Sunday, December 17, 2006

Cooking On Hold

Well, I am officially on bedrest. That is really going to curtail my cooking endeavors for a while. The doctor is trying to get me to 36 weeks gestation, and I am at 30 now. So, for the foreseeable future, I am not going to be cooking. Hell, eating isn't even that exciting when you've been sitting on the couch for 16 hours a day (and in bed for the other 8 hours).

But as soon as I can get back on my feet, I hope to be cooking up a storm and blogging about it... at least until that baby arrives!

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Christmas Cookies!

Well, I haven't been doing too much interesting in the kitchen lately. My obstetrician has been threatening bedrest, so I have been trying to stay off my feet as much as possible. But, tomorrow night I am getting together with some girlfriends for a cookie exchange. I decided to make Milk Chocolate Florentine cookies. It's certainly not an innovative recipe -- you can find dozens of them on the Web -- but, the little suckers sure are tasty! These are some of my favorite cookies and they're not hard to make. Here is the recipe -- there is no attribution. It came from my mom years ago.

Milk Chocolate Florentine Cookies
-- 2/3 cup butter
-- 2 cups quick oats
-- 1 cup sugar
-- 2/3 cup all purpose flour
-- 1/4 cup light or dark corn syrup
-- 1/4 cup milk
-- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
-- 1/4 tsp. salt
-- 11.5 oz (1 and 3/4 cup) milk chocolate morsels

Preheat oven to 375. Line baking sheets with foil. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan and remove from heat when melted. Stir in oats, sugar, flour, corn syrup, milk, vanilla, and salt. Mix well.

Drop by level teaspoons, about 3 inches apart, onto prepared baking sheets. Spread thinly with rubber spatula. Bake 6-8 minutes, or until golden brown (you'll need less time in a convention oven). Cool completely on baking sheets on wire racks. Peel foil from cookies.

Microwave morsels in medium, microwave-safe bowl on medium-high (70%) power for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave at additional 10-20 second intervals, stirring until smooth. Spread thin layer of melted chocolate onto flat side of half the cookies. Top with remaining cookies. Makes about 3 1/2 dozen sandwich cookies.