Pumpkin Seeds

My grandma used to put the pumpkin seeds in the oven and toast them when we were done carving jack-o'-lanterns. I always thought they were super tasty and decided to give it a try. I'm not sure if it was a bad guess at what temperature and for how long to toast the seeds or the Mrs. Dash that really made these awful. So gross. But I like the pre-oven picture.

More Cookies

I'm guessing these were chocolate chip cookies. More Toll House...

Strawberry Cookies

"What kind of cookies should we make?"

"Strawberry."

I'd never heard of strawberry cookies. Were they pink cookies? Did they just have pink frosting? Were they just in the shape of a strawberry? Rather than go to the Internet and hear what everyone else thought a strawberry cookie was, I started asking myself what the Little One might have found lacking in previous batches of cookies. Were they dry? Did she not get to use the rolling pin enough? The answer, I decided, was to buy premade sugar cookie dough and a jar of strawberry jam. Voila. Strawberry cookies.

No stores in our neighborhood had the cans of Pilsbury dough, so we bought the Duncan Hines sugar cookie mix. This worked out better for incorporating the rolling pin. One cookie in the shape of a Superman glass, add some jam, top with another cookie in the shape of a Superman glass minus a heart or star cut-out. Bake. Strawberry cookies (that are not so easy to layer in a narrow Tupperware container).

Toll House Recipe

Chocolate chip cookies with chopped pecans. What they lack in adventure, they make up for in taste.

Cookies

I don't know what we're making here... LV's grimace implies it's either too hot to deal with Scrappy's questions or there are too many ingredients in that bowl.

There was no blog when this was shot, so there are no pictures of the final product. There's a video where I think LV is telling Meg to add the coconut (and he seems happier), so most likely they were the Oatmeal Scotchie alternates that have toffee and coconut...

(Note: She's not really that tall. Her step stool made it a lot easier to reach the countertop.)

Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Pinwheels

I made a bunch of these for Christmas 2005, thinking I would send them to all my relatives as gifts. (There was a picture in Woman's Day with littls stacks of pinwheels tied with ribbon...) But I was baking them on Christmas Day. You kind of lose your enthusiasm for sending out Christmas gifts come December 26. Especially when only about a dozen of the cookies actually looked gift-worthy. (A lot were cracked and broken from the dough not being very pliable when it was rolled together.)

This is a photo of the second attempt at the pinwheels. It was also the first time Scrappy had ever used a rolling pin. Not that helping roll them out made her any more enthusiastic about eating a cookie that didn't have chocolate chips in it. I thought they were tasty enough to make in March, though.

Sara's Wedding

I didn't make the food at my friend Sara's wedding, but I was taking pictures at the table, so I've decided that means they automatically get to be included here.

We ate that...

It's hard to believe how much can change in a year. I used to think McDonald's breakfast was a little slice of heaven. Then I started to eat it every weekend.

It's also hard to believe this blue thing in the picture was the closest thing to a dining room table the little one had ever known. It's a beat-up blue folding chair turned to face the couch. Those are her pancakes with jelly and my coffee. 2005...

(Yeah, if you're following the dates posted here, we were baking cookies at my place on the night of the 16th, eating breakfast at LV's place on the 17th. And those two places were not exactly close to each other.)

Oatmeal Toffee Coconut Confections

After surrendering all of our Oatmeal Scotchies to the public school system, LV decided he wanted to make more. Immediately. Unfortunately, the Food World in my neighborhood didn't have the right Toll House butterscotch chips, so I took the recipe off the back of the Heath chips bag and we made some oatmeal cookies with Heath bits and coconut. They were really good. I have no pictures, though, of the product. Just of LV helping make cookies at my apartment (a slightly larger workspace).

[Note: The fan is on in the middle of December. So the opposite of the new place.]

Bake Sale!

2006 was sadly a year without Oatmeal Scotchies. I don't even have a picture of the Oatmeal Scotchies--just this picture of all the tiny workspace I had for baking cookies for Scrappy to take to school the next day for a bake sale. They were good. And then somehow they just never got made in 2006. (There were always more votes for Strawberry Cookies or Chocolate Chip Cookies.)

Best. Vacation. Ever.

I did not make this food (note: styrofoam), but I was starving and we had a great view of the beach from this dirty Mexican food stand. I can only hope I enjoy every meal as much as I enjoyed whatever this was in San Diego...