Busy, busy days are here again. I'm baking today for Kara's wedding, making peanut butter surprise cookies that I'll freeze till the wedding. I'll try to include a link to the recipe at the end. The surprise is the chocolate peanut butter candy melted on top. This time it's a Reese's peanut butter cup, but I liked it better with a peanut butter-filled Hershey's Kiss. Sadly, those were a limited time only thing, so Reese's it is. But the Reese's lose little bits of chocolate on the wrapping, and for some reason, seeing the peanut butter peeking through where the chocolate should be makes me think of plumber's butt and bum cracks on candy pieces. I have maybe two dozen loaves of banana bread frozen in the freezer. God must approve of what I'm doing - I'm assuming He's the reason why I managed to fit all that bread in our tiny freezer and still have okay room for the normal freezer stuff...like an ice maker and frozen meals and garlic bread. I think I'll be able to fit all the cookies in there too. I'm amazed and a little awed. I'll be making cheesecake cookie bites at my grandmother's the day before the wedding. And those I'll definitely try to link the recipe for, because they seem pretty complicated, but they're freakishly easy. And the mess is on the face of the eater, not my kitchen. Hehehe.
I shouldn't be making light of things right now. Or maybe I'm due. Things just seem to be overly complicated right now. Matt's dad had surgery this morning to have one of his hips replaced; he'll have the other replaced in two months time, hopefully. As far as we know right now, he came through the surgery well. We're very grateful that he's finally getting this done. He's been in pain for most of a decade now with his hips - the padding between his bones had worn away and his bones were grinding and scraping each other when he walked. If he had gone much longer without surgery, his femur bone would have broken very badly. Thankfully, that didn't happen. Dad didn't want us to be there for the surgery, but he did ask that we be there when he gets out of the hospital. He's supposed to be in for four or five days. Since we'll be up there for the wedding Thursday night anyways, things work out. Hopefully he'll recuperate well.
But he's just one of the men in my life who are not doing well. My grandfather is possibly dying, my mother's father. He's been an alcoholic for so long that his liver is failing. Failing so bad he's been vomiting blood and can barely reach out of bed for a glass of water. He was in a really awful wreck several years back that he's never been the same from, and with his current condition, they don't think surgery is an option. Maybe that's changed though. Mom has been over there for days at a time, taking care of him, taking him for doctor's visits, changing his sheets and fixing him meals. She's not talking to me much right now, won't tell me really how he's doing. I think she's really afraid and doesn't want to say anything. Mom has been so up and down for the past ten years and more that having her dad's moral support for the past few has given her an anchor. And now she might be losing it. I wish I could help more. We live an hour and a half to two hours apart. And frankly, I don't really know my grandfather that well. I know about him, but I don't know him. Every memory I have of him is with a beer in his hand. We lived five hours away growing up, and an alcoholic grandfather who owns a honkytonk bar and a Mormon granddaughter with her nose usually in a book don't mix too well. But I know he's been the anchor to Mom's family for a long time now, and I wish I could do more to help.
And my dad, who's still reeling a bit from Kara's impending wedding and...situation, is grieving right now. Two of his co-workers, close friends, his hunting and fishing buddies, were murdered earlier this week, by a man with a rap sheet who felt like he was owed more in a deal over a tractor. It's hard to know how Dad's dealing with these sort of things. He's a lot like Matt in that. And Matt and I both know what it's like to lose a friend to the caprice of another human being. Bottom line, I know there's not much I can do for him, but tell him that I'm thinking about him and will do whatever I can for him. If the funeral is held Friday, I'll be going with him for moral support, since Brenda can't get out of leaving town on a business trip tomorrow. I'm glad I can at least do that for him, but it seems small comfort when it's only if the funeral is Friday, when I'll be there already. But not much else to be done.
On the bright side, my grandfather, my father's father, is recovering well from his surgery. I got to see him a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how much my family is talking about it, so I'll stay mum about what it was. I was worried about his mental health (not in serious), since he's not allowed to mow the lawn or do any of his home renovation projects, the things he normally does and enjoys. But it sounded like he's been busy visiting friends and family and enjoying letting Uncle Mark do the yard work. That still brings a grin to my face.
I'm starting to think this is why I've been so eager to bake and give Kara so much for her wedding. Because it's something I can do. There are so many situations regarding our family nowadays for which we can't do anything. I hate that. I hate feeling like I have to sit on my hands to prevent myself from hitting something. I hate feeling so powerless to help my family when I know they need the help. I've been ranting about it a lot. I hope Matt doesn't feel like the target of it. But I'm glad I can do this for Kara right now.
Natalee hasn't peed or pooped in the potty chair since that last post. But she has peed on our bed two or three times, all the way down to the padding covering the feather bed. There has been so much down floating around the apartment lately that my allergies have been going nuts. I think I sneezed at least a dozen times, one right after the other without a pause in between, a few days ago. We have the air purifiers, and the bed's been put back together. But the down gets put right back into the air every time I clean the lint from the dryer. Eurgh...And then it all starts over again whenever she pees on the bed. Needless to say, Natalee's been wearing her diapers a lot the past two weeks.
Matt seems to be doing okay. He's worried about his dad, of course, and working hard every day. But he hasn't had to go in on Saturdays recently. And I think most of the furor about all the people laid off at his work has died down. And I've been cooking bigger meals during the week. He seems to be enjoying having pork tenderloin and homemade biscuits and homemade rolls and tequila lime chicken with sauteed peppers and onions, homemade lasagnas and pasta bakes and focaccia bread...stuff like that. Not boxed macaroni and cheese and frozen chicken nuggets anymore. He's been playing the Conan the Barbarian mmorpg. And we've been playing a little Lego Indiana Jones. I think if the job situation would be resolved, he would be very happy. But he's still applying to jobs up in the Metroplex. And I'm earning a little bit more money, babysitting Samantha, so things are going okay for us right now.
We've still got the wedding to look forward to this weekend. Lots to stress over, but a lot of stuff to be excited about. Wish us and the bride and groom luck!
Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies
Ingredients:
- 1/2 C creamy peanut butter
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 C packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 C sugar for rolling
- 36 mini peanut butter cups, chilled and unwrapped
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream together the peanut butter and butter until smooth. Add brown sugar until combined. Add eggs and vanilla until incorporated. (Note - they come out better if you add the eggs one at a time, letting each egg be mixed mostly in before adding the next.)
- In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to first bowl in three installments. Don't overmix.
- Roll dough into tablespoon size balls. Rolls balls in the sugar until covered. Place on cookie sheets with about 2 inches between each - they puff out.
- Bake for 5 minutes or until the cookies have started to puff up a little bit, but are not done baking. Pull the sheets out of the oven and add a candy to the top of each, pressing down slightly on the candy so it won't fall off the cookie. Make sure you have all the candy unwrapped ahead of time, or the cookies will be done before you're done unwrapping, or the cookies might fall while waiting for the candy outside of the oven.
- Let cookies cool on the pan before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. Be careful not to touch the candy - the Reese's I used stay warm and smushy for long after the cookies are out of the oven.
You can find this recipe at: http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/baking/recipes/peanut_butter_surprise_cookies.html
Cheesecake Cookie Cups
Ingredients:
- 1 pkg refrigerated pull apart chocolate chip cookie bar dough (like the Nestle Toll House cookies that are shaped like a rectangle in the package, but knockoff stuff works as well)
- 2 8 oz. pkgs cream cheese, room temperature (I used store brand, fat free stuff.)
- 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk (Make sure you check the date on those buggers!)
- 2 lg eggs
- 2 tsps vanilla extract
- 1 21 oz. can cherry pie filling (You might want more than this, because half of the can is just gel and not cherries, which is what you want.)
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. (Yes, I know, the package might say a different temperature, but you don't want the same temp and time for this because you don't want the cookies completely done, or they'll be slightly overdone when you bake the cheesecake part.) Paper-line 24 muffin cups. (Believe me, you DO need the paper liner cups for this.) Place one piece of cookie dough in each lined cup.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until cookie dough has spread to edge of cup. (They puff up during this, but then they'll sink in when you pull them out. You want that, so you'll have room for the cheesecake and cherries.)
- Beat cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, and vanilla extract together until smooth. Pour about 3 Tbsp. worth of cream cheese mixture over each cookie in cup. Try to make sure the cookie part is covered.
- Bake for another 15 to 18 minutes or until set. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Top each with level Tbsp. of pie filling. (This is when you start thinking maybe you should have bought another can of cherry pie filling instead of using lots of cherry-flavored glop.) Refrigerate for one hour before devouring.
(That's Nestle's recipe web site. They have some good things there, but, like Kraft kitchens, it all involves their products. And their website has problems some days.)
