Aunt Milly's Cookies!

Last night a bunch of us "Natale" ladies went over to my cousin Susan's to learn how to make Aunt Milly's cookies. Aunt Milly is now in her 80's and threatens at every holiday that she's "too old" to make the cookies anymore. And in case that ever actually comes to pass, Susan had the great idea for Aunt Milly to transfer her knowledge onto us. With the recipe alone, we'd have been a disaster for as it turns out, Aunt Milly has her own touches that make the recipe truly hers.

Aunt Milly and her apprentices:

Jen (me), Jen Natale, Ally (Chris' girlfriend), Jenny Tighe, Kara Tighe

Yes, Aunt Milly broke her wrist :( So it was a good thing we had a lot of helpers.

We started out by laying the saran wrap on the counter and putting out the cooling racks on top. Its VERY important to do this first so you're ready to go... and well, hopefully there's enough room to put everything else you need on the counter too.

In a mixing bowl, put in 1 cup sugar and melted butter which has been cooled. Crack one egg, ensure there are no shells, then beat the egg before adding to the sugar/butter mixture. Repeat until you’ve added all the eggs.


It was a very long process. Especially with Gram whispering in my ear "you don't need to whip them in a separate bowl one at a time!" I was waiting for someone to just toss them all in the bowl. But we were trying to be good students and heed the wisdom of our Chef.



Add flavor, 2 tsps vanilla and 1 tsp orange juice. Add 2 cups flour- one cup at a time, sifting it as you pour into the bowl. Then add 6 heaping teaspoons of baking powder and mix. Then add 2 more cups of sifted flour and mix.

Mom with the antique flour sifter. Which fell into the bowl of batter no less than 3 times during the process-- something that may or may not have anything to do with the fact that Mom was trying to break the rules and put 2 cups of flour in there at once instead of 1. We all agreed that Aunt Milly has trained that sifter to only accept the maximum amount of flour that should be put into the recipe at once and go on strike should the operator try to push it ;)

Stirring the batter was hard work... but as you can see Kara was stirring with a smile. Think that Reisling was helping her attitude.

And if you know any single men or tv producers, this is also Kara's audition footage for Real Housewives of Boston.

Linda gets some muscle into it :)

I think the sifter broke again. Good job Mom!

Finally we could scoop them out on the Crisco greased cookie sheets.

Some already done. Some waiting for the oven. We had a little bit of trouble getting them to cook at 375 in 12-15 minutes but we made it work.

When cool, frost cookies- 6 at a time, and then sprinkle with a generous amount of sprinkles. Repeat until all cookies are finished.

The OFFICIAL Sprinkles are exihibited here on the left. The imposters that Susan bought are on the right. Take note :)

Aunt Milly must have been getting tired, because she let Kara and I pretty much exclusively handle the frosting and sprinkling. I mixed up the frosting and Kara added the finishing touch.

But Aunt Milly was still keeping a close eye on us.

Kara is super impressed.

Can you blame her!? We pulled it off.

Not one burnt cookie!

The final product!

Doesn't it look delicious?

It was!

Thanks Aunt Milly for teaching us this recipe. Though none of us will ever do this as well as you, we'll do our best to carry on this very important family tradition.

For this I am very thankful today!

Happy Thanksgiving!

stuff that's making me happy RIGHT NOW

A few TREATS on this day before Halloween!

This Halloween TREAT!

Recipe here

{{ I just might make this tonight as a treat for my friends and family tomorrow}}

This Holiday Card!

{{some of you might see this in your mailbox come December}}
although many of you know I still have Christmas projects
circa 2008 that have not yet been finished
so in case i don't get around to it--- here's how beautiful it could be!

These BOOTS!

i don't know why but I'm obsessed with the idea of these boots
and they're on sale at the REI outlet.
i might have them shipped to my local store
figure I've got nothing to lose!!

Beautiful Pumpkins! how gorgeous are these?!

almost makes me sad the Halloween is tomorrow

if I'd done them earlier I'd have enjoyed them this Halloween season


Happy Halloween!!

back to programming as usual

i'm back.
home.
feels good.
though i do miss my girls- team dash.
we made a good team!

(((3 Day review and pictures to follow- too tired tonight)))

so yeah.
its good to be home.
i missed dan.
and i thiiink he missed me too ;)
its good to be back to work.
its good to be back in a routine.

typical wednesday. went to the gym with kim.
stopped at Whole Foods on the way home.
I met a nice man from the Cape who was sampling
Toasted Sesame dressing. MMMmm!
Will definitely be buying that
to make some Asian salads in the near future.
Then I got hit on by a worker stocking the shelves.
"You just come from the gym?" he asked.
"I did."
"The outfit gave you away."
I go back to looking for agave to make granola later...
"Well whatever you're doing, its working! You look great!"
"Thank you"

geeeez. you don't hear that every day.
but after 1 day back at the gym I'll take it! lol

then i met another nice man,
a cheese farmer from vermont.
the cheese was delicious
and the profits benefit a local children's camp
or something very quaint and touching like that.
best $7 i've spent in a long time.

picked up my farm share on the way home.
stopped into the library to pick up a veggie soup cookbook
that was waiting for me.
the librarian knows me now and we chat when i pick up/drop off.
she's heard great reviews about this cookbook
(and put it on hold for herself for when i return it)

simple things.
but i love my routine.
local community.
local food.

i had some late season corn and a sweet potato with scallions for dinner.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!

root veggies are in the crockpot so i'll have lunch and dinner tomorrow
(and for some days thereafter).

homemade granola is in the oven.
can't wait to try it out.
(edited to add-- granola is YUM- here's the recipe).

now its cuddle time on the couch.
have a great night!

a fresh start

i woke up in a fantastic mood this morning!

yes, its monday

but last week is officially over

and i'm ready for a new week.

its sunny

and fairly warm outside.

i got some beautiful flowers from my CBeds team

as a thank you for my hard work last week

which was really sweet of them.

of course gerber daisies are my favorite, so couple that with the fact that they are fall themed colors and you've got one very happy camper.

------------------------

my coworker just walked in and commented on my pretty gerbers and when i told her who they were from she said "aww, they're nervous breakdown flowers."

i said: "yes, they're thanks for not having a full on mental breakdown flowers."

she said "and please don't leave this job flowers."

i added "we may need you to do this again at some point and want you to remember these flowers flowers"

all of which is true :) and i'm ok with it.

-----------------------------

this weekend was a good one.

friday night i got home late after finally fixing the outstanding cbeds issue. watched "its always sunny" and "the office" two shows that always, without a doubt make me laugh. and i needed that.

saturday was my favorite kind of fall saturday. got up. cleaned up a bit. took a shower, got back in my pjs and climbed into bed to watch a Scrubs marathon (hoping to fall asleep. that never happened). made some homemade applesauce in the crock pot. i highly recommend it! takes 5 minutes to chop it up and a few hours later you have some seriously yummy stuff (makes a great dessert when served warm over vanilla ice cream). did my grocery shopping in the afternoon and then dan and i finished cleaning the rest of the house. i love when everything is squeaky clean, right down to the floors. at night we had matt, kris and the kids over for dinner :)

sunday was dad's birthday dinner. riley kept most of us entertained with her cute antics, while the patriots win kept dan occupied. gram arrived later and got us playing cards which is always fun, even if she can't always remember all the rules and melissa inadvertantly cheats by looking at her cards every other hand (blaming pregnancy brain) lol :) all in good fun!

how cute is this kid in her new pink kicks? she loved her beads (which grammy brought home from aunt rachel's house last weekend. riley spent the day sharing her beads with everyone- even uncle danny had them on for a few!!)

all in all, a great weekend.

Like to Cook?

Well, I've got a new blog you might enjoy.

But since when do I cook, you might ask? And why in the world would I start another blog? Here's some insight into my crazy head these days:

Since when do I like cooking?

I've been a vegetarian since last September, almost a year now, and I've found that I've been cooking more and more... almost in self-defense. Often times when I go to a party or for a visit to a friend or family member's house, I'm not sure if there will be any vegetarian options, nor do I think its their obligation to provide one if it wasn't already in the plan. So I try to bring something. Its the polite thing to do anyways, isn't it?

Also, I signed up for a farm share of Heaven's Harvest Farm and since the end of June I've been getting a weekly supply of fresh organic produce delivered to a house in Scituate for me to pick up and enjoy. That too has sort of forced cooking upon me, which was the intent (don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining here). Some of the foods I knew how to use and could easily be eaten raw, in a salad, or some other commonly prepared dish. But others I've never even seen before. How to use lemon balm-- and what the heck is that? What do you do with bok choy or green cabbage? I already paid for the produce, and I certainly wasn't going to let it go bad without at least attempting to make something delicious out of it, so I looked up recipes. And I tried many of them... and thus far, most of them have come out great. The more I cook, the easier it gets, and the better the food tastes.


I've also done a lot of reading lately on nutrition, the world food economy, the history of different legislation related to how we eat and what we eat. Its scary. I'm still working on synthesizing it into something that's not a zillion pages long so that I can somehow share this information in a way that's useful but not so intimidating... but in the meantime, suffice it to say that the basics of what I've read comes down to this- make as much of your food as you can at home. Use foods that are fresh, local, contain as little ingredients as possible (i.e. whole foods like fruits, veggies etc), and are ideally organic. Avoid processed foods whenever humanly possible. The crazy chemicals that they put into this stuff is unreal (never mind the chemicals manufacturers use in the packaging to preserve the food, which they don't even have to disclose)... And while, no, I haven't fully gotten to the point where all my meals are fresh, local, organic and homemade- I'm making an effort, which again the more I do it, the more I enjoy it. It might take a little longer, but there's nothing compared to a well-prepared meal at home.

Why the new blog??

At this point I still have a lot to learn, but at least I'm confident enough to share my creations with others- usually even the first time I make a new recipe (thus far it hasn't backfired). I've also collected enough recipes that I've developed the problem that seems to be common amongst every woman I've talked to lately-- how to store all these recipes? A binder full of scraps of paper that messes up the kitchen? A recipe box that is never up to date? A computer file that's inaccessible when the food's in the kitchen and the computer's in the office (and you're trying to avoid printing a recipe each time you make it)...

I started trying to use links in Word with a table of contents. I soon realized that was ridiculous and why couldn't Word just be as simple as this blog where I can label things. And there was my AH-HA! moment (and, no, I don't think Oprah deserves any of my money for using that phrase). Blogger CAN handle my recipe collection... This way, its available anywhere I happen to be, I can share it with friends, I can label things according to food or category, and best of all, I can make it available to anyone else who wants something new to cook.

So here it is: Jen's Recipe Blog

What's on there?
I'm a vegetarian, so are there only vegetarian recipes? Nope. I do cook meat for Dan (occassionally), and have made some other recipes in the past that are just great. Figured I might as well share those.

I've also got some great old family recipes. My mom was thoughtful enough to scan some old recipe cards, preserving the handwriting of my grandmothers (only 2 thus far, but I am going to make a point to do that with all of the old recipe cards I have).

Recipes from friends. A few I've made myself. Others I haven't, but I have enjoyed them when prepared by others and can certify that they are delicious.

For the most part these are all recipes I've actually made and know for sure they are good (in my opinion). A few I haven't made... but that's rare.

If you have any recipes you love and want to send them to me, I'll be glad to post them and then you too won't have to search for these random recipes on scraps of paper and random computer folders. Glad to be of service if I can help.

So check it out. I'm still going through files and finding recipes I'd like to put in here. I'll keep adding to the catalogue of recipes. Let me know what you think!