October Cookie of the Month: Cookie Dough 101

October’s cookie of the month took a fantastic turn towards teaching, encouragement and fun.  A group of young ladies and their children assembled in the Exile’s Kitchen for Cookie Dough 101. The premise for the get together was to fill the freezer of each family represented with rolls of cookie dough, so Holiday preparations would be easier. To make things light and fun (as if these ladies and girls needed help doing so) we all wore froofroo aprons, with a prize of bakeware for the most June Cleaver-like apron.

20181027_112654 The little girls and boy held in there for the first batch of cookie dough making (August Cookie of the Month: Cranberry Pecan Shortbread), but then the front porch and sunshine and woods called them outside, so the mamas finished the other two recipes. The little girls didn’t want cranberries and pecans in their shortbread and opted for sprinkles. They named their creation: Funfetti Shortbread.

The second cookie dough was a Brown Sugar Cookie, which is good base for any add-in you may want.  The lone teenager of the class added Heath candy pieces and milk chocolate chips to her bowl, calling her mix up Heath Chocolate Bar Cookies.

The third cookie dough was a basic sugar cookie, rolled up in parchment paper and ready for slicing and baking later in the Holiday season.

20181027_133520
Cookie Dough Rolls

Some of the comments today:

“I never think to put on an apron, but I’m digging this.”

“Aprons are handy. They keep your outfit clean and you can dry dishes with it.”

“Is that just a ruffle on yours or pockets too?”

“Yes, pockets. For a recipe card or gathering eggs or holding my loaded pistol..!” Just kidding.

Plans have been made for more gathering in the Exile’s Kitchen for simple beginner classes.

Here’s the Brown Sugar Cookie recipe: cream together 1 cup softened butter and 1 1/2 cups of firmly packed brown sugar. Add 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk, and 1 tablespoon vanilla to butter and sugar. In another bowl, combine 3 cups all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Then slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture. Then fold in your favorite add-in- chocolate chips, toffee pieces, nuts, whatever, it’s your cookie dough. Bob Ross would agree with me. It Started With A Happy Little Cloud

With a cookie scoop, drop onto parchment lined cookie sheet, two inches apart and bake  at 350° for 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool slightly on cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Cookie and Froofroo Apron Blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.

20181027_081726_001(1)

F.P.

20181013_201124

Saturday; the word has to be one of the most glorious ever thought up. Whether it’s watching collegiate football or catching up on weekly chores,  how would we make it without Saturday?

At my farmhouse I’ve done all of the above. I’m watching my LSU TIGERS take on Georgia right now. GEAUX TIGERS!

Earlier Miss Marigold and I went to the hardware store for vent hood pipe and aluminum tape. I had never put said vent pipe in said vent hood and I had a masked bandit get into my house. Yes, a raccoon! It got into the attic and then came through the ceiling into the cabinet with the vent hood. Of course when I got home Tuesday, I didn’t know it had been a raccoon that had riffled through my kitchen drawers and knocked over lamps. I called the sheriff’s office when I saw the blood on a wall in one of the bedrooms. The deputy was prompt in getting to my house and investigated around.

“I don’t see any brbrbrokkkkenenen winders,” he said. Yes, a pronounced stutter.

“Right,” I agreed. “And the doors were all locked. I don’t know how they got in. They knocked over the lamps on the sitting area.”

“Where’s the blood ma’am?”

I showed him. He looked around and shined his flashlight on the floor. Scat, as in wild animal poop.

“Ah, wewwell, I believe everything is oookkkkay. I ththink ya just got a cricricritter!”

So, anyway, I plugged the hole above the stove, but I don’t know how the masked bandit got into the attic. Maybe he won’t come back, since he somehow hurt himself riffling through my house.

20181013_200955

My house: Flowers Proper. F.P. for short. (Side note: if you’re ever watching the Weather Channel and a big storm is coming up through New Orleans to Hattiesburg, the Weather caster will start calling out areas along the storms path: listen and look at the map. They often call out, “Get ready Flowers, you’re about to be hit by this bad weather.” Flowers is basically my house, a few others, a big chicken farm  and a hunting camp. But dont tell the Weather Channel. I like hearing them announce my little spot on the map.)

I spent the rest of the day in my front garden. I bought 100 flower bulbs from American Meadows and they came in this week. The lady at the post office retrieved my package, when I handed her the notice that had been placed in my P.O.Box.  She asked, “Flowers Proper?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I love hearing the name of my home. I also love restoring the gardens. Ancient azaleas, sasanqua, and camelias remain, but very few old plantings from the neglected flower beds do. Just a few spider and day lilies. A couple of wild irises.

20181013_161509

I planted the box of daffodils and hyacinths from American Meadows. Miss Marigold sniffed at them as I planted them in a serpentine pattern at the base of the Pride of Mobile. It should make a pretty show around Easter next year. A prayer was sent heavenward that they will give joy to future visitors.

Saturday Blessings from Flowers Proper.

Evening Stroll

FB_IMG_1539047139945

The late afternoon shower made the air cooler, and thus, my evening walk more enjoyable. As always, the collection of differing architecture added drama to the days last bit of light. Magnolia, Mississippi is made for walking and snapping pictures. This is the undulating boardwalk of the old depot turned City Hall. If you are day tripping, stop and visit this pretty little town off I55.

An Hour And A Half From Everywhere

Blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.

Why I Hate Planned Parenthood Part Three

It’s my body. I can do with it whatever I want.

This is often scrawled on posters and thrown from the throats of protesters: the pro-choice people.

You do have the right to do to your body whatever you want. But you’re not harming yourself. You’re killing a vulnerable human being. A tiny one. An innocent one.

President Trump defunded Planned Patenthood on a national level in April 2018, leaving it up to individual states decide if they want to support abortion clinics, Planned Parenthood.

Now, for the last three weeks, the country has been flooded with pics and audio of congressional hearings on Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court. I won’t bore you with everything he was alleged to have done as a teenager.  Lord help us all, right, if we were judged by what we may or may not have done in the ’80s?

Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed, as of this Saturday.

As I said in an earlier post about why I hate Planned Parenthood, I know the ads for them on my site are a desperate plea. Here’s another: I beg you to not give anything to Planned Parenthood, not your support, not your time, not your money.  They kill babies.

That’s why I hate Planned Parenthood.

Why I Hate Planned Parenthood Part Two

Margaret Sanger was not only the founder of Planned Parenthood,  but also a racist. She believed the world needed to be purged of ethnic minorities and persons with disabilities. In 1926 she spoke to the women of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey. 

Read an informative article in americamagazine.org. Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist. Why are we still celebrating her? written by John J. Coney

 

Why I Hate Planned Parenthood

WordPress, even though I have contacted their admiminstators about removing the Planned Parenthood ad from my blog site, continues to place it above my and sometimes below my posts.

So, get ready. Every time I see the ad is on my site theexileskitchen.com – a site I have paid for, btw- I am going to give a reason why I hate Planned Parenthood.

They kill babies. Human babies.

Planned Parenthood hides behind the guise of women’s health issues: pap smears,  mammograms,  birth control. I would be fine with the afore mentioned, if that’s all they provided. I wouldn’t mind my hard earned tax dollars going to help poor women get the medical care they needed. I stop at the killing of unborn children.

I know that the ads placed on my blog site are not random. Appointing another conservative judge to the U.S. Supreme Court is most likely the reason for the ramped up ads.

Health care, yes. Killing the unborn, no.