My Apologies

I know I promised an update on my showdown at the preschool, but it will have to wait. I had a death in the family and I just don't feel too funny or bloggy at the moment. Hearts to all. Hug the ones you love.

Rest In Peace Aunt Joan

End Game

Today. 10:30am, central time. The Preschool Mafia and I battle it out one last time until next school year at the end of the year picnic.
I spent an entire 22 minutes getting ready this morning, versus the regular 3 minutes. I am wearing flip-flops, ya know, in case I need to kick off my shoes for a serious throwdown!! I'm even bringing The Dude for backup, as I know the Alpha Mommy demands invites her husband to these kinds of functions.
Who will emerge victorious? Who will crawl away with their tail tucked between their legs *note* I do not have an actual tail. Tune in later for all the details. Same bat channel, same bat time...errr, something like that.

Dear Cell Phone Mommy

Dearest Minivan driving, cell phone gabbing, line holding up preschool Mom,

Thank you SOOOOO much for holding up the pick-up line. I just know that phone call you were on was super-duper important, I could tell by the obnoxious cackle coming from your minivan and the way you slapped your leg. I realize paying attention to the rules of the road and life in general is simply too much for you. Don't mind the blaring horns or the teachers waving at you like mad women. I know, they do look silly waving their arms about! The nerve of some people, scolding you for continuing to yap on your phone as you barrel towards innocent preschoolers.

Don't you worry too much, the school year is almost up. By the way, if I see you again, I'm going to cut you with a shank made mostly of sporks, Popsicle sticks and cheerios. Yeah, I know how to get the most use out of that craft cubby in the classroom.

Your Friend,

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.

This is why you're fat.

This site made me nauseous. Then it made me hungry. Then it made me wonder, "Why didn't I think of that?!" Common! Deep fried cupcakes?! Sweet heart-attack-heaven!

I love fair season!

This past weekend was our town's annual Fireman's Fair. The proceeds go to our volunteer fire department. There is tons of food, rides, and great music. It all culminates Sunday with a big parade and auction.


Pickles planting a wet one on Aunt Ali


The Dude is a member of the volunteer fire department so I didn't see much of him the whole weekend. The grand Marshall this year was my girl "Aunt Ali" 's Daddy! Yay! It is a HUGE deal! She, along with her brother and Mother got to ride on an antique fire truck in the parade, while her Daddy rode a horse. Pickles and I were allowed into the grand Marshall's viewing stand at the parade route which was super cool. All the fire company's stop in front of the viewing stand and do a little salute or skit and all the bands do a special song in front of the stands.

Pickles with Aunt Ali watching a band do a presentation for the Grand Marshall

The girls rode on a float in the parade. Unfortunately, they started to fall asleep near the end of the parade so The Dude carried them the rest of the way.

Woke up in time to wave to Mamma

So what's the big deal?

Scones. Why does that word strike fear into the heart of bakers? I had always shied away from making scones because I'd heard they were so difficult to make. Umm, what?

My Shasty pointed me to a little blog with two teenage sisters would enjoyed baking. I honestly don't remember the blog which was aggrivating because I wanted to use their recipe and I couldn't remember the name of their blog! When we chat we shoot each other different blog links non-stop. Anyway, I thought, geez, if these teenagers can do it, so can I. I sought out a basic cream scone recipe. Looked at several different and settled on a fairly bland sounding one so I could jazz it up some.

I had worked at a bakery in my late teens/early 20s and remember the scone being wildly popular with my early Saturday morning crew of upper-crust customers. We had lots of varieties from pecan to currant to blueberry. Everyone had a side of clotted cream with their scone. I don't own any clotted cream, nor did I see any at the store. What I did have was cream cheese, so I worked with what I had.
In my freezer I had a bag of frozen blueberries, so obviously my scones would have those in them. I also had 3 lovely lemons. Hmmmm, lemon and blueberry go nicely.

Sunny Blueberry Scones

2 C flour

1/4 C sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 C unsalted butter

1 tsp lemon extract

1/2 C whipping cream

1 large egg, beaten

zest of two lemons

Filling:

1 Cup frozen blueberries (or fresh, dur)

1 pkg cream cheese, softened

2 T granulated sugar

zest of one lemon

1 T lemon juice

Cream together filling ingredients, except for blueberries, set aside.

Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Cut in butter. Your dough should resemble a coarse meal at this point. Combine wet ingredients (I just kinda stirred them all together in my big measuring cup, so as not to dirty another dish) and add to dry mixture. Knead it all together till it forms up in a ball. Knead a few more times. Divide dough in half. On a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet, form one of the balls into a circle, about 1/2 inch thick. Place the second ball on a sheet of waxed paper and press into a slightly larger (and will obviously be thinner) circle.

Spread filling onto first circle. Sprinkle blueberries on the cream cheese mixture. Lay the larger circle on top, and peel off the waxed paper. Press around the edges to seal. Cut the filled scone circle into how ever many pieces you want to have I think I did 12. Brush with extra cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes.

Man were these delightful with a cup of coffee on the deck the other morning. I took half of my scones a few blocks over to my friend at work. I think they enjoyed them too. They didn't last too long anyway!

*I had no pictures of the process because I didn't know that I'd like these so well! Sorry!*

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P.S. It rained today....a lot. I actually saw a tornado forming in the sky. Scared the bejeebers out of me. We had at least 3 areas of "intense cloud rotation" over our area today. They all lined right up and passed over us. It was fun there for a while.

Here are my official rain totals for my house:

Middle of yard: water to tops of my feet

Back of property: ankle deep water. This area is a common place for my children to strip down nekkid and splash in any accumulated water.

Should I sent these official totals in to the weather channel?