no picnic today

Our picnic meet-up of the members of my Nov/Dec 2005 group has been cancelled due to illness. Another mother broke her elbow, too. She is here on vacation visiting her mom... not a fun way to spend it.

I'm disappointed, but I understand that you certainly are not able to entertain when you are sick (both parents and one of their kids). I'm very glad they decided to cancel and not expose all of us to it as well. The kids are going to be sad, too. The first thing out of Lew's mouth was, "No. I will NOT take you to the beach tomorrow." See, we went to the beach on Memorial Day with his mother and it was insanely crowded. We actually went to 2 beaches - the first one we didn't get out of the car. We drove around for about 45 minutes looking for a parking spot in any one of the various lots only to give up and drive to the other beach. We live about halfway between so it was about 30 minutes to get to the other beach and maybe another 20 waiting for a parking spot in that lot.

So, instead of traveling to the meet-up, we'll be spending the 4th of July eating. I was bringing dessert and since each of the 5-6 families has 3-4 kids - I was bringing a lot. 72 pumpkin muffins and 12 dozen cookies. I was able to send Lew & the kids out for about 2 hours today so I could roll and cut the cookies by myself. Then, after dinner tonight, I had some help frosting the cookies. The kids were decorating some for us to keep here. I did the ones we were to bring. I always feel I have to put a disclaimer on the baking. "We washed our hands! No one sneezed! The cats stayed off the table!" See Carl holing the cookie up? He kept saying to Lew, "Take a picture of my star." With Gretchen, I stopped her after she frosted 6 cookies because at the rate she was going, I was going to run out of frosting way too soon! She is her father's daughter!!!
So, these are the cookies I grew up on. My mom doesn't like chocolate, so we weren't a Nestle's Toll House family. I had a friend whose mother kept their cookie jar filled with homemade chocolate chip cookies all the time. At our 20th reunion, I asked her if she had a cookie jar, too. She said, yes, but hers stays full of oatmeal raisin cookies.

These roll out cookies are favorites of both my brother, Kenny and me, so it isn't like we grew up deprived without chocolate chip cookies available 24/7. Any holiday or event, Mom would make cookies and use the appropriate cookie cutter. Mom & Kenny are up to camp right now and when I learned I wasn't going tomorrow, I called her to tell her. She laughed about the cookies and said, "Freeze them and bring them home!" Sounds like a plan.

want the recipe???

Oatmeal Roll Outs
375°
15 minutes (note... today, in my oven I only cooked each pan for 8 minutes)
yields 3 ½ dozen

2 ½ c flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ c butter
¾ c sugar
2 tbl milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 c oatmeal

Mix dry ingredients, add butter, milk, egg, vanilla. Add oats by hand (literally).
Roll to about ¼”, cut, cook, cool, frost.

Frosting:
1 lb confectioner’s sugar (about 4 c)
½ c butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbl milk
food coloring

If necessary, add more milk.

PS - I used food coloring gels to get the vibrant red & blue.