Offer ends on Monday,
November 10 at
(excluding shipping)
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In this Issue:
The Joy of Cooking with Kids For my eighth birthday, my mother gave me a cookbook. It wasn't much of cookbook, but it was mine. I can remember her helping me through those recipes until soon, I was confident enough to tackle many of them on my own. It changed my life. It started a lifelong love with cooking. That cookbook also provided a wealth of shared experiences with my mother. The greatest conversations that I recall from my childhood and youth took place in that kitchen. The cookbook is long gone but the memories, the lessons that I learned from my mother, and my passion for baking remain. I'm glad that my mother had the wisdom to give such an unusual gift to an eight year old boy. Recently, I was baking at my brother's house. Soon my nephew's kids three and four year olds pulled up stools and pitched in. By the time the scones were mixed, there was a little flour on the floor, a lot on the kids, and we had dug a few egg shell pieces out of the dough but the gleeful chatter made it worthwhile. We were best buddies. Cooking with small kids can be a joy-for them and for you. Cooking with older kids-especially a teenager-will pass on life skills and create memorable shared accomplishments. Maybe, just maybe, a lot more will come out of the experience than a chocolate layer cake. Whether your children, your grandchildren, or the neighborhood children, don't miss the opportunity to cook with kids. Contributed by Dennis Weaver, one of the founders of The Prepared Pantry The Joys of Refrigerator Cookies Baking cookies seem to fill the house with a sense of well being and peace. Perhaps it is the smell of butter, vanilla, and spices emanating from the hot oven. Maybe it is the love and caring attention that is evident in cookies. Home, love, and cookies seem to go together. Consider refrigerator, or icebox, cookies for the holidays. They can be made up ahead of time-even months ahead-and stored until ready to bake. Baking up those stored refrigerator cookies is mess free, takes little time, and you only need to bake what you need for the moment. Drop cookies are quick cookies; refrigerator cookies are convenient cookies. Refrigerator cookies are also attractive cookies. Nothing beats the uniform slices and consistent shape of refrigerator cookies. To keep that uniform shape, slice while the dough is still cold and firm and turn the log after every few cookies to keep the log round. If the cookies have a flat edge, mold them back to shape with the curl of your finger before baking. Roll the refrigerator cookies into logs (or blocks) as directed in the instructions then wrap them in waxed paper and aluminum foil. The logs can be refrigerated for a week or frozen for months. When you are ready to bake, remove the logs from the refrigerator to unthaw. It's easier to slice a log that is not completely thawed and the cookies bake fine-though you may need to add another minute or so. We have several refrigerator cookie mixes for you to consider. Chocolate Vanilla Pinwheels, shown at the top of the page, is a sugar cookie type that is attractive and fun to make. Swiss Chocolate Slices is a delicate wafer of a cookie with a milk chocolate and almond taste and attractive with tiny bits of studded almonds. Chocolate Yo-yo's are fancy sandwich cookies-rich shortbread slices with a buttercream frosting filling. All three of these cookies make attractive gifts. Shipping Cookies to Loved Ones Nothing sends the message that you care quite like home-baked goods. But often those loved ones are far away. How do you successfully send favorite cookies to a loved one away from home? Choose sturdy cookies to ship and ones that won't smear the frosting. Wrap cookies loosely and individually in plastic. Package them in small containers. If you want to ship a lot of cookies, use several smaller containers and place them in a bigger box. Cushion the smaller boxes in packing "peanuts" or crushed newspaper. Fresher cookies are better cookies. Make sure that the cookies are wrapped well enough that they won't dry out and get them to the shipper right away. Many shipping services offer remarkably quick deliveries. We use UPS Ground for most of our shipments and they deliver within two days to addresses several states away. For overseas and long distances, consider drier cookies that don't stale as quickly. And remember, the closer to Christmas that you ship, the more likely that the shipper will be backlogged and delivery will take longer. |
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Safety first. Keep younger children away from a hot stove and sharp knives. Even very young children will want to put the flour in the mixing bowl or break an egg. Turn the mixer off and let them do it.
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Freezing Bar Cookies  Most bar cookies freeze particularly well. There are two ways to freeze bar cookies: wrap them individually or wrap and freeze the whole cake after it has cooled completely. Bar cookies should last for months in a freezer (not the freezer section of your refrigerator). We have frozen Hermits in a Bar for six months with no noticeable loss of quality. |