Epidemics R Us

Swine flu is SOOO last month. I think I am single-handedly bringing back the SARS epidemic. Remember that one? When was that, 2003? So yeah, bringin' that back.

Hey look! This Newsweek cover looks a lot like my picture from the Swine Flu mask post!!

I probably, technically, don't have SARS, but dang! I do recall an instance back in 2003 (The Dude was in Iraq) when I was taken via ambulance to the hospital due to a bad asthma attack. The SARS epidemic was in full swing. I was asked SEVERAL times if I had recently traveled to China. Yes, the ER staff thought I had SARS!! Anyway, yeah, feel and sound the same as I did back then. It was so bad they nearly brought The Dude home from Iraq, but I insisted he stay. I realize that comes off as sounding exceedingly strange, but I knew he was torn between coming home to be with me or staying with his guys. I was fine, really, so there was no need for him to go through the guilt/crap of leaving his unit out there.



I was planning on making a doctor's appointment for myself first thing when I got into work....I was too slow to the draw. BOTH of my bosses had already made themselves appointments for this morning, so I will have to wait till tomorrow.



Say friends, who noticed my fancy-shmancy new header?! Heck yeah man! April, over at April Showers did the custom illustration and header for me. Pretty sweet, no?! I'm loving how the cartoon image of me is thin. That is the best weight loss program I have ever used!! Stick around, my blog will soon have other cosmetic procedures done in the near-ish future.

Margarita Mayhem

Friends, this is a very sad day in MammaDucky-land. I threw away cookies. Not just like one cookie, like a lot. They were crap and not worth the calories. I had high hopes for these cookies. The very sound of their name sent me over the moon umm, helloooo?! Margarita and Sangria cookies?!?!?!?
My friend was looking for something cool and different to bring to this big annual Cinco Nuevo de Mayo party. She came across this recipe for these cookies with actual alcohol in them SCORE! We were both super stoked and ready for action. She bought all of the ingredients despite my protests of "but I have everything you could possibly need." Oh how I was wrong. She showed up with two different kinds of Jell-O, sea salt, and all sorts of things. Hmmmm.

At this point I'm thinking that I probably should have looked over the recipe, but we'll just go with the flow (and drink plenty of wine).

Or whatever else the recipe called for and was alcoholic.

The first night, we just mixed up the dough (yes it took us multiple nights. Dough used for cut-outs should sit in the fridge overnight, silly-heads). The margarita dough tasted super yummy, the sangria one, eh. I wrapped 'em up and popped them in the fridge.

We damn near polished off the bottle of wine. We stopped when we realized we would need more wine for the glaze...ooops.

Night two: rolled out the dough, cut the margarita glass shaped cookies and a few lime slice shaped ones (gotta be authentic people!). The Dude even helped with this part. The two of them got all into it. They started twisting the stems of the glasses and getting crazy. There were like a brazillion cookies. Seriously, like a lot.

As they cooled I glanced over the recipe for the glaze. This is the part that required Jell-O. It didn't make sense in my head and my baking senses started to tingle, wait, Jell-O never dries and it's very sticky, yet I kept right on following the recipe.

In addition to the Jell-O, it had triple sec and wine (or tequila, respectively). So after we got done glazing the cookies, we did little Jell-O shots...mistake. We barely got them down. Blegh! Moving right along. It had gotten very late at this point of course, we did stop to watch Grey's Anatomy.

My friend suggested I whip up the frosting while she finished glazing. Deal. Another "hmmmmm" moment. This recipe is for a powdered sugar glaze, more or less, not a recipe to be used to do decorative frosting. Yet, I followed the directions to the letter. STUPID! We were left with exceedingly runny, albeit tasty, alcoholic icing/glaze. We tried to pipe it onto the cookie anyway, much to our amusement.

Eeeep! It looks like there was some sort of bloody battle!

Oh yeah, forgot to add that the recipe called for the "glasses" to be rimmed *giggle* with a sugar/salt mixture. Pretty much the icing and the sugar/salt mixture dissolved into the cookie.

Needless to say, the Jell-O covered cookies were soft and VERY sticky. If I were to make these again which I won't there would be a mountain of changes I would make to this recipe.

I had a little prayer service over the trash can as I tossed these in. *sniffly, sniff* Always sad to see a cookie in the can.

P.S. My friend thought they were great and packed them up and took her half to her party. I suggested serving strong margaritas before serving our cookie versions.