Friday Round Up 12/7/18 - Early Mornings, Cookie Exchange + Homemade Oreo Recipe, Reverse Advent Calendar, Snowless Sledding

Truly, how is it December already?? I am loving the extra week between Christmas & New Years to be sure - but somehow this month has crept up on me in a MAJOR way!! Again, not complaining - just feeling a bit of shock & awe!

1. Early morning time in front of the Christmas tree(s)

I have been waking at 5 (earlier if it is a bread baking day) since we put up the Christmas trees for the express purpose of sitting on the couch with only the trees/wreaths in the windows for light and reading/relaxing/drinking coffee/texting/whatever I want to do! These have been some of my most relaxing, peaceful, silent hours of the Christmas season. I am in love with these hours. I am typing this post in one of these hours. The house is silent, the light is low, the world is still dark as night, it feels like found time and it feels delightful. 

2. Cookie Exchange + New Recipe

My "back up Mom" or BUM for short, Lynn, hosts a ridiculously sumptuous brunch party each December where each guest is invited to bring 2 dozen cookies to share. 

Everyone then goes home with a variety pack of 2 dozen delicious treats!! I love the concept of a cookie exchange - what fun to share the fruits of our baked goods with a group of lovely women. Lynn is kind enough to include the Bug in the invite - but the party falls smack in the middle of nap time - so I got a babysitter this year.

See #3 for my first effort at a cookie to bring. It didn't make the cut! So I decided  to make Homemade "Oreos"! Full recipe is at the end of the post! I adapted it from a blog called Sally's Baking Addiction.

3. Reverse Advent Calendar
I don't know if that is the right thing to call it - but I decided this year for Advent Lulu & I would aim to do something kind each day. A random act of kindness, a gift, a card, whatever it may be. So far its been a complete success I'd say! I've been enjoying thinking of small ways to make December more joyful for others & though the Bug is small, I'm loving trying to involve her in the process. The most fun so far has been dropping off some homemade cookies to our local fire station. We were invited in to see the truck, engine & ambulance up close which was a huge thrill for my truck loving little one. I am trying to shift the focus of the season from getting to giving in my own mind to hopefully raise Lulu to love to give. Not that I expect her to eschew gift getting! Not by a long shot! I hope she receives gifts with great enthusiasm & excitement & appreciation. I just also hope she learns to give with the same level of excitement.

I tested a recipe for Lynn's cookie exchange & didn't love it at all. It was labor intensive & ended up being cloyingly sweet. Too sweet for my tastes. Turns out Chris loved them, so I didn't feel bad about what Lulu & I did with most of them! We brought them to our local fire station as a Happy Holiday/Merry Christmas/Happy New Years treat for the women & men who would come a running if our house ever caught on fire. They deserve some treats & recognition for the hard work they do in our community. Extra bonus? The firefighter who answered the door let Lulu into the garage to see the fire engine, fire truck & ambulance up close! Also didn't bat an eye about letting Owenn come in :) 

4. Snowless Sledding

Turns out this is a thing if you are a parent of a toddler who really enjoyed sledding during the week we had snow...........and you didn't put the sled somewhere out of sight! Each time we come into the backyard, the Bug hops onto her sled and is ready to go. We go around and around and around our postage stamp sized backyard (not complaining - perfect size for us- not too hard to kept the grass mowed, still hard to keep plants alive in the garden beds.......maybe that has more to do with my brown thumb than with the size of our yard? I digress). So this is a bit of a warning to parents out there: if you are in a snowless period, put away the sled. If you don't - you risk working really hard to pull your child on the grass :)

Homemade Peppermint "Oreos"

Yields approximately 36 sandwich cookies

Ingredients

Cookies

2 ½ cup all purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (sifted if lumpy)

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons espresso powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 ½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cream Filling

¾ cup butter, room temperature

½ cup coconut oil, melted to liquid state but cooled to room temperature

5 ¼ cup powdered sugar (sifted if lumpy)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons peppermint extract

Decoration

1 cup crushed candy canes

Directions

1.  Make the cookies. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, espresso powder, and salt. Set aside.

2. Using a handheld or stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on high speed until creamy, about 3 minutes. Scrape the sides & bottom of the bowl.

3. Add both sugars and beat on medium speed until thoroughly combined, about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides & the bottom of the bowl.

4. Beat in both eggs and the vanilla on high speed. Scrape the bottom & sides of the bowl.

5. Using a scoop or measuring cup, slowly add the dry ingredient mixture to the bowl. Best to add with the mixer off so you don’t send a dry ingredient cloud all over yourself and your kitchen. You’ll need to stop & scrape the bowl a couple of times while you’re incorporating the dry ingredients- it is a very sticky dough!

6. Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Don’t skip this step! Your cookies will spread and be sad if you skip this step!!

7. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees while the dough is chilling.

8. Line 4 cookie sheets (not airbake – just plain old cookie sheets) with parchment paper or silpats. You will only bake 2 sheets at a time – but you can be forming the next 2 sheets while the 1^st 2 are in the oven. Time management brought to you by me ;)

9. Roll the dough into balls, using about 1 teaspoon of your chilled dough per ball. Bake 12 per sheet. Using the heel of your hand, press down on each ball to flatten it slightly.

10. Bake for 6-8 minutes (my oven needed 7 minutes) rotating the sheets halfway through. The cookies will still look soft when done – they will have cracked slightly on the top.

11. Place the cookie sheet on a cooling rack & cool for a few minutes. At that point the cookies will have firmed up enough to slide onto the rack itself to finish cooling.

12.  Make the cream filling. Using a handheld or stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and coconut oil together on high speed until creamy & fully combined – about 3 minutes. Scrape the bowl at least once as the coconut oil will firm up against the cool bowl & try to stick.

13. Add the vanilla & peppermint extracts and beat on high speed another minute or so until they are fully incorporated.

14. Add the powdered sugar (about a cup at time) to the bowl with the mixer turned off. Beat on low after each addition until it is fully incorporated. Once all sugar has been added, beat the filling on high for a minute or 2 until creamy & thick.

15. Assemble the cookies. Pair up cookies based on size, the better the size match, the cuter the cookie! Turn the cookies upside down in their pairs (flat size up).

16. Roll approximately 1.5-2 teaspoons of filling into a ball and flatten slightly using your fingers. Place on 1 cookie. Repeat until half of the cookies have filling on them. Now wash your hands :)You don’t want filling on the outside of the cookies, do you??

17. Close the cookie pairs to make the sandwiches, pressing down firmly to ensure they adhere & a bit of the filling squishes out to the edges.

18. Roll the edges in the crushed peppermint/candy cane, pressing firmly to make sure the candy sticks in the filling.

19. Enjoy the cute cookies your made!

Friday Recap 11/16/18 - Girls trip to Vermont, Pork Shoulder with Plums, Lulu's new hat, Zoo visit, "Why You Should Stop Yelling at Your Kids"

Yay! I'm back to being "on time" with my Friday posts! Only one week got lost in the Ireland travel shuffle - not too bad! What a wonderfully fun week its been!

1. Girls Trip to Vermont (& New Hampshire)

My sister & I gave our Mom a trip to visit the King Arthur Flour baking school for Mother's Day this year! My Dad covered her airfare & we did our best to cover everything else! I hadn't been in Vermont (or New Hampshire) since my big brother was college searching.......so its safe to say this felt like a new place for me.

The trip was great - so nice for Marg, Mom & I just to worry about ourselves & grown up things & not have any dishes, laundry or dirty diapers to contend with! The travel all went smoothly which is something that I can forget to be grateful for; because we all bitch if we have flight delays or cancellations or lost bags. I am trying to remember to be pleased when all goes as it should! This was my first flight without the Bug since she was born almost 19 months ago & I remember now why flights used to feel relaxing! I put on the noise cancelling headphones, worked on this blog, flipped through a magazine, it was delightful!

Our home away from home

We stayed in a cabin on Fat Sheep Farm, it was so funky & cute. We were greeted with eggs from their chickens & pumpkin chocolate chip scones which one of the hosts had baked. Yum.

The natural beauty was striking - the hills/mountains, a bit of fall color hanging around on the trees, old barns everywhere, stone walls, Vermont delivered on it all.

We had so much fun at the King Arthur Flour Headquarters - there is a delicious cafe, a gigantic store plus the baking school. We ate breakfast there both mornings & I think we all wished we could eat there much more frequently!!

This was our "first course" at breakfast......we also each ordered amazing breakfast sandwiches!

Our Airbnb hosts suggested we try Mangalitsa for dinner - we were only able to get a reservation at 5:30pm......which is 4:30pm for my Mom  & my body clocks! It was worth eating dinner in the afternoon - such a great menu- full of unexpected twists. Bonus - a lot of the produce we ate in our meals was grown on the farm where we stayed!

The Brussel Sprouts were to die for. We all could've eat a boatload of them! Lobster Ravioli was also top notch!!

We shopped to our hearts' content & surprisingly none of our credit cards caught fire ;) We poked around the towns of Windsor, Quechee, & Woodstock, VT plus Hanover, NH. I got a jump start on Christmas shopping  - it snowed lightly on & off Saturday - it was windy & cold - it felt Christmas-y!

We enrolled in Savory French Tarts for our baking class on Sunday. We had a great instructor, the facility was AMAZING and we all learned something new. We also left with 6 full size tarts.....I flew out pretty much straight after the class was over........so Marg & Mom drove back to Connecticut with a car full of delicious!!

Marg & I ran both mornings - Saturday was cold & rainy, but Sunday was clear & we were treated to a beautiful sunrise! So many hills though. So.Many.Hills. My Midwestern legs & lungs were majorly burning!!

We hope to make this a new tradition - it was a wonderful trip to be sure.

2. New Recipe - Pork Shoulder with Plums
Chris & I have been working on eating less meat at home for environmental & economic reasons. Though when the weather turns cold - there is something about having a stash of pork shoulder in the freezer that is quite comforting!!
I found this recipe online - randomly from the BBC!! I also happened to have just purchased a huge box of plums at Costco, so it made good sense to try it.
We ate this over Trader Joe's frozen brown rice (obviously I cooked it!) with a salad & it was a great winter meal!


3. This hat on the Bug

4. Zoo Visit

So many animals were out & about. Verrrrrrrrrrrry few humans. A nice, quiet morning spent with the Bug.

5. Why You Should Stop Yelling at Your Kids
I try not to raise my voice with Lulu - it seems counter productive. I don't like parenting from an angry place - mostly because I try not to live in an angry place!! I found this article to be thoughtful & give concrete ideas for what I might do in place of yelling. I need the alternatives too!

Friday Round Up 9/7/18 - Trolls, Help from Neighbors, Anne is 4, Moroccan Chicken Recipe

TGIF! Hooray for Fridays! Yipppppppeeeeee!

1. Troll Hunting at the Morton Arboretum

Why is it so easy to miss the things that are an hour from home?!?!? I've lived in this area my entire life & had never stepped foot on the grounds of the Morton Arboretum! It was amazing. It is HUGE, full of fun stuff for Lulu & an all around awesome spot. It is within 15 minutes of both the Bolingbrook IKEA and the home of some of our great friends. Which is to say, we will certainly be back!

We went to go on a troll hunt, they have this incredible art installation (which was created on site) of 20-30 foot wooden trolls spread throughout the space. We had 4 kids under 4 in our group, so we only "found" 2 of the 6! We move a bit slowly ;)

It had been a horribly rainy morning but cleared to a hot, humid, sunny afternoon for our adventure. What a treat it was.

2. Help from Neighbors

In order to go on our troll hunting adventure - we needed to have someone feed Owenn dinner & let him out.......of course I didn't think of this until Saturday morning & our dog walker wasn't available on such short notice. Ugh. Enter our amazing neighbor Megan & her adorable family!! Megan was willing to take the Owenn pup on a walk & feed him dinner & generally be amazing. When the neighbor kids wanted to "help" so also entertained them! I am so grateful! She even sent us this photo of their dog walking adventure!! Honestly, how would I get through life without the people on our block?!?

Later this week I was booking one of our fabulous neighbor girls to babysit Lulu so I could have a bit of time to prepare for Chris' parents' arrival for their first visit to Evanston. In the context of the text conversation (which includes the neighbor girl's mom to cross check schedules, etc) my neighbor Phuong offered to nap sit Lulu so I could get a couple things done. This is a buy mom of 5 of her own kiddos - but found the space to offer to lend me a hand. It was so helpful to knock out a bunch of niggling errands both without Lulu & before my in laws arrived.

Great neighbors are a Godsend. Honestly. I paid them back in baked goods (duh) but I don't know if that was enough. I hope so. I am incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such generous people.

3. Anne is FOUR

Our niece Anne turned 4 this week! We celebrated her over the weekend at the Lake & Lulu & I popped in to see her on her actual birthday this week. I love this little lady & the big girl she is quickly turning into.

4. Moroccan Chicken Recipe

Found a delicious slow cooker recipe on the world wide webs this week, made it & it was really good! I should've added a cup or 1.5 cups of chicken stock to the slow cooker - there was not enough sauciness for my liking. We served it over quinoa with naan (the delicious frozen garlic naan from Trader Joe's. If you've never had it - please do yourself a favor & it. You won't be sad that you did!!) I wish it had more sauce for dipping said delicious naan into....

Changes I made to the recipe are as follows:

~Subbed in chopped apricots & prunes for the raisins in recipe

~Subbed capers for the olives. Both just preferences but I would recommend both swaps :) 

~Ignored the recipe spice mix in favor of this jarred mix I have in my spice drawer

~Also - my chicken was done in 3 hours........probably before 3 - mine might have been overcooked at 3 hours. So if your slow cooker is on the larger size.......check your food after 2 hours of cooking on low!!

~Didn't do it,  but will do it next time - add 1-1.5 cups chicken broth to the cooker to amp up the sauce factor

Happy Friday to you & yours! I hope you try the chicken recipe - its incredibly delicious. Happy cooking & happy weekend & happy September!!

S'mores Brownies

Lizzard Loves s'mores.

The kind you make over an outdoor fire (camping, in our backyard, in a friend's backyard), the kind you make over your kitchen's gas stove, even the kind you make in the microwave ;) I love the S'mores Pie from Hoosier Mama Pie Company, and the Golden Grahams based s'mores crispy treats you can buy at Chicago Bagel Authority (or at least you could buy them there 5 years ago.....admittedly its been awhile!). I love to make a copy cat version of the S'mores crispy bars at home. I just love s'mores, mmmmkay?

So imagine my delight when I saw an Instagram post from one of my favorite food bloggers, Joy the Baker featuring Thick S'mores Brownies! What a ridiculously great idea, right??? I love thick & chewy brownies so this recipe intrigued me on more than one front.

I doubled the recipe, because, duh. When a recipe tells me it will yield a measly 9 servings, I know we can do better than that! I also don't have a 9x9 baking dish, let alone 2, so I divided my ridiculous quantity of batter between 1 8x8 dish and 1 9x11 dish, I'm no math magician, but I figured this would work out OK. I also didn't have big marshmallows - I had minis- so we went with those. 

I wasn't kidding - they COMPLETELY filled the pans

Despite some challenges (they took FOREVER to bake, likely 1.5 times as long as is listed on the recipe, they nearly overflowed my pans, the marshmallows browned waaaaaaay before the brownies were baked through) they are amazing. They are ridiculously tall (or thick), rich, chewy, and all around wonderful. Despite baking mine as long as I did, I still worried they were underbaked in the center so I stored them in the fridge to ensure I could do a decent job slicing them. The fridge is a magical place for these brownies! It helped mine stay firm enough to cut (& eat) without them falling apart. I don't typically recommend baked goods of any sort being stored in the fridge - this is a notable exception!

I love to bake, but I don't love to gain 300lbs by eating a double batch of S'mores brownies that called for 1lb of butter, 10 eggs and an insane quantity of sugar & chocolate. I love giving unexpected gifts, so this was a perfect solution to my problem!

I cut the brownies MUCH smaller than the recipe called for, my yield for the double batch far exceeded 18 - likely exceeded 36!! But as I mentioned above - they are insanely thick & rich - so I think I made the right call slicing them into relatively small pieces. I packaged some in mason jars and some in cellophane gift bags and wrote Valentine's messages on gift tags. I happily distributed to some family, friends & neighbors including  porch drop off to a friend whose baby caught this year's flu. Ugh the flu. That I do not love, particularly not this year. Do you find a huge happiness boost when you give unexpected gifts? People tend to receive them gladly without any stress because I have zero expectation that the gift would be reciprocated! And I suppose only a crazy person would frown when gifted a home baked treat ;)

I hope you try this recipe at home - I hope you binge on some brownies & gift some too! According to the recipe, these freeze quite well, so you could do that & give your future self a gift!! 

Friday Round Up 2/9/18- a couple days late!

Lizzard Loves reflecting on the week!

The happy, the good, the giggles in no particular order:

1. Friday Afternoon Play Dates
I love when I host a play date and everything goes smoothly. I invited mamas and babies (from a moms group I started) last Friday afternoon and everyone (seemed to) enjoy themselves! Lulu was the only baby girl amongst a zillion baby boys! We had babies from 4ish months to 10ish months old :) 

I tried a new recipe (which seems like a relatively bad idea when other people are coming over - though its not as though it was the main dish of a dinner party!) for Smitten Kitchen's Hello Dolly Bars. 

They were delectable!! The only thing I changed was swapping walnuts for the pecans and adding a healthy sprinkling of flaky sea salt before I baked them. If you use unsalted nuts - for SURE add the salt; it is a nice touch indeed.


2. Travel Planning
Chris & I decided that we are going to take Lulu to Ireland in the Fall! We really didn't get very far beyond making the plan & picking dates to travel, but it is so fun to have a trip to look forward to.

3,  Text chains
Group messages can be super f-ing annoying. They can also be a most wonderfully enriching way to stay connected to your best friends from college. I love having an ongoing conversation with these girls (who coincidentally are also moms to baby girls) about life, momming, books/TV shows, family, husbands, etc. The conversation can be super active for days in a row or sit silent for a week or so. It doesn't matter, we pick back up where we left off & it just makes me feel like they live so much closer than they do.

4. Snow storms! 
Eek! We got a bunch of snow last night/today! I love the snow, I love love love it. We got maybe 6 inches on top 4 inches we got throughout the week. There is a lot of snow! I love how quiet it makes everything. I love how (early in the week when the sun was shining) it sparkles. Honestly though it sparkles in the streetlights, I suppose I don't need the sun to be out to enjoy the sparkle. I love that our town closed the schools and our neighborhood was crawling with kiddos having snowball fights, building forts, going sledding & just rolling around in the snow like little crazy people. 

I love that Chris & I took Lulu & Owenn on a pre-dawn cross country ski. I love that we were the first people out on the golf course in our neighborhood. 

I love that when I went out walking with Lulu strapped to my back in a hat that kept falling off, multiple people were willing to help me by pulling her hat & hoods back on! I love the sense of community that a good snow storm brings out. Our neighborhood is really friendly on a normal day, but that is amped up on a snow day. All of these things make me very happy.    

As always, I'd love to hear whats making you happy, grateful, laugh in the comments! 

New Year, New Friday Plan + Lentil Soup Recipe

Lizzard Loves plans!

I love lists, New Year's resolutions, goals, big ideas, schedules.........there's a major part of me that is type A ;)

My plan for 2018 (going forward anyway..........because I just cooked up this plan this week.........) is to do a weekly post on Friday with a few things that I'm grateful for, or happy about, or made me laugh. Just some goodness to head into the weekend thinking about! I hope it is a plan I can stick to, I used to keep a grateful journal, but have fallen out of the habit. In many ways this is an appealing new take on my old habit! Please always feel free to tell me in the comments what is making you happy, has you laughing, or has you thanking your lucky stars. I find the more goodness that I put out into the world, the more it comes back to me too!

So here goes!

1. Best friend dinner parties

I am so grateful that I have 2 best friends who I've known since birth (they are a year older/wiser/cooler than me). Our Moms are friends, our siblings grew up together & we are as thick as thieves even now that we are theoretically all grown up. Last night they came over with their plus ones (who are both simply wonderful people too, I suppose not shockingly) and we had a simple meal of soup, salad & bread. We had candles burning, wine open, a fire in the fireplace & so many laughs. Cody brought appetizers & sweets, Stacey brought a million yummy beers, and we all talked and ate and relaxed until almost midnight. You know that I don't stay up late if you've been reading my blog at all. I am a morning person through & through. In this case though, I had no idea it had gotten so late - we were having such a great time. So, insert happy grateful sigh here. What a fun night we had.

2. Lentil Soup (recipe at the end of the post)

I have been on a MAJOR soup kick since the start of 2018. I've made 5 different soups and the Lentil I've made 3 times! Last night I made a giant triple batch of it.........we really like this soup! It is simple, doesn't require crazy ingredients, is vegan, gluten free, nut free if you've got people in your life who need those things (though I am hard pressed to think of a soup that has nuts........hm). This recipe was generously shared by my neighbor - I texted her asking for it & she made a copy from the cookbook & dropped it in my mailbox without ringing the bell in case the Lulu bug was napping! My neighbors make me happy all the time, their generosity, thoughtfulness & kindness seems limitless. I've adapted the recipe to meet my tastes/preferences - I hope you try it & love it as much as we do!

3. Baby Led Weaning

She loves oranges :)

So random, I get it. But we shifted the way we were feeding our little one solids from the traditional spoon fed purees to Baby Led Weaning (more info here on Wikipedia). Why did we switch? Lulu seemed completely disinterested in food/didn't enjoy mealtime/rejected the spoon & whatever was on it. The only times she seemed happy at mealtimes were when I'd let her gum a segment of clementine or suck on an apple I was eating. I had only loosely heard of BLW so obviously did what you do........Googled it! 

Hehehe, black beans were fun to feed!

The premise is to give your 6 month or older baby soft foods in spear shapes so they can grab the food & eat what they want. They learn to chew (in our case anyway) before they have teeth, they make a mess & generally have a ball. Its not for everyone - as your baby learns to eat, they gag & cough to keep food out of their airway. Others have told me they couldn't handle that part of the puzzle. I found reading up on it to be reassuring & helpful - gagging is good! They are learning how much food they can handle & how far back in their mouth it can go! Choking is, on the other hand, bad (duh). Thankfully we have not had any issues with the silent terror that is choking since Lulu started eating this way. This is all a REALLLLLLLLLLLLY long way of telling you that I am SO happy with this way of feeding our daughter. She likes meal time, she reaches for food, she enjoys it. I LOVE FEEDING HER. Again, if you've read my blog at all, you know how much I love food & cooking, so I was really looking forward to starting solid food with our firstborn. It was such a disappointment for me (& her I think!). Needless to say, this continues to make great sense for our family & I'm so glad I tried it.

4. Homemade mochas

Because winter. Because coffee all day. Because chocolate!

5. Smitten Kitchen's Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookie dough in my freezer

Because I can bake cookies for a mom friend whose nanny quit with zero notice. Because she needs something to smile about.

So much chocolate.So much salt. Swoon.

6. Dinner dropped off

Another neighbor dropped off dinner last Friday. Why? Because we had a baby 9 months ago. It was amazing. Both the gesture & the food itself. Not only dinner, but also a gift for Lulu. This is a woman who I know because we see each other out on the sidewalk walking our dogs. She is always friendly & was quite kind to me during my pregnancy. She wanted to apologize for the dinner being so late, as she put it "I know Lulu is about to go to college" :) But honestly - it was almost more appreciated coming when it did!! We didn't have any expectation that we were in line for anymore delicious neighbor provided meals - it came as a complete, total & welcome surprise! Bottom line; if you are considering making a friend/neighbor/coworker/family member dinner for any occasion - do it. The recipient will love it no matter when it comes.

7. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.

I am making this my theme of 2018. I will have fun and make plans and get together with friends and invite people over despite nothing being perfect or finished! There will always be laundry, dirty dishes, dust bunnies (who are we kidding, dust monsters), a barking dog & general messes everywhere. That doesn't mean I have to stay home to deal with them - or can't invite people over to hang in spite of them! Things are not going to be perfect in 2018 - but they are absolutely going to be good - likely even great :)

Lentil Soup Recipe
Adapted from "The Vegetarian Feast"
Serves 4 (easily doubled or tripled so you have some for your freezer!)
Ingredients
1-2 T Olive Oil (a heavy glug to coat the bottom of your soup pot)
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
2 c dried lentils, washed (I used organic green ones from the bulk bins at Whole Foods)
2 bay leaves
2 quarts vegetable or chicken stock (obviously not vegan if you use chicken stock)
2-3 tsp sea salt or kosher salt (or more to taste - if your stock is not labeled low sodium, you probably want to start out with 1 tsp and add more at the end if you need it!)
1-2 tsp black pepper (or more to taste)
Directions
1. Heat the oil in a large heavy bottomed soup pot or cast iron dutch oven over medium heat
2. Add the onion, carrots & celery and saute 5-6 minutes, until the veggies begin to soften
3. Add 1/2 of the garlic and the dried spices and cook another 3-5 minutes until the veggies are soft and the onions are translucent
4. Stir in the lentils, stock, & bay leaves
5. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce to the heat to low, cover the pot and simmer 30 minutes
6. Add the salt & the remaining garlic and continue simmering another 30 minutes-1 hour until the lentils are tender
7. Remove the bay leaves and discard
8. Carefully remove approximately 1/2 of the soup from the pot (I use a large bowl & scoop out the soup) and set aside
9. Using an immersion blender (if you have one) blitz the soup in the pot until no veggies or lentils are visible. This step ensures a thick & creamy soup - if you skip this step, you soup will be more brothy....not my preference! If you don't have an immersion blender, let the soup cool & carefully pour into the pitcher of a regular blender. Please please please don't do this with piping hot soup. You are asking for a soup explosion in your kitchen and a burnt face!! 
10. Return the un-blended soup to the pot (& the blended soup if you used a regular blender), taste & add more salt & pepper as needed. If the soup seems to thin, boil it for a few minutes uncovered to allow some liquid to evaporate. Just make sure to stir it frequently so it doesn't scorch on the bottom.
11. Enjoy with crusty bread (maybe Belle Plaine Bread)& friends & wine!  

Oatmeal Cherry Coconut Cookies - New Recipe

Lizzard Loves cookies. 

Oatmeal Cherry Coconut Cookies. Thanks sissy for the idea!

No one is surprised by this.

Lizzard Loves when people suggest a recipe to try - or a recipe to try to replicate! My sister did just that this week, she had a wonderful cookie at a bakery near her home in Colorado and texted me to inform me I should try to copy it :)

Always glad to oblige!

I found this recipe online - a quick Google search yielded a perfectly good place to start my quest for a delicious copycat cookie.

Here's the recipe I came up with - slightly crunchy on the edges, soft in the middle, great contrast of sweet & salty, good texture from the mix ins, really just a solid cookie all the way around it! I am quite happy with the results - the true test will be when my sister tries it!

Oatmeal Cherry Coconut Cookies

Yield: approximately 2 dozen smallish cookies

(double this recipe - you won't be sad you did)

Ingredients

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teasppon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup dried cherries

3/4 cup sweetened, shredded coconut

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) - at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar - packed

1/8 cup coconut sugar (granulated white sugar is perfectly fine - you'll just have a slightly sweeter cookie)

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

Sea salt for sprinkling (Kosher salt or any flaky/chunky salt will do!)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

2. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt & oats in a medium bowl (or a large one if you are doubling the recipe). Set aside.

3. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer, or by hand if you are Hercules ;) cream the butter with both sugars. Don't rush it- it takes a few minutes.

4. Add the egg & both extracts. Beat on medium speed to fully incorporate.

5. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredient mix you made in step 2. Mix until just incorporated (if you overmix your dough - the cookies' texture is not as delectably tender - they end up tougher. I like my girls tough - not my cookies!)

6. Keeping the mixer on low- add the dried cherries & coconut. See above about overmixing! It'll only take a few rotations to get the ingredients incorporated.

7. Using your favorite mini scoop (or your hands, or a spoon) - ball the dough & put it on parchment lined baking sheets.

8. Sprinkle the tops with kosher salt, sea salt, flaky/chunky salt of any kind. (this step is technically optional - but the slight crunch & the contrast of the sweet & salt makes it 100% worth it).

9. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are slightly golden.

10. Cool on the baking sheets for slightly firmer cookies, cool on a rack for slightly chewier cookies (I go chewier every time)

I hope you enjoy these as much I did! They were a lovely addition to my afternoon cup of tea :) Please feel free to suggest new recipes for me to try to copy! I'm always game for a challenge!