Today was pretty good, all things considered. It was my birthday. I’ve heard people talk about dreading growing older. When I was younger I couldn’t wait to grow older, and now that I am older, I can’t really say as I dread it. I dread the aches and pains that come with it. But all in all, not bad day. A friend took me to lunch. By ourselves, no kids. It’s nice to have a quite meal. And it’s important for a parent’s mental well-being to have a meal or activity that does not include their child or revolve around their child in some way.
Yesterday was a bit of a downer. The death of a pet will do that do you. The kids have been reassured that we will get another cat. And I am concerned. From our conversations, it is pretty clear that they believe another cat will fill the hole left by Mariah. That leads me to believe I haven’t explained life and death all that clearly.
The only bummer about today is that the Overnight Meringues that I started last night did not turn out right this morning. They had the expected hard outer shell, but inside instead of being chewie, they were gooey. I’m not exactly sure where I went wrong. I made sure the egg whites were room temperature, I tried to avoid over-beating the eggs, I added the sugar slowly, I gently folded in the nuts and chocolate, and I made sure the oven had a long warming process.
In response to this fail, I chose to do Peanut Butter Blossoms for the recipe for tonight. A very easy recipe with a low chance of failure. Something to get my confidence back after my gooey meringues, I guess.
Overnight Meringues
Overnight Meringues
2 egg white
1/2 C sugar
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 C chopped pecans
1 C semisweet chocolate morsels
Beat egg whites (at room temperature) until foamy. Gradually add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks form. Add flavorings; mix well. Fold in pecans and chocolate morsels. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto aluminum foil-lined cookie sheets. Place in a 350F oven; immediately turn oven off. Let stand 8 to 10 hours or overnight. (Do not open over.) Store in an airtight container.
Peanut Butter Blossoms
Peanut Butter Blossoms
1/2 C shortening
1/2 C peanut butter
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 egg
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
1/4 C granulated sugar
Milk chocolate kisses
1. In a large mixing bowl bet the shortening and peanut butter with an electric mixer on medium speed 30 seconds. Add the 1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Beat until combined, scraping the sides of bowl. Beat in egg, milk, and vanilla till combined. Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer Stir in remaining flour.
2. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in the 1/4 cup sugar. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350F for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are firm and bottoms are lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate kiss into each cookie’s center.
Whether you are an early bird or a night owl, there is one thing we can all agree on – a rush in the morning to get to school and work is almost always guaranteed to get a person off to a bad start. Last night I wrapped everything up at around half past midnight, but I still had clothes in the washer and I hadn’t put myself together (I like to do some preening pre-bedtime as it usually saves time in the morning). Without my husband’s nudges this morning, I would not have been able to drag myself out of bed before 7. Thanks to this, my morning and even my whole work day just went that much more smoothly.
However, rush is inevitable when you have 5 kids, a job, and multiple extracurriculars. I want to make sure I got my Christmas recipe done for today, and since today was the cookie exchange at my local MOMs group, I figured the best option was to bake some bars between 4pm when I got off work and 6pm when the cookie exchange started so I could bring some. Never rush baking! Actually, it wasn’t so bad. I did misread 1/3 as 1/2, so there was a bit more peanut butter than necessary, but otherwise the recipe came out as expected. Only a few problems came up: 1) I was so focused on getting the recipe done that I forgot to take pictures of the individual steps, 2) my patience with my kids grew rather thin, and 3) the bars hadn’t had time to cool properly before I cut them up in preparation for the cookie exchange. Not really huge problems, but annoying. Sadly I will not be redoing the cookies just so I can take pictures of the various steps.
When it comes to kids and patience the best course of action for me is to try and give them jobs. The more they feel like they are helping, the less likely they are to try and commandeer your project. My kids got the jobs of spoon licker and bowl scraper! In all seriousness, I was running through the recipe so fast, I didn’t really give them a chance to help. Which makes me sad, since I still didn’t get the bars done soon enough to cool completely before I left for MOMs group. It’s like speeding to work only to clock in late anyway.
I’m glad I got the cookies done, though, one more thing to check off my imaginary to-do list.
Anyways…today I made something called Babe Ruth bars. The recipe comes from the same cookbook as yesterday, “Many Gifts, One Spirit: Memories and Recipes”. Another recipe that I have never tried before. It came out good, despite the fact that I added 1/2 cup of peanut butter instead of the 1/3 cup that the recipe actually called for.
I took half the pan to the MOMs group cookie exchange, along with two dozen of yesterday’s pfeffernusse, and came back with an empty container and a plate full of a delicious assortment of other cookies. I also won a spoon holder during the Christmas games, which seems very appropriate for my mission this month!
Babe Ruth Bars
1/2 C butter
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1/3 C peanut butter
1 C flour
Dash of salt
1/2 tsp [baking] soda
1 C oatmeal
1 C milk chocolate chips
Cream butter, sugar, egg, peanut butter and vanilla. Add flour, salt, soda and oatmeal. Pat in 9×13 pan (greased) and bake for 25 minutes at 350F. *DO NOT OVERBAKE.* Remove from oven and pour milk chocolate chips over top. Return to oven for a few minutes until melted and spread over cookies.
Between work and school and trying to keep my house from becoming a hazardous waste site, it’s been difficult for me to even begin to think about how to make the holidays something special for my kids. Now, holidays will come and go whether I do something about them or not, and I’ve had years where I barely get presents wrapped before Christmas morning, and years where Santa forgot whose present was whose or even which stocking belonged to which kid. I always try to make sure Christmas is special, but sometimes it’s a struggle. Recently, however, I changed jobs and reduced my work hours (and my pay! ugh), and I’ve started feeling better about preparing for the holidays. I decided that this year, we will prepare for Christmas by making a different Christmas related recipe each day starting December 1st and ending on December 24th. I guess I decided to make up for all the years I had mediocre holidays in one month!
I so browsed cookbooks, recipe cards, and the internet and curated 24 different recipes to try to make before Christmas. I did the shopping, and I noted which recipes I felt I could do the first week. Now, I’m not entirely crazy, I did make sure to have a few recipes that don’t require a lot of time or prep, because I do have kids, and I do still have to go to work. But still, I started to think maybe I had bit off more than I could chew. None the less, I selected pfeffernusse for my first recipe. I don’t know why. I’ve never made pfeffernusse before. At least it was a Sunday, so if everything went sideways I had time to regroup and try again. With that in mind I started mixing up the dough around 11am Sunday morning. Only to realize after I added the last ingredient, that the next step said “refrigerate overnight”. Folks, this is why it is always important to read every step of the instruction manual before pushing the start button.
Through the whole mixing process my kids were great! The first thing you need to know about my kids is they like to help. Love to help even. If momma is doing something, they are right there, offering their grimy hands to stir or kneed or taste or what have you. But today was great! They willingly washed up when I asked, they took turns bringing me ingredients, they even helped each other find what I needed. I was starting to think we were making wonderful Christmas memories together.
Learning that the dough needed to be refrigerated was a bit of a setback, but I figured four or five hours in the fridge would be just as good as overnight. And after all, it was coming up on lunch, so a little break would give me time to get everyone fed and some of the mess cleaned up before trying to mold and bake the cookies. I figured the hard part was over: dough was made, mess was cleaned, and everyone was fed. Dear reader, this blog is called the parenting struggle because the struggle is real for us parents. And let me tell you, maybe it was the influx of calories at lunch, maybe it was the pent up tension form the morning spent prepping cookies only to have nothing to show for it, but the afternoon was a mess.
The littlest was crying because the dog sniffed her face. The oldest drank the can of pop that the middle had opened for herself, and then just stared at me as if I was speaking Latin when I asked him what he was thinking drinking from a random open can. The second oldest was upset that I wouldn’t let him browse YouTube, which is not a thing we allow in our house, and he can only do so when he sneaks onto our phones, which is a whole other issue, and I know I’m going to have trouble when he reaches his teen years and the hormones hit. And the second to youngest wanted to play a board game in the worst way and absolutely could not wait for me to finish cleaning up from lunch; he also couldn’t be bothered to help in the cleaning process so I could play with him that much sooner.
Parents in these situations, there are few options. I chose option “put on a Disney movie and plop everyone in front of it so I can manage my chaos”. There is a time and a place for screen time, and for me this was it.
I decided to wait until after dinner to make the cookies, just to give them that much more time to cool in the fridge. (If you’ve ever made pfeffernusse before, you know the dough is pretty thick.) Now, refer back to where I said my kids love to help. Parents, there is a fine line between allowing your children to help you with something so they learn life skills and just kicking everyone out of the kitchen so you can get shit done.
We were approaching 7pm. The dough (enough to make over 80 cookies I discovered after all the baking was done) needed to be rolled into balls and spaced evenly on a sheet pan and baked for 10 minutes per batch. And of course the kids wanted to have a hand in it. Each dough ball got fondled by at least three sets of hands before making it to the sheet. Someone would press too hard and the ball would break apart. Or someone would fumble the ball and it would wind up on the floor. Multiple times someone would get distracted and run off to play with a toy, and when they would come back the process would get stalled as we waited for them to wash their hands, again. It was slow going.
But in the end we prevailed! We have almost 7 dozen powder coated cookies to show for all of our hard work!
The recipe I used came from “Many Gifts, One Spirit: Memories and Recipes”, a cookbook compiled by my grandparent’s church from member submissions. If I could change anything about this recipe I would note that the Karo syrup should be of the dark variety. I used the light syrup, and I feel it leaves something to be desired.
Pfeffernuesse
1 C sugar
1 C margarine (I used salted butter)
1 2/3 C Karo syrup (I would recommend dark syrup)
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda in a little hot water
1 tsp cloves (ground)
1 heaping tsp cardamom
7 1/4 C flour
Cream together sugar and margarine. Then add Karo syrup and eggs to mixture; beat well. Add dry ingredients and stir together well. Chill overnight in a covered container. Roll in small balls and back on cookie sheet at 350F for about 10 minutes. Roll in powdered sugar when cooled. The older the cookies are, the better they taste!
Thank you for coming along on my journey. Hang in there, we’re all doing the best we can!
The Parenting Struggle 