Pumpkin-Orange Cookes

Here is a real start to the Fall/Winter season and an excellent way to get everyone's spirits going the merry and bright route. It's a great way to scent the air when you have the rest of the family working on setting up the Christmas tree, working on Christmas cards . . .

Pumpkin-Orange Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup cooked pumpkin
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
½ cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flour, oats, baking soda, and spices. In another bowl, combine butter and sugars, beating until fluffy. Add pumpkin, egg, orange zest, and vanilla, mixing well. Add flour mixture and mix well. Stir in nuts and raisins. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are very light brown. Cool slightly before removing from baking sheets to finish cooling on wire racks. Ice with Orange Glaze.

Orange Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Fresh orange juice

Add vanilla and enough orange juice to form a thin icing. Drizzle over cookies and let set before serving.

Artichoke Dip

I always order artichoke dip when we get a chance to eat out but can stop the between restaurant visit cravings by making my own. It is always popular for pot lucks and family dinners.

Artichoke Dip
1 packet dried onion soup mix
1 1/2 cups canned/bottled artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Spread into a suitable baking dish (good idea to use vegetable oil spray) and bake, uncovered, for approximately 25-30 minutes until hot and bubbly. Serve with tortilla chips, rounds of toasted bread, etc.

Ideas . . .
I like using 1 cup Swiss cheese and 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese in mine.
A tablespoon of jarred, diced garlic brings up the taste a notch.
A tablespoon of finely diced pimento makes it look more festive.

Funny but true . . .

"The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught."
-- Marquis de Vauvenargues

"The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives."
-- Lois McMaster Bujold

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
-- Oscar Wilde

Especially during the holiday season . . .

“Extend your mercy towards others, so that there can be no one in need whom you meet without helping. For what hope is there for us if God should withdraw His Mercy from us?” ~St Vincent de Paul

From The Washington Times, November 1st . . .

This certainly tells it like it is! I'm getting tired of hearing 'no one gets two until everyone gets one' because some of us, obviously, work harder than others. You should get what you honestly earn and pay for what you buy.

The Washington Times (November 1^st)

HICKS: Some belated parental advice to protesters

By Marybeth Hicks

Call it an occupational hazard, but I can’t look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, “Who parented these people?”

As a culture columnist, I’ve commented on the social and political ramifications of the “movement” - now known as “OWS” - whose fairyland agenda can be summarized by one of their placards: “Everything for everybody.”

Thanks to their pipe-dream platform, it’s clear there are people with serious designs on “transformational” change in America who are using the protesters like bedsprings in a brothel.

Yet it’s not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question, but rather the fact that I’m the mother of four teens and young adults. There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters’ moms clearly have not passed along.

Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters’ mothers should have taught their children but obviously didn’t, so I will:

 

• LIFE isn’t fair. The concept of justice - that everyone should be treated fairly - is a worthy and worthwhile moral imperative on which our nation was founded. But justice and economic equality are not the same. Or, as Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.”

No matter how you try to “level the playing field,” some people have better luck, skills, talents or connections that land them in better places. Some seem to have all the advantages in life but squander them, others play the modest hand they’re dealt and make up the difference in hard work and perseverance, and some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in the Hamptons. Is it fair? Stupid question.

 

• NOTHING is “free.” Protesting with signs that seek “free” college degrees and “free” health care make you look like idiots, because colleges and hospitals don’t operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood, and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.

While I’m pointing out this obvious fact, here are a few other things that are not free: overtime for police officers and municipal workers, trash hauling, repairs to fixtures and property, condoms, Band-Aids and the food that inexplicably appears on the tables in your makeshift protest kitchens. Real people with real dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.

 

• YOUR word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. Loans are made based on solemn promises to repay them. No one forces you to borrow money; you are free to choose educational pursuits that don’t require loans, or to seek technical or vocational training that allows you to support yourself and your ongoing educational goals. Also, for the record, being a college student is not a state of victimization. It’s a privilege that billions of young people around the globe would die for - literally.

 

• A PROTEST is not a party. On Saturday in New York, while making a mad dash from my cab to the door of my hotel to avoid you, I saw what isn’t evident in the newsreel footage of your demonstrations: Most of you are doing this only for attention and fun. Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and political change don’t dance jigs down Sixth Avenue like attendees of a Renaissance festival. You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don’t seem to realize that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.

 

• THERE are reasons you haven’t found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gauged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn’t a virtue. Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a mirror and face the problem. It’s not them. It’s you.

• Marybeth Hicks is the author of “Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left’s Assault on Our Families, Faith and Freedom.” Find her on the Web at www.marybethhicks.com

Brandy Balls - For adults only!

While the children are munching on Christmas cookies, here is a treat for the grownup set. These small treats are full of flavor and go great with a cup of coffee after dinner. They are also unbaked and easy to make with a little planning ahead. Store them in the refrigerator until served.

Brandy Balls:

1 ½ cups toasted nuts (your choice!) finely ground
1 1/4 cups finely crushed vanilla wafer cookies
½ cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
1/4 cup brandy

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir until well mixed. If the mixture is too dry, add drops more of the brandy to moisten. This is not a child’s candy! Refrigerate the dough until it can be worked. Form into small, bite-sized balls and place on a wax paper lined baking sheet.

For coating the balls, you can use the commercial white or chocolate coating product usually found in the baking section of most stores. Melt according to directions and dip each brand ball to coat, let excess drip off, and place on prepared baking sheet. Refrigerate to harden.

You can also melt semisweet chocolate with a bit of shortening or butter to smooth is out for the dipping. Now you are ready to individualize your creations!

Ideas . . .
Roll the brandy balls in ground nuts, pressing to help adhere them.
Just dust them with powdered sugar.
Press them in colorful sprinkles.
Coat them with cocoa powder
Mix some cocoa powder with espresso powder for coating.
Melt either white or milk chocolate and drizzle over the brandy balls.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I hoping to get a bottle of peppermint liqueur and substitute that for the brandy this year.

You can also buy some candy papers to nestle your candy in for presentation. People will be impressed that you made these yourself.