Relaxing Weekend

Today is the last weekend day of my long weekend. Then I go back to work for a few days and then jump in the car to head out to the Midwest for the holiday.



I've been spending good chunks of each of my days this weekend making progress on both cleaning and holiday knitting. The goal is to have everything neat and tidy so that when we come back from vacation, we don't feel immediately oppressed by mess. I doubt it'll look as spotless as our respective parental houses, but it would be good to feel the house was calming and relaxing instead of stress producing clutter. I will say it looks a lot better. There are still boxes from the move, almost all stuff that no one's missing while it's boxed up, but I'd feel so much better if there were no cardboard containers left to clutter the house at all.

I have made good progress on knit projects, too. I finally darned Mom's sock, and blocked Brett's Mom's shawl so at least we won't be returning to the Midwest empty handed. My Priority One Christmas Knit is also making good progress. I'm not going to put too much info up here, but it is a technique I've never done before, so I'm experiencing a pretty big learning curve.

Spoiler A. I am using some combination in some proportion of the following yarns:



I didn't get to cook at home Saturday night because we went out to dinner with friends, but last night I cooked a pretty yummy shepherd's pie and one of the best loaves of bread I've made since leaving the farm. I want to do Knittle Bread rolls for Thanksgiving dinner, but I know I'm out of practice, so I did a little trial run. While I was looking for my recipe (a year ago I had it memorized!) I came across my Great grandmother's baked goods notebook. There's plenty of very old fashioned cookie and cake recipes in there, and I think it's time I pulled some of them back out.

So for dessert I made her molasses cookie recipe. Luckily it was one one with pretty good directions about how to execute the cookies. Lots of Greatgrandma's notes are just ingredients, some as wonderfully specific as "enough flour." She probably made those cookies all the time and knew just how the dough should look and feel, whether to roll and cut them or drop them, and how long and hot to bake them. I wonder how old some of the recipes are though; they often call for lard or to "bake in a quick oven". Those were things I was used to seeing in turn of the century cook books back on the farm, so it's neat to have some family recipes that may go back that far.




The recipe for the molasses cookies calls for melted shortening, and I recall Mom using margarine when she made cookie reciepes that called for that. Since my other shortening options were lard and Crisco, I went with Smart Balance, to get a buttery flavor I thought would be more appropriate in a cookie than that yummy lard flavor. I also thought, "this is plenty soft at room temp to cream together with the sugar, I don't think I need to melt it." Probably a mistake. The cookies, while totally delicious, were soft to the point of being goo when I took them out of the oven. I let them cool flat on parchment paper and they did firm up a bit and get kind of wafery crisp around the edges, but I'm blaming my substitution for their weirdness. I will use a more traditional shortening next time, and go ahead and melt it. But they did taste heavenly with a nice cuppa tea. The next recipe I'm trying from her notebook are the Phiffer Nusse.

Molasses Cookies
¾ cup shortening melted
1 cup sugar
¼ cup dark molasses
1 egg
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups sifted flour
½ tsp cloves
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
Mix in order
Chill 2 hr. roll in balls roll in sugar bake on greased cooky sheets 375 degree oven 8 to 10 min take off pan when hot