21- Trick or Treat?

This is my favoritest cookie Thursday of the year. This is the Thursday that I make homemade candies instead of cookies.

This is themed trick or treat because you never know if you are getting a trick or a treat.

In years past I made red hots, and sour patch kids, and itty brownie cauldrons with green frosting foam. I’ve made sea foam and, for the health conscious, I drew faces on clementines.

This month I only made 4 candies. I was going to candy Cheetos but I did not decide to make those in the last minute. It was a grave side decision. (joke)

I’ve made chocolate cracker toffee for Halloween and Christmas with various crackers and then I saw a recipe for cornflake chocolate toffee. After following the recipe I ended up with too much toffee and too little cornflakes. There is definitely something off about the proportions. Tasted good though. I wonder if I can make candy/cookies with grapenuts.

The next candy was just a tinted candy coating over a marshmallow. What made these fun is that the colors were that of candy corn. Cute but I’m not sure that large marshmallows are the way to go here.

A bit of a trick was the Monster muffins. These were green. Okay, these were spinach, banana, oat mini muffins. Of course I forgot to add the chocolate chip faces before I baked them. Cute, will do again, will add the chocolate chip faces next time.

The last candy I am the proudest of. Cookie Thursday is a Thing is about experimentation on my coworkers. This last one was definitely that. I was looking at buttermint candies, you know the ones, the ones that are served at weddings and baby showers. They can be molded or colored to match any theme. These are traditionally made with butter, powdered sugar, and peppermint oil/flavoring. Hence the buttermint. I wondered if another flavoring would work. And I just happened to have cinnamon oil. It totally works. These are sweet, but not too sweet, cinnamon bombs. I will definitely have to explore other extracts and have a little fun.

Cookie Thursday is a Thing Halloween Trick or Treat edition is over for the year.

What should I make next year?

Cookie Thursday 10/10/24- I’ve got my eye on you chocolate cookie

I have broken one of my hard and fast rules for Cookie Thursday is a Thing.

I have made a chocolate cookie.

I don’t enjoy making chocolate cookies. So I don’t.

However, since the theme of the month is This is Halloween, and the makes have chocolate in them and I had eyeball candies, I decided to make an exception.

Because those white eyes need to pop!

I made chocolate cookie dough and added the eyeballs, which I have to point out I have used before in other baked goods. Drop them onto the baking sheets and bake 10 minutes. Easy peasy.

Except, this time, for some unknown reason, the eyeballs melted!

I thought this was going to be a cute cookie, with the contrast between chocolate cookie and white eyeballs. But no.

What I am left with is a chocolate cookie with random toffee bits, instead of candy eyeballs.

Rude.

However, par for the course because the base of Cookie Thursday is a Thing has been experimentation. This is one experiment that I will not do again.

The cookies are fudgy and crisp and chewy and I wouldn’t kick them out of the cookie jar. But not what I had in mind.

Cookie Thursday 5/30/24- war on women’s bodily autonomy

I mean would I be writing about the healthcare battlefield without touching on the war on women’s bodily autonomy during War Cookie Month? I mean, who am I if I don’t?

The Cookie Thursday is a Thing theme for May is War Cookies. Appropriately this is also the month of Memorial Day and was completely unplanned when I decided to do this theme. Apparently, my brain is smarter than my fingers.

This is the 5th Thursday of the month and I am making basic chocolate chipless cookies for the week. This is chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips. Kind of a vanilla sugar cookie vibe.

Since this is War Cookie Month I would be remiss if I missed a chance to beat on the drum of women’s rights. Yes, again. They keep attacking us, keep whittling away at the rights they do deign to “gift” us. Since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v Wade, there has been a slow drip of rights being taken away. And then they realized that they could get away with more and the ripping away of women’s rights became faster and faster.

My tee shirt of the day is “They Won’t Stop at Roe.”

They aren’t even hiding the end game anymore.

Am I still mad as hell about the Dobbs decision? Fuck yes.

Will I still write about it in an unceasing drumbeat? Again, yes.

Am I alone in this? Absolutely not.

Are people not paying attention because it doesn’t affect them? Absolutely.

Vote in November. Remember what has been taken from women. And those who will be women when they grow up. And those who would be women because it is the best fit for them and that is truly who they are under the skin.

All of us are under attack.

Man the battle stations!

My next tee shirt will be a Ruth Bader Ginsberg one that says I am Tired of Listening to Old White Men.

Cookie Thursday 5/23/24- Vietnam care package cookies

I called in sick last week.

No cookies were made. I’m telling you, I want off this ride that I’ve been on for 2 and a half months.

Today, I made the cookies I was going to make LAST week.

Soldiers rely on care packages. And what is Cookie Thursday is a Thing except a weekly care package to my coworkers in the OR? I keep coming back to healthcare is a war footing and healthcare workers as soldiers who are fighting the healthcare war.

This recipe I found when I was looking up war cookies. It is from Pinterest and the title of the pin is Action Vietnam Cookies. The blog this cookie recipe is from is Cookie Madness. The recipe was originally from a book called Food Writer’s Favorite Cookies.

Apparently, these cookies ship well and age well. The cookies themselves are made with no butter, instead with lard which helps with the shelf stability. I used Crisco.

They are an amalgam of bananas. oats, chopped walnuts, chocolate chips, cranberries, and coconut. They are seasoned with nutmeg and cinnamon.

When I dropped them off, several people were waiting. Because, you know, I missed last week.

I hope my coworkers feel taken care of with these weekly care packages.

I know that I feel more involved for having made them.

Cookie Thursday 4/11/24- Billionaire Bites

The highest week of April’s theme of the Taxman Cometh.

Taxes are due on Monday.

I know it.

My husband reminds me of it DAILY.

My email knows it because it reminds me of it DAILY.

Last week’s cookie was Millionaire Shortbread.

Are you picking up on the way the cookies are going?

This week’s cookie is the Billionaire Bites.

This is a no-bake recipe.

11 oz caramel, melted over low-medium heat with 1 tbs of water until smooth

1 c rice krispies

1 1/2 c pecans. The recipe didn’t call for toasting. I did that all on my own.

Mix all of these together and portion out by the teaspoonfuls. The mixture is very sticky.

I let them dry overnight before I covered them in chocolate. They were still very sticky. The humidity of days of rain did not help. I am not sure if it is the fact that it’s been raining for days but the melting of 2 c melting chocolate wafers did not go smoothly until I added about a tablespoonful of coconut oil.

Dip the bites into the chocolate.

Start running out of chocolate halfway through. Decide to call those ones half-naked billionaires.

Get mad at the existence of billionaires. These are people who have billions of dollars when there is suffering and do little to help. You know the ones.

Let chocolate dry and package them up in a container for the trip to the hospital.

I don’t think anyone is going to get the half-naked billionaire joke. Perhaps if I named them the emperor is half naked they would get it. Maybe not.

Back to taxes being due on Monday. I will do the groundwork of the taxes tonight and file them. I won’t pay until Monday. The government will get my money when it is due. And not before. Even if is is only four days before. It is the principle of the thing.

Cookie Thursday 4/4/24- millionaire shortbread

Welcome to April in Cookie Thursday is a Thing. The theme for the month is the Taxman Cometh. Appropriate for April, no?

No, our taxes are not done. I wanted to get through the two assignments due this week. And then I’ll do the taxes. I have all the documents.

We always pay and with the 2017 tax breaks sunsetting for normal Americans who are not rich, I am anticipating a big bill. Even though I am in school that should theoretically offset some of that.

Some of my coworkers who have children are finding out they have to pay federal taxes for the first time. I remind them that since we are not the wealthy ones that Congress is so concerned about they put an end date to the 2017 tax breaks. A reminder that the corporate tax breaks do not have an end date. Makes you wonder about your worth as an American, doesn’t it?

This week’s make is the millionaire shortbread. This is a triple-layer cookie. There is a shortbread base, a caramel center, and a chocolate topping.

As always, I have thoughts. I should have scored the chocolate when it was half-set. I think then the caramel layer wouldn’t squish out as much. Because the caramel layer didn’t set appropriately.

The cookies are still delicious. Messy, but delicious.

Cookie Thursday 3-14-24-bought cookies

Happy Pi day. You know, the date of 3.14 is the beginning three numbers of the irrational number of pi that never repeats. Or, not that has been figured out. I imagine some AI is out there working on the problem now.

Normally I would make pie for Cookie Thursday is a Thing. Especially when it falls on Pi Day. But this is the last day of my marathon week.

I presented my Cookie Thursday is a Thing poster at AORN. I also got lots of comments. There will be a separate post for that. Did I mention that we drove 8 hours to the conference Friday, had busy, busy four days in conference Saturday through Tuesday, and drove home Tuesday? Since I was gone at the conference on my usual RA Monday, the professor and I agreed that I could work on Wednesday. I drove 90 minutes to the university on Wednesday, worked 10 hours, drove home, went into the hospital for 2 hours, was on call all Wednesday night. Deep breath, I’m nearly done. Today, Thursday I had a three-hour mandatory education class for the hospital at 0730. I went to two different stores for groceries and the fixings for St. Patrick’s Day, took the cookies to the hospital.

I am exhausted.

Currently, I am reading the material for tomorrow.

It is a good thing that this month’s theme was That Was Easy because I was not about to make/bake anything today. I bought cookies instead, and cut them in half.

The cookies that I bought at Aldi were Kitchen Sink cookies, Oatmeal with cranberry cookies, and Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

Wow. That WAS easy.

I will be back to baking next week.

I just have to find an easy recipe.

Oh! As we were driving down the mountain I saw ads for moonshine and my husband asked that since I made cookies with booze, could I make a moonshine cookie?

That will be for another week.