Easy as pie

It turns out pie is no longer easy for me. I used to make pies quite often and did not find making a crust all that difficult. Today as I was browsing through cookbooks trying to decide on dessert for Thanksgiving Day I decided I would make a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie. The recipe for the pecan pie suggested making it ahead of time and freezing it. I am all for getting things done ahead of time, so decided to do that this afternoon. I have no shortening on hand so found a pie crust recipe that uses oil instead. I messed around with that pie crust for about 45 minutes before I gave up and threw it in the trash.

I found a pumpkin cake recipe that my mom used to make so I will make that on Wednesday!

Baking Cookies

It has been ages since I baked any cookies, or anything at all for that matter. Dave has been hungry for peanut butter cookies and bought extra peanut butter, so this morning I baked! This is the recipe I used:

Peanut Butter Round Up Cookies
1/2 c. margarine, softened
1/2 c. shortening
(Note: I do not have margarine or shortening, so I used 1 cup unsalted butter)
1 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 c. chunky peanut butter
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. quick Quaker oats (I have regular--worked fine)
12 oz. pkg. chocolate chips

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugars. Add peanut butter and eggs; beat well. Add flour, salt and baking soda. Stir in oats and chocolate chips. Shape into balls and flatten with a flour dipped fork. Bake at 350 degrees fro 8 to 10 minutes.

Note: I found I had to bake longer than 10 minutes, and that I had to let the cookies cool on the pan for a few minutes so they wouldn't fall apart when I tried to take them off.

The cookies are good!

I found this recipe in The CLS Cookbook 2000. My mom must have had this book when she moved to Seward in 2000. It is from Central Lutheran School in Saint Paul, MN, the school I attended for Kindergarten through grade 8. The recipe was contributed by Suzanne Koppe.