A Month of Cookies-Chocolate Cherry Chip Drop Cookies-15

Cookie #15, is submitted for your consideration by my very own Ike.  Ike made and entered these cookies into a little fall fair close by our neighbourhood.  He has been entering cookies and other items into this fall fair for four years now, and this is his 3rd first place cookie submission.  It is not clear from the photo, bur they are a chocolate drop cookie filled with white chocolate chips and dried tart cherries.  They are soft, chewy and chocolaty.....all very good qualities for a cookie....I think.  If you like chocolate cookies....this might be just right for you!  Give them a try......Ike thinks you'll like them.  Ike sold 100 of these cookies along with about another 100 Ginger Sparkles at a cookie stand this summer to raise money for Cub Scouts outtings.

Chewy Chocolate Cherry and White Chip Drop Cookies
1/2 cup plus 6 tbsp soft butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 tbsp molasses
1 egg
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup white chocolate chips
Cream butter and sugar. Add molasses, egg, vanilla, salt and soda.  Mix in flour, cocoa, and cherries and chips.  Drop by teaspoonful and bake at 375F  for 8 minutes.

A Month of Cookies-Cherry Chip Oatmeal Drop Cookies-14

Since I didn't get to finish up the October cookie submissions....like I'd planned to.......I decided I'd just put them in when I can.  Cookie #14 is a tasty and chewy oatmeal cookie.  I thought I'd better grab a photo of them before they are all gone.  You can double the batch if you'd like.....which might not be a bad idea if you're doing cookie exchange.  A double batch makes about 100 cookies.   They are also a nice nut free option for sending into a nut free school.  I really liked the flavour combination of the dried Montmorency cherries and the chocolate chips......and even though oatmeal cookies are not my favourite.....I actually liked these for their flavour and chewy texture. 

Cherry Chip Oatmeal Cookies
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs, large
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup dried tart cherries
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 250 F.  In small bowl, whisk together flour, soda, and salt and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars.  Beat in eggs one at a time and then add in vanilla and mix in.  Stir in flour mixture. Stir in oats, dried cherries, and chocolate chips.  Drop dough by rounded spoonful, 2 inches apart on non stick cookie sheet.  Bake until tops are golden, 10 to 12 minutes.  Let sit a few moments on cookie sheet before transferring to wire rack to cool.

A Happy Hogwarts Halloween

Ever since Ike as been old enough.....I  have encouraged him to choose his Halloween costume, and I do my best to make something fitting his description and also something warm enough for the weather.  This year we were fortunate to have an absolutely beautiful Halloween night.  This worked out well for me since this is the first Halloween costume I've made for him that is not made out of polar fleece. 

Ike decided that he wanted to be a wizard for Halloween and I must admit that it took me a little while to clue in as to what he might think a wizard costume might look like compared with what I might come up with.  After a week of mulling over ideas in my head....it dawned on me that Ike's only 'experience' with wizards would be the Harry Potter movies.  Good thing I asked......because what he really wanted was a Hogwarts Student costume.  Vastly different than the shiny blue Merlin concoction that was brewing in my imagination.

This costume was really a fun one to make and is the first costume that I have bothered to buy a pattern to start with.  I purchased the McCalls 5952 pattern and found it to be extremely simple, a nice first time pattern with only 4 pieces. I modified it only slightly, taking 10 inches off the depth of the sleeve at the wrist, also making the back of the hood more 'pointy' and adding a wand pocket on the inside left side. I lined the hood with a wine coloured fabric similar to the Gryffindor colours from the later movies and ordered a Hogwarts crest from Ebay.  I found instructions here on making a Chinese Button Frog closure  to close the front of the robe.  I planned to remove the ties at the neck, but Ike decided he wanted to keep them as well.  Thinking ahead to next year, I made the robe a little on the long side.  The rest of the costume came together from thrift store finds and from our closet.  A mans medium grey V necked camel hair sweater to felt down to size, a boys white dress shirt, a tie of burgundy  and gold, and black pants finished off the outfit.  Two hot wash cycles with a few pairs of jeans, followed by a trip through the dryer made the mans medium camel hair sweater a little warmer and........just the right size!

Time permitting I decided to think about a Gryffindor scarf and DH thought about the wand.  The scarf took a bit of time fussing with the knitting machine to produce it and DH did the most marvelous job on the wand.  I think the whole wand construction took only 1/2 hour and cost $5 in parts, with parts to spare to make another.  It is constructed with an eleven inch section of oak dowel, a wooden handle for a pail, and a wooden ball.  DH drilled out the center hole of the pail handle and wooden ball using the drill press, to match the diameter of the dowel.  The dowel runs through the pail handle and into the wooden ball and is all glued together.  He also tapered the dowel slightly with sand paper on his drill press.  He then stained the working end of the wand and shellacked the handle end, lastly covering all in four coats of spray varnish.  I think Ike is likely to get a lot of use out of this one:)  After printing out the list of Harry Potter Spells from the internet......there was a lot of practicing!

We had a perfectly great Halloween here even though DH missed out as he had a course to attend out of town:(  Grampa, who is visiting, helped out lots with Ike's pumpkin carving and with the knitting machine too!