Cookie Palooza 2011

September 30, 2010
Hi Angela P,
Where in SW Michigan do you live? I live in Lawrence, but work in Kalamazoo, and am interested in learning more about starting a small hive for my own honey. I have to do a LOT more research on it though. But, I am also interested in meeting someone who shares the same CITR philosophies, and have seen your name on here a lot…so am assuming you do!
Blyss

October 2, 2010
Blyss,
Cool! You’re interested in Bees, that’s the first step! Absolutely agree with ya, finding like minded people in life is a must. I don’t like those people who are so rigid/mean and just give ultimatums! Yuck!
Let’s have fun! Laugh! Learn! Life’s too short, make the most of it!
I live in a wee little town called Plainwell. Sorry I don’t know where Lawrence is? But I do know Kzoo. Sort of. I still have to carry a map! Where do you work? Sounds like you have a long drive?
I’d be happy to help you in your journey to becoming a beekeeper! Did you see the posts on some events close to you????
Angie

And thus a friendship that can’t compare to anything you can put into words was born!

Shortly afterwards we met in person–to go to CindyP’s house to pick up pig fat, to render into lard, to make into soap! Not your usual way of life for folks around here, but one that Angela, Cindy and I were all thrilled to mesh together! We all felt like we had been friends forever, and known each other our whole lives. And that was the start of the Michigan Flock of Chicken Sisters…


Fast forward 1 year and we’ve had two black Fridays, many adventures, including West Virginia for the Retreat (for me) and Party on the Farm (for both of us.) We embraced Angie’s words, and have decided that we would have fun, laugh (and boy do we laugh!) learn and make the most out of our too short of lives! Recently we celebrated with our second annual COOKIE PALOOZA!!!

Cookie Palooza was born way, way back when I was first married, poor, and had a lot of extra time on my hands. My childhood friend, Pam, and I would get together and spend the whole day making candy, cookies and other holiday goodies to be divided and given to family and friends as Christmas gifts. Instead of making 3 kinds of goodies for everyone, we would each make 4 or 5 recipes, and when divided our recipients would get 8 to 10 different kinds of goodies to feast on. Over the years the doing-together dwindled as life encroached with kids, husbands, jobs, school programs, parades, Dance Recitals, Girl Scouts, 4-H, etc. But every year, I would still try to fit making as many kinds of cookies as I could into the schedule to give out. Some things became a tradition like Reindeer Pretzels, and some things were a failure that inevitably got left to grow stale in the bottom of the tin. But it was never the same without someone else to share the creation process with, to laugh, and tell stories to. Family is good, but they know the stories and they know the jokes.

Last year, I talked Angela and her sons into doing Black Friday shopping with my kids and me. We had a BLAST! And not wanting the holiday fun to end, I asked her if she would be interested in doing Cookie Palooza with us. We invaded her kitchen (which is way better equipped to handle a cookie factory than mine is), took pictures, wore silly headbands, laughed, ate, laughed, baked and laughed some more. It was more fun than I had ever remembered a Cookie Palooza to be.

This year, there were Santa hats and aprons! Even Angie’s boys wore the aprons I had made them.

My hat had red sparkly tulle on it, because Angie wanted to celebrate my recent engagement.

This year it had a barnyard theme, as every so often we had to stop to feed Matilda a bottle or change her diaper. Matilda is an extremely cute and good natured little orphan goat!

There was Addie Mae, the new puppy, to meet.

And Wic (Wild Indoor Cat), who is also an orphan now living in the house. We won’t comment on her nature though!

Like usual, it was a lot of fun, laughter, baking and good eats!

In a matter of 5 hours, we had made Peanut Butter Balls, White Chocolate Dipped Oatmeal Cookies, Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies, my Secret Recipe Fudge (which Angela now knows the recipe for), Pecan Tea Cakes, Slice and Bake Sugar Cookies, Reindeer Pretzels, Chocolate Covered Oreos, and the kids favorites–Decorated Sugar Cookies.

The young adults always have a blast cutting out and decorating the cookies, and this year was no exception. For 2011, my daughter created an evil snowman cookie named Slushy. They wove a story about him, where he is Frosty’s evil twin Brother, unpopular with the kids because he throws ice and slush balls, and once played a villain in an episode of Scooby Doo!

Back for the second year’s appearance, there were bat and tick cookies. Why do bats have to only be celebrated for one holiday? They are very beneficial to our mosquito control! Okay, so there aren’t a lot of mosquitos in December, but we can celebrate them just the same! Ticks? Well…I am not sure why we need tick cookies, but the kids love them, so it’s all good!

From Angela’s Family and mine, we wish all our Chicken Sisters and Brothers an awesome Holiday Season and a very happy 2012!

And since Angela now has my secret fudge recipe now, I will share equally!

How to make Blyss’s Fudge Recipe: Printable

Measure out 2 batches, each containing 13 ounces of chocolate pieces (1 pound 10 ounces total); set aside. This can be anything from milk chocolate, white chocolate, semi sweet, peanut butter chips, butterscotch, etc. I usually make one batch semi-sweet and one batch milk chocolate for a rich chocolate without the dark bitterness my children don’t care for.

Cut up 25 large marshmallows into 4 pieces a ‘mellow. Set aside.

Have a jelly roll pan set aside, lightly greased with butter, to pour the fudge into. (It sets up fast.)

In a 6 quart or larger pot, place 1 cup butter, 4 cups sugar, 1 cup milk, and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and time the boil to be 2 minutes long. Turn off the heat and add the marshmallow pieces. Stir until they are melted and add one batch of chocolate. Stir until melted and add second batch of chocolate. Stir until melted, well combined and shiny in color.

Pour into the waiting pan and allow to cool.

Cut and enjoy.

Store air tight like with any fudge.

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