Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The Best

For the past year, maybe year and a half, I’ve been on my own personal quest.  You see, there are some things in life I take very seriously, one of them being the chocolate chip cookie.  So every Sunday I would take out my trusty Kitchen-Aid and search the internet for another recipe claiming to be “the best.”

Oh, I tried many.  You have no idea.  Brown butter, cold butter, sifted flour, cake flour, milk chocolate, dark chocolate.  I tried more recipes than I even care to share. 

But this one right here…this is the best.  It’s a combination of many different recipes, and it has been tested and tweaked over time. 

(Now I realize what constitutes “the best” to me may not be the same for others.  I like cookies that are a tad crisp and chewy on the edges with a soft middle and lots of texture.)

*A couple of notes:  Dark brown sugar is a must.  For the oats, I just use the regular Target brand old-fashioned oats, pictured below.  I mill the oats in my Baby Bullet, but I’m sure a small food processor would work great.  I also only use 1 cup of chips, because I don’t like them to be super-chocolately, but feel free to use as much as you like.  I also always use parchment paper on my cookie sheet – makes a big difference!

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The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies (according to me)

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 stick butter, melted

1-1/2 c dark brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1-1/2 c oats, milled fine

2 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp sea salt

1 c chocolate chips

Add the melted butter and softened butter to your mixer.  Cream butter with the dark brown sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, then add vanilla.

In a separate bowl, add your milled oats, flour, salt and baking soda.  Add a little at a time to your mixer until completely incorporated.  Add chocolate chips.

Chill dough for about 30 min.  This helps give the cookies a nice wrinkly appearance after baking.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and scoop cookie dough onto sheet using a cookie scoop or tablespoon.  Bake for 10 min at 350 (every oven is different, mine come out perfect at 10 min.)  Let cool on baking sheet for 5 min before transferring to a cooling rack.

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See how nice and wrinkly they are?  Yum!  Enjoy!

Friday, April 20, 2012

A Proclamation

We have some exciting news to share!

Taken from LPA:

“Little People of America proudly congratulates the state of New York for recognizing October as Dwarfism Awareness Month.  In celebration, on April 19, a group of supporters from Little People of America in New York met with Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun for the official passing of the proclamation at the New York State Capitol Building. Through the leadership of Assemblywoman Calhoun and LPA leaders in the State, New York will be the sixth state to dedicate the month of October as Dwarfism Awareness Month.”

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Hooray!  How excited we were to be a part of such a special day!  Seamus and I spent the day with many of our wonderful LPA friends, including the Weissers, DePauls, Korpais, Sikes, and Mooneys.

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Inside the chamber!  It was great to see our senate at work.

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Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun, who presented our resolution.

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The future of LPA!

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Thanks to everyone who traveled to Albany to be a part of this historical event!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Daddy Love

This sweet boy just can’t get enough of his daddy!

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Sunday, April 8, 2012

Happy Easter!

What a fun Easter weekend!  Finally, I have colored eggs with my kids…and they loved it!  It’s about time I got on the ball with this!

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5:20am, bright and early, Seamus was up and ready for the basket!  I told him he was absolutely nuts and he could come back at 6:30.  The Easter Bunny left some wonderful goodies for everyone!

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Liam was a little unsure of the new PuddleJumper, but hopefully he will learn to love it this summer!

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New robes and DVDs!

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Whoa….and boxing gloves and a punching bag!

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Then it was time to get dressed and head to church…everyone was looking spiffy!

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It’s always a challenge getting a pic of all three…I basically make Seamus and Grace follow Liam around while I snap away, hoping to get a decent shot!  Unfortunately this was the best I could do!

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Hope everyone had a very Happy Easter!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Seussical

Last night, Seamus, Grace & I went to see Seussical the Musical!  An area high school was putting on the production, and since we loved the show so much last year, I knew we had to see it again.

My friend Anne got us the tickets and she scored front row seats!  Awesome!

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We were right in front of the ramp that the characters run up and down during the show.  Seamus, of course, had to attend wearing his Seuss hat!

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The show was incredible.  The school did an amazing job -  the costumes, makeup and hair were unreal!  If you get a chance to see the show, I highly recommend it.  It really drives home the Seuss values of friendship, imagination, loyalty…and of course, that “a person’s a person no matter how small!”

Seamus was determined to meet the Cat in the Hat, so we stalked him after show…and luckily he still had his cat makeup on!  (Side note: I had to ask a high-schooler for help in taking a photo with my new phone!  I could feel him rolling his eyes behind me!!)

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“Oh the thinks you can think, when you think about SEUSS!”