An apple a day keeps the doctor away...

...but cookies taste much better.

Yesterday morning the boyos and I set out down to the end of the front yard to pick raspberries. This activity is largely made up of:
1. Keeping Daniel out of the road
2. Keeping Daniel from throwing fistfuls of picked berries into the ground, having snatched them for the pot
3. Letting Leo eat all the berries he can pick

It's no surprise, therefore, that the fruit of our efforts was a mere few cupfuls of the ruby gems.

So, in an effort to be like one of those much more classy and more often updated etc. etc. blogs....here's what we did.

Fresh Raspberry Cookies with some Oatmeal

1. Put this guy down for a nap. One small man vying for the cookie dough is enough.

He's just as mischieveous as he looks, folks.

2. Looked online and found a cute blog with this recipe. Buuhhhht, didn't have the white chocolate chips, or the patience to use frozen berries. Also found this recipe from Emeril. But seriously...I don't have white chocolate chips, you think I have actual lemons and raspberry liquor? Uhhmmm...nope.

3. Ended up using my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, but w/o the chippies, and w/ (cold, not frozen) raspberries. Plus some oatmeal. Because there wasn't enough oatmeal just to go that route.

This is flour in a bowl, so that you know I actually did these things.
...and this is an actual post about food. Something like that.

The dough. It was too moist from the berry juice, so I added oatmeal,
but we didn't have enough oatmeal.
Mostly I need to go grocery shopping, huh? :)

NO PAPARAZZI IN THE KITCHEN!
"No picture!"

5. Here's what they look like. Consistency of muffins, really, but the boy-os still called them cookies...so I win, right? I was positive that Steve would call them "healthy", which is what he says when I make cookies like this that don't really taste like cookies, but all he asked was, "what's in these?", which is what he says when I make something that tastes weird. Le sigh.

"What's in these?"

  Too young to know that I made them fake cookies...

The chocolate chip cookie recipe I use is actually really good though! You can try that if you actually want to bake something!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies*

*very slightly adapted from a recipe I found online in another cute blog
Disclaimer: "Best" is obviously what I consider to be best: chewy, moist, yummy, yummy cookies

What goes in:

3/4 c. butter, softened (not melted)

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. white sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla plus extra to moisten as needed

2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. dark chocolate chips (good ones, like Ghiradelli's)

What you do:

Preheat oven to 350

Cream butter and sugars together until "fluffy" (whatever that means...!)

Add egg and vanilla (I just pour some out of the bottle...)

Mix the flour, soda, salt in a different bowl, then add to your sugar-butter-egg-vanilla combo and mix.

Add more vanilla if the dough is too crumbly (I literally slosh it in there...but I live on the edge, ya know?)

Stir in your good dark chocolate chips. (Ok, you can use lameo milk chocolate chips...these are just way way better).

Put blobs on your cookie sheet (they end up the exact size you put down, so form accordingly)

Bake for 8-10 minutes ONLY, barely baked looking, just golden-brown on the edges. Do not bake longer. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. NO MORE THAN 10 MINUTES.

Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, than remove to wire rack if you feel fancy/can wait that long to try one.


I think I'll retire from food posts forever now...

{7QT} Freiken’ Chickens Edition

The edition wherein I give helpful “tips” about owning chickens. AKA: I convince you that it may just not be worth it after all. Also AKA: why those farm stand eggs cost so much. 

--- 1 ---

Chicks will die. They are really really cute at first, and not very hearty. Brace yourselves.

Very cute. Very fragile. 

--- 2 ---

Actual tip: Have everything prepared in advance of actually having the chickens. This would include appropriate housing for the chickens at each stage of their needy needy growth. Also includes fancy videographic equipment to record yourself chasing chickens around the yard so that you can make a viral YouTube video and become a millionaire—because it ain’t gonna happen by sellin’ those eggs.

Fancy housing for little chicks.
Tote w/ lid cut out and chicken wire attached w/ nuts & bolts.

--- 3 ---

Actual tip #2: A fishing net is THE BEST chicken catcher in the world.

source

{Bonus take} Actual text sent to my sister today: "I am about to attempt to catch my chickens using a fish net. Please pray to the patron saint of that for me to win without to much heartache." Patron Saint of Chickens, for the win! (Apparently St. Brigid of Kildare is the patron saint of chicken farmers. Chicken farmers hang her image on their coops!).

--- 4 ---

Own only so many chickens as you can devote 15 min/ea per day that they escape from your age-appropriate housing that you have prepared in advance. (Translation: all the days you own them.)This is known as the chicken:actual-time-you-have ratio of the farmer and is expressed by the equation:

[x=15c]

where x=amount of time you will spend running around your yard like an idiot trying to catch your chickens (amusing for your neighbors!)and c=the number of chickens you are naïve enough to have purchased.

{Bonus take} Actual text sent to my sister today: "There is not enough chocolate for single motherhood to be a viable option in this world. Idk how they do it. Well, lemme rephrase. Idk how they would do it and have chickens." Translation: major props to you single moms out there. Steve's away on a trip right now, and this makes all the excitement with the chickens you know WAY MORE FUN (ha. ha. ha.). 

--- 5 ---

Actual tip #3: chickens are WAY WAY easier to catch once they have “roosted” for the night. They basically act as though they have had a few too many gin and tonics (gins and tonic?), and you can just pick them right up, saving yourself ALL KINDS OF TIME.

--- 6 ---

I haven’t had to buy any eggs from the store since whenever it was 

last summer that the chickens started to lay eggs. 

--- 7 ---

Chickens eat ticks. I loathe ticks. QED...

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Tied Up with String: Five Favorites {Vol. 1}

Finally linking it up with Hallie over at Moxie Wife for her Five Favorites fun, so when you're done here,
head over there to see what other folks are lovin' today! :D

1. These flip flops. The brand is Okabashi. 

They are MADE in the USA! They are flip flops WITH AN ARCH. ...and (best part?),
they cost me $10 at Wal-Mart! I don't usually
shop at Wal-Mart, because it's just too huge and crowded and...everything there is made in China anyways, right? BUT...I found these!
And since I have to have something to put on my feet quickly when Leo or Daniel is running into the road or terrorizing a goat, or falling on his head...voila. Mine are dark brown with gold straps. 

2. I found this soap at World Market, which is a really fun 

(AKA dangerous if you're trying to follow a budget) 

store that sells things from all over the world (kind of like Pier 1). 

Anyways, this one is RHUBARB scented. It is delightful. 

And, let's face it, with all of the farm animals and boy-babies 

around here, I have to wash these hands A LOT. 

As I've said before, motherhood is 70% about #2.

As Leo put's it, "There's a cow on there!"

3. Since I'm washing my hands so much (because
there's also that little side job I do as a visiting
nurse...SO MUCH hand-washing in my life!),
and because I already have dry skin, enter stage
left this wonderful stuff. It's light, non-greasy,
and wonderfully effective at easing the dry cracked
horrible-ness of winter/nurse/mom hands.
Warning: it contains lanolin, which according to
my Aunt Janet, can cause you to start bleeting. ;)

4. I really enjoy this blog. Grace over at Camp Patton light-hearted-ly

blogs about life with her 3 under 3 as the wife of  a OB-GYN 

doctor in his residency (nice term for 'let's work the guy for 60+ 

hours/week for a few years at the high-pressure physically 

and mentally demanding job of caring for women in childbirth 

before we let him say that he's *officially* a doctor')

--and you thought you had it rough! It is a delightful read,

especially when she quotes her 2 year old or her husband,
and always makes me smile. 

Grace and her littles

5. I read this quote here and then also somewhere else I can't remember,

so I made it my Facebook status, hoping that I wouldn't forget it so quickly.
I'm putting it on here so that I read it again :0).
I guess I just cannot be reminded too often to let go and let God.
"Must you continue to be your own cross? No matter which way God leads you, you change everything into bitterness by constantly brooding over everything. For the love of God, replace all this self-scrutiny with a pure and simple glance at God's goodness." --St. Jeanne de Chantal