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December Layoff 2023 Part 3
Dec. 13th, 2023 09:09 pmRight before bed our neighbor Dan from across the street rang the doorbell with a gift of cookies and an adorable owl ornament!
We neighbors exchange cookies every year, but usually I'm the first to get them out. He beat me to it this year!
When you receive cookies as a gift, it's a requirement to eat one fresh ;) so I broke my calorie count for the day to have one. It's the holidays, after all! Oh, and they brought Jameson an entire key lime pie. Good grief!! I'll have a slice but won't be able to eat much as those are usually made with condensed milk.
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Monday, I got up at 6:30 so I could log at least an hour of work (I got 1.5) before starting on the Thin Mint cookie dough.
It came together quickly but was VERY dense and fudgy, basically a chocolate shortbread with mint essence.
The recipe said to roll out the dough and use a 2" cookie cutter, but in the interest of saving time I chose instead to roll it into logs and freeze it. That way I can SLICE round cookies later, which is a lot faster and easier than all that rolling and cutting and re-rolling.
When that was done I had a doctor's appointment about a lump in my throat, which my doctor said is just one tonsil being larger than the other. Glad the copay was only $30, then. The problem with my entire healthcare life is that the ONLY time I have health insurance is when I'm on tour...and yet I'm in a different city every week, sometimes every two days. So if I need to see a doctor it's nearly impossible, because by the time I get either an appointment or a referral I'll be in a different STATE the next day. While on tour I'm limited to TeleDoc visits, walk-in clinics, and the ER for emergencies. So if I have any health questions at all, or if there's anything that might need a referral or further investigation, I HAVE to see my doctor during the layoff window.
I asked a few other questions about other misc things going on with me, got reassured, and went home.
Decided to move on to making the biscotti. Again, the dough came together quickly, and after reading the comments on the recipe I decided to add orange zest and also to chop half of the pistachios. The first step is to bake the dough in long flat "loaves" at low heat, just until they're firm.
Then you let them cool for 10 minutes, then slice them carefully into the classic biscotti "sticks."
Bake them again at an even lower temperature to dry them out.
I had pulsed the pistachios too hard which impacted the texture of the dough a bit, so next time I won't do that, but otherwise I'm very happy with how they turned out. Tomorrow I hope to dip 'em in white chocolate.
While Jameson was at the gym I did the chocolate crinkle dough.
It was dark and runny, not fudgy and dense like the Thin Mint dough.
This one is oil-based, no butter, and needs to be refrigerated overnight to be worked with.
When Jameson got back I was halfway through baking the Thin Mint cookies. We sampled those and the biscotti and found them good :) Then had dinner and I finished the Thin Mints. So tomorrow will be dipping the biscotti and the Thin Mints, baking the crinkles and peanut butter blossoms, and packaging everything up to send to people.
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Up early again to do an hour or two of work, eat breakfast, and crack down on the remaining cookies starting with the chocolate crinkles. Even though the dough was cold and more solid it was still really goopy and difficult to work with, but the end result was successful!
The last time I made chocolate crinkles they were REALLY dry and hard and I have no idea why. This recipe seems like a keeper. They were crispy at the edges and fudgy/gooey in the middle.
Next I decided to dip the biscotti. That was pretty easy, just melting white chocolate and dipping half of each stick in.
I forgot to take a picture.
Then I dipped the Thin Mints, which was more of a pain because I had to measure the chocolate carefully and add the right amount of peppermint. It was also hard to balance each cookie on a fork while dipping. Still, the results are pretty good and Jameson says they're tasty (I haven't had one yet.)
All of the chocolate-dipped things had a rotation into the fridge so the chocolate could set.
When that was done I wrapped them for shipping, then got started on the last cookie, peanut butter blossoms.
I used a different recipe this year and it's not my favorite...the instructions say to throw everything in a bowl together, no creaming the butter and sugar for fluffiness and stability, no whisking dry ingredients for even distribution. And it specifically said NOT to chill the dough too. I really should have switched recipes, but plowed ahead to see what would happen.
They turned out fine, just flatter than I prefer. And the dough was INSANELY wet and difficult to roll in the colorful sugar, to the point that I was pretty well pissed by the time Jameson finished work and suggested we go out for burgers for dinner. And I was still so annoyed at the restaurant that I got a big ol' burger with pineapple rings and bacon, much against my usual anal calorie counting. Oh well! It was delicious and I felt much better after scarfing it with my favorite person :)
Back home I rushed the pb blossoms through cooling by rotating them through the fridge, then packed them up, then assembled platters for the neighbors and delivered them (both neighbors were home thankfully.) Now all that's left is packaging and mailing everyone else's treats tomorrow. And finally these cookies will be out of my face!!!
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Up at 6:30 again to do 1.5 hours of work and eat breakfast before The Final Cookie Thing: packing everything for shipping. Having done this for several years in a row now, I know what size boxes will fit the tins from Walmart, so packing took no time at all. Off to UPS to drop everything off, then send tracking info to my relatives. Done and dusted! SO glad that's over with! I love making the cookies, it's a fun challenge every year, but it cuts into my work time and dinner planning for Jameson and I.
Now we have our own small mountain of cookies (with more on the way from family and friends, my goodness!)
Back home I worked worked worked, because I am behind thanks to cookies.
Then a very average evening. We ordered from our favorite Greek place, and I was surprised to see that they've got their own website now, so used it to place our order (when I use DoorDash the owner, a cranky old Greek guy, yells at me at pickup for incurring fees lol.)
And when I went to pick up the food I was surprised to see that the front had been redone, with a big new sign on the side of the building. I hope this means they've recovered from the pandemic (we ate there throughout the pandemic and have seen this restaurant's evolution.) And for the first time EVER, the cantankerous shop owner handed me my order and SMILED. I have never seen him smile!
Usually I get the chicken or lamb kabobs, and they're very good, huge portions and everything very fresh.
This time I got the tilapia and was not disappointed.
The crispy bits of the fish were my favorite!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow Jameson has a doctor's appointment to investigate some pain and potential damage to his hand (he plays the keyboard for a living remember) and while he's out I'm going to work work work, and make crockpot chili and cornbread.
On Friday we have Jameson's company holiday party at Universal, then I think the weekend should be fairly quiet.
We neighbors exchange cookies every year, but usually I'm the first to get them out. He beat me to it this year!
When you receive cookies as a gift, it's a requirement to eat one fresh ;) so I broke my calorie count for the day to have one. It's the holidays, after all! Oh, and they brought Jameson an entire key lime pie. Good grief!! I'll have a slice but won't be able to eat much as those are usually made with condensed milk.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, I got up at 6:30 so I could log at least an hour of work (I got 1.5) before starting on the Thin Mint cookie dough.
It came together quickly but was VERY dense and fudgy, basically a chocolate shortbread with mint essence.
The recipe said to roll out the dough and use a 2" cookie cutter, but in the interest of saving time I chose instead to roll it into logs and freeze it. That way I can SLICE round cookies later, which is a lot faster and easier than all that rolling and cutting and re-rolling.
When that was done I had a doctor's appointment about a lump in my throat, which my doctor said is just one tonsil being larger than the other. Glad the copay was only $30, then. The problem with my entire healthcare life is that the ONLY time I have health insurance is when I'm on tour...and yet I'm in a different city every week, sometimes every two days. So if I need to see a doctor it's nearly impossible, because by the time I get either an appointment or a referral I'll be in a different STATE the next day. While on tour I'm limited to TeleDoc visits, walk-in clinics, and the ER for emergencies. So if I have any health questions at all, or if there's anything that might need a referral or further investigation, I HAVE to see my doctor during the layoff window.
I asked a few other questions about other misc things going on with me, got reassured, and went home.
Decided to move on to making the biscotti. Again, the dough came together quickly, and after reading the comments on the recipe I decided to add orange zest and also to chop half of the pistachios. The first step is to bake the dough in long flat "loaves" at low heat, just until they're firm.
Then you let them cool for 10 minutes, then slice them carefully into the classic biscotti "sticks."
Bake them again at an even lower temperature to dry them out.
I had pulsed the pistachios too hard which impacted the texture of the dough a bit, so next time I won't do that, but otherwise I'm very happy with how they turned out. Tomorrow I hope to dip 'em in white chocolate.
While Jameson was at the gym I did the chocolate crinkle dough.
It was dark and runny, not fudgy and dense like the Thin Mint dough.
This one is oil-based, no butter, and needs to be refrigerated overnight to be worked with.
When Jameson got back I was halfway through baking the Thin Mint cookies. We sampled those and the biscotti and found them good :) Then had dinner and I finished the Thin Mints. So tomorrow will be dipping the biscotti and the Thin Mints, baking the crinkles and peanut butter blossoms, and packaging everything up to send to people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Up early again to do an hour or two of work, eat breakfast, and crack down on the remaining cookies starting with the chocolate crinkles. Even though the dough was cold and more solid it was still really goopy and difficult to work with, but the end result was successful!
The last time I made chocolate crinkles they were REALLY dry and hard and I have no idea why. This recipe seems like a keeper. They were crispy at the edges and fudgy/gooey in the middle.
Next I decided to dip the biscotti. That was pretty easy, just melting white chocolate and dipping half of each stick in.
I forgot to take a picture.
Then I dipped the Thin Mints, which was more of a pain because I had to measure the chocolate carefully and add the right amount of peppermint. It was also hard to balance each cookie on a fork while dipping. Still, the results are pretty good and Jameson says they're tasty (I haven't had one yet.)
All of the chocolate-dipped things had a rotation into the fridge so the chocolate could set.
When that was done I wrapped them for shipping, then got started on the last cookie, peanut butter blossoms.
I used a different recipe this year and it's not my favorite...the instructions say to throw everything in a bowl together, no creaming the butter and sugar for fluffiness and stability, no whisking dry ingredients for even distribution. And it specifically said NOT to chill the dough too. I really should have switched recipes, but plowed ahead to see what would happen.
They turned out fine, just flatter than I prefer. And the dough was INSANELY wet and difficult to roll in the colorful sugar, to the point that I was pretty well pissed by the time Jameson finished work and suggested we go out for burgers for dinner. And I was still so annoyed at the restaurant that I got a big ol' burger with pineapple rings and bacon, much against my usual anal calorie counting. Oh well! It was delicious and I felt much better after scarfing it with my favorite person :)
Back home I rushed the pb blossoms through cooling by rotating them through the fridge, then packed them up, then assembled platters for the neighbors and delivered them (both neighbors were home thankfully.) Now all that's left is packaging and mailing everyone else's treats tomorrow. And finally these cookies will be out of my face!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Up at 6:30 again to do 1.5 hours of work and eat breakfast before The Final Cookie Thing: packing everything for shipping. Having done this for several years in a row now, I know what size boxes will fit the tins from Walmart, so packing took no time at all. Off to UPS to drop everything off, then send tracking info to my relatives. Done and dusted! SO glad that's over with! I love making the cookies, it's a fun challenge every year, but it cuts into my work time and dinner planning for Jameson and I.
Now we have our own small mountain of cookies (with more on the way from family and friends, my goodness!)
Back home I worked worked worked, because I am behind thanks to cookies.
Then a very average evening. We ordered from our favorite Greek place, and I was surprised to see that they've got their own website now, so used it to place our order (when I use DoorDash the owner, a cranky old Greek guy, yells at me at pickup for incurring fees lol.)
And when I went to pick up the food I was surprised to see that the front had been redone, with a big new sign on the side of the building. I hope this means they've recovered from the pandemic (we ate there throughout the pandemic and have seen this restaurant's evolution.) And for the first time EVER, the cantankerous shop owner handed me my order and SMILED. I have never seen him smile!
Usually I get the chicken or lamb kabobs, and they're very good, huge portions and everything very fresh.
This time I got the tilapia and was not disappointed.
The crispy bits of the fish were my favorite!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow Jameson has a doctor's appointment to investigate some pain and potential damage to his hand (he plays the keyboard for a living remember) and while he's out I'm going to work work work, and make crockpot chili and cornbread.
On Friday we have Jameson's company holiday party at Universal, then I think the weekend should be fairly quiet.
