Kitchen Joy

We are back from Spring Break, getting re-adjusted to the schedule that is our regular lives...

I'm back with this lovely thing that is making my life so much easier - a gift from my Mom-in-Law - a mandolin. Woah, what took me so long to figure this out? Why not sooner? Hunh? It certainly does let me make all those elaborate, chopping intensive things that I try to avoid...and fast. I'll just try not to take off the tips of any of my fingers...



Got a chance to start my new gift for my fella...shhhh...don't tell him, okay? The wool finally came, so I can get on with it.



We spent lovely holidays with both sides of the family and got tons of cousin/aunt/uncle/grandparents goodness in the bargain. Took our old, deaf dog with us to my parent's house after she was cared for by my sister (thanks again!) and that was interesting. We haven't tried to take her anywhere but camp (and even that not in the last couple of years), so it was new all over again with the hand signals she and I have negotiated between us. We were out in the Kootenay Lake area - a definite no-leash zone. It felt strange to be the only person walking with the dog on a leash, but with her stone-deafness, I couldn't call her if she decided to take off after an interesting smell, a deer, coyote, car or an emu(!).

A sweet local girl took care of our cats while we were gone, so today I got down to making her some sweet thank-you's.

Now, if you've been reading the blog for a while you'll know that I do a lot of whole food cooking, a lot of food from scratch. If you normally tune in for a bit of that foodie goodness....stop reading now! I made something truly decadent for our young friend and some to share with her little brother (maybe). Something that involved buying two (!) devil's food cake mixes. And cream cheese. And butter. And shortening.



It's enough to make any heart patient cringe, but lordy these are good.
They're Faux-reos...yes, Oreo cookies without the trip to the store. Both boys said that these blow the store-bought ones out of the water, and I have to say I agree.

It was a first time 'round with this recipe, and I'll be adding it to our once-a-year, diet-to-the-four-winds cook book.

I can't wait to inflict these on my book club friends.

If you think you can stand the sugar rush you can find the recipe here for the cookies, and here for the filling.

Yes, the amounts are right. There really is that much butter, sugar, shortening and cream cheese in this recipe. Please do yourself a favour and don't look at the nutritional information. It'll only make you sad.

The good news is that it made substantially more than I thought...85 cookies! We'll give away 3 dozen, and that leaves us with 49.
Oh, make that 48.

I mean 47?

Would you believe 44?

:)

Lisa