Peanut Butter & Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

It wasn't until I was adding the chocolate chips that I realized these cookies have no flour. Crazy, eh? I got the recipe off a bag of Snoqualmie Falls Oatmeal. Keep the cookies small and they bake much better.

Oven to 325.

Makes 4-5 dozen

Using an electric mixer, cream together on low speed until mixed:

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons baking soda

Add 3 eggs and continue to beat mixture until blended. 

Stir in 4 cups rolled oats and 1 cup chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or two before moving them to a cooling rack.

Instead of just chocolate chips, I did 3/4 cup chocolate chips, along with 3/4 cup peanut butter chips and they turned out great. Be warned: there's a lot of oatmeal in these suckers and that means a lot of fiber. Great breakfast cookie, right? 

Toasty tootsies

I should warn you that this is not going to be in any sort of order. There are things I want to say about cloth diapers (love them) and cradle cap (fixed it), but time is not on my side right now--naptime is coming to an end. Since those are more lengthy tales, I'll just tell you what I know about baby socks.

1. I thought it was ridiculous that baby socks had little rubber treads on them. Why would a child who can't even roll themselves all the way over need any sort of traction. Aaaah...because they might be standing in an exersaucer and they need to be able to maintain their foot position. The tread also helps them when they are posting their chubby legs as they learn to roll over. 

2. I couldn't get socks to stay on Beabo's feet when she was teeny-tiny. I finally started putting her in socks that were too big. By pulling the socks up over her thighs, I was able to keep them on for a little while, at least. Footed pants work well to solve this problem, as well.

3. The big sock thing works when they finally find their feet, too. Shorter socks are easily removed by a baby that is determined to get its feet into its mouth. Longer socks take (obviously) longer to pull off. This means the tiny tootsies stay toasty longer. I have not figured out what to do about all the drool on the socks, though. 

4. Old Navy has good, cheap socks in a variety of colors. Their shorter, snuggly socks stay on better than any other socks we've tried. 

We got some little shoes to put on her feet when we go out. We found them on sale at LL Bean. They're pretty awesome. A little big for her right now, but still cute. 

Oh, and if the baby's in socks a lot, look out for toe jam. Just look out for toe jam, anyway. And finger jam and neck cheese, as well as behind the ear cheese, and belly button gunk. Filthy little animals, those babies...

Be Prepared

Baby books are boring. They're all information and things that can go wrong and generally lacking in the fun department. I  get that we need these reference books around, just in case, but there's no reason why we can't have a sense of humor about this whole parenting gig. 

Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads to the rescue! Written and illustrated by husband and wife Gary Greenberg and Jeannie Hayden, this has proven to be the most practical book on our "Holy Crap! We're Having a Baby!" shelf. It is, according to the back cover, "loaded with one-of-a-kind insights, MacGyver-esque tips and tricks, and no-nonsense advice for mastering the first year as a dad". 

It's just the most fun. With fabulous illustrations accompanying heartfelt advice on everything from emergency diapers to the woes of teething and beyond, this book has taught me more about day-to-day life with a baby than all the other parenting books combined. It makes me feel smart and pretty and totally capable of maintaining a sense of humor, in spite of the constant stream of body functions coming at me in a projectile manner from this little bundle of slobber and poo.

Get it for yourself, for the one that inseminated you, for your friends, for strangers that look like they need to lighten up a bit with the whole parenting thing...

...and while we're at it, look for it at your local bookstore. If they don't have it on the shelf, they can probably get it to you more quickly than Amazon. Yes, deliveries are fun, but buying locally is fun, too. You can look for it at the library, as well (even cheaper!).

Sour Cream Coffeecake

Adapted from Betty Crocker (oh, that Betty...)

Printable recipe here: click

Oven should be preheated to 350.

Grease up either two loaf pans or one Bundt pan.

In a small bowl, mix and set aside the filling:

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

In yet another bowl (a large one, this time), vigorously whisk together:

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup applesauce

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

3 eggs

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet, alternating with

1 1/2 cups sour cream

Pour a layer of the batter into your pan. Add a layer of filling. Top off your pans with the rest of the batter. Add another layer of the filling on top and press it ever so slightly into the batter. Bake for about an hour. Let it cool in the pan for about ten minutes before you gently take it out of the pan and let it finish cooling on a rack. Serve with coffee, hot chocolate, and awesome friends.

If you like, you can drizzle on a glaze made of about

1/2 cup powdered sugar

a splash of vanilla

enough milk to make it a thick glaze

Whisk that stuff together until you've got a glaze you like. Be warned: it doesn't take a lot of liquid to turn powdered sugar into a glaze, so add the milk a tiny bit at a time. It's a forgiving recipe that drizzles well on all sorts of pastries.

When you're making the coffeecake, you are welcome to use softened butter, rather than applesauce. If you choose to go this route, you'll need to bust out the electric mixer to whip the butter and sugar together. The applesauce route works well when babies are napping, as it is a quieter prep.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

Makes two 9x5 loaves

Preheat the oven to 350.

Grease your loaf pans.

Whisk together:

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons salt

3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

In a small bowl, combine:

2/3 cup soy milk (or regular milk, if you prefer)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat in a large bowl for two minutes or so:

2/3 cup applesauce (or 6 tablespoons butter, softened)

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

Beat in one at a time:

4 large eggs

Add and beat on low speed until just blended:

1 150z can canned pumpkin 

Fold in:

1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips

Pour batter into the pans and bake until toothpick comes out clean--about 1 hour. Let it cool in the pan for ten minutes before flipping it out onto a rack to finish cooling.

You can use 2 cups roasted, pureed pumpkin (or sweet potatoes) in place of the canned pumpkin, but I haven't tried that yet. And I find that this is best stored in the fridge after the first day. 

In the beginning...

Before I got married and had a baby, I was fickle. My life was a whiskey-drenched blur of handstands and classrooms. I moved to and fro on a whim, giving little thought to the idea of "settling down". It was, as far as I could tell, simply not a part of the path my life would take. I was a one-woman Army and I was going to move to Vermont next, having scrapped my plan to go to grad school in Kentucky. I was responsible for only myself and I was doing just fine on my own, thankyouverymuch. 

Predictably, that's when everything changed. In the blink of an eye, I found myself married. In the next blink, I was pregnant. Completely sober for the first time in a decade or two, I found myself submerged in a world I previously had only peeked into from a comfortable distance. Quitting work and starting my life as a stay-at-home mom, I realized there was so much more to this than I ever could have imagined. There is no "learning curve" here, but a steep cliff, instead, as time begins to fly and every day is a new lesson (or ten). With no homework and no job, my brain began to go nuts for an outlet. 

Enter the blog...

My goal here is to share what I have learned about being a mom, keeping house (quite literally a hobby for me), and trying to retain some shred of the former shenanigans that made me who I am. I've been baking and cooking like crazy lately, so I'll throw in the recipes that work, along with some ranting from time to time about whatever it is that inspires me to rant. I think my life is pretty great and, hopefully, the things I've learned will make your life easier, tastier, and more fun. 

...and that's all for now.

[Curtsy and exit stage right]