Recipes

My mother and I have an annual holiday tradition.  We spend a day making homemade candy to share as gifts, and we’ve done this for more years than I can remember.

 

My great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, all her sisters, even most of my cousins, are kitchen dwellers.  When I was growing up, we rarely ate out, that was a special occasion thing.  Everything was as homemade as could be.  Holiday meals are still filled with nothing but homemade dishes and goodies, there is rarely a can or box or premix to be found.

 

I, thankfully, did not get that gene.  I don’t cook, I don’t bake, and I have no desire to stay in the kitchen any longer than I have to.  For dinner last night, I ripped open a bag of salad and threw some in a bowl, added a few croutons and salad dressing, and viola, dinner in less than 2 minutes.  Tonight I slapped a piece of cheese on a slice of bread, folded it in half, and there’s my recipe for dinner in under a minute.  I’d rather pay more for already cut up watermelon than buy a whole watermelon I have to cut myself, too much time in the kitchen.  Get the picture?

 

But every year, I have to make candy with mom.  Every year, as I’m waddling out the door after homemade everything on Thanksgiving, mom says:

 

“Be here early on the 5^th.”

 

“Oh, crap, do I have to?”

 

“No, you don’t have to, but you won’t have candy for your office and friends.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Brat!  Be here at 9.”

 

For as long as I can remember, we’ve made pretty much the same things every year: 15 tons of peanut brittle, three or four different types of fudge, three or four different flavors of rolled, dipped candy like bonbons, and chocolate covered cherries.

 

By the time I get there, there are containers filled with other types of candy she’s already made, recipes she’s been experimenting with.  And she’ll make more after I leave.  She really doesn’t need me there, she’d get through a lot faster without me.  I don’t even do much, mostly stir (constantly, with peanut brittle) and roll bonbons.

 

But it’s a tradition.  It’s our day.  Usually, the only full day we get all year.  While I’m stirring and rolling and she’s measuring and mixing, we’re talking and laughing and “Oh, yeah, did I tell you?”

 

So when I got there this morning, I was expecting a regular candy day.  And the weather was even perfect today, it actually snowed here yesterday, and this morning was crisp and cold with no humidity.  Our usual weather during candy making season is warm and humid, which sometimes makes the brittle sticky and the fudge not set as well.  But today was perfect weather for candy.

 

“I’ve decided we’re doing something different this year,” were the words that changed it all.  “No candy this year, this year we’re making cookies.”  And we did.  Dozens and tons and galaxies of cookies.

 

Did I mention I don’t spend much time in a kitchen?  The only “recipes” I follow are the time and temperature directions on the back of a box of frozen lasagna, and only to know how high to set the stove thingy.

 

Well apparently, to make cookies, you have to follow a recipe.  And for real, not like Rachel Ray with a pinch of this and a palmful of that.  I have made cookies at home before.  I rip open that Duncan Hines Peanut Butter Cookie Mix, and I stir in my egg and stuff, whatever it says on the “recipe” on the back, and I turn on the stove thingy, and pull them out in time so they don’t burn, and there, homemade peanut butter cookies.

 

Mom didn’t have any peanut butter cookie mix.  She had a recipe.  Not a recipe in a book, or ripped out of a magazine, a family recipe, handwritten, in a small three ring binder.  I don’t have it in front of me, but I’m pretty sure this is what it says:

 

Peanut Butter Cookies

350, 10 minutes

1-1/4 cups shortening
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 cups peanut butter
3 cups flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda

Mix first four ingredients, add dry ingredients, then peanut butter.

 

So I pull all of the ingredients out of their various nooks and crannies and set them out on the counter.  Okay, mom did that, I never know where anything is over there.

 

“I can do this.  I can follow a recipe.  Go chop nuts and I’ll get the first batch started,” I say confidently.

 

I grab the shortening and turn to the mixer.

 

“Turn the oven on first.”

 

Three minutes later, “Mom, please come turn this damn oven on.”

 

“You’re going to double the recipe.”

 

“So …”

 

“What’s two times 1-1/4?”

 

“I have to do math??”

 

“Yes, you have to do math.”

 

“Ummm … 2-1/2!”

 

I’m sure I heard a sigh.  I turn back to the mixer.  Five minutes later, I’ve figured out how to raise and lower the bowl.  Shortly after that, I find the start button, quite by accident.  I thought it was the button to release the whippy thing.  But I can do this, see, I already figured out the mixer, piece o’cake.

 

I put the right amount of shortening in, then the sugar, and I reach for the eggs.

 

“Stop.  Cream those first before you add the eggs.”

 

“On the recipe, it says ‘mix first four ingredients’.”

 

“You always cream your shortening and sugar first.”

 

“Where does it say that?  Why isn’t it written down?”

 

“It doesn’t need to be written down, it’s my recipe and I already know that.”

 

“Well, how is anybody else supposed to follow it, then?”

 

“Just cream.”

 

While it's creaming, whatever that means, I turn around and grab two eggs and turn back toward the mixer.

 

“Stop.  Use this egg cup to break your eggs into so you don’t get shells in your mix.”

 

“It doesn’t say that on the recipe.”

 

Sigh.

 

Fine.  I crack one egg into the egg cup thingy and reach for the second egg.

 

“One at a time.”

 

I drop the eggs into the mixer, one at a time, out of the egg cups.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing!

 

While I’ve been getting acquainted with the mixer and making a gawdawful mess, mom is measuring out the peanut butter and combining the dry ingredients.  At least, I assume that’s what she was doing, that’s what the recipe said to do, and apparently I lacked the skills necessary to handle that portion of the job.

 

I add the vanilla and mix, like the recipe says.  I grab the dry ingredients and start pouring.  Amidst a cloud of flour, I hear:

 

“STOP!!!  Slowly, a little at a time, on low speed!!  You’re making a mess!”

 

“The recipe doesn’t say…”

 

“JUST DO IT!”

 

Sheesh, fine!  Slowly, a little at a time, on low speed, I add the dry ingredients and play with the speed thingy on the mixer and get it all nice and mixed.  I reach for the peanut butter.

 

“Wait, you stir that in.”

 

“That’s what I was doing.”

 

Sigh.  “Turn the mixer off and take the bowl out.”

 

Okay, I turn the mixer off.  Three minutes later:

 

“Mom, get this damn bowl off!”

 

Finally, the bowl is on the counter.

 

“Now what?”

 

“Stir in the peanut butter.”

 

I scoop it into the mixer and look at it.

 

“That’s all?”

 

“What do you mean, that’s all?

 

“That’s all the peanut butter that goes in?  Shouldn’t there be like almost a full jar or something?”

 

“No.  That’s enough.”

 

“For one dozen maybe, not five dozen.”

 

“Just stir.”

 

“Are you sure we can’t add just a little more?”

 

“No, stir.”

 

Fine.  I stir the peanut butter into the mixer gunk.

 

“Now what?”

 

“Start rolling them.”

 

“Like bonbons?”

 

“Yes.”

 

I roll.  I place my wad on the cookie sheet next to hers.  It’s twice the size and not round at all, sort of elliptical, like it has its own orbit.

 

“Too big, make them smaller.”

 

“I like big cookies.”

 

“If they’re big, we have to make more.”

 

Oh, gawd, no!  I pick up my wad, break it in half and start over.  We roll and roll and roll, until we have five dozen wads of dough.

 

“Now what?”

 

“Smush ‘em.”

 

“Cool.”

 

“Not with that, use a fork.”

 

Fine.  I start smushing.

 

“STOP!  They’re supposed to be pretty.”

 

“Why?  People aren’t going to look at them, they’re just going to stuff them in their mouths.”

 

“JUST DO IT!”

 

Fine.  I “prettily” smush the damn cookies.

 

“Now what?”

 

“Put them in the oven.”

 

I grab a cookie sheet and turn to the oven.  I open the top oven door and start sliding it in.

 

“Use the bottom oven, the one turned on.”

 

“We have a zillion cookies here, why can’t we use both ovens?”

 

“The top one burns cookies.”

 

I open the bottom oven and slide the cookies onto the top rack.  I reach for another cookie sheet.

 

“One at a time.”

 

“There’s two shelves.”

 

“If you put two trays in, then none of them cook evenly.”

 

“You need to get you a better oven.”

 

“This is one of the best ovens out there.”

 

“Apparently not for baking cookies.”

 

Sigh.  “Set the timer for 10 minutes.”

 

I reach for the microwave over the stove and set the timer for 10 minutes.  That, I can do.

 

“Use this timer … wait, what did you do?”

 

“I set the timer for 10 minutes.”

 

“Huh, show me how to do that.”

 

So I show her how to set the timer on the microwave.  That’s something I can do in my sleep.  Me and microwaves are best friends.

 

“See?  You don’t know everything.”

 

“Clean up this mess you made.”

 

“Gawd, I have to do everything!”

 

That was the peanut butter cookies.  I thought I did much better on the chocolate chip nut cookies, and I was a pro by the time we got to the Texas Cow Chip cookies.

 

I drove home with the scent of cookies in my clothes, and half a dozen for myself.  Peanut butter, my very favorite.  Not just any peanut butter cookies, mom’s homemade peanut butter cookies.  You should try them.  I’m pretty sure I gave you the right recipe.  And I’ve tried to add the stuff that’s apparently LEFT OUT of the recipe, so they should turn out right.

 

And if you’re as recipe-clueless as I am, there’s always Duncan Hines.  Not nearly as good, but the “recipe” is so much easier to interpret!