'Good Enuf' Chocolate-Chip Cookies

We wanted Chocolate Chip Cookies the other night. I looked for a "Best Cookie" recipe on the internet, but couldn't find any quick enough.

I did find my copy of the old Better Homes and Garden Cookbook, copyrighted 1953.



On page 187, there's a recipe titled 'Chocolate-Chip Cookies'. No zingy descriptive names like... Best Cookies Ever...just a plain old name: Chocolate-Chip Cookies. I like that.

I thought it was interesting how much smaller the cookies were made back then, how simple the recipes were, and not many utensils or ingredients either!

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees, line cookie sheet with parchment paper, bake 10 to 12 minutes.

Here's how simple it is:

Cream together butter (1 stick) and sugars (1/2 cup granulated, 1/4 cup brown), then add 1 egg, beat well.



In a small bowl, mix together flour (1 cup plus 2 Tbs), baking soda (1/2 tsp), and salt (1/2 tsp).

Add flour mixture slowly to creamed sugar mixture.

Stir in hot water (1/4 tsp), vanilla (1/2 tsp), chocolate chips (6 oz) and walnuts (if desired)

Use the tablespoon to scoop the dough and drop onto cookie sheet.

I also just stuck some walnuts into half the cookies because I don't do walnuts myself.


Wild Bill really liked these cookies. I really liked making them because they were so quick and didn't make a pile of cookies I'd just have to give away.

Try making a quick batch yourself. You might just want to call them  Best.Cookies.Ever.  I won't tell.

Chandy Party

Recently, with the move and all, I have been blocked about what to take pictures of and blog about. Then I saw that Savvy City Farmer is throwing a Chandy Party for bloggers to post about their chandeliers. Well, I can do that! So I moved all the crap that still hasn't been unpacked or put away, and took some pictures of the part of the dining room that's usable. Finally I'm going to show some parts of the house.

This is an old chandelier that the builder's designer wife put in the house. I love it/I hate it/I love it sometimes...and sometimes not. It is very thin and fragile looking. Not one of the chunky chandeliers I love, so to beef it up I put a swag of rustic pine branches and pine cones on it.

Now in my last post on my word for the year, I told you I was going to follow the Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, or You do without philosophy. That includes this chandelier. So, since I can't replace it, I'm going to focus on what I like about it:

First of all, this chandy has "hats" as Wild Bill calls the shades on lights. Leave it to a Texan to have all his taste in his mouth. His mother told me that, so don't think I'm judging...just relating a fact she pointed out, even tho she loves her only child dearly!

The hats give the lights a gold-ish glow when not being hit by the flash I'm trying to learn how to turn off. I love a soft yellow gold light, especially in the dining room.

Second, the metal is old and crumbly and brown and aged. I didn't even have to do anything with glaze or stain to get it aged.

The builder had a faux painter paint the ceiling a dark brown with a reflective glaze, the chandelier's lights cause a sparkling moody effect on the ceiling, which I really like.

I've been going through Pinterest and other blogs and old magazines looking for ideas to beef this chandelier up. If you have an idea you'd like to share with me in this regard, please leave me a comment. Like everyone else, I love to read your comments.

Here's a picture of the table and chairs in the room. I haven't removed all the Christmas decor yet, so I just mixed in some Valentine's Day stuff to try to start moving away for Christmas.

I'm thinking pine cones and evergreens do go with Winter too, right? I mean, they're not just for Christmas, don't you agree?

The table is from Pottery Barn and the Valentine's Day sign is from Hobby Lobby. They have some really cute V-Day decorations already in their isles.

So, that's the chandelier and the part of the dining room I can show you for now. Hope to see what you have hanging from your ceiling at the Savvy City Farmer's Chandy Party. You can click on the link below to add your post and see what everyone else is showing. Thanks for dropping by.

http://savvycityfarmer.blogspot.com/2012/01/thriftn-on-thursday-link-party-8.html

Word For Year Is 13

I want to make my life simple this year, so my word for the coming year is the number "13". This number represents 13 words of a mantra I plan to follow in 2012, hoping to be a better person by the time we get to 2013.

So I'm living this year by "13", standing for thirteen words of a little diddy my Grandmother used to say:

Use it up
Wear it out
Make it do, or,
You do without

I'm putting my word 'out there' this year by joining up with Layla's This Little Word Of Mine party at The Lettered Cottage. I hope you will join the party too because I'd love to see what word you've chosen to live this year by.

http://theletteredcottage.net

New Camera Post

Here's a picture with my new camera. It seems 'blurry' might be the fault of the picture-taker and NOT the camera.

They got better with each picture I took. Yes...I'm still trying to perfect the 'taking your own picture' skill that all three of my daughters seem to have, while I suck at it. This next picture wouldn't have been bad if I hadn't decided my bangs were hanging in my eyes right when I took the picture.

I'm still experimenting. And soon I'm going to read the directions. If this picture looks a little crazy it's because someone once told me if you raise your head up a little, your double chin won't show so bad.

Go on, try it. You know you want to!

Old Painted Doors Are The Best Doors

I like anything that's painted. My husband likes anything with stained wood (no paint). This seems to be a trait shared by most male/female couples. Why do men like unpainted wood?

Here's our front door. Wood, no paint. I would paint it in a minute, my husband would not.

Forgive the Christmas wreath, but these are the only pictures I have available right now.

The next picture is my idea of a perfect door. Old, with chippy paint. My husband would cringe just looking at it.

Perfection is hard to define, but I think old painted doors are the best doors. What do you think?

I'm joining the Everything But The Kitchen Sink party over at A Little Knick Knack. Hope you'll come over and join up too! You can click on her link in the 'blogs I follow' column on the right side of the screen.

Halfway To...

As of January 1, Wild Bill is retired. I never thought it would happen. When he was working, he always loved Wednesday 'Hump Day' as it was the halfway point to his weekend. He also often laughed at me when I wasn't sure what day it was since retiring a few years ago.

Things have moved slowly this week. Yesterday we took down the Christmas tree and unpacked 5 more boxes from the garage. We also saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie at the early bird special, but skipped the grocery store when we saw too many cars in the parking lot.

I got up at 5 am this morning and about 6:45 Wild Bill sauntered out and sat down in his chair in the front room. He looked over at me and asked...

"What day is it...Wednesday... or ... Thursday?"

"Well" I said "Yesterday was Tuesday."

"Yeah, it was election day in Iowa" he said "So...it's Wednesday then?"

"Yeah, Wednesday" I said "Hump Day. We're halfway to...NO WHERE!"