Sleep Emailing!

Some of you know about my crazy trip this weekend. For those of you who don't, Some friends and I drove to Utah for the weekend....left Thursday night drove 16hrs and returned home Sunday, actually arriving in Midland @ 7:30am Monday! I know it was insane, and really never want to do that fast of a trip again but it was fun and for a good cause! I went to work today @ 8:30. It is a good thing we were busy or I might not have made it through the day. I had a message on my phone after work to send out an email to our Midsingles Group about the next couple of weeks of activities. So, I've heard of Drunk Dialing and texting....But have you heard of Sleep Emailing? Did you notice the length of the scroll down bar on the email? Can you tell that I typed exclamation marks? How exactly did I press shift 1 that long? And what was I excited about? I woke up singing Grease "Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" (We listened to the soundtrack yesterday on the drive!)

The ULTIMATE cookies

For Christmas Dad gave me the Better Homes and Gardens Ultimate Cookie Magazine. It has some really fun and delicious cookies and bars in it. Before we left for Utah I made some bar named Chunky Path Brownies for our Family Home Evening. They were yummy brownies covered in gooey Marshmallow drizzled in chocolate syrup!

A couple of weeks ago I help host my book club and decided to break out the Cookie Magazine once again. Because we had read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin I wanted to make a shortbread cookie and then a fun cookie. I decided on Coconut-Lime Shortbread(top left) and Marshmallow Snappers(bottom left). The glaze on the Coconut-Lime Shortbread turned out a little funny but they tasted just as shortbread should. The Marshmallow Snappers were divine! I brought the leftovers to church the next day for my Sunday school class and linger longer, they never made it to linger longer! Some of the young men in my class admitted that they were in love with the cookies.

So, I promised some of you the recipe, here you go:

Marshmallow Snappers

Prep: 1 hr Oven: 350 Bake: 10 mins Stand: 2 mins Yield: 48 cookies

1 12oz package semisweet or bittersweet chocolate pieces (I did 3/4 bittersweet and 1/4 semisweet)

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups pecan halves, toasted

24 large marshmallows, halved

Caramel ice cream topping (optional, but worth it!)

1.) In a medium saucepan combine the chocolate pieces and 2 tbs of the butter, Heat and stir over low heat until smooth. Let stand at room temp for 20 to 30 mins or until cooled. Preheat oven to 350F . Meanwhile, in a medium bowl stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

2.) In a large mixing bowl beat the remaining butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Beat in brown sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating and scraping bowl after each addition. Beat in the melted chocolate mixture and the vanilla. Add the flour mixture beating on low speed until mixture is combined.

3.) Drop dough by heaping teaspoons 2 inches apart on to an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 mins. Remove from oven. Lightly press three or four pecan halves onto each cookie, spacing pecan evenly with ends pointing toward center of the cookie. Place a marshmallow half, cut slide down. in the center of each cookie over pecan ends.

4.) Return cookies to oven for 2 mins. Remove from oven. Lightly press a pecan half on top of each marshmallow. Let stand for 2 nins on cookie sheet. Transfer to wire rack and let cool. If desired, drizzle cookies with caramel ice cream topping just before serving.

Coconut-Lime Shortbread

Prep: 30 mins Oven: 325 Bake: 15 mins per batch Yield: 40 cookies

1/2 cup flaked coconut, toasted

1/2 cup sugar

2 tbs finely shredded lime peel

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup cold butter, cut in to pieces

Lime glaze (optional)

Finely shredded lime peel (optional)

1.) Preheat oven to 325 F. In a food processor combine coconut, sugar and 2 tbs lime peel, and the vanilla. Cover and process until coconut is finely chopped. Add flour; cover and process with one on/off pulse just to combine. Add butter; cover and process until mixture starts to cling. Transfer to a very large bowl (dough will appear dry). Knead dough until smooth. Shape dough into a ball; divide in half.

2.) On a lightly floured surface, roll out one of the dough portions to about 1/4 inch thickness. Using desired 1 1/2 to 2 inch cookie cutters, cut out, dough. Place cutouts 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

3.) Bake for 15 to 17 mins or just until bottoms start to brown. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; let cool, Repeat with the remaining dough portion. If desired, spread tops of cookies with Lime Glaze and sprinkle with additional lime peel.

Lime Glaze: In a small bowl stir together 2 cups powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp finely shredded lime peel, and 1 tbs lime juice. Stir in enough water (2 to 3 tbs) to make a glaze of spreading consistency.

ENJOY!!!

Tradition!

I got a new camera!
It is a Canon PowerShot SX120IS
So in keeping with tradition here is a Classic Amanda picture.

LOOK!! It's Red and Blue living together in perfect harmony!

All the places I lived...@ Rick's College

After the Fred E. Ottley Family Reunion in Island Park, Id, I took a walk down memory lane!!

Road trip to Timpson

So, We will start with my first road trip to of the summer.

I went with my friend Adriane to her parents house in Timpson, TX. We were going there to pick up her sister, Amanda, stuff because she was moving to Midland. And to get a few things Adriane's parents were giving to her. Timpson is about an hour or so from the Louisiana boarder. In some ways I felt like I was back in Louisiana. It was extremely green with lots of trees. On the way our we stopped at CHIPOTLE in Dallas for dinner. I love and miss the Silver Bullet! YUM! Adriane curses the day I introduced her to Chipotle, we don't have one in Midland. We spent Friday to Sunday in Timpson. During this trip I truly realized how much I appreciate my family, who they are and what they do. I actually called Mom and Dad while they were ion there trip in Boston to let them know this.

On the way home we were about 45 minutes from Midland, just west of Big Spring when one of the van's tires blew out. We were very disappointed by this. We were so close and yet so far away from home. We were able to call my friend Ben who lives in Big Spring to come help us out. Ben and Bjorn came to our rescue! They along with the help of a friendly couple how stopped were able to help us get on our way. 2 hours later we made it home!

Such the blog slacker!

I have tried to be better! I haven't posted any thing but I have thought about it. I have a few projects I have have even worked on for my blog. I am going to try to catch up on the last six months or so.

All Things Austen....Oh I am in HEAVEN!!

"My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation." Jane Austen, 1775-1817

Many of you may know that I LOVE Jane Austen! But you may NOT know that I am addicted to all things Austen. I recently read "Austenland" by Shannon Hale. It is a good quick read and if you haven't read it check it out! As I read the book I started to see some things in myself that the main character, Jane, was dealt with. I love the leading men in all of Austen's novels, Fitzwilliam Darcy(who really is Collin Firth!), George Knightley, Frederick Wentworth, Edward Ferrars top my list. I watched a movie a couple of weeks ago called Lost in Austen. It has a similar feel to Austenland except that the main character, Amanda Price-a modern girl, switches places with Elizabeth Bennett. So this was an extremely long winded tangent to get me to THIS.... Well, today I decided to be ahead of the curve and come up with my ideas for Singing time for Primary on Sunday. I was checking out http://www.sugardoodle.net/ and found some ideas for handouts for Visiting Teaching this month. While looking at one of the website, http://emmasplacetobe.blogspot.com/2009/07/august-visiting-teaching-message.html, I was soooo easily distracted by Emma's sites I like when I saw Jane Austen Today, http://janitesonthejames.blogspot.com. If you are a Jane Austen fan this website is a must see! It has some really fun items on it.