A different take on cookies

Life is busy lately and I've needed a mental break from trying to think of anything creative because with two toddlers I fear creativity will never come back! We love cookies in our house, especially chocolate chip. Here's what I do when we make ours. They're not healthy but they are tasty!

What you need:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup brewer's yeast (buy on Amazon or local health food shop)
1 cup softened butter or coconut oil
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 white sugar (you can probably omit the plain white, but I haven't tried it)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp blackstrap molasses
2 extra large eggs
12 oz of semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts or hazelnuts, optional

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix first four dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.  Cream butter, sugars, vanilla extract and molasses in large mixing bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time. Gradually add in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate and nuts. Scoop onto cookie sheet with cookie scoop for even cookies. Bake for 9-11 minutes on metal pan or 11-13 on stoneware reducing time as needed. Makes 48-60 cookies.

Tot loves helping make these as does Daredevil. I measure it out and they put it in the mixer bowl. It's a half hour of hamony and peace in the kitchen.

I'm a smurf!

Well, my hand is. It looks like this today.....

The reason it does is because I found an egg dye kit that I had squirreled away from Easter and decided that today was a good day to dye some stuff.  My hand included.  So, after waking up this morning I threw some eggs in a a pot of water after I cracked one open just by trying to pick it up out of the carton.  And I was mad that I lost an egg and unfortunately let out an inappropriate word for Tot to hear and let his spongelike brain to add to the repository for future reference.   While the eggs were cooking and then cooling I grabbed a skein of wool that is slated to be turned onto a pair of longies for No Fear Baby. 

That was the first one I grabbed on my shelf and so began the process of unravelling it so I could turn it into a roll I could use to dye.  The job should have taken me 45 minutes to do but with Baby attempting to yank my pants down and Tot just being his overexcited normal self.  But, it took me two hours with all the distractions.  This is what it looked like when I got done.  Pardon the chair.  I need to strip it and repaint it but that's not on the list until Spring of 2011. 

If you do this make sure you wrap it around the widest part of your chair.  Or you'll be a fool like me and have to unwind ten minutes in and restart because you aren't able to get the wool off the chair at the end.  Then I secured it with some strands to keep the wool together without getting tangled up while working with it. 

Then I stuck the whole thing in a my wool lanolizing bucket, after I thoroughly wiped it out, in a cup of warm water and a cup of vinegar and let it soak while Tot and I dyed our eggs.

So when were done with the egg dyeing there's no sense in wasting good dye and another good activity.  So I gently squeezed out the water from the wool and took a section and stuck it in the dye and let it sit for a couple minutes to soak up the dye.  This is where Tot looked at it and said eww even though he was fascinated with what was going on and stuck around the entire time.  He just chose to not become a smurf.

When we did all the sections this is what it looked.

Then we stuck the whole mess into a microwave safe bowl and nuked it for three minutes and then gave the wool a rest for five minutes.  We repeated the heating two more times.  I let the bowl sit in the microwave for about an hour and a half when the whole thing was just cool enough to touch but still hot.  Tot came in and watched on this part because it was too hot for him to touch.  I hung it from my shower curtain rod with the lanolizing bucket underneath to catch any water drips.  So, it should be dry in a couple days and ready to wind into a ball to be made into something.  Although knowing Tot the longies will turn into a soaker for him which is fine because then it'll be that much better since he helped.  Maybe he'll actually wear them! 

So this was the afternoon with Tot.  It was enjoyable.  He had a good time and I'm a smurf.  I got a tantrum free afternoon to enjoy Tot and all of his silliness.  And it was two activities for the price of one.  All in all for a monetary cost it was under $10.  $1.78 for the eggs, $5.99 for the wool and $0.99 for the egg dye bought before the holiday.  It was fun and an activity I'd do again because Tot had fun.  He was excited to get in the thick of things with the egg dyeing.  I couldn't convince him to double dip the eggs but this is what we did anyway.  The eggs will still be good enough to eat and I think they'll have to be devilled eggs. 

And next time you're looking for a fun activity for the kids and don't mind a little mess give this a whirl.  The only part that wasn't safe for child handling was hanging the wool to dry.  Otherwise, Tot got right in the thick of things with his quick little three-year-old hands and had a blast!  Happy dyeing!