A "Sample" of My Cookbook Collection

This morning, before my husband left for work he said, "you like going through your old cookbooks, don't you?" The poor guy, I have my "collection" all over the place right now. They are next to my side of the bed, spilling out of the bookcase in the dining room and next to the computer! He's even tried to tell me I have enough cookbooks. Shame on him, right?!?!?!? He should know that after being together almost 25 years, I will NEVER have enough cookbooks!!! LOL. Lately, I've been looking through the ones that belonged to my mother-in-law. She passed away in January of 2011 and we miss her all the time.

She worked for a number of years at the May Company in Cleveland, Ohio. One of the cookbooks I acquired from her, "Celebrate Our 1st Cookbook," I'm guessing was distributed to all of the employees around the holidays. I found some of the names of the recipes in the cookbook to be quite, ahem, different. These three kind of stood out to me - "Ham and Pickle Puffs," "Sneaky Pete Slush," and "Cranberry Velvet." Anyways, since I had no "bakery" around, I decided to make this cookie recipe from the cookbook:

Oh, my goodness - the cookies were AMAZING! Here is the recipe if you would like to make them:

Chocolate Crispy Cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups white flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup margarine, softened

1 cup white sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups crispy rice cereal

(like Rice Krispies)

1 cup milk chocolate morsels

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a large cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside. In a large bowl, put the flour, baking soda, salt, margarine, sugar, egg and vanilla extract. Mix well with large spoon and then add the crispy rice cereal and the milk chocolate morsels. I used my hands to mix everything together, so feel free to do that! Roll into 2 1/2 dozen equal-sized balls. Bake 15 at a time on a sheet. They do spread some, but not a ton. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the cookies are starting to turn golden brown. Remove immediately to a wire rack. Store in a covered container at room temperature.

I like to play a little game with my Facebook "peeps." I'll post a picture and then try asking everyone to guess what the "secret" or "mystery" ingredient is. On one of the food groups I am part of, someone did indeed guess the "mystery" ingredient - crispy rice cereal! One gal guessed hard boiled eggs! I knew that I had seen a recipe using hard boiled egg yolks recently. After just a quick look through an old Slovenian cookbook (which is part of my mother-in-law's "collection"), I found a recipe for, "Vanilla Vienna Cookies." It uses two hard cooked egg yolks among other ingredients. The first line of the directions says, "cream together for 1/2 hour, butter, sugar, hard cooked egg yolks." Hmm, okay. A half hour? That seems a bit excessive doesn't it?? I want to make those cookies, but I don't think I'll cream it together for a 1/2 hour :) I'll keep you all updated how the cookies turn out! I also found a super duper easy recipe for "Slovak Potato Soup." That is one to try when the weather gets a bit cooler. My mother-in-law was part Slovak and so am I!

Those "Steps" to Independence Can Be Hard

We are heading towards 600 orders for Dominic's business. Since our long-term goal for Baked Goods By Dominic is having a "brick-and-mortar" and hire those with disabilities, it is essential and imperative that I continue to teach him all parts of the business. Since I prompted Dominic for so many years for speech, he has become "prompt dependent." What that essentially means is that he will look at me for a prompt, like, "what do you do next?" I do that one a lot. Dominic has been going to a private speech therapist for over ten years and she reminds me often that Dominic usually will know the answer, if I am patient and wait for him. That has been a very hard habit to break! Dominic has an incredible memory, so I put it to the test this morning. I didn't write out the steps, I wanted to see how much he could do completely on his own. We have a customer picking up his order today, but the only thing that had been done is putting the cookies into t...

Why We Pursued Guardianship of our Son with Autism

Last Thursday morning, my husband, Dominic and I went to our county's Probate Court and had Dominic's Guardianship Hearing. My husband and I are Co-Guardians, and we were granted "Partial Guardianship," which means Dominic can make some of his own decisions (future educational and vocational placement options, what to wear and how he wants to spend his free time), but my husband and I will make his medical, health care, legal, contractual and major financial decisions. The subject of Guardianship in the disability "world" has been and continues to be a controversial and divisive topic. I was a panelist for an Autism Conference this past summer and presented on what it's like to have a child with Autism. Towards the end of my presentation, I mentioned that Dominic had just turned 18 and that we were going through the Guardianship process. When the attendees could ask questions, the first person that went up to the microphone started telling me that I was...

Presume Competence

Since we have traveled outside of the United States since Dominic was very small, we have had to get him a Children's Passport every five years. Since his current one expires in February of 2024 and he is now 19, we had to apply for an Adult Passport. I don't know why my husband and I picked Dominic's first day of school and Michigan State University moving in their students, but the appointment was yesterady at 3 p.m. We had gathered all of the documents needed and then went into a special room in the East Lansing Post Office just for Passports. The three of us sat down and the clerk asked Dominic his age. He said, "19." Since we were also getting his picture taken for the Passport, he went into a separate room, where she took a picture of him and then let him look at it to make sure he liked it (it will be his picture for the next 10 years)! He said he did, so he sat back down with us. The clerk filled out a bit more of the paperwork and then she let Dominic s...

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