over eager 4 year old. Need I say more? As if that wasn't enough. Apparently it was time for "new mommy" trial by fire. Petal awoke with a roar, and wouldn't stop howling. So there I was- with Mickle in the kitchen, barely containing himself as he desperately wanted to dump every ingredient within reach into the bowl, Petal in the bedroom howling like only a 5 week old can, and Allan no where around (he had gone to put Petal's diapers and a load of towels in the dryer at the laundry mat because our dryer decided to stop working today!). I scooped Petal up, and placed her in the sling, while rushing back into the kitchen. Oh the excitement! Mickle and I scrabbled to finish mixing the cookies, and put a batch in the oven- then off I rushed to nurse Petal- while keeping an eye on the timer. Nothing ruins cookies in my opinion like overbaking them!

I was quite pleased with the outcome. These are just great cookies. The recipe makes A TON, and actually couldn't be mixed in my kitchenaid. I'll be making some adjustments to the size and ingredients- but I thought I would share this version in the meantime.

Monster Cookies

1 cup butter soft

3 1/4 cups peanut butter (creamy or crunchy- I like crunchy)

2 1/3 cups brown sugar

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 tsp corn syrup

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

4 tsp baking soda

6 eggs, beaten

1 1/2- 2 cups M&M's

2 cups chocolate chips

9 cups old fashioned oats

2 cups chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Cream butter, peanut butter, sugars, corn syrup. Add vanilla and soda mixing well. Add eggs and mix well. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop by spoonfuls on greased cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

I'd like to reinterate- HUGE recipe. You'll probably want to cut it at least in half. Chances are- unless you come from a larger family- or have a larger family- you won't have a bowl big enough to mix the whole recipe.

My plan is to make these cookies as close to a healthy snack as possible. I'll post my progress as I'm working on them. I was thinking of substitution applesauce for half the butter, dropping the sugar amount down, substituting raisins for the m&m's, and using a super dark chocolate chunked instead of the semi-sweet chips. Oh! and I'm gonna try almond butter instead of the peanut butte. But that's all....the oatmeal doesn't need any substituting - lol.

Gardening Time!!!!

I'm so excited. We finally got our garden put in. Now, what I'm calling a garden is nothing compared to what I experienced growing up. Of course I'm also not feeding a family of 9. We have plans of getting the fence fixed, and yard leveled out this summer. Due to those plans, I'm holding off on planting anything against the back fence. Not having access to that area really limits my growing areas. I will be soo glad to get that space back. Until then, I'll just have to focus on what I have. So we planted tomatoes- romas, cherry, a golden variety, and some more "regular" kind (lol can't remember the name), cantaloupe, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, oriental eggplant, okra (a gardening first for me - so we'll see), peppers - jumbo jalapeno (perfect for stuffing) bananas and TONS of bell peppers (accidentally bought twice as many as I needed), green beans- 4 different varieties, and a watermelon plant (another gardening first- Allan talked me into that one!). I also got basil, thyme, and rosemary, and mint. From seeds we inter planted radishes throughout, plus I planted marigold seeds along the borders. I don't think Mickle could be anymore excited!!! He helped us plant. Of course in his defense we have been talking about planting a garden since last fall- but with the pregnancy, I just couldn't seem to get it together until now. I'll keep updating as our plants are grown and products are harvested. Mickle keeps checking daily on the plants and informing us that "they are growing growing growing, and one day soon- they will have stuff for us to eat!" In case you are wondering about the leaf structure that Mickle is kneeling in front of.....it's a tomato support/compost pile. I still haven't decided if I like it or not. I'll decide one way or the other after this growing season. It's a large circle of chicken wire. Then inside of that we've layered for a compost and since then we just keep adding to the top of the pile. You use the chicken wire on the outside to support your tomato plants as they grow. The pile is confined within the circle- so turning it isn't an option. You just water from the top to keep the pile moist. My issue with it is two-fold. 1- no usable compost. All the nutrients from the pile leach down into the tomato bed- which is a good thing for the tomato plants, but it doesn't help any other locations. 2. It's an eye sore. Now once the tomatoes are up around it- you probably won't notice- but we'll see. I was going to tear it down this season. I built it two growing seasons ago- and didn't put a garden in at all last year. This led to a very overgrown garden area. When I went to weed and prepare my garden plots for planting, I noticed that the weeds that were in the tomato plot were literally twice as big as the weeds in the garden plot right beside it. It appears that the composting pile works as designed. We'll know for sure after this growing season.
On a couple of other blogs I follow, I saw discussions for growing potatoes. They were using old trash cans. You place the seed potatoes in a small amount of soil, and cover them. As they grow you continue to heap dirt around the plants, forcing them to continue growing upwards. By the end the trash can should be almost full of soil, and potatoes are growing along the whole length of the now underground stem. You can also stack tires to grow the potatoes in, instead of using a trashcan. I just need to figure out where I can get some seed potatoes, or if I could just use cut organic potatoes (with eyes). The thought of growing potatoes sounds so much fun, and a great botany lesson for Mickle!