We'll be out of town for the Thanksgiving Holiday!

Be back in a couple weeks!

Did you ever wonder???

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Almost everyone likes some kind of cookie. Have you ever wondered where cookies came from? .There are thousands of cookie recipes in the world, let's learn a little bit about them...

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In America, a cookie is described as a thin, sweet, usually small cake. By definition, a cookie can be any of a variety of hand-held, flour-based sweet cakes, either crisp or soft.

Each country has its own word for "cookie." ---------------------------
What we know as cookies are called biscuits in England and Australia, in Spain they're galletas, Germans call them keks or Plätzchen for Christmas cookies, and in Italy there are several names to identify various forms of cookies including amaretti and biscotti, (bee-SKAWT-tee.) The word biscotto is derived from bis (twice) and cotto (cooked).
The name cookie is derived from the Dutch word koekje, meaning "small or little cake."

Biscuit comes from the Latin word bis coctum, which means, "twice baked."

According to culinary historians, the first historic record of cookies was their use as test cakes. A small amount of cake batter was baked to test the oven temperature.

Kissable Candies Thumbprint Cookies

-Here's a recipe that if you're like kiddie chef, Mindy, you'll sneak some of the special ingredient while you're waiting for the cookies to finish baking.

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1-1/3 cups granulated sugar
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup Cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar
1 can (16 oz.) vanilla frosting
Additional powdered sugar
1 cup (8-oz. pkg.) Hershey's Kissables Chocolate Candies

Tools:

• Mixing bowl
• Electric beaters
• Medium bowl
• Cookie sheet
• Wire cooling rack
• Heavy-duty plastic food storage bag
• Rubber spatula
• Cookie spatula

Directions:

1. Beat butter, granulated sugar, egg yolks, milk and vanilla until fluffy. Combine flour, cocoa and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Cover; refrigerate dough about 2 hours or until firm enough to handle.

2. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease cookie sheet. Shape dough into 1-1/8-inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar; place on prepared cookie sheet. Press thumb in center of each cookie.

3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack; cool completely.

4. Spoon frosting into heavy-duty resealable plastic food storage bag. Cut off corner of bag about 1/4 inch from point; pipe frosting into thumbprint indentations. Sift additional powdered sugar over filled cookies, if desired. Gently press 3 to 4 candies into each filled cookie.

Yield: About 3-1/2 dozen cookies.

Vanilla Variation: Increase flour to 2-3/4 cups; omit cocoa.

The no-mess Lunch

(Not even any dishes to wash!)

Here are some lunch ideas which can make the mid-day meal SO easy!

Mom often let us kids have "Paper napkin" lunches and we would get a kick out of it, plus it was a lot less for her to clean up.

Handing each of us a paper napkin, we would unfold it all the way and lay it on the table in front of us.

Then Mom would come by and place one food item on each of the four squares made by the creases in the napkin. All finger foods, which we loved!

Things like...

• Sandwiches
• Blueberrys, strawberrys or some such fruit
• Carrot sticks
• Celery
• Pretzels
• Peanuts or sunflower seeds

The list goes on.. we all have our finger food favs!

Then for cups Mom came up with a very simple solution so that we don't end up with a billion cups to wash after one day. Each of the children have a water bottle in the refridgerator, and even Connor can reach in and grab a drink anytime during the day. This works well at lunch time too. They all get their water cold from the fridge. No plates, no cups, no utensils. The table doesn't even have to be cleared! Everyone throws away their napkin and puts their water back in the fridge and lunch is over!