Seven Layer Cookies

Have you heard of Seven Layer Cookies?  They're kinda sneaky - they also masquerade under the name of Seven Layer Bars or Chippy Dippy Bars (no, I'm not kidding).  These little guys are comprised of - you guessed it - seven ingredients, and they are not only fast and easy, but oh-so-good.
So good that I put them in the comfort food category, a category which few (if any) other cookies make it into.  So good that when my family makes them at Christmas to give away, we make an extra batch just for us.  So good that I would totally invite you over to share them with me, except that by the time you got here they would all be gone.

Seven Layer Cookies.

And another thing?  Once you've made these a couple of times, you won't even need the recipe - it's so simple and easy to remember that I haven't used it in years.  These would make a great last-minute hostess gift....or you could just eat them all yourself.  I won't tell anyone.

So make up an excuse, go raid the pantry and get started!

Coffee Ice Cream, the Old-fashioned Way

Guys?  I made ice cream.  Without an ice cream maker or anything fancy.  In my college dorm kitchen, armed with only a few humble ingredients, I made ice cream.

It all started a few days ago, when my good friend Cassie and I made the Most Sinful Food You Will Ever Eat (aka Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars).  We had great fun using up bits of this and that from my baking cupboard, but after all was said and done and we were licking the melted chocolaty caramel off of our fingers, I realized that I had a few eggs and nearly a whole cup of cream leftover.  And not much else.  And having been to the store once already and spent money from my slim budget, I needed a plan that would only use the "normal" baking items I already had.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

If you are on a diet, stop reading right now.  I just want to give you guys a heads up, this is probably the Most Sinful Food You Will Ever Eat.

My friend Cassie says this is a "that-time-of-the-month" kind of treat, and she's absolutely right.  When it first came out of the oven, I just wanted to grab a spoon and devour half the pan.  Or maybe the whole pan.......

So, now that you've been appropriately warned, I'll proceed to tell you how to make them.  Basically this is a cookie sandwich with a layer of salted caramel in the middle.  Salted caramel, if you've never had it, is amazingness in your mouth.  It's the perfect combination of sweet and salty, and although I like pretzels dipped in Nutella as much as the next person, salted caramel is a classier way to pair these flavors.  Seattle claims to have been the first city to introduce salted caramel to the U.S.  Just another reason to love the Emerald City.

More on the wedding theme.

At my college, we have a lot of weddings.  It just happens.  It's a small school where everybody knows everybody, and every spring brings a plethora of cute little invitations in our mailboxes, heralding the coming nuptuals of summer.

One of my best friends, Kelsey, met her fiance when she was a student here two years ago, and in twelve days they're going to tie the knot at a lovely little park down the road.  As she's living in the dorm with me until the big day, I'm necessarily involved with some of the planning and preparation, and I'm loving it!  I mentioned before that we're making cake balls.....that will be happening sometime in the next week or so, and I'll be sure to get pictures of the process as well as the finished product.  Meanwhile, I've been thinking about my bridal shower gift to her, and ultimately decided on a tea-themed gift basket - because Kelsey really loves tea, and honestly, who doesn't like getting a basket full of yummy tea and sweets?  Here's what I'm planning to put into it:

*A package of looseleaf MarketSpice Cinnamon-Orange tea.  MarketSpice is a Seattle institution, part of the world-famous Pike Place Market - a little shop that is wall-to-wall tea, and Cinnamon-Orange is their signature flavor.  Check out their website here. 
*A package of looseleaf blackberry tea, also from MarketSpice.
*A little jar of honey.
*A boxed scone mix and a jar of blackberry jam.
*Homemade shortbread cookies.  I would really like to try the idea I read about on Sprinkle Bakes, of infusing the blackberry tea into the butter and then making shortbread with the flavor-infused butter, but I'm not sure that will be feasible as I don't want to open to package before I give it to her.  So I think we'll stick with a basic, traditional Scottish recipe this time around.  Sometimes simple is better, right?

I'll take some pictures to post as soon as I have everything together!  The only thing I'm still uncertain about is how to package it all.  I can easily go to the thrift store and find a suitable basket, but I'd kind of like to do something different, if only I can find the right something.  Any ideas?

As a side note, I'm really excited to make shortbread for the first time!  I had shortbread in Scotland when I was backpacking last summer, and from the first taste I was hooked.  It quickly became a staple for long bus rides, and it's something I've missed ever since returning to America.  I've wanted to make it several times through the last few months, but for one reason and another it hasn't happened yet.  I'm happy to have an excuse to make it at last, and who knows, I may have to try a test batch before I make the real thing for Kelsey's gift basket.....

Hello Everyone!
Still not much in the way of cooking to report, except that me and a small group of girlfriends from my dorm had a mini retreat this weekend!  We went out to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner Friday night, watched a bunch of movies and ate a bunch of junk food, and then slept until 10:30, which we all probably needed because finals are this week.  Yesterday morning we cooked up a lovely brunch, with pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage, and.......mint chocolate chip ice cream (don't tell my mother).  But the very best part of the meal - the part I would keep if everything else had to go - was the orange juice.  Here at my little school we don't get much in the way of real juice unless we buy it ourselves, which basically means we don't get real juice.  So our advisor bought a beautiful carton of this stuff:

which made us all very happy.  I sipped that glass like it was a fine wine.  Those few minutes of heaven in my mouth should be enough to see me through these last few weeks of kitchenlessness, until I get to make something really incredible.



And speaking of really incredible, the cupcakes for my friend's wedding have morphed into cake pops, which makes me so happy!  I've never made cake pops, but I love them and am excited for this chance to give them a shot.  Now I just need to find a recipe.....



(P.S.  My daddy is coming to pick me up in 19 days!  Emerald City here I come!)

Time for a Makeover!

I decided that, if I'm going to theme my blog on the Wizard of Oz, it should probably start looking like the Wizard of Oz - so here we are, mid-way through Makeover Stage!  The difficult thing about a blog makeover for me is that I know absolutely nothing about html code.  Thankfully Blogger gives you an awful lot of ways to cheat, so I'm fiddling with this and fiddling with that.  Hopefully all will soon be fiddled to my satisfaction.  Meanwhile, bear with me.

And I'm sorry there's nothing food-related to share right now.  Countdown is now 32 days until Dorothy gets back to the Emerald City and has her own kitchen again!  However, a dear friend of mine is getting married soon and there's Rumors of Cupcakes floating around the dorm, so stay tuned.......

Empty Tomb Cookies and how to conquer Mt. Everest in egg form

Hello World! Are you ready for your three-day weekend? I certainly am! In another hour or so I will be free from all school and work duties....except of course the pile of homework that's currently giving me a reproachful look. But Easter is here and I'm ready for it.

I have always loved Easter, since I was a child. Back then I think it was the candy, but it is also deeply ingrained in me as a time of new life. Flowers begin blooming (where I grew up there was a certain bluff where you could stand and look out across an entire valley of daffodil fields), the sun makes its first appearance in months, birds sing constantly and baby animals are born. We lived in the country and there was a certain spot on the side of our long gravel driveway where a trillium came up every year and reminded me of the Trinity. More important than anything else, Easter is the time to celebrate the new life that comes through the resurrected Messiah, Jesus! As I've gotten to know him more, Easter has become more and more exciting.

This year I'm not making any delicious Easter recipes (or if I do, they'll be belated and end up being late May Day foods), but I have a memory of one very special treat which I'd like to share with you. They go by several different names, but I call them Empty Tomb Cookies because it's the simplest and most self-explanatory name for them. We didn't make these every year in my family; as well as I can remember we only made them once. But I couldn't have been any older than seven at the time, and I still remember them very clearly. It all goes to show how awesome my Mom was.

Using your Imagination

Here at my school, we have a kind of running joke about our cafeteria food. Don't get me wrong, the food is actually good - mostly home cooked and usually fairly healthy. We rarely have meals that no one likes.

Except on weekends.

On the weekends, we usually have three people running the kitchen. Breakfast is always cereal. Lunch is always cold cuts or PB&J, carrots, and chips. Dinner is always sloppy joe's, corndogs, soup, or some form of casserole. "Weekend food." That phrase has come to encompass anything we are sick of and don't ever want to see again. And for people like me, who believe that variety is the spice of life, there comes a point where you just can't eat weekend food anymore.

So, although I believe (theoretically) in regular meals and well-balanced diets, weekends are always up in the air around here. I usually sleep past breakfast and make do with tea, eat some turkey and cheese sometime in the early afternoon, and hunt around in the fridge sometime after 7:00 for something worth eating. And if nothing presents itself, I have a secret chocolate stash like every good college girl should. Don't judge.

But here's my secret, my private habit that really helps me get by when the chef in me confronts the PB&J in the cafeteria:

I daydream food.

Yes my friends, when I can't have that crab-and-grapefruit omelet I so long for, I dream it up in my head, in stunning detail. When corn dogs on a paper plate try to pass themselves off as dinner, I think ahead to the cold salmon with lemon-and-dill dressing I'm going to make when I get back to my favorite coastal city in two months.

Until then, I'll pretend that the "beach" at the lake is a real beach, that this springtime heat isn't nearly as humid as it really is, and that this peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a panini with all the fixings. Sometimes, it's good to give the imagination a workout.

newsflash

I decided something today.

I decided that I want to start a cooking blog. More than start - I want to actually MAINTAIN a cooking blog. You know, one of those adorable websites that you look at when you're supposed to be taking notes in your theology class? One of those websites with cute-and-clever names that make you want to hug the blogger because you know that, somehow, you must be long-lost relatives of some kind. One of those websites filled to the brim with recipes that combine flavors you never even thought of using together before, and so full of the most gorgeous photographs that just scrolling through makes you drool like a dog waiting for a treat?

Or is that just me?

Anyway, this is really a dream I've had for a long time. And it still remains a dream, because even though I've gotten enough motivation to dust off my own blog for the first time in *cringe* nearly (but not quite) a year, the facts of life remain. And these are said facts:

1. I live in a dorm. The implications of this are that I am a poor college student, and can't afford to buy food. At least not food worth writing about or taking pictures of.
2. Even if I were a rich college student instead of a poor one, the kitchens on my particular campus are not worth cooking in. And certainly not worth photographing anything in.
3. My dad has the good camera. In Washington. *sigh* Oh, Washington......

Well, back to the point. What I actually decided today was that, in lieu of realizing my food blog dreams just yet, I should at least start blogging again, and somehow prove to myself that my fingers have not fallen off and my ability to write coherent (and correctly-punctuated) sentences has not left me, never to be seen again. And so, here I am, capitalizing the first letters of my sentences, dreaming about food, and counting down the seven weeks left until I return to a real kitchen in a real house with real ingredients. And will have a job, which means real money.

And really, you don't need to cook food to write about it.....at least not all the time. Right?