Love Cookies

I love making these cookies, but I rarely have a good excuse for them. My sons classroom celebration of Valentines day was perfect. His classroom has each of the children make ONE card to share with the class, then they swap the cards and every kiddo goes home with one that someone else made. I sure like that a lot more than buying cards from the store!

I started this recipe a few years ago with my basic sugar cookie recipe, something from a Christmas cookie book that I was given too many years ago to remember. It came from Goose Berry Patch, they called it Magical Sugar Cookies. Indeed, I loved the cream cheese in the cookie. Also, I found that the baked cookies tasted even BETTER a day old.

I can never remember if I used baking soda or baking powder in the recipe, but when I did it this time I used the soda. It gives it just enough lift to not let the cranberries make it overly dense.

The kids loved the cookie, as well as my knitting group who got the extras!

I am really bad about not getting out everything I need before I start, so this is good for me!

Liam helped me upwrap sticks of butter.

I love how pretty it looks with the cranberries in it!

Sharing the beater blade

Cutting out hearts

Ready to bake

Cooling

Ready to decorate

All done!

1c butter - softened
3oz of cream cheese - softened
1c sugar
1 egg yolk
1tsp vanilla (I usually double this. I always double the vanilla)
1 c flour. (I use Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat Pastry Flour. It is fine enough to work well for this)
1 1/2c all purple flour
2/3 cup dried cranberries
pinch of baking soda
pinch of salt

Oven 350

In a stand mixer blend butter and cream cheese until smooth.
While that is working, toss the whole wheat flour, the baking soda and the dried cranberries into a food processor and run that until the cranberries are chopped into tiny pieces. Add some of the all purpose flour if it gets sticky on you.
Beat sugar into the butter/cheese mixture
Add egg yolk into the butter/cheese mixture along with vanilla and the flour as well as the cranberry/whole wheat mixture.
Mix until combined.
You can roll it out now and cut it out, but it works better if it chills for an hour at least.
Bake on baking sheet covered with parchment paper at 350 degrees for 8 - 12 minutes. You are looking for a slight browning to the edges.

For frosting, I use 1c powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and enough milk to make it the consistency you like. Add milk in small small small increments. Like 1/4 tsp at a time. The smallest bit too much and your frosting is runny and you can't make the little designs. I do this often and end up making 4 cups of frosting as I try to balance it out.

I imagine you can do this with almost any dried fruit you like. Cherries or apricots, mangoes or pineapple even!

The Imperfect Source of Perfection

I just recently decided I need to learn how to knit, recent as in about 6 months ago. I have been crocheting since I was 8 or 9, never finished anything until I was 19 though. I had tried knitting a few times but never got the hang of it.

The day before I got married was the first time I met my mother in law. (long story on why it was so fast a marriage, will tell that one later) She was going to perform the wedding. We instantly liked each other and I learned that she was an avid knitter. When my son was born she came out to see him and brought him a blanket she had made. This blanket was my inspiration to try again at knitting, but once more it did not go well. When she was diagnosed with cancer, it lit a fire under my butt to really learn. I wanted to have something to share with her, something in common with her, something of her to carry with me forever.

She bought me some yarn on my trip to Mississippi to see her. I took it home to make a blanket for my daughter who was about 7 months old. I had finally gotten to start on the last of the three colors of yarn when I learned that I had been knitting through the BACK loop, all of my stitches were twisted. I debated finishing it that way, after all, I had put WEEKS of work into this thing as a new knitter working slowly. In the end, I decided that if I was going to learn, I was going to learn RIGHT. So I took the whole thing apart and wound it into a giant ball and started over. I knit the whole thing in  stockinette. This stitch curls, more than Shirley Temple's pigtails, it curls. I was aghast when my simple little border I crocheted onto the blanket did nothing to help this. I stared at my curling blanket and frowned. Should I take it apart again? I spent a day reading online what I had done wrong and how all stockinette stitches would curl due to tension in the yarn. I needed to make a border as part of the blanket that would ease that tension at the ends and stop the curling somewhat. Or I could block it, but as it got used and worn the curls would come back until I blocked it again. I looked at my three shades of pink with their dark purple border and decided to leave it as it was. I would leave it as a reminder to me to always do my research before jumping into a project so that I would be sure to do it right.

 

My daughter snuggles this blankie and snoozes with it, she drapes it over her head and walks around the living room laughing. She drags it across the floor, the curling edges mean nothing to her, they are just part of the blankie.

Somewhere in this blanket, and all of my worry and struggles with it, I found a lesson about how our children do not see our faults like we do. How they love us with all of our imperfections. They see warmth and comfort, not curling edges and the flaws of a first time project. In a way, our children are a first time project, even our second or third or fourth children, simply because no two children are the same. We make mistakes, we scold at the wrong time, and turn our backs for that second that they end up falling off the chair, we promise ice cream but don't deliver. We are not perfect, we are dragged across the floor and loved, our flaws mean little to them in the end. All they see is love.

The pattern for my Imperfect Love Blankie

Cast on as many stitches as you feel would make a good size blanket in whatever yarn makes you happy with whatever needles feel good in your hand that day.

Knit one row, purl one row. Repeat those rows until the yarn is gone.

Look up a crochet border that you like, Google it if you don't have one memorized, use another yarn that makes you happy to make the border and laugh when you find edge stitches that are too lose or too tight. Enjoy the freedom of accepted imperfection. Rejoice in the curling edges. Learn from it. Love your blankie. Love yourself unconditionally.

I Don't Want to Write This Post

I thought I would have longer before I had to write this post. I thought I would have another month or two. But life is what it is.

On Monday, January 13th, my mother in law passed away.

Most girls whine about their mother in law, they dislike them, think they are controlling, wish they would keep their opinions to themselves. But this mother in law was not like those mother in laws. She told me something about being a mom that I will keep with me forever. She told me that in any situation, no matter how sensitive, I have the right to do anything I need to do to keep my children safe. I was worried about offending her because I wanted to run the vacuum before I put the baby on the floor at her house. She just welcomed the help in cleaning up and told me I had a job to do, to keep my children safe, and if that meant running the vacuum, then I should do just that.

She was one hell of a special person.

So let me share a little bit about what I learned about Julie in the time I had her in my life.

Julie knit. She made beautiful things out of strings of yarn. She was a Wiccan. She was blindingly intelligent. She gave birth to and raised three boys, of which I married the eldest. She lived in a little house in Mississippi in the time that I knew her.

The rock in Julie's yarn

She had divorced the father of her boys when my husband was in high school, so a while ago. She had since remarried someone else who she loved greatly. She had rescue kitties, and a good dog. She worked for FedEx. She could fly small planes.

She made a blankie that my son loves,

and one for my daughter that she sleeps with every night.  

She came to see Liam when he was born.

And again just after he turned one.

We went to see her when Evie was about 6 months old, after she couldn't travel to us any more. 

She inspired me to learn how to knit.
She is the one who married us.

She battled cancer with good humor and grace. She lost the fight.

She will be missed.