Secret Recipe Sugar Cookies

'Tis the season for Christmas baking, and these cookies are on the top of my list every year. 

My favorite kind of recipes are the ones passed down from each generation to the next.  They're most often titled with the name of the first person to make them, or at least the first to make them famous amongst our extended family.

Though I don't remember my Aunt Eileen, I always think about her when these sugar cookies show up at a family event during the holidays.  They are the perfect cut-out cookie with a secret ingredient which keeps them soft, even though they won't last long in your house.

They are so incredibly easy: one bowl, no sifting, no nonsense, just straight-up sugar cookies meant to be made and decorated and devoured (not always in that order, if you're asking the cookie dough thieves in our family).

Our favorite way is to take a can of white frosting (I know, *cringe*, but just roll with it), whip it in a bowl to make it go further, divide it into 8+ little bowls, make a bunch of fun colors, grab some sprinkles, and go to town.

I highly recommend Wilson brand paste dyes for your frosting.  When you want true red for your candy cane stripes, you'll thank me that you needed a little blob of dye instead of an entire bottle of the drop kind.

They're really fun to make with kids, and even more fun to decorate with friends and family.  Try them out with your favorite baking comrades during these 12 Days of Christmas.

Sugar Cookies
Makes 12 dozen cookies (this varies based on the size of cookie cutters you use, the thickness, etc.)

Ingredients: 
1 C butter
2 C white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
5 C white flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 C sour cream

Directions:
1) Cream butter and sugar with a mixer; next, add eggs, vanilla, almond extract, and mix together.
2) Add dry ingredients and sour cream to the bowl and mix to combine.
3) Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
4) Roll out with plenty of flour to between 1/8" and 1/4", and cut into desired shapes.
5) Place on a greased baking sheet, or an ungreased baking stone.  Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.
6) Cool, decorate, and enjoy.

- Grace

When the Childhood Magic of Christmas is Gone

It's almost Christmas. 

The first real, sticking snow in our area rests on the evergreens around our house.

I can see the magical, white blanket continue across the road onto the rolling hills of our neighbor's horse pasture.  We will have snow for Christmas.

Our Christmas tree is set up, the living room rearranged for the holidays, and a few wrapped presents sit beneath its limbs.  The rest of the wrapping will be done today.

The stockings are hung, the nativity scene is set up, and the advent calendar is almost complete.

But sometimes, it still doesn't feel like Christmas.

The general consensus among my generation is simple: Christmas, at some point, stopped feeling like the Christmas we remembered.  The magic has disappeared.

But what kind of magic did we feel then that we're missing now? 

A commercialized frenzy of viewing, asking for, and receiving the newest toys?

The joy of fresh powder long before we were handed snow shovels?

The thrill of waiting for a creepy old guy to break into our homes while we slept?  To be honest, I'm really not sure how my paranoid-self ever accepted this story without question.

Now that I reflect on the past excitement of Christmas, I can divide it into two categories: one is timeless and true, traditions based on the story of Christmas which hasn't changed in 2,000 years; the latter is gone as soon as you catch your parents putting presents under the tree at 1:30 AM.

It doesn't surprise me to hear that my generation no longer feels the joy of Christmas when the joy they were sold as kids is built only on the love of presents and a twisted story of Saint Nicholas.  It only sets up children for disappointment later when they realize that the only traditions they know are as superficial as the mall santa's beard.  

This is not to say that you shouldn't teach your kids to appreciate the fun of Christmas, or watch Frosty the Snowman movies, or watch them experience the excitement of "Santa gifts."  But no matter which traditions you make with your kids, old or new, please teach your kids what Christmas is really about.  It is about Jesus Christ, who was born in a manger, who came to earth to live the life we couldn't and die the death we deserved.

Take them to church on Christmas.

Read Luke 2 with them.

Tell them more about Jesus than you do about Santa Claus.  

Teach your children what peace on earth looks like: Christ in the manger. 

Teach your children what real love looks like: Christ on the cross.  

Share with them the joy that is true and the peace which surpasses all understanding.

These things can't be outgrown.

- Grace 

A [Book]case of the Re-reads

The Book List

It never gets shorter.
It only grows with each conversation I have, no matter the topic of the conversation.

The topics: the religion of the Founding Fathers, indie novels by other bloggers I follow, Russian literature, theological books from various centuries, and, yes, John Green's entire bibliography.
I enjoy the eclectic aspect of life.

We live in a world where all of these are free at the library, or, at the least convenient, 2-day free shipping away.
So why does the list ever grow, taking only one off for every five I add to its length?

I have a case of the rereads, a whole shelf, actually.  A seemingly unorganized collection of bent-cornered paperbacks with unfortunate dog ears, not from intentional abuse, but from bumping around in my backpack on a trip or sliding into dangerous car seat pockets.

The worst offenders on my shelf of rereads:
- The Iliad and The Odyssey
- Little House on the Prairie
- Anna Karenina

It is a simple joy to reread books many years after you've read them for the first time.  You are able to compare yourself at a younger age to yourself now, the development in the time between, in relation to a book which hasn't changed.  You may even find yourself relating to different characters.

There is also odd comfort found in the worn pages of a softcover book which is too far past keeping "nice" that is it is now best used to riding around in a purse or backpack.  It's a companion edition not meant for shelves, the misfit of the bookcase.

Will I have cross every book off my list when my life is over?  I don't know.
I will add new stories to the list, and I will reread my favorites because both are enjoyable to me.
These things I know.

Comment below: do you reread your favorite books?

- Grace

Images of an Autumn Gone

This autumn was like the leaves on these trees, bright and beautiful and fleeting and now gone.
Since these photos were taken, it has given way to the Advent of winter, the dry and cold preparation before the beautiful, white snow comes to cover the ground.
However, the intense colors of autumn leaves are still firmly engrained in my head, along with the memories that accompanied them. 

- Grace

Not The Angel's Food Cake

Recipe books, faded with time, many of pages falling out, once lived in this cabinet.

My great-grandma's favorites books, newspaper clippings, and magazines filled the bottom right drawer, just below the spice canisters.

Some of these books made their way to my grandma's house, including one dedicated to desserts.

"Could I borrow this?" I asked. 

"No," the response.

So, I made my great-grandma's chocolate angel food cake by hand, from scratch, reading the instructions off a photo on my iPhone because it's 2017. 

For reference, all three of these houses are located on the same farm, each less than a mile from the other.  I made the cake in our house last night.  The lighting was not ideal or I'd have photo proof that I whipped the egg whites by hand, but alas, 'twas not aesthetic.  You'll just have to believe me.

I think I need to whip them firmer next time, but that means I'm using a hand mixer.

It's phenomenal, light and fluffy on the inside, sticky on the edges, and with a thin, crunchy top. 

I think I'm going to make strawberry sauce and whipped cream for it for supper tonight. 

Chocolate Angel Food Cake

Ingredients:

3/4 sifted cake flour (or 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, - 1.5 TBSP flour, + 1.5 TSBP cornstarch, sift together a few times)

4 TBSP cocoa

1 1/4 egg whites

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 1/4 cup sifted granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Sift flour once, measure, add cocoa, and sift four more times. 

2. Beat egg whites and salt with a flat wire whisk (or a hand mixer). When foamy, add cream of tartar and continue beating until eggs are stiff enough to hold up in peaks, but not dry. 

3. Fold in sugar carefully, 2 TBSP at a time, until all is used. Fold in vanilla. 

4. Then sift a small amount of flour over mixture an fold in carefully; continue until all is used.

5. Pour batter into uncreased angel food pan and bake for 30 minutes at 275 degrees, then raise the temperature to 325 degrees and bake for another 30 minutes.

6. Remove from oven and invert pan 1 hour or until cool.  If you have a handy old fashioned glass soda bottle sitting around, they work perfectly, as do beer bottles, etc.  

7.  Once it's cool, you can run a knife around the edge, and flip it onto a plate.  My pan is in two pieces, so I lifted the cake out of the pan with the bottom piece, and then ran a knife around the bottom of the cake, placed a plate on top, and flipped it over. 

I can't wait to finish this cake for dessert tonight. 

Make this cake for one of your Christmas shindigs; it's fantastic.

If you ever make my recipes, I'd love to see photos of them. <3

- Grace

November // Side A

November.

The month of autumn skies and early sunsets, and featuring the extra hour of sleep rudely taken from me in the spring.

The month in which pie is elevated to its proper status as the finest of desserts.

The month unfortunately taken over by the early playing of Christmas music.

The ensuing argument, "there are no Thanksgiving songs".

Yes, there are.  Page 993 of the LSB.  Vince Guaraldi's Thanksgiving Theme.  But I digress.

The music I listen to in November isn't holiday related.  It's my after-dark playlist, which is especially perfect since we have more moments of waking darkness each day.

Black Cadillac by Shinedown

The first song on my playlist, this intro and song sets the mood for the rest of the playlist.  The Amaryllis album might be my favorite, but this track is a gem.

Favorite lyrics: "I got a mind full of inspiration, and I ain't livin' in the past no more", and "So feast your eyes on the big, blue sky. . ."

The Last of the Real Ones by Fall Out Boy

This song is brand new, only about two weeks old.  It's all of the creative lyrics and great beats you expect of Fall Out Boy, with a little more polish and guess what, still a long title. Favorite lyrics: "I was just an only child of the universeAnd then I found you."



How Did You Love by Shinedown

One of the reasons I enjoy listening to this band is their lyrical depth.  It's poetry in rock music, and this is where two of my favorite things combine is the most excellent way.

Favorite lyrics: "You can have a sound of the thousand voices calling your name

You can have the light of the world blind you, bath you in grace
But I don't see so easily what you hold in your hands
'Cause castles crumble, kingdoms fall and turn into sand."

Mess is Mine by Vance Joy

This song describes one of my favorite aspects of relationships, be the romantic or otherwise: the idea of bearing one another's burdens.  This applies specifically in the context of marriage, when one's mess truly is the other's, they are each other's, mess and all.  Late night listening brings out my deeper thoughts.

Favorite lyrics: "Well hold on, my darling.  This mess was yours, now your mess is mine."



Car Radio by Twenty One Pilots

Ukulele screamo rap doesn't float everyone's boat, and I understand that.  This song fits with the rest because of its lyrics, and the message of hope in the darkness.  It's also relevant because I was listening to it on a late drive home one night. . .through my phone speakers, because get this: the radio in the car didn't actually work.  Go figure.

Favorite: "Sometimes quiet is violent."  "I find over the course of our human existence one thing consists of consistence, and it's that we're all battling fear."  "Peace will win, and fear will lose."



There's the first half of my November suggestions.

Check it out here: Life of Pies Mixtape (and comment if you follow me because my followers are anonymous and I'd love to know pls and thx)

Drop your favorite Thanksgiving and after-dark songs in the comments. -->



- Grace 

Fields of Green Turned Gold

Harvest is beautiful in photos.  It is orange moons and fainting sunsets.  It is also golden fields and green tractors; well, they should be green.

Unfortunately, harvest is not just the aesthetics of frost on fields.  Harvest is the frost on the truck windshield which you have to scrape off to drive to the load-out field before the first truck.

Harvest is chaos of noise from two tractors and an auger, and a truck driver holding a conversation with my dad above the rest of it.  But it is also rolling up polywire fence for the livestock and hearing the soft hum of the combine across the section.

Harvest is wearing four layers for the 6:30 AM truck, and a wearing a t-shirt by the 4:30 PM load.  It is keeping my hair up in a hat and still brushing out corn chaff that night.  The evil, pink glitter gets everywhere, including the pockets of nearly every sweatshirt I own.

Harvest is taking food out to the fields during the day, and eating supper late.  To make the first part of this operation work as smoothly as possible, we have a map on the wall by our fridge on which each field is numbered.  Snacks and coffee to field 14 it is.

Speaking of coffee, harvest is not the time to bring up the coffee consumption of those special few running the equipment.  The number of beat-up thermoses you've poured in the past twelve hours might be high, but I promise you- they don't care.  They're running on caffeine and ever-present fear of bad weather or breakdowns (because, you know, those two things can never come at the same time).
Give them coffee.
Say nothing.

Harvest transcends all other schedules.  For instance, I had homework to do this week, but I did none of it when we were loading trucks.  This makes for a slightly-stressed me, but I had the least amount of farm work in our family this fall, so I don't worry too much.  For the record, the homework is done, for now anyways.

Harvest, however, is not.

- Grace