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Reinventing the Rollo cookie

12/21/2016

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This year our holiday baking took on a bit of reinvention.  I used the same recipes as I always have, but, I decided some of them needed a revamp, and upgrade, a reboot if you will.  The cookie that had the biggest reinvention was the Rollo cookie.  

I found this little cookie years ago, maybe 12 or more years ago, at a Relief Society Christmas party, and loved them.  I fancy myself a fairly adept cook, and can usually create my own versions of recipes just by tasting it and figuring out how it's made based on what I taste.  I did this with the Rollo cookie.  It came down to a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe minus the chocolate chips, with the addition of a Rollo candy rolled up inside a ball of dough and baked.  Simple, right?  

Of course, I had to upgrade even that variation, so, after the cookies have cooled I melted almond bark and drizzled it on top in a kind of haphazard pattern.  Looked pretty cool, too.  And they tasted so good.  From then on they were a staple in our holiday baking regimine.  

Fast forward to 2016, and me having a little time on my hands to change the recipe.  I decided to stop rolling the Rollo inside the dough ball, and instead, I just turned it upside down and poked it down on top of the dough ball.  What this did was cut down on the spreading that naturally occurred in the candy as the wider part of the base was lower down.  Turning it upside down slowed the spread enough to keep the cookie itself retaining a good shape.  

Then, after baking til just lightly brown on the edges, I took the cookies directly to a cooling rack for just a few minutes, and then moved them to waxed paper where they would be drizzled with almond bark.  I also changed that up a bit for asthetic purposes, opting for a starburst pattern in two shades, white and brown almond bark.  The result, I think they look pretty amazing and they taste so good.

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And here is the recipe
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Caramel Starburst Cookies

Preheat oven to 300" F

1 Cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1 lb butter, unsalted
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
chocolate covered caramel candy ( I like to use Rollo)

Cream sugars and butter together til creamy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix til thoroughly incorporated. Sift or whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Add flour mixture to the batter.  Stir til mixture stops being sticky and has a cookie dough texture.  If needed, add more flour a half cup at a time until you get the consistency you want.  I ended up adding 2 more cups of flour probably because the weather was wet.  

Once your dough is the way you want it for forming dough balls, use about a tablespoon of dough per cookie.  Roll into a ball and place each ball two inches from the others on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Press a chocolate covered caramel into the center of each dough ball til it is about halfway in.  Then bake til the edges of the cookies are lightly brown, about 15 minutes depending on your oven.  

When done, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack for no more than ten minutes, and then move them to a flat surface covered with wax paper.  

Melt several squares of white almond bark in one bowl, and several squares of brown almond bark in another bowl. Using a chopstick, or perhaps the handle of a spoon, dip into the whiite almond bark and then make a starburst pattern on each cookie. Repeat with the brown almond bark.  When each cookie is done, move them to another cooling rack to allow the almond bark to dry and harden somewhat.  

Makes about two to three dozen cookies. 

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2016 in the rear view mirror

12/20/2016

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Now that 2016 is about to draw to a close, I thought it would be fun to get this whole blog off to a kick start for 2017 by wrapping up the big events of this past year and laying out our plans for what's next .

Our chickens are happy and healthy.  We added a few and lost a few to rehoming, but, I think we have a great bunch of girls now that all get along nicely.  
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Our turkey hen, Kris, was going broody last spring, and I thought it would complete her earthly journey and the measure of her existence to have her hatch out a clutch of poults, so, I ordered what I thought were meat turkey eggs.  We started with six.  One went awol somewhere in the coop on the first day, three hatched out at 24 days, and two were duds. The kids named them Mistletoe, Snowflake, and Chestnut, but, Tim and I call them Larry Moe and Curly because they are pretty clumsy and not too bright.  They ended up growing much slower than we thought they should and I talked to the lady I bought them from, nope, not meat birds, heritage birds.  After the babies were hatched, we moved Kris and the three stooges into their own enclosure separate from the chickens.  I was concerned about the big girls being mean to the babies if they got out of their little area I had created with some make shift gates, and Kris was so protective of them that she acted weird whenever she was out of the coop, stirring up my other broody hen, a salmon Faverolle named Pipi.  It seemed to settle everyone down to move them, and they were able to all be out in the open if they were only in contact in the yard where there was lots of space and plenty of places to run and hide if needed. Otherwise Kris and the stooges were closed in their own enclosure at night to protect them from predators,  The enclosure consisted of the old little tykes playhouse that we used as a coop for the turkeys the previous year.  We put it inside the old dog run we had used as the chicken run, and then created an open area that had hardware wire around it for them to be out in whenever we wanted to pen them but didn't want them confined to the coop area. The run was just big enough for Kris and the poults to get around in when they were small, but, once they were teens, it just wasn't enough space to flap their wings.

So, as the summer progressed, and the poults grew in size, they also grew in bravado.  I saw a couple of times when they chased a chicken that got a little too uppity with them, but, I wasn't there the day the last straw occurred.  I came home from work to the news that the three stooges had ganged up on my little black australorp, Morticia.  They had her pinned down against the side of the coop and were pecking merciliessly at her head.  She was doing all she could to jam her little head under the coop edge, but, they still managed to draw blood and caused permanent scarring where her feathers have not yet been able to grow back.  So, Tim put the poults into their enclosure and they were never to be out again.  I made the enclosure bigger and topped it with garden netting to keep them from flying out, which is a problem with heritage turkeys, not so much with meat turkeys.  The meat turkey would be so heavy it wouldn't want to walk much less fly. However, the heritage turkey takes most of it's growing, seven to nine months or more, just developing bone structure for flying and evading predators.  The meat comes on at around six months, but, takes a while to fill in enough to make a holiday size bird.   They would take much longer to be butcher ready than I needed, so, they are still with us.  Kris, on the other hand, after being a wonderful mother to her three little charges, started going broody again in September, and was chasing the babies away from the feeders, which was counter productive to what I am trying to accomplish.  I contemplated putting her back in with the chickens, but, as she spent so much time out of the flock, and we had added three new girls that were already finding their place in the pecking order, it would be iffy whether or not she would even be accepted.  With her size, she would be able to hold her on, but, I was afraid of what she might do to a chicken that took her on.  Any time we let her out of the enclosure our Pippi went crazy, attacking and trying to fight with Kris, so, it was clear there would be some conflict as Pippi was moving up from the very bottom of the order and wasn't interested in losing that spot again. 

It was with a heavy heart that we chose to end Kris's life.  She had lived a full life, and had raised three healthy babies.  
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Sweet Morticia before she was scarred by the three turkey poults. She now has a headband shaped scar across the top of her head.
We took our first vacation where we had to have someone come in and take care of our flock.  It worked quite well, and I am now a lot less worried about taking time away.  What I did was hire a young man that was trying to raise money for a scout jamboree, and had him come in every day to feed and water the birds, gather the eggs, and scrape the droppings board inside the coop.  We bought an automatic coop door opener that we ended up having to modify to fit our coop set up, and it worked great, still does.
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You can see in the picture that we have an extension cord running to it from the house. The opening it called for was 17 inches wide and ours was only 14 inches wide, so, Tim put it on the outside instead of the inside and it worked just fine.  I set it on the timer so it opens and closes the same times every day.  I never have to worry about the door being left open all night, or having to get up and haul myself out of bed to let them out in the morning.  It cost me $160 but it has been worth every penny.  

We took the front door overhang from the old playhouse that had once been our first coop, and put it over their new door and I think it looks pretty good.  Just needs a touch of paint to match the rest of the coop, and a few more rocks for their stairs.  

​We were able to be gone for ten days and were able to relax and enjoy ourselves after a long busy summer.
The gardening projects were a new experience for us, and we succeeded at some and learned a lot from the others.  We are converting to permaculture for our little homestead, so, that is a learning experience, but, I was very pleased with how easy it really is and makes sense.  No heavy weeding, no chemicals, and a more natural approach. 

Growing potatoes, including sweet potatoes was the dud for the year.  I didn't do it right.  I did all the first steps perfectly, but, didn't plant or grow them outside correctly, so, we got a small crop.  I did learn some things about how to grow potatoes, but, not until after the fact.  So, this winter I am going to begin anew, starting with some winter sowing, and then when it's time to plant, we will be doing a no till garden and put into practice all that we learned about growing potatoes.  Hopefully, we don't have a lot more yet to learn about it and will have plenty of potatoes for our storage for next winter.  

Onions were a bit of a bust, too, so, going to have to do more research on that.  My pinterest boards are filling up with lots of ideas, so, I am kind of anxious to get through the holidays to start my spring planning.  

The permaculture gardening made me want to have a more natural looking fencing around my garden area, so, I created a wattled fence. 
It worked out better than expected.  The chickens stayed out of the garden as long as I blocked off the gateway.  It looks kind of rustic, and I love it. 

Our family had big changes.  Katie was already living and working in Seoul South Korea teaching English at a preschool, and this year Mindy joined her.  They each have their own apartment, but, teach at the same school.  James finally heard about his teaching assignment in Japan.  he leaves for Kitakyushu Japan in the Spring to teach English in a school there.  Matthew is a year and a half into having braces and I'm seven months into it.  Neither of us likes having braces, but, we both like the progress, so, it's all good.  Tim retired and has been working part time at the post office in a nearby town, but, he is looking for something more permanent hoping for something to come up soon.  Holly and Myleigh are both in the Young Womens' program now, and that is a huge adjustment for Mommy, cuz that means no more primary age children.  Holly will finish elementary school this spring, and that means no more elementary school kids for us either.  Time moves forward, and that can be hard for a Mom. 

Christmas will be a mix of feelings.  We will be skyping with the older girls while we open presents. It will be Christmas night for them, and Christmas morning for us.  This will be our last Christmas with James for at least a few years.  Time marches on, and who knows what the coming year will hold for any of us. Hoping for good things, positive changes, and lots of wonderful family memories ahead. 
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    About Teri

    I'm a mother of eleven children, wife of 37 years, Latter Day Saint, and 911 Dispatcher and a budding homesteader. Come along with me as I journey toward self sufficiency, one baby step at a time.

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