Making Cookies

I packed up the ingredients for 2 kinds of cookies I wanted to make for Christmas gifts for a few of my 'guy friends'. I could of course make them at home, but wanted to go visit my Mom so decided to do both at the same time. I should have just come home after TOPS and gone to bed, or visited Mom for a while and come home early to bed. I went on to 'overload' in tired and in pain. However, I managed to get it done in the end, and still drive the 25 minutes home.

First I made Shortbread Cookies using a recipe given to me by my friend Cat Gee. They didn't turn out as great as Cat said they would be, so obviously not as great as hers turn out. Firs, they took a lot of mixing to get them 'smooth and creamy', then I could only put 1 pan of 12 cookies into the oven at a time. The recipe said bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes until golden on bottom of cookies. Well, Mom swears her oven is right so I don't know why, but it was taking around 25-30 minutes to get them to golden on the bottoms. When baking the 2nd dozen I was checking to see if they were done and WHOOF, the pan fell and there were broken cookies all over the inside of the oven!!! I was not happy!!! I cleaned up the mess and got the 3rd dozen in to bake. Mom was gone to get us some dinner from Subway when this happened and came home to see me cleaning up the last of the mess. She said stuff like this has happened to her too, so that helped a lot. It helped me to see I'm not such an idiot as I was feeling like until then.

Shortbread finally done, I started the Peanut Butter Balls. These ones don't get baked and though a bit fiddly, they are easy to make and are very healthy. Ingredients include flax meal, oat bran, carob chips and powder, honey &/or maple syrup... stuff like that. When all is mixed together, you roll it into little bitty balls that you roll in chopped nuts, or chia seeds, or coconut, or quinoa, or sesame seeds, or whatever else you can think of like that. They are so YUMMY and well worth the work to make them. I think I'll make another batch to give to my brother and his wife.