SNOW SNOW SNOW AND COOKIES

Ugly stupid snow.  Once you don't have children, snow is just annoying and a lot of work.  I do believe though that I am going to use shovelling as my gym and walking substitute.  Oh jeez, what am I saying...like I go to the gym...NOT.  I hate moving and I don't mean houses.

So when I arose this morning to fluffy crap coming down, I immediately got that cozy slippers, bake cookies feeling.  So I did something I have only done once before in the last two years.  I hauled out my heavy awkward kitchen aid.

Having a shiny stainless steel, or bright red, or sickly pink, or beachy turquoise, or sunny yellow, or fleshy salmon kitchen aid mixer...is a status symbol in any chef wannabe's kitchen.  I lost a brilliant lipstick red one in our house fire in 2003 and didn't replace it until two years ago.  It's kind of like insisting on having stainless steel appliances...yet we all know what a bitch it is to keep them mark free.

Now I did use it one time, back in Langford.  My darling daughter Aryn came over, sausage making attachments in hand, and let me just say that after a lot of really rude hand gestures with really rude accompanying remarks, we made some pretty tasty lamb sausage.

But this was going to be the first time I have ever actually made anything in the bowl with the mixer paddle.  I never had the chance to use the one I had back in the 03's.  So I was kind of excited.  I decided to use it instead of my cheapo superstore eight dollar hand held mixer this time because I was making heavy batter...oatmeal raisin cookies...double recipe.  And seriously, if I just walked through the house once a day carrying that sucker I would probably lose fifty pounds by Christmas.

Well, it took me at least five minutes of dicking around to figure out how to get the top to go up and down. But guess what?  It doesn't!   I found a handle that lowers and raises the bowl, supposedly allowing you to remove the paddle and bowl when you are finished...which it does, but not without difficulty.

  I lowered the bowl when the mixing was done and spun the paddle to get the dough off of it.  But as  you lower the paddle off the dowel it was attached to...it would sink back into the batter...defeating the cleaning spin you did.  And there was no way to get the bowl out with the paddle attached.  Stupid.

And, in the beginning I fluffy beat the butter and eggs and sugar...but, only the little bit in the middle.  All up the side of the bowl and about two inches on the bottom, the butter and sugar refused to move and mix in.  So I had to keep stopping the damned thing and rubber spatula it off the sides and bottom.

Then it was time to add the flour, a bit at a time.  Well jeez!  There is only about four inches between the lip of the bowl and the very immovable heavy body of the mixer.  So I would tip the bowl holding the flour over but before it could pour out the bowl would hit the mixer and be stopped.  So I used a big spoon to scoop and dump, getting fricking flour everywhere.  What a dumb four hundred dollar set up!  Next time my little eight dollar special from Superstore will probably be my first choice.  

Then it came time to bake.  Oh my God!!!  Why me?  Why not the neighbours?  Talk about a cranky oven!!!  The back cookies cook too much, the front pretty much right and

THE LEFT ONE IS WAY UNDER BAKED, THE RIGHT ONE IS PRETTY GOOD AND THE MIDDLE ONE.......WELL..YOU CAN SEE ITS BURNT

MY MESSY COZY CORNER.  ALICE, MY HOUSEKEEPER WOULD SHIT A BRICK IF SHE SAW IT LIKE THIS

NOW THAT ALL MY HAIR IS DISAPPEARING I THINK I WILL BE CUTTING IT

the middle ones stayed raw.  I would turn the cookie sheet half way through then they all burnt.  I tried the convection bake and that burned the whole lot in five minutes.  So I put it on bake and it cooked half of them in twenty minutes...all at the same temp setting.  Oh well....I got cookies out of it!!!

And now I just looked outside and the snow has melted and gone!  I spent this whole day making snowy day cookies!  TTYL