Recipe Review: Peanut Butter Cookies

Or, Sarah's Choice (which has nothing at all to do with Sophie's Choice, thank you God).

Sarah is coming back from Salem's youth group mission trip tonight. She's been gone for about a week. When she was gone for a week last summer at Civil Air Patrol encampment, I took her cookies when we went to pick her up, and she inhaled them, along with every other cadet there who saw that she had home made goodies.

When I asked what kind of treat she'd like as soon as she got back from this trip, she asked for peanut butter cookies. I found this recipe: Classic Peanut Butter Cookies and just got done making them.

And now for a word on peanut butter. I really hate cheap, hydrogenated peanut butter.  I really like natural peanut butter. For the kids, it's exactly the opposite. And frankly, the dog gets more peanut butter (as a treat in his Kong) lately than any of us, so I'm not inclined to spend a lot. It's Aldi brand for us, creamy instead of crunchy.

This is less than half the batch.

The batter went together very easily. I added a little vanilla to the wet ingredients, and a little  cinnamon to the dry ingredients. Have I ever mentioned that I almost never mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl anymore?  I just dump the flour on the well-mixed wet ingredients, then add salt, baking powder, etc. on top and mix that gently before I mix it into the dry. It turns out fine and one less bowl to wash makes me just that much happier.

Of course, sometimes I manage to find ways to make extra work for myself anyway.  For example, when I was making the criss cross pattern with the fork, I thought, "Hey, aren't you supposed to roll them in sugar first?"  So I got out a little sugar and started doing that. Then I thought, "HEY, wouldn't these be even better rolled in cinnamon sugar?"  So I got out some cinnamon sugar and rolled some in that before taking the fork to them.

Here's the thing about extra work. I feel that if it's a little bit of extra work for a lot of extra result, it's worth it. (See:  getting the skins off chickpeas before you  make hummus)  If it's a lot of extra work for little or no result, why bother?  (See:  using fresh pumpkin to make pumpkin pie)  Rolling the cookies in sugar wasn't hard, but it was time consuming.  I tasted one of each variation after they'd cooled (in the name of science, of course!) and could barely detect any difference. Maybe a little, but not enough to justify the extra time.

The point is, I ended up just scooping them out onto the cookie sheet, having at them with a fork, and baking them. Today, simplicity trumps everything else.

They're delicious, by the way!

Obstacle Removed

Our Christmas program at church this year is "Christmas Around the World." We already have most of the costumes we need, but we need kimonos for 4 little girls, including Lauren. That's convenient--Lauren already has a kimono from Halloween 2008.

But that still leaves us needing three. A kimono takes a ridiculous amount of fabric--over three 1/2 yards, even for someone as small as Lauren. Blame those crazy sleeves. Brocade fabric is at least $8/yard, even on a half off sale. Um. Yeah, no. I can't expect the church to shell out $75 for three little robes.

I decided to look around for a cotton fabric, more of a "summer" kimono instead of such a formal one. Still, the only fabric I could find was $6 - $8/yard. And if I was going to use cotton, I'd have to make four. It wouldn't be right for Lauren to be in a very luxurious garment, and all the other girls in something noticeably cheaper. This isn't "The Princess and the Peasants."

So I was stumped. It was seriously giving me a fair bit of stress, to figure out what to do. This morning, I went into the costume cupboard and found a huge length of really pretty floral fabric. It would definitely pass for a summer kimono and there was enough to make two for the smallest girls, if I was really careful on the cutting.

I was talking to the Choir director about what she wanted, and the grandfather of one of the little girls overheard us. He said, "If I just give you $30 for fabric, can she keep the kimono when it's all done?" My mouth fell open. "Um. Sure!" I mean, really, why not? It's not like a size 5 kimono is something we're going to need on a regular basis anyway. I talked to another girl's parents, and they're willing to kick in. too. The last girl wasn't there today, but I'll call her parents to find out what color she likes and her size.

So now I only need to make three (if they're all brocade, Lauren can wear hers, of course), and I can get the fabric that will really make it work. Now I need to figure out how much I need to get of each color.

And I need to rethread my Serger. Again.