Chocolate Caramel Surprise Cookies

It just wouldn't be fair to any of you kind people who actually read my blog if I withheld this recipe from you.  Hidden inside each of these chewy chocolate cookies is a soft, golden caramel center.  Life-changing, truly.

No one should have to go through life without trying these cookies.

The recipe originally came from my Aunt Monica, who is an amazing baker.  Now my family has adopted it and my mom, by popular request demand, is sweet enough to make them for us year after year at Christmas time.

I didn't get enough of them this past Christmas (because one can never get enough of these cookies) so I decided to make a batch to have around for Mom & Dad P's visit this weekend.  I love a lot of cookies but I have to say these are my favorite cookies of all.

The secret to the surprise caramel center is simply (but brilliantly)...

 

 Rolos.

  

Chocolate Caramel Surprise Cookies

(aka "Rolo Cookies")

1 cup butter

1 cup plus 2 Tbl. sugar, divided

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup baking cocoa

1 tsp. baking soda

1 (13-oz.) package Rolos

Chopped pecans, optional

In a mixing bowl cream butter, 1 cup sugar and brown sugar.  Add eggs and vanilla, mix well.  Combine flour, cocoa & soda.  Add to creamed mixture and beat just until combined.  (You can add chopped pecans to the dough if desired.) Shape dough by tablespoons around each candy.  Place remaining sugar (and more chopped pecans, if desired) in a small bowl.  Dip each cookie halfway in sugar.  Place with sugar side up on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 for 7-9 minutes or until tops are slightly cracked.  Cool on baking sheet for 3 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Farkle!

Am I the only person in the universe who had never heard of this game?!

Mark & Vanessa taught it to us this weekend and it's awesome.  It's my new favorite! 

It's like Yahtzee with chocolate sauce and a shot of espresso.

So even self-proclaimed Yahtzee haters (Courtney W.) will love this game!

All you need are 6 dice and you're ready to go.

 Introducing...Farkle!

Game Summary

Object of the Game: 

To score a minimum of 10,000 points.

Equipment: 

Six, 6-sided dice
A piece of paper and a pencil for keeping score
A copy of the scoring guide (see below)

Number of Players: 

2 or more, but best with 3-8

 Farkle is played by two or more players, with each player in succession having a turn at throwing the dice. Each player's turn results in a score, and the scores for each player accumulate to some winning total (usually 10,000).

• At the beginning of each turn, the player throws all six six-sided dice.
• After each throw, one or more scoring dice must be set aside (see sections on scoring below).
• The player may then either end their turn and bank the score accumulated so far, or continue to throw the remaining dice.
• If the player has scored all six dice, they have "hot dice" and may continue their turn with a new throw of all six dice, adding to the score they have already accumulated.
• If none of the dice score in any given throw, the player has "farkled" and all points for that turn are lost.
• At the end of the player's turn, the dice are handed to the next player in succession (usually in clockwise rotation), and they have their turn.

Once a player has achieved a winning point total, each other player has one last turn to score enough points to surpass that high-score.

Scoring Guide: 

1	100 Points
5	50 Points
Three 1's	1000 Points
Three 2's	200 Points
Three 3's	300 Points
Three 4's	400 Points
Three 5's	500 Points
Three 6's	600 Points
Straight (1-2-3-4-5-6)	3000 Points
3 Pairs	1500 Points

2 Triplets                      2500 Points
Four-of-a-kind             1000 Points
Five-of-a-kind              2000 Points
Six-of-a-kind                3000 Points

Note that scoring combinations only count when made with a single throw. (Example: If a player rolls a 1 and sets it aside and then rolls two 1’s on their next throw, they only score 300 points, not 1000.)
For example, if a player throws 1-2-3-3-3-5, they could do any of the following:

• score three 3s as 300 and then throw the remaining three dice
• score the single 1 as 100 and then throw the remaining five dice
• score the single 5 as 50 and then throw the remaining five dice
• score three 3s, the single 1, and the single 5 for a total of 450 and then throw the remaining die
• score three 3s, the single 1, and the single 5 for a total of 450 and stop, banking 450 points in that turn

This is not an exhaustive list of plays based on that throw, but it covers the most likely ones. If the player continues throwing, as in any of the above cases except the last, they risk farkling and thus losing all accumulated points.

On the other hand, if they score five dice and have only one die to throw, they have a 1 in 3 chance of scoring a single 1 or a single 5, and then having scored all six dice they will have "hot dice" and can throw all six dice again to further increase their score.

Each scoring combination must be achieved in a single throw. For example, if a player has already set aside two individual 1s and then throws a third with the four dice remaining, they do not have a triplet of 1s for a score of 1000 but merely three individual 1s for a score of 300.

Winning: 

The first player to score a total of 10,000 or more points wins, provided that no other players with a remaining turn can exceed that score.

High Scorers:

Highest Scorer:

Runners Up:

 

Chief Farkler:

joy.

Ready and Waiting!

Today has already shaped up to be a much brighter day than yesterday.  A new cell phone is in the mail, my wallet is well stocked with credit cards, we're one day closer to having t.v. back, Pandora is an excellent substitution for a Christmas ipod, and the chicken stir fry turned out not to be quite as horrible as I imagined it in my head.

But the best news of all is that...Grandma and Grandpa are coming to town!  Mom P's birthday was yesterday but the celebration is today.  In Dallas.  Woohoo! 

 

Here is one guy I know who is super stoked:

And here is one of the many reasons why I have decided to take a three-day vacation from my sugar  fast:

Mom, are they here yet??

Happy Birthday, Grandma!  We love you!

My Day of Technological and Culinary Tragedy

First, my cell phone died this morning.  It has been acting possessed for about a week now...would randomly turn on and off, wouldn't let me read any text messages, and only allowed me to type certain things when I sent a text.  Josh became an expert at interpreting my psycho texts.  For example, "Love!" means "I love you!" and "Cronies!" means "Don't forget to get a brownie mix on your way home!"  (Sugar police: I had to make the brownies to bring to a friend's house for dessert last night.)  But today I can't even send psycho messages.  My phone has officially bit the dust.

Second, at the check-out of the grocery store this morning, I opened my wallet to find...no credit cards, no debit card, no checkbook.  Oh, and no cash, although there's nothing too abnormal about that. :)  Nope, I hadn't been robbed.  It's just that when you're holding a baby sometimes it's easier to put credit cards in your pocket than to put them away in your wallet.

One credit card was in my black jacket pocket in one closet, one was in my gray jacket pocket in another closet, the checkbook was in the kitchen drawer and I'm thinking the debit card is in the diaper bag in Knox's room.  So yes, I had to leave my overflowing cart, drive home, get a credit card, and go back to the store.  I couldn't even call Josh to meet me outside our building with one of his cards because, as you will remember, my phone is dead.

After all that, I forgot to get onions.

Third, it's January 26.  This is my mother-in-law's birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!) and also the official day when, if you haven't already, you really need to take the Christmas music off your ipod.  Most of you probably just added a Christmas playlist to your ipod to listen to through the holidays, right?  Not me.  I wiped the whole thing clean and transformed it into a Christmas-music-only ipod.  Who wants to listen to anything but Christmas music in December?

But today, when I went to replace the Christmas music with "Leah's Ipod" playlist (which took me an entire Saturday to create in iTunes), "Leah's Ipod" playlist was nowhere to be found.  Apparently when hard drives are reformatted (an event which happens pretty frequently in our household) playlists can disappear.

Some people really enjoy taking a whole Saturday to sort through all their music and their husband's music in iTunes to choose what music they want to keep on their ipod.  But I don't.  In terms of fun-ness it's right up there with balancing a checkbook, or cleaning my closet.  So I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen again until...April, maybe May?  I guess Knox and I will be listening to a lot of Pandora this winter. :)

Fourth, I asked Josh, "Is there anything good on TV tonight?  This is a TV kind of a day"  And he said, "Oh, I just got a new video card and it needs a different adapter...we can't watch TV for a couple of days." I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't.

Fifth, and last, just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse...I remembered that tonight is chicken stir-fry night.  I hate chicken stir-fry.  Every other week or so I can't help but put it on the menu, because it's easy and healthy.  But I dread chicken stir-fry night.  Of course today has to be chicken-stir fry day.

Cell phones, credit cards, ipods, television, and chicken stir-fry.  Who needs 'em?

I'm going to go take a nap.

King of the Living Room

We've been taken over!

Mom's Crackling Cornbread

On Saturday I gave you our favorite chili recipe.  Here's the perfect pairing.  You can't have chili without cornbread!  This is my mom's recipe, I grew up on this stuff and it's good!  It's really quick, too...almost as quick as Jiffy, I swear!  I make it all the time. 

FYI, it's not Southern cornbread; it's sweet.  Up North we like our cornbread sweet, y'all.  Try it, you might like it! :)

 

 

 

 

 Mom's Crackling Cornbread

1 cup stone-ground cornmeal

1 cup flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 cup buttermilk

6 Tbl. melted butter

1 egg, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400.  Grease a 9-inch baking pan.  Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl.  Stir in remaining ingredients until just moist.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes or until edges are slightly browned and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  

 

Since, as you all know, I've sworn off refined sugar for a while (although yesterday was a tough day, with the Bears loss and everything...I may have had two cookies in the 4th quarter even though I already had my sweet for the week...and after the game Josh may have put sugar in my decaf coffee to cheer me up), this particular batch went down the hall with half the pot of chili to our friends who just had a beautiful baby girl.  Congratulations, Danny and Mari!

NFC Championship + Me = ♥

I know.  I can't believe it either.  But somehow I've changed from the girl who rolled her eyes at crazed football fans and attended Superbowl parties purely for the Superbowl SNACKS...into the girl who hyperventilated all this past week every time she thought about today's Bears/Packers game!!! WOOHOO!

Here's how it happened:

1.)  I married Josh.♥

2.)  That fall he patiently explained the whole game to me...over and over and over...until, for the first time in life, I understood what I was watching (he's a really good teacher).

3.)  The Chicago Bears had a really exciting season that year and something miraculous happened.  They made it to the Superbowl with Rex Grossman as their quarterback! 

That's all it took.  I was hooked. 

A Bears fan for life!  

A Sunday afternoon football junkie!  

A loyal admirer of Lovie Smith! (Sometimes Josh gets a little jealous.) 

And...a fierce hater of all things green and yellow that start with a P!!

I've completely lost it, folks!

All I can say is...

GO BEARS!

J&L's Favorite Chili

The greatest thing about this recipe (besides the fact that it is the tastiest chili we've ever made) is that the hardest part of making it is opening all these cans!

 There are two secret ingredients that make this chili so good...and so easy.  Ssshhh!

 J&L's Favorite Chili

1 lb. ground beef

1 small onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 cans pinto beans (with juice)

1 can kidney beans (with juice)

3 cans diced tomatoes (with juice)

1 can whole kernel corn (with juice)

1 to 2 cans green chiles, to taste

1/3-1/2 cup green olives, drained and chopped (sometimes we add a few black olives, as well)

1 pkg taco seasoning

1 pkg dry Ranch dressing mix

1 (or more) bunch chopped green onions 

Salt (and/or garlic salt), to taste

Combine beef, onions and garlic in a large pot and sautee until beef is fully cooked.  Dump in everything else!

ATTENTION ALL OLIVE HATERS:

Please don't leave them out!!  Just chop them small!  I promise...you won't even notice they're there but they'll add great flavor you don't want to miss.

We like it HOT.  We usually add two full cans of green chiles.  Unfortunately, Knox does not appreciate it when I eat spicy foods :( so at this particular stage of life we have to settle for a measly 1-2 tablespoons.

Does anyone else like to "snip" their green onions?

Or make a heart out of their chopped onions?  Okay maybe this is taking the chili photo shoot a little too far.

Don't forget to top this with your favorite chili toppings...sour cream, tortilla chips, avocado slices, more green onions, shredded cheese...

May we recommend Vermont white cheddar?

Enjoy!

P.S. Certain husbands might want you to add hominy to this chili, and run to the store at the last minute to pick some up.  And beware...they might come home with a can that is almost as big as the soup pot!  In our refrigerator we now have enough hominy to last a lifetime.  If anyone has any great hominy recipes please let me know. :)

Why Whole Bean Coffee is Never A Good Idea

Today at the grocery store I picked up whole bean coffee by mistake for Josh, so I decided to be a peach and grind it all up for him.  

Unfortunately this can't be done without making a mess of the counter.

or without the loud coffee grinder scaring the baby.

 

Jumping to rescue the baby just causes more coffee grounds to make their way to the floor. 

 

So I am faced with a choice: 

cry along with the baby,

throw the entire coffee grinder into the trash can, 

eat a large brownie...

or grab a camera and turn this into a blog entry.  

I choose the latter, and then proceed to vacuum up my mess.

Unfortunately, the vacuum cleaner also scares the baby.

The great thing about being Mommy is...

 

you can make it all better.♥

Jonah, Part 2 (Rated R)

You didn't know the nice little Sunday School story about Jonah and the Big Fish was rated R, did you?  Neither did I!

This isn't my usual light and fluffy blog fare, so proceed at your own risk.

Jonah 4:2 is an intriguing verse to me because it tells us why this whole fiasco with the fish and storm and everything started...why Jonah ran from God's presence and why he didn't want to go to Nineveh. 

Usually I forget about this verse, and just assume Jonah ran away because he was afraid...or just didn't feel like going to Nineveh.  Maybe he didn't like the food there?

Nope.

Jonah ran from God's presence because He was angry with God.

That makes sense.  Lots of us run from God's presence because we are angry with Him.

Here's the part that was really hard for me to understand:  Jonah was angry with God because he knew that God was loving and gracious, and that He was going to forgive the people of Nineveh if they turned from their wicked ways.

So he prayed to the Lord, "Ah, Lord, was this not what I said while I was still in my country?  Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm" (Jonah 4:2).

Seriously?!  That's why he was angry at God?  What the heck was Jonah's problem?  I realize Nineveh was Israel's enemy, but still...how cruel and bitter could Jonah be to not want God to show them any mercy?

I tried to find an application in this verse for myself, but it was hard.  I have some people I don't really like that much...I guess you could sort of call them my enemies...but I don't wish God wouldn't ever show them grace and forgiveness.  Gosh Jonah, you're a prophet.  Get it together.

I kept thinking about this verse for a couple of days after I read it.  It just didn't make sense to me.  There had to be something I was missing.  So I asked Josh what he thought about it.

Josh pulled out some notes from a class he took and showed me something I will never forget.

Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was a WICKED city.  Grotesquely, horrifically wicked. 

So that you can see what I mean, here are some actual historical quotes from Assyrian leaders boasting of their own brutality.  And they are pretty awful.  I copied them from an article titled "Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death" from the Biblical Archeology Society.

"I slew one of every two.  I built a wall before the great gates of the city; I flayed the chief men of the rebels, and I covered the wall with their skins.  Some of them were enclosed alive within the bricks of the wall, some of them were crucified with stakes along the wall; I caused a great multitude of them to be flayed in my presence, and I covered the walls with their skins."

 

"I felled 50 of their fighting men with the sword, burnt 200 captives from them, [and] defeated in a battle on the plain 332 troops...With their blood I dyed the mountain red like red wool, [and] the rest of them the ravines [and] torrents if the mountain swallowed.  I carried off captives [and] possessions from them.  I cut off the heads of their fighters and built [with them] a tower before their city.  I burnt their adolescent boys [and] girls."

"In strife and conflict I besieged the city.  I felled 3,000 of their fighting men with the sword...I captured many troops alive: I cut of some of their arms [and] hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears [and] extremities.  I gouged out the eyes of many troops.  I made one pile of the living [and] one of heads.  I  hung their heads in trees around the city."

"I cut their throats like lambs.  I cut off their precious lives [as one cuts] a string.  Like the many waters of a storm, I made [the contents of] their gullets and entrails run down upon the wide earth.  My prancing steeds harnessed for my riding, plunged into the streams of their blood as into a river.  The wheels of my chariot, which brings low the wicked and the evil, were bespattered with blood and filth.  With the bodies of their warriors I filled the plain, like grass.  Their testicles I cut off, and tore out their privates like the seeds of cucumbers."

Um, yeah.

All of a sudden, I "get" Jonah.

I'm no longer wagging my finger at him, wondering what his self-righteous problem is.  I'm standing with him now.  If those atrocities were happening anywhere near me I wouldn't want God to forgive those people, either. Even if they did turn away from their evil ways, and stop their violence (and they did; history shows that Nineveh stopped her cruelty at this time for about 100 years)!

How can God be willing to forgive and change even REALLY horrible people like those described above?

He saw a glimmer of something...crushing guilt, fear, desperation, a yearning for something true and pure and beautiful...deep in the hearts of that generation of wicked Ninevites...that no one else could see.  

There is no partiality with God.  He is, beyond anything we can ever comprehend, a God of love.