Learning Joy

Black and White Tie
From Food Network Kitchens
(pictured above)

A New York classic gets dressed up for the holidays.
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 32 cookies

Ingredients
Oil, for brushing
3 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks, 8 ounces), softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks

Chocolate Icing:
6 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream

White Icing:
2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons warm water

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Brush 2 baking sheets very lightly with oil.
Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl.
Whisk the buttermilk and vanilla together in a liquid measuring cup. Set aside. Beat the butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat at high speed, until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs and yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. At low speed, add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the wet in 2 parts, beginning and ending with the dry to make a smooth batter.
Evenly mound 2 tablespoons batter per cookie onto the prepared cookie sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. (A small cookie scoop or ice cream scoop is ideal for this.)
Bake until the cookies are golden brown around the edges, about 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to rack and cool completely.
For the chocolate icing:
Put the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan; pour over the chocolate. Shake the bowl gently so cream settles around the chocolate; set aside until the chocolate melts, about 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth, taking care not to incorporate too many air bubbles. Fill a piping bag fitted with a small tip with about half of the chocolate icing.
For the white icing:
Whisk the confectioners’ sugar, corn syrup, lemon juice and warm water together to make a smooth icing. Fill a piping bag fitted with a small tip with about a quarter of the icing.To Decorate:
For tuxedo cookies: Set the cookies on a rack over a rimmed cookie sheet. Pour the white glaze over the whole cookie to cover; set aside to dry. Pipe a bowtie and tuxedo lapel with the chocolate icing.
For a little black dress and pearls: Pipe an outline of a woman’s dress with the dark chocolate and fill in with more icing. Pipe white icing pearls around the top of the cookie. Add silver dragees or candy pearls to dress up if desired.
Let cookies dry completely, about 20 minutes.
Serve.
Store cookies in a tightly sealed container for up to 2 days.

Check out the new Barney cam video! It’s Barney, the President’s dog, taking you on a tour of the White House! Click here.

“nah, he’s crazy – we’re just bad-tempered.” ~ Hannibal from the “A-Team”

please check out the links on the sidebar to the right. My sister has a blog, and there are neat news sites and our pastor has a blog! 🙂

Wow! November flew by and now December is chugging along — leaving me in the dust!! We were really busy last month, just with church stuff, kids and Jef’s work. This month, we are even busier, or so it seems. I sure hope January is slow.
Things that are going on … well, Jef’s clients have renegotiated his contracts. We were able to add two hours on to one of them, praise the Lord!! So that is some extra money each month. Then the other one will probably raise the price a bit, so that will be extra, too! I need to learn how to praise God in the lean times. He always provides.
I was asked if I wanted to start cleaning again, so I have a job now, too! Two days a week I will clean an office. 🙂
God is faithful – the new contracts and my job add up to what we need to cover the bills. Hurray!
The boys are doing great. They like the new cirriculum.
We are involved in the Christmas play at church. I will post a video of it. The play is on Sunday, the 17th.
Think that is it. Will write more later.

*** WARNING!!! SPOILER!!!! ***

The ending to “The UNIT” last night was PERFECT.
Jonas Blaine, the team leader, had been captured by Georgian rebels/terrorists. Two of his teammates came to rescue him. In order to do so, they had to find, capture & trade a man on America’s most wanted list.
The trade was made. Jonas got into the JEEP and asked Mac, “Who is that guy?”
Mac told him the man was this gun-for-hire terrorist dude.
Jonas said, “Does the state department know about this?”
“No, but the Air Force does.” Mac replied. “We left them a little present.”
The JEEP crests the hill, and the three men turn and look back at the bad guys driving away.

All of a sudden you see a stream of light and the bad guys’ truck explodes.

HOOOORAAHHHH!

perfect ending. Terrorist and bad guys dealt with.
I noticed something, though. Our guys took out the bad guys without injuring or harming any innocent people! It’s amazing!

Snopes says this is a “glurge”, and is unverifiable in authenticity or verasity, but it is still neat. Makes one stop and count their modern-day blessings.

(Given a Young Bride By Her Grandmother)

Years ago an Alabama grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe: This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook – with spelling errors and all.

WASHING CLOTHES
Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water.
Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert.
Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.
Sort things, make 3 piles
1 pile white,
1 pile colored,
1 pile work britches and rags.
To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.
Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don’t boil just wrench and starch.
Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.
Hang old rags on fence.
Spread tea towels on grass.
Pore wrench water in flower bed.
Scrub porch with hot soapy water.
Turn tubs upside down.
Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs.
Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.

Besides the snow, not too much is going on here. Daniel & Nicholas have Dr. appointments today. They are both coughing really bad. We all have stuffy noses and coughs. 🙁
When we go to the doctor today I will try and get Nicholas’ stats, as I forgot to write them down when he went for his physical. Nicholas was such a brave boy! He had to have FOUR really big shots in his legs (they don’t do the shots in their arms until they are bigger) AND a finger poke. He bled like crazy from the finger poke. Poor thing was so sad. 🙁 He’s so expressive, too, slumped shoulders, great big tears. It was a sad time. He made it through, though, so we got a smoothie at the coffee shop. 🙂
The Dr. wants the boys to get flu shots this year, too, so we might do that today.
The boys are still doing AWANA, and doing well. We’re going to start working on the Christmas play this Wednesday. Another lady, Sue, and I are in charge of the play. We are doing “The Three Trees”. I’ve already had a request to video tape it, so I will, and I will post it on here. The play will be on Sunday the 17th of December at 6 p.m.
What else? God has been blessing Jef’s business. He’s been working a little each week.
On Friday we are going to see the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nutcracker. I am so excited!! We were going to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, too, but found out it costs $20/person to get in. So I don’t think we’ll do that. If we do, it will just be Jef.
I think that is about it. 🙂 Have a great day!
additional ~
Nicholas’ stats – he’s 42.5″ tall and weighs 47lbs.
Daniel has the beginning of an ear infection and is on Amoxicillin now. Nicholas just has a viral infection and is being treated with an OTC cough/runny nose medicine.

It’s snowing!! Yesterday we had snow – a good ground cover, very wet and sticky. Today it is snowing again! This snow is much drier, though, and doesn’t seem to be sticking. I can’t believe it is snowing. We usually don’t get snow here until January or February. 🙂 On Thanksgiving, the rain looked like it had some snow in it. The kids are really excited.