Peanut Butter Cookies

ok, so it seems that pretty much out of the gate i fell short of my posting regularly goal. things were happening, they demanded my attention, now it's over.

our day in palm springs started out with the temperature in the 90's, and raining. i figured i'd just roll with it and bake up some peanut butter cookies. i just think a counter looks right and together when there are cookies in the jar.

then, this afternoon, the sporadic rain turned into a micro cell bursting on top of us. the rain was coming down sideways, driven by high winds, the streets were flooded and running fast. after about twenty minutes of that, the power went off. they made a couple good tries getting it back on. enough for me to get a pot of coffee made, and scout out a couple leaks at the back door. towels were deployed. i took a nap. i woke up about 3:30 with the power still off, so i read for a while, practiced the guitar for a while, read some more. it was getting dark, and then it was getting darker, then it was really fucking dark. i was calling myself all kinds of stupid names, because after three power outages over the last month and a half i haven't bothered to stock in a flashlight, lantern, or even a few stupid candles. silly, silly, me.

a little after eight everything popped on. the rain did cool things off a lot. i've still got the house open, and it's very comfortable. i enjoy breathing actual, unprocessed air. it's nice to have the windows open for a change. the fans are keeping the air moving and it is a delight.

i decided that meant it was time to make the cookies. i'm using Martha Stewart's recipe. it's a good one. Martha Stewart is a goddess.

I won't go into the list of ingredients because what the hell, there they are at the link. me typing it out would only set up a risk of typos.

here's what it looks like though.

First you cream the butter and brown sugar together. since i don't have brown sugar yet i used a cup of white sugar with a little slug (about a teaspoon more or less) of molasses and it works just fine.

Add in the peanut butter, egg, and baking powder.

Add in the flour, one half cup at a time until well mixed.

Pinch off a bit of the dough, roll it into a ball, moosh it down with a fork crossways.

bake 18 to 20 minutes at 350, until the edges are a nice golden brown. cool on a rack for about 5 or six minutes, move the cookies off the sheet to another rack to cool further.

Keep doing that until the dough is all used. i got 18 good size cookies out of this.

See? That's what a cookie jar is supposed to look like.

I'm probably going to sleep with the windows open. That's pretty good.