molasses makes the difference

remember my finding out that I wasn't using real brown sugar??
well I bought some molasses and wha-la!
I have real chocolate chip cookies!!

thank you Mom!

I feel like a real dummy.

I've been struggling with baking chocolate chip cookies for a while.
They kind of melt in the oven & stick to the sheet & don't stay in nice clumps.

I can make peanut butter & sugar cookies ok.
but the chocolate chip are always a disaster.

I had been blaming myself, the oven, the butter, the sugar, the everything...
and I found out it's the brown sugar.
I'm not actually using brown sugar.  Doh!

I was complaining about my recent failure of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
and I said it's weird... the brown sugar here is just like white sugar, it's grainy. it doesn't pack.
and my Mom says.... oohhh honey. you're probably not using brown sugar. it's probably regular sugar that isn't bleached.

No wonder it's different! no wonder there is different brown sugar on the bottom shelf that costs more... it's the REAL brown sugar...
apparently brown sugar is white sugar and molasses mixed.

am I the only one that this is a new realization to???

tomorrow I am off to IGA to either buy molassas or the bottom shelf brown sugar.

I'll let you know how my next attempt at cookies goes, wish me luck!

househusband

Lee and I are totally in the wrong roles.

 I should be the "breadwinner" for this family
and he should be home cooking and cleaning and probably raising our future children.

 Last Friday ended finals (yea!! and of course he did amazing)  so I am being thrown back in to the world of actually having a husband again... and it's great!!!

I have been babysitting everyday this week about 6 hours a day (at the pool and beach mostly so no complaints here... and we could use some money around Christmas)
While I'm out babysitting Lee has been home alllll day, because lets face it he'd rather never go anywhere.  He's been catching up on a few shoes and playing video games and basically giving his brain a much, much needed break

One day I came home to ALL the laundry washed and folded , dishes done, dinner cooked, AND he baked cookies!!  The man has never baked in his life.
maybe he was bored
but I don't care, I could get used to this!!

Unfortunately with his chosen career path I doubt he'll be helping out around the house quite as much in the future.
but that doesn't mean that I always have to stay home and deal with it either, right??
as soon as I'm not in a foreign country where I'm not allowed to work I will be getting a job & hiring a housekeeper.  or at least investing in a dishwasher and having some kids to take over the chores :)

French Toast

yesterday I was really in the mood for french toast, so I googled some ideas, but couldn't decide what kind to make so I made 3 different kinds and it was sooooooo good. nearly sickeningly sweet. but worth it.
I made a caramel like sauce with milk, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. then added bananas.
then I stuffed some with cream cheese
and I made regular with just powdered sugar in case we didn't like the other kinds, but we did... we ended up dumping the banana sauce on the regular and I made another batch of the cream cheese kind.  Cream cheese in the middle of french toast, with no syrup or anything is very very good.

we also had scrambled eggs, but Lee had already eaten them when I decided to take a picture.