Baking For the Family, Copper's Cookies

We recently began buying the Hound Dawg puppy cookies to supplement his little pepperoni inspired treats.  He loves them!

Even though it was my idea to buy them, I think they are expensive.  They are good though, made with cane sugar, molasses, flour, spices and no weird unpronounceable things.  

The Dawg thinks they're yummy.  Well, the are yummy.  Yes, I did try them. (Yes, I am THAT person...)

This week, I needed to use up some applesauce and I thought dog cookies sounded like a wonderful thing to try.  I found a great Peanut Butter and Applesauce Dog Biscuit Recipe over at dogtipper.com.  So far Hound Dawg thinks these are pretty good too.  They are.  (Yes, I tried them too.  Hey, I made them.)  

I think convenience will still occasionally beat out economics in our future "dog cookie/biscuit buying versus baking model" but I'm very glad to have a fun, easy and fairly fast way to make wholesome treats for the pooch.  Overall, they truly are much less expensive than the store bought goodies and I like being able to cut whatever shapes I like.


The question might be asked, "Why go to this much trouble over dog treats?"  The answer, "We like that Hound Dawg!"  Plus, recently we did a not entirely scientific or well controlled experiment/taste test with the Dawg and he pretty definitively told us he likes his cookies.  


Judge for yourself:

From Scratch

 

 The other day, I was in the check out line at a local thrift store and the cashier began questioning the older but not really elderly woman in front of me about her purchases.  The woman was explained how she reused items for storage and such.  This led to a conversation about how the woman made everything from scratch including her bread.  That peeked my interest.  After all, I was on my way home to make the above cupcakes from scratch.

(For my one international reader, actually you're almost my only reader I'm not sure how the word "scratch" crosses dialectical differences but just in case I'll explain because it's important for the rest of the story.  In the US when the term "from scratch" is used in the kitchen it refers to making something with the basic ingredients, not relying on a mix or pre-made store bought things.  Now, back to the story.)

The cashier evidenced the usual amazement that someone still makes anything, much less bread from scratch which led the customer to share a joke.  It's an oldy but it's still good:

A young woman walks into the grocery store.  After spending quite a while looking around and going from one end of the store to another a clerk asks the young lady if she needs help locating something.  The young woman looked up and said, "Oh I'm looking for scratch".  


"Scratch?" asked the clerk.


"Yes," the young woman replied.  "My Mother told me she baked everything from scratch.

I was still smiling and the clerk was still laughing when it was my turn at the check out.


Photo: What I like to call double chocolate cupcakes (recipe found here at The Wife of a Dairyman) and cream cheese frosting.

Mini-Size Me

I work a long distance from my home.  This means that I'm either going to eat out very often or take my lunch.  The balance I've tried to achieve is one lunch meal out a week and lunches from home the rest of the time.

I could go into how "brown-bagging it" saves money and is healthier but my real motivator is, I simply get tired of eating out.  The meals out are mostly heavy, the portions are large, and dealing with the leftovers can be a pain in the tookus.

As part of my summer menu for work time lunches I've made bread the last three weeks.  I'm trying something (new for me) with the bread, little loaves.  I'm not very often a sandwich person but I do like a slice of bread with cheese or perhaps some cheese and meat.  I'm experimenting with the small loaves because it breaks the meal into smaller more slowly eaten portions and quite honestly, those little loaves are just so darn cute.  Also, a small slice with butter is great to accompany my breakfast banana as I scramble out the door.

Despite how nice it is to have home baked bread, you have wonder where is the practicality of making bread when one has an already very busy life?  For me, practicality in this venture begins and ends with the breadmaker.  Some of you may remember that around Christmas I was on the cusp of gifting my breadmaker to someone else.  After all, it had been gifted to me about ten years earlier and I'd used it about three times.  Then, I had strep throat right before Christmas, a slow recovery, and family coming over on Christmas Eve.  I simply didn't have energy to bake bread.  

I've always objected to the breadmaker because it makes such an awkward loaf.  This past Christmas I found a recipe for dinner rolls that was mixed by the bread machine and then shaped and baked by hand.  Marvelous!  While, I'll still love the process of making my own bread I have to admit that I've been seduced by the ease of just throwing everything in the breadmaker and letting it do it's thing.  In about an hour and a half I have a beautiful dough that has risen once and is ready for shaping and the second rising.  Oh the ease!  How did I manage before this?

Occasionally, I feel like I am cheating but then I remember if I still had to do it all by hand I wouldn't be eating my own bread at lunch.  So, I think my little shortcut and bow to modernity is paying off, for now.   I just hope it doesn't take me out of the running for a Betty Crocker Award.