26- New stove, 10 weeks later

It is not Cookie Thursday is a Thing and I can share the appliance delivery saga from yesterday.

But first, the stove is in and it is glorious! I couldn’t wait to use it.

But second, a moment for the 10 weeks without a fully functioning stove. I made it! I used the sole functioning burner, the bottom oven (which was dodgy at best), and the crockpot. Having a fully functioning kitchen is going to take some getting used to.

Two weeks ago the dishwasher, which was just outside of its extended warranty, threw in the towel. It no longer drained. I had noticed that the dishwasher was wetter after I ran a load of dishes but I put that down to my husband’s lunch dishes.

Not so.

So I’ve been without a fully functioning stove and a dishwasher through 2 of the biggest storms that NC has seen since we moved here. Ice one week, a lot of snow the next. I tried to get the dishwasher fixed under warranty. No dice.

I just hand washed dishes. A lot.

And 5 days ago my husband and I purchased one to replace the expensive waste in the dishwasher spot..

Two weeks ago I had to change the install date on stove #3 to February 17th because I had a conflict. They called and offered me February 11th instead.

I have a weekly meeting on the second Wednesday of the month that I lead and I could not not hold the meeting. It was only going to be from 0900-1030 and then I could take over installation watching. So I prepped my husband to be the watcher during the meeting. If the installer happened to come during the meeting window.

You know they did.

And you know who else showed up at the exact same time? Different installer? Yep, the dishwasher people.

I had 3 installers in the kitchen. And our kitchen isn’t super big. What are the odds? Perhaps I need a lottery ticket.

But they both are in and they are glorious.

Cookie Thursday is a Thing has been limping along since Thanksgiving. No bakes, holiday bakes, bought cookies was how I have been handling it. When an experimental cookie failed I did not purchase cookies because it was the Thursday before the 2 inches of sleet and icy rain and I was NOT going to go to the store to buy cookies.

However, a new stove has its own quirks and ovens to learn. I wanted to learn the oven before I started January’s theme again. Reminder, that theme was Why is There So Much Cheese originally that morphed into Liquor cookies.

I started with the first recipe I ever memorized. The Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag. This is a recipe that I am ultimately familiar with. And it is also the recipe that I experiment with the most.

It seemed right to make those cookies as the inaugural CTIAT in the new oven.

Glad I did.

With all ovens there are hot spots and cool spots and it is general knowledge that the back row of cookies bakes the fastest.

This new stove is no exception.

I will have to adjust the cooking times and the oven temperature until I am happy.

Don’t get me wrong. I am ecstatic to have a fully functioning stove and ovens. This is just a learning curve.

And y’all know I like learning.

Welcome, stove #3. I can’t wait to see what we can bake together.

Cookie Thursday 1/15/26- Red wine infused fudgy cocoa no bakes

By any kitchen science, this recipe should not have worked. Recipes are rather finicky that way.

Especially candy. Which is what I categorize fudgy cocoa no bakes.

The new theme for January 2026 is an oldie. I did this theme in January 2021 and January 2022. Remember those pandemic days from a hospital nurse perspective? Yeah, brutal. We needed all the comfort we could get. So booze was the theme and the general feeling about the hospital.

yay we survived. But did we?

The new theme is going to be booze, hootch or likker, however you think of it.

Alcohol.

I did a red wine syrup in a different type of cookie in 2021 but I wanted to see if it could work in a candy as well.

I started off by making the red wine syrup. Red wine, sugar, application of heat at a low simmer for 20 minutes. Cool to room temperature.

Cool.

Now, I am not a drinker so I don’t know if it was any good but I have more if someone wants to try it.

The genesis of the idea was that I have dark cocoa powder and what is purportedly amazing with dark chocolate? Red wine.

Now that I had the syrup I had to turn my attention to the candy.

As mentioned before, candy is very finicky. A half step in the wrong direction leads to failure. And I anticipated failure and I was mentally reworking my morning to add a stop to a store.

The no bake recipe is simple: sugar, butter, milk, cocoa powder, peanut butter, oats.

In my experience, the simpler recipes do not take to having them messed with.

But, hey, CTIAT is all about experimentation.

I decreased the amount of butter by 3 tbs and decreased the amount of sugar by half a cup. In order to accommodate the syrup. No scientific rhyme or reason here, I just winged it.

I made this recipe when I got home from the hospital at 0430. Why? It is a very quick recipe that takes less than 10 minutes. The rest is drying time for the candies. And I wanted to give the candies their best shot at a good drying time.

In reality, I could have made the candies at 0800. Which is when the White Whiskery Wonder (Dot) wanted me out of bed. There was definitely going to be a nap in my future.

I use a cookie scoop to approximate the candy size when I am ladling it out of the pot onto the cookie sheet. I then place the cookie sheet in the oven to dry. No real reason for that. I just wanted them out of the way.

My morning was moderately busy. I had a hospital meeting at 1200 and my husband leaves for work before that. I ate breakfast, put a load of laundry on, and opened the oven (that doesn’t work) to check on the candies.

Mentally I screamed “This should not have worked!” as I looked at the rows of dried candies.

I put them in the carrying tub and took them to the hospital. I mean, I tried one. Because these should not have worked.

I am not a drinker so I cannot swear that these are a good representative of the red wine infused candy. There is a different mouthfeel to them, a subtle flavor shift. One of my coworkers tried them and sent me a text on my way home. And I quote “omg, the cookies are soo good… love them,”

Okay, so the idea wasn’t so crazy. I wonder if adjusting the butter/sugar ratio is going to work with the Chardonnay Peanut Brittle I have planned.

We’ll find out on Cookie Thursday is a Thing.

Cookie Thursday 12/4/25- It’s beginning to look a lot like Chex-mas!

I think the Chex that I make is more popular than the Jalapeño Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I wonder if the fact that I only make it during December adds to its popularity.

I mean, if I made it monthly I think people would get tired of it.

As the department knows that I make cookies on Thursdays and Chex mix only in December some start asking for it in October.

When I was at the hospital on Tuesday for a half shift I erased the board in the lounge and added 12/4/25 CHEX MIX to it. To hype it up a little.

And it delivered.

Three people asked me when I was there for the nursing awards this morning about it.

Another stopped me and asked for the recipe.

Yay.

I use a turkey roasting pan

1 box each of the Family sized corn Chex and rice Chex
1-2 cups mixed nuts (I don’t like brazil nuts so I don’t get that one)
a decent amount of gluten free pretzels, I eyeball this
2 and half sticks of butter
new this year, 1/2 c oil (I wanted to see what this would do. Thumbs up)
Worcestershire sauce 4 good shakes

But the secret sauce is the spice mix.

2 tbs garlic powder
2 tbs onion powder
2 TSP seasoning salt
2 tbs Worcestershire powder (yes this exists and can be used in other things)

Melt the butter in a small pan. While it is melting, put all the dry ingredients into the turkey roasting pan and mix well. After the butter is melted, add the oil. I add the dry powders first and stir well. Once it is incorporated I add the Worcestershire sauce to the mix. Yes, 2 kinds of Worcestershire.

I use less seasoning salt because, well, salt. But the rest you can go ham on and add as much or as little as you want.

Pour the butter/spice mixture over the cereal etc. and stir well to combine.

I stir carefully because the cereal etc. completely fill my roasting pan.

Bake at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, stirring every 20 minutes, for 2 hours.

Let cool. If you taste test before cool the cereal will be bendy and not taste done. Once cool, the cereal will be crisp.

I used to take it in the roasting pan to the hospital but now I use the giant Tupperware covered bowl that I have. Because I would rather replace the Tupperware than the roasting pan if it happens to walk off.

This is the most vibes centered recipe that I make. If you want more pretzels, add more. If you want less nuts, add less. But the double down on the spice mixture stays.

Cookie Thursday 9/18/25- Jalapeño bacon crescent roll bites

This week continues the month theme of Cookies for Breakfast.

Of course, I am taking the definition of cookie with an extreme grain of salt. Like huge, the size of Gibraltar.

This is more classified as a make. As in it has breakfast type items in it. I would almost call them a biscuit but then that’s not correct, either.

It started when I say these packages of cooked jalapeño bacon at Aldi when I was grocery shopping. They were on steep discount but still within expiration date. I believe they were less than $1.50/each. So I bought 3, with this exact make in mind. Aldi also has a knock off of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, which were $1.29. I bought 3.

Not having to cook the bacon? Priceless. But the entire make cost me less than $9.00.

I became aware of this recipe through a video series called “Dead Greg’s Recipes”. A relative of the cook had died and had left their cousin a ziploc bag full of recipes. The cousin gave the cook the bag of recipes and said let’s try them. There’s a whole schtick where the cook has labeled each bag onto a spinny wheel and they spin the wheel and the pointer lands on a category.

Kind of fun.

I should’ve checked the fridge before beginning the recipe though. I had less than 1/4 c of maple syrup and I could not find the bottle I had bought to replace it. Oops. But this recipe didn’t exactly have measurements for the ingredients. Beside the bacon, it called for 1 pound of bacon. The rest of the recipe was Crescent Roll tube, maple syrup, and brown sugar. No details on any of them.

I persevered on.

You open the Crescent roll tube by peeling the paper to reveal the fault line. It’s supposed to open itself from that point. Guess what didn’t happen! I used a spoon along the fault line, as directed. I opened and spread out 2 on a parchment lined cookie sheet, pinching the perforations together. I layered in what maple syrup I had, and then the bacon, and then 3/4 c brown sugar. I topped the entire thing with another Crescent Roll tube.

The entire make baked at 350 degree Fahrenheit. Again, no time limit was given so I just baked until browned. This was about 15 minutes.

Interesting result. I cut the entire structure with a pizza cutter after it had cooled. I have thoughts. The result was not very structurally sound. I think it needs a bit more on the bottom layer.

Next time I will definitely have more maple syrup, probably 1/2 c for the size I made. I would also mix that with 1/4 softened butter because this is the bottom layer and I feel it needs to be more substantial. Next is the chopped up bacon. I would increase the brown sugar to 1 c, dependent on the size of the dough. I would also add a spice into the brown sugar. Of course I might feel that way because it is nearly fall and pumpkin spice is EVERYWHERE. I would brush the top with butter and maybe a bit of cinnamon sugar.

Not a bad make with the scant details of the recipe. But sometimes that is fun.

I will not kick this out of the cookie jar, I’ll just tweak it a bit.

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 3/7/24-parmesan crispy wonton crackers

The theme for March is similar to the November 2023 theme of Something From Nothing. That was where I made cookies out of whatever odd ingredient was in my baking pantry. At the time there was a poll taken with the two choices being 1) Something From Nothing and 2) Well That Was Easy. I knew that I wanted to return to the Well That Was Easy Theme in 2024.

I have decidedly simple recipes in my stack of recipes. These will become the Well That Was Easy makes.

This week, to kick off March will be the Parmesan Crispy Wonton Crackers.

I had two choices again, use storebought egg roll wrappers or make my own. Out of expediency, I bought egg roll wrappers. The homemade ones will have to wait until I am not preparing to leave for a conference. I have to practice rolling out dough to very thin some other time.

This recipe is very easy, very fitting with the theme. Egg roll wrappers, cut into strips, olive oil to wrappers, top with parmesan cheese. The original recipe called for thyme and parsley. I decided against that for 2 reasons (always the 2), 1) I hate parsley and 2) the OR is skeptical of green stuff, jalapeno chocolate chip cookies notwithstanding.

Bake the doctored strips at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-9 minutes. Keep careful watch, these brown super fast.

I did hold back about 15 that I thought had gotten too brown. I am going to crunch these for use as salad toppers. What salad isn’t improved by a little crunch?

Cookie Thursday is a Thing 1/25/24-white cheddar shortbread

It is the last Thursday of the Why is There So MUCH Cheese? January theme. I added the caps on much because there is still so much cheese. But… I can see the bottom of the cheese drawer so that is something.

This was a very simple recipe. 2 c flour, 2 sticks butter, 2 c cheese. Spices. Bake at 375.

The original recipe called this a shortbread and also wanted the dough mixed in a stand mixer. I can see why this is called a shortbread but I didn’t think the mixer would work. So I used the food processor.

I had to add water to make the ingredients bind together because they would not. All I had after 30 seconds of food processing was fluffy white powder. After I added the water, the dough came together. I pinched off small pieces of it and rolled the balls. The recipe also calls for pressing the balls with the bottom of a glass. I hate to do that because the dough balls will stick to the glass and it just gets messy. I used my fingers.

To bring it back to the OR, why are there still so many appendixes out there? Yeah, statistically not everyone has their appendix removed. I have mine, and so does my sister, and husband, and mother. Not my brother though, he’s the only one in the family that has had it removed. And in the same thought, why are there still so many gallbladders out there. Watch what you eat, people!

Cookie Thursday 1/18/24- Cheddar dill pickle bites

This week continues the Why is There So Much Cheese? January theme. Because there is STILL SO MUCH CHEESE!

This week’s make is one I saw the video on about a year ago. Cheddar cheese dill pickle bites that are baked until they are delicious.

The umami factor on this alone is off the charts. Except that none of the ingredients is actually MSG. But it is salty and bitter and sour and sweet. All the words that describe umami.

The definition of umami is the essence of deliciousness and these deliver.

All that is needed is shredded cheese, either out of a bag, or freshly shredded and pickle chips small enough to fit in the well of a muffin tin. You also need a muffin tin. I used a mini muffin tin.

Oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Place some shredded cheese in the bottom of the well. Top with a pickle slice and more cheese.

Bake until slightly browned. About 12-15 minutes.

The original video called for blotting the pickles kind of dry with a paper towel.

I am anti-paper towel in this house. I skipped that step although I could’ve used a recycled lap sponge or blue towel.

It will surprise no one that I wanted to see what would happen.

This is definitely a trust the process Cookie Thursday is a Thing make.

And definitely one of the most surprising makes.