KAREN'S LEMON MELTAWAY COOKIES

 

Looks like August in the midwest and the central United States is showing everyone what what feels like. It is so hot here in Kansas City this week that the feel-like temperatures are as high as 122 degrees F. It is so hot that it is difficult just walking around outside.

But as is normal for here, we just wait a few days or a week in this case, the temperatures are supposed to drop to more seasonal 80s. I for one can hardly wait. It doesn't take doing much to feel tired and then wanting to take a nap.

I woke up this morning and went about making some Oats N Blueberry muffins to take with me to my dental appointment/cleaning before the kitchen heated up too much. I always take something for my dentist and his staff so they will be good to me and not hurt me. lol. They never have of course but I tell them that's why I do it. I really just like treating them. I plan to share that recipe tomorrow. Another good find. 

After getting my teeth cleaned, I did finish reading a book by G.M. Malliet today called Death of a Cozy Writer. Wayne and I love watching the shows from Acorn and Britbox so when I saw this author on a post on Facebook, I investigated her online from the Mid-Continent Library and checked out her first book in her A St. Just Mystery series. It took a while being introduced to all of the characters in the book, but finally there was a murder and so DCI St. Just finally entered the scene. I wonder why no one has made a series taken from her books yet. Anyway, I have requested the next one in the series but will have to wait for it to be transferred to our nearby branch of the library.

I also managed to share this delightful recipe for one of the Cafe Treats Bakers Karen for Lemon Meltaway Cookies. So maybe I am getting more done in spite of the heat afterall.

These cookies were so good. They sorta tasted like a sugar cookie with a lemon glaze on top. Let me know if you decide to try them, what you think.

PRINT RECIPE.

LEMON MELTAWAY COOKIES

1     cup softened butter

3/4  cup sugar

1     large egg

1     lemon - zest of

2     cups flour

1/2  teaspoon baking powder

1/2  teaspoon salt

Glaze -

1-1/2  cups powdered sugar

2        tablespoons lemon juice

1        tablespoon milk or heavy cream

1/8     teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Mix in the egg until well blended. Stir in the lemon zest.

Combine 1/2 cup of the flour with the baking soda and salt. Add to the creamed mixture and stir until combined.

Continue adding the flour by a 1/2 cup measure; mixing until all 2 cups of he flour has been completed combined.

Use a small cookie scoop (1 tablespoon size) to measure the dough. Roll the scoop into a ball and place on cookie sheet and slightly flatten with your palm. 

Bake for 8 to 9 minutes or until the center is just set - cookies will remain light in color and will not get brown. Let them rest for 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling wrap.

Make the icing/glaze by whisking the powdered sugar with the lemon juice and cream or milk until smooth.

Once the cookies are cooled dip the top in the glaze by turning them upside down and gently lifting out. (Place the glaze in the flatter dish like a pie plate.) Turn the cookies over and put back on the cooling rack or parchment paper. 

Notes:

When cooled, cookies can be stored at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 3 - 5 days. 

Dough can be made ahead of time - 1 to 2 days before making cookies - and stored covered in the refrigerator. If dough is cold , it might take a minute or longer to bake.

NANA'S CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

I am so excited! I have found my go-to recipe for making some chocolate chip cookies that are sugar-free to have in the cookie jar for us to enjoy at home. That's exciting news for us since we both love having something in the cookie jar to grab when we walk by it. Well, not every time we walk by, but you know what I mean.

I have always had an option for the Cafe Treats at church of a sugar-free goodie for those people who are diabetic or just watching their sugar intake. My goal has always been to meet the needs of everyone which is why the Cafe Treats is a "no-nut" safe space. So many people don't think about the fact that so many people have allergies to nuts of various kinds and I admit until I had grandchildren with issues eating peanuts, I probably didn't give it much thought either.

When I say I want everyone to be welcomed at the Cafe Treats, I did have a friend recently who asked me if I had a gluten-free option and I had to admit I didn't. This was not someone at church who was asking this. The church does offer a gluten-free choice for communion but it is a purchased item. I guess I need to find a recipe that I could make using gluten-free options for the flour and make it and see how they go over. Actually I have made one or two recipes that I used gluten-free oats so I just need to search them out. I'll start here on the search option that is available on the web-version of the blog.

Anyway, I digress. Most of the time when I am making something with no-sugar-added, sugar-free, or zero-sugar -- there are so many names for it now, I take a regular recipe and just substitute stevia for the sugar. No-sugar-added will usually mean the recipe has some fruit in it, but it has no sugar added to the fruit. You do have to be careful if you are using dried fruit because many of them have added sugar. So read the package carefully. The "world" seems to be going away from saying "sugar-free" or "diet" and saying "zero-sugar" for drinks and packaged ingredients and foods, so that creates even more labels. 

Stevia and other sugar substitutes can be more expensive so when I am looking at a recipe to make sugar-free, I search for ones that don't call for a lot of sugar or brown sugar in them. I buy Zero-sugar chocolate chips and use them for the Cafe Treats, but if you check the label on packages of dark cacao chips, they only have 5 or 6 grams of sugar per tablespoon. (When we were following Sugar-Busters, 5 g / serving was the key amount of sugar could enjoy.) So to save a little money, I will just use my dark cacao chips in treats for us.

Today's recipe called Nana's Chocolate Chips Cookies was shared by Diane Ernst in Naperville's Family Recipes cookbook from 2006 called Tasteful Traditions that I found at - where else? - an estate sale. Naperville is a city in Illinois. In the front of the cookbook is an extensive history that was really interesting to read. Joe Naper settled there way back in 1831. The Recipe Note at the end said " Nana Ernst, my Canadian mother-in-law, used to make these cookies after school for my husband and his siblings. She passed along the recipe, and I made them for my daughters when they came home from school. We still love the cookies because some traditions are delicious at any age."

A number of men expressed to me how delicious the cookies were even being sugar-free. One was a little skeptic about the taste when I told him they were sugar-free even though he admitted he was diabetic and his wife made him eat sugar-free stuff all the time. He took one bite and declared them to be "Very good". 

The recipe only makes about 2.5 dozen cookies which is just right for me to make and have in our cookie jar, so depending on your "crowd", you might find yourself making the recipe often. I'm thinking about adding some unsweetened coconut the next time. 

An added excitement for me was using my latest purchase of a cookie sheet that fits the rack in the oven. I baked 2 dozen cookie at once. Talk about speeding up my time in the kitchen. (The dimensions for the "sheet" are 20.5" X 13.25" X 1" and it only cost me $1 and it's brand new.)

NANA'S CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1/2     cup shortening

1/2     cup brown sugar

1/2     cup white sugar

1/2     teaspoon vanilla

1        egg

1        tablespoon water

1        cup flour

1/2     teaspoon baking soda

1/2     teaspoon salt

1        cup quick - cooking rolled oats

1/2     package  chocolate chips, small size bag

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease or spray cookie sheets. Set aside.

Cream the sugars and shortening until well mixed.

(I ran the mixer for several minutes. I also scrape the sides of the bowl often when I am using my mixer.)

Add the vanilla, egg, and water and stir together.

(I "stirred" with the mixer.) 

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

Add to the sugar mixture.

Stir in the oats and chips.

(I used just a spatula for the latter.) 

Drop onto the baking sheet. (I used my tablespoon sized cookie scoop and

then flattened the "scoop" with my fingers about half-way.)

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

(I baked mine the full 12 minutes and left the cookies on the cookie sheet about two minutes before

removing them to the wire racks.)

After I finished reading a really good book,

I made these for us and added a half cup of unsweetened coconut.

I made 2 cookies short of 3 dozen and loved the addition of the coconut, but we love coconut. If you don't, you wouldn't be interested in this little tidbit. 😉

SIMPLE CHICKEN/TURKEY SOUP

 Friday morning we attended the dedication ceremony of our newly opened library about a mile from us. We are really fortunate in Kansas City and the surrounding area to have a library system called the Mid-Continent Public Library that covers three counties - Platte, Clay, and Jackson counties. The city limits of Kansas City is in all three counties but the library system covers many more cities in these three counties. 

The library near us was thirty years old and needed updating and enlarged so after voters approved tax money to build a newer, considerably larger state-of-the-arts library a mile or two away and right down the road from us. Green Hills Library Center is the result. The Culinary Center is the only one in the region and will open next year. It is going to be really spectacular. I am so looking forward to it. At the bottom of this post I will share some pictures of my first visit with grandkids Madison and Tyler. They were so excited about going as they watched it being built every time we drove past it this year.

We ran an errand to Menards afterwards and then went home to make some turkey soup with the leftover turkey from our belated Thanksgiving. Wayne immediately started looking for a recipe but I stopped him with, "Wait! I have a recipe I recently found that I wanted to try."

Finding the recipe our turkey noodle soup became a chicken soup using turkey instead of chicken. I had started cooking some rotini to use in place of the noodles but then changed my mind when I read the recipe and saw the ingredients especially the mixed vegetables. (I told Wayne he could just eat them with some butter.) 

Jump to the end by the time the soup was finished I had dished out some for him and added the cooked pasta. So the simple chicken soup turned into still a simple recipe but not exactly what the recipe intended. BUT it is very delicious. AND the little bit of turkey we had leftover after a couple of cold turkey sandwiches made us meals for several days.

PRINT RECIPE.

SIMPLE CHICKEN/TURKEY SOUP

2     cans (14.5 ounces each) chicken broth. (I made my own broth using chicken bouillon cubes and hot water) 

1     tablespoon dried minced onion

1     package frozen mixed vegetables

2     cups cubed cooked chicken breast or turkey

2     cans (10 ounces each) condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted (low sodium)

1     teaspoon Nature Seasons

In a large saucepan, bring the broth and onion to a boil. Reduce heat.

Add the vegetables; cover and cook for 6 to 8 minutes or until crisp-tender.

Stir in the chicken or turkey and soup;

add seasoning

heat through.

I cooked 1 cup of chickpea rotini and

added it to some of the soup and then

added the rest of the soup to it. The turkey I used was smoked turkey our son Patrick made for our Thanksgiving so it gave the soup an extra yummy taste to it. 

At the dedication we learned that the fork outside the front of the library is the fifth largest fork on display in the nation.

Cups hanging over the "cafe" which is opening in January. 

The kids found books and they wanted to read them to me. I'M MY OWN DOG by David Ezra Stein was the cutest book and I would highly recommend it. It is told from the dog's point of view.

PECAN COCONUT LAYER BARS

I didn't get this post finished yesterday because I was reading Louise Penny's Glass Houses and just couldn't put it down. It is the 13th Chief Inspector Gamache novel she wrote and I have read. There is one more for me to read still, Kingdom of the Blind, but I hope she is currently writing the 15th one. I will miss the characters tremendously until. I am still on the waiting list for the last one so it looks like I won't be reading it as soon as I finish this one. If you like mysteries, I highly recommend you read Still Life, the first one in the series FIRST and then read them in order. She does have a continuing story running through them.

I did have to take a break from my reading last Thursday while I hosted the canasta group. I was supposed to have hosted back in December but with the construction/remodeling going on, I kept having to trade until now. (They are not quite finished but will be when the last few pieces of trim comes in.) I found the recipe Tuesday while looking through a cookbook at Hillcrest - Tuesdays are sometimes a little slow. It looked and sounded too good to pass up.

Well, it tasted just as yummy as the picture of it in the cookbook. I followed the recipe as it was written except I didn't add the coconut and pecans to the sugar mixture before pouring it on the partially baked crust. I lined the pan with foil and sprayed it with the nonstick cooking spray as the recipe said, but the bars stuck to the foil in a few places. That is the only reason I can come up with that it stuck (even though I think it should not have). Friend Janice thought maybe I didn't spray the foil heavy enough. Maybe that too. Anyway, the sugar mixture did have a little time to seep down into the warm partially baked crust before I could sprinkle the nuts and coconut on top, so that just might be why it stuck in places. 

It certainly didn't take away from the taste of the bars my husband would say after enjoying at least four pieces of it. If that happens to you when you try it, just make sure you got all of the foil off before you serve it.

Click here for a printable copy of just the recipe.

PECAN COCONUT LAYER BARS

Crust
1       yellow cake mix
5       tablespoons butter, melted
1       egg

Topping
3/4    cup corn syrup
1/4    cup packed brown sugar
2       eggs
1       teaspoon vanilla
1       cup chopped pecans
3/4    cup sweetened flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 9 x 13 - inch baking pan with aluminium foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

Make crust by combining the cake mix, butter, and egg in large mixing bowl.

Beat until ingredients are well blended. (Batter will be stiff and crumbly.)

Scatter lumps in pan leaving about 1/4 of them in bowl.

Press batter into pan using

the remaining crumbs to fill in in bare spots.

Bake for 15 minutes in oven.

Meanwhile combine the corn syrup, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a smaller bowl and

stir with whisk until

well blended. Stir in pecans and coconut. 

Spread topping evenly over partially baked crust.

(I didn't add the pecans and coconut to the mixture. I poured the mixture over the crust and then sprinkle about half of the nuts on top, then all of the coconut, and

then finished with the rest of the nuts. This might be why the bars stuck to the foil in places. Some of the mixture seeped in the crust before I could sprinkle all of the nuts and coconut on top. Just a thought.)

Bake 25 more minutes.

Cool completely before cutting.

I did lift the bars out of the pan by the foil to cut them. I had to make sure I got all of the foil in the places where they stuck to the foil. 

This was one of my hands I was dealt during the canasta game after I drew two to start the hand...I don't remember which two cards I drew.

I discarded the jack of clubs and Dorothy picked it up along with the joker and a five that were in the pile.