Posts Tagged ‘make it do’

Welcome February.

You’re just in time.  January was starting to look a little too smoggy and grey.

Just in time for February, I’m sharing one of my all time favorite cookie recipes.

Craisin Oatmeal Cookies.  They are sweet, but not too sweet, buttery, and best of all chewy and delicious.

They have Craisins instead of raisins.  I don’t like cooked raisins, not one little bit.  But Craisins are tart and I love them cooked or straight from the bag.

With oatmeal and Craisins, I can pretend these cookies are healthy.  Almost.

If raisins are your thing, you can replace the Craisins with raisins.  My husband LOVES these cookies with Butterscotch chips instead.  Any way you make them, this recipe is a winner.

Here’s how:

Cream together room temperature butter, sugar…

and brown sugar.

Add the eggs, vanilla and water.  Mix well.

Here’s a great tip:  In a separate bowl, add the flour and oats…salt and baking soda…

and the Craisins.

Stir together REALLY well.  You want to make sure the baking soda is well mixed.

Then add the dry ingredients to the sugar mixture in batches so that it incorporates before adding more.  That way you don’t end up over mixing the flour and the Craisins are nicely distributed through the cookies.

Do you have a cookie scoop?  I couldn’t live without mine.  It’s the best and fastest way to evenly scoop cookies.

Bake them for about 12 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Best served warm with a glass of milk.

Here is the recipe:

Craisin Oatmeal Cookies

Makes 3 1/2 dozen

• 1 cup room temperature butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tbs. water
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2-2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. soda
• 3 cups cooking oats
• 1 1/2-2 cups Craisins

Cream butter and both sugars together.  Add eggs, water and vanilla and mix well.  Combine dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.  Add Craisins and bake at 350° for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Click over to my Tasty Kitchen recipe box for the printable recipe.

The missing sock phenomenon…  it is such a mystery.

I can understand the kid’s missing socks.  The are known to clean by shoving things under the bed, in the closet, or pretty much anywhere but the laundry hamper.

But when my husband and I loose a single sock…  that’s were the mystery gets interesting.  We have a hamper… and we use it. It might just be worthy of Mr. Holmes or Miss Marple or at the very least Miss Drew.

A small pile of single socks haunts my laundry room.  They move from the counter to the laundry basket and back again.  They just hang around, in the way, hoping their mate will turn up.  They don’t belong anywhere.

Until now:

As part of my laundry organization efforts, I got out the sewing machine to solve the problem.  OK, so maybe I didn’t solve the mystery.  If I had, I might have been in the running for a Nobel prize.  But I did sew a wonderful fabric basket….

Now all my lonely single socks will have a place to wait until their mate shows up.  Hopefully.

I used this very handy tutorial found at the Sometimes Crafter to make my basket.

For a little more functionality, I added easy handles.

The fabric is from American Jane called Punctuation Ditto Daisies Blue.  It works perfectly with the one bit of art I have in my laundry room,  a WWII poster of Rosie the Riveter.  It also looks great with my navy blue washer and dryer.

My new little basket works so well for socks, I’m planning on making a smaller one today as a place to put all the doodads I retrieve out of pockets, such as lip gloss, crayons, and coins.  I turn up all sorts of treasures on a daily basis.  I’m just happy whenever those items don’t turn up in the dryer…  crayons and lip gloss especially.

Now for a few ideas of what to do with the single socks if their mates don’t turn up.

• Roll them up and have an indoor “snowball” fight.
• Slip one on your hand and use it to dust the blinds.
• Make a sock puppet.
• Tie a knot in the center of an old sock and give it to your dog as a toy… my dog loves his.