Put it on the Calendar

I cannot live without my calendar.  I admit it.  I'm talking old-school sits on the desk and you write on it calendar.

Watching news of all the devastating wildfires this past summer, I’ve actually thought about what I would grab if I had to rush out of my house.  Obviously I would be sure all the people made it out.  Belongings that make the list are jewelry, make-up, pictures, laptop, cell phone, anything that has bits and pieces of my life stored in there.  But here’s my list in order:  pictures, calendar, then jewelry and that other stuff (I might have put make-up higher on that list, but I learned my lesson.  When moving here I brought a year’s worth of Maybelline in case you can’t buy make-up in the Midwest but it turns out you can).  So yes, the calendar even goes before my recipes.  I truly cannot function without that thing.

I know most people don’t write on calendars any more.  I too have a cell phone and a Kindle and a laptop.  I do have a calendar app on my Kindle and I have used it.  But here’s the thing.  I don’t have my kindle on every minute of the day.  I walk by the desk in my kitchen all day long.  I can glance down at that calendar and know everything I need to know about that day and even that month in just a minute’s time.  My schedule, everyone’s schedule is there.  I use different colors for the boys and for Husband to keep track of their schedules.  My “to do” list for the day is on there, but mine’s written in pencil so I can erase an item and put it on the next day, and then the next, and then the next.  So if I ever have to leave in a hurry, that old-fashioned calendar goes with me or this family would end up sitting on the curb paralyzed. 

My kids can be trying, h*ll (heck) everyone’s kids can be trying.  I’ve given them advice, I’ve given them tools, but it is beyond me how it is possible that they are so disorganized.  Clearly they need a calendar…and a bulldozer for the mess they call their rooms. Half the time they can’t find what they’re looking for and I certainly get why. And no matter what they think, I categorically deny that I sneak into their rooms and hide their belongings (although I do admit to the overwhelming temptation).  If it’s something I want them to find, the stock answer is “I don’t know where it is, we need to buy another one”.  Shoes from 3rd grade, pencil nubs, random pieces of paper with notes long forgotten, trash from the food they’re not supposed to be eating in their rooms, all that we can find.

Hidden Peppermint Patty Cookies

It’s not just at home either.  I buy them file folders and accordion folders and whatever they need to keep school work organized.   More times than not everything is just shoved into their backpack, or folded 10 times into a little square and put into a pocket of the backpack along with gum wrappers and tech decks.  Yes, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.  I buy them flash drives to keep their school work on and they come home with school issued loaner flash drives because they can’t find theirs.  I have a kid who isn’t organized enough to … say … take his book to school for an open-book test.  And you ask why I’m stressed.

 I do love my kids, I tell them and they know it (well, I think ONE of them knows it).  But sometimes the conversation goes like this:

Hidden Peppermint Patty Cookies
                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

 

**NOTE: My recipe for Homemade Peppermint Patties can be found here: Addicted To Candy

 Ingredients:  
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softenend
1/2 cup sugar 
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
24 mini peppermint patties, unwrapped and cold (keep in fridge) Opt: use a regular sized patty and cut into quarters
1 - 2 squares of vanilla bark
green food coloring

Directions:
*Beat softened butter, sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in egg.
*Mix in flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda.
*Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate about an hour.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
*Break dough into 24 approximately equal size pieces.
*Give each piece a quick roll between 2 pieces of wax paper. Don't worry about it being even, just get it flattened.
*Put a peppermint patty in the center of each dough piece.
*Manipulate the dough around the patty with your hand. Make sure all of the patty is covered.
*Bake, 1 dozen per baking sheet, for about 13 minutes until they are set. Leave on the baking sheet for 1 - 2 minutes, then remove and cool completely.
*Melt vanilla bark in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Keep microwaving at 15 second intervals until completely smooth. Add food coloring.
*Drizzle the melted bark over the cookies. Let them set before touching them.

This recipe was adapted from Double Chocolate Cookies with a Peppermint Patty Surprise by pipandebby.com (which was itself adapted from Rachael Ray's Everyday magazine).

Acorns and Apples

 

**NOTE:  I’ve been enjoying a blogosphere full of Fall recipes since August and Halloween recipes since the beginning of September.  My blog is more of a stress-relief and venting sort of thing, much more of-the-moment. If you’re here for recipes chances are you took a wrong turn somewhere.  I don’t make pumpkin anything in August and I have a hard-and-fast rule, no Halloween until October 1st. What I’m making now are my family’s favorites, and this is when I’m making them. 

 Although I am truly a summer person, there are just some things about Fall that always end up on my “love it” list.  First is what my son and I call sleeping weather.  It’s cool enough to sleep comfortably but not so cold yet that getting out of bed results in frostbite.  Second is that it’s apple-picking season. 

There was an Apple Orchard in the next state over, about 45 minutes from here that I found out about when the kids were little.  There was a little hay wagon that would take you out to the orchard of your choice (they even had my favorite, Braeburn) and you were free to pick away.  Afterwards we’d stop in the homey little store and pick up some fresh cider (delish hot with Grand Marnier by the fire on a cold day) and candy apples for the kids.

The next year I decided to start a tradition that lasted for many years.  The day before, I make a huge pot of chili and a pan of cornbread.  The next day I’d get a bunch of families to go out apple picking together.  We’d come back to my house, where I had bought everyone pretty pie plates.  The kids would go and play, the men would expend a bunch of energy trying to figure out the apple-corer-peeler-thingy, then give up and go to the basement to watch football and play pool.  Whoever was left would get both of my ovens going with apple pies and both microwaves going with applesauce.  Late afternoon we’d all meet up in the kitchen for chili and cornbread.  Everyone got to bring home pies and applesauce.

One year my sister, niece and nephew flew out for the bake.  I’m not sure how I convinced her to do that since she neither baked nor cared to.  When we were standing in the “pass along the genes” line, she got the cooking one.  I got the baking one.  It wasn’t all about the baking, though. It was a trip to the apple orchards, riding in the hay wagon, picking your own apples, the whole experience.  Wouldn’t you just know it, that turned out to be the only year that apple season was appreciably early due to weather.  We all caravanned out to the apple orchard and although we ended up buying the apples in their little shop, there was no hay ride or picking our own. Can I plan an outing or what?

The orchard is now gone, my kids are teenagers but I still, every Fall, spend a day making apple pie and applesauce.  The smell that permeates the house, that IS Fall to me.  And an added bonus, that smell can entice even the parent-averse boys right into my kitchen.  Well worth the trouble.

Candy “Acorns”

 

*Bet you thought I was going to put up an Apple Pie recipe.  If you don’t already know how to make an Apple Pie, go ask your Mommy.

Candy "Acorns"
                                             ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
Hershey’s Kisses
Mini vanilla wafers 
Very small amount of chocolate bark or chocolate chips, melted 
Butterscotch chips

Directions: 
*Dip the flat end of the Hershey’s kiss into the melted chocolate.  “Glue” it to the flat end of the cookie.  Let it set until the chocolate dries. 

*Dip the flat end of the butterscotch chip into the chocolate and “glue” to the top of the cookie.  Allow to set.