I haven’t made cut out cookies by myself EVER. I don’t have a lot of room in my house. Cats tend to jump up on things. I didn’t have a rolling pin or a place to roll the dough. So, I didn’t do it. But I always wanted to try to recreate my mom’s cookies.

Over ten years ago, my sister gave me a computer file with recipes, including the Rolled Sour Cream Sugar Cookies. I had to convert it to a rich text file and clean it up, because the programs have changed since then. But I didn’t have the supplies to make them. Then, Last year, my sister gave me two rolling pins (my mom’s old rolling pin with peeling paint on the handles, and a heavy marble one), the mat she used for rolling out dough, and the old cookie cutters we used.

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, and since we were about to get hit with our second blizzard in less than a week, I decided to finally make them. I told Lilia, I have never done this before, but it is always good to TRY NEW THINGS. She helped out immensely.

These are the cookie cutters we used:

They were quite tough to use– hard to pull back up. I don’t think it was just because I’m not an expert. I think I will get some plain metal cookie cutters in various shapes– I think that would be much easier.

Okay, on to the recipe. I actually googled to see if anyone else had the recipe out there, since I was not 100% sure I had it right (the files had added symbols between all the words and numbers!). I found a scan of the recipe card on a site called Noble Recipes, which has a note that it was from St. Lawrence Dairy– which was (or maybe is?) a dairy in Berks County, Penna., which makes sense. Here’s the recipe:

Rolled Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

2 cups sugar
2/3 cup butter
2 large or 3 small eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sour cream

5 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Gradually add sugar to butter, creaming thoroughly; add eggs and beat until fluffy.
Add vanilla and sour cream.
Sift dry ingredients together and add, mixing to a smooth soft dough.
Chill thoroughly, then roll out 1/3″ thick on floured board, and cut in large 3″ to 4″ cookies.
Place on greased baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in moderate hot oven (375 to 400 degrees) until lightly browned. Makes about 3 dozen fat, soft cookies. If you want crisp cookies, roll the dough very thin.

Instead of sprinkling with sugar, I decided to ice them. I used this recipe:
Sugar Cookie Frosting
Ingredients for 4 dozen:
• 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 5 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• food coloring
but I halved it:
Ingredients for 2 dozen:
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 2 tablespoons and 1-1/2 teaspoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• food coloring
•
Directions
1. In a large bowl, cream together the confectioners’ sugar and shortening until smooth. Gradually mix in the milk and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, about 5 minutes. Color with food coloring if desired.

I googled natural food colors, and found a suggestion to use Pomegranate Juice to color the icing pink.
Here is how they turned out. My disclaimer: I am not a food photographer. I’ve seen luscious photos of my friends’ meals and treats, but I cannot do it. I think part of it is that the cookies themselves are sloppy. The cookie cutters were VERY difficult. And I assigned the icing to Lilia and Joe. And, we don’t have a lot of room to store cookies and cool them– so the cookies stuck together once the icing was on. They still tasted pretty good!

Anyway, I think all my faithful readers* already know about this stuff from Facebook, right?

I do have a Friday Recipe to post today (I’ll do that separately), and I will post a link to my January Facebook photos too.

Oh, I’ll also mention that Philadelphia has had record snow this winter. We just had two blizzards in one week, and Joe had two snow days in a row. He’s back to work today, as long as the train can get him there!

I apologize for dropping the blogging ball again.

*And by faithful readers I mean.. basically, just two of you? Are there any more out there? I was lurking on a blog, and saw that there is an official National Delurking Day. I didn’t delurk, because the day had already passed. Hehe. But, if anyone is reading this that never comments, go ahead and comment! Say hello. Let me know if you have a blog, and I will link to it here, if you’d like. I have it set to not allow comments to post immediately, so don’t fret if you don’t see your comment right away. Please comment! I’m getting cabin fever from the snow!

I inquired about other options on Facebook, and I looked at some websites (geez, Comcast– I could not easily find out how to get the simplest cheapest cable internet on your website). I finally called Verizon to see if I was obligated to remain on their DSL for any set period of time– I’ve had it since 2002, but to get lower prices, you have to sign up for x amount of years.   I shouldn’t admit this, but my bill records are a bit sloppy, and I wasn’t sure. However, when the customer service rep told me that I signed up for “Price for Life” on September 1, 2009 (which obligated me to two more years at $29.99 (September 2011!) and then after that I would ALWAYS have that rate– a “PRICE FOR LIFE”) I was confused. That’s only a few months ago, and I didn’t recall signing up for it then– but I did remember signing up for a Price for Life a while ago. She said they have only had the “Price for Life” a few months, so that wasn’t possible. After dropping a bunch of things on my land line (which reduces my phone bill by more than $15 a month), I hung up and wondered about this “Price for Life” business. If I signed up for it in 2007, then maybe I had fulfilled my obligation on September 1, 2009. I called back and spoke to a DSL rep, and found out that this was the case– I signed up 9/1/07 and as of 9/1/09, am no longer obligated to Verizon, but will have $29.99/ month DSL for life. A PRICE FOR LIFE. Even with Clear Internet or Dry Loop DSL options, I decided that sticking with our land line and the $29.99/month DSL was a decent deal.

And then yesterday, a manager from Verizon called me to explain that PRICE FOR LIFE does not mean FOR LIFE. It means “until Verizon decides to raise the price.” I didn’t realize “Price for Life” had an asterisk behind it.

HUH???

I asked for this in writing. She said she had no way of mailing or emailing me anything. The manager understood how ridiculous calling something “Price for Life” when it is not for LIFE is… she said every customer she explains this too has the same disbelief.

If they do raise the price, I will supposedly get an email to my verizon email, that I do not use. I requested it be sent to the account I do use, but she couldn’t guarantee that it would be delivered there. I will have to keep an eye on it.

I let her know that I had researched other options. I do not need a land line. I have other options. I am not obligated to Verizon in any way. And that if they raise the price, I will leave. I am not the one that called it “Price for Life”. Verizon did. And if they can’t stand behind it, I will leave. And I’m free to leave even if they don’t raise the price. So, if you have any recommendations for Internet service, let me know!

I found it slightly ironic that she called on the day I decided to be my Computer-Free day. I think I need to spend one day a week not looking at the computer at all. I did that yesterday, and hope to do one next week too. And I hope to decrease my overall time spent on the computer. So, it’s time to sign off now.

The messages on Lilia’s shirts are: A Smile Is Good, I Am The Future and Say Nice Things. I really like the sentiment, and Lilia likes the shirts– she put one on immediately.

But I have a couple reservations about her wearing them. Immediately upon seeing the “Say Nice Things” shirt, I thought… “But what if she doesn’t say nice things while she is wearing it? Will that make us hypocrites?” I mean, she is only three (almost four) years old… she doesn’t always say nice things! In fact, she tends to growl at toddlers smaller than her!

And then there is the issue of forcing MY message on her. Like putting a baby in a Barack Obama t-shirt. Does that baby really have an opinion? (Lilia actually really liked Barack Obama, but it turned out she liked John McCain too… she was too little to not like someone! Although I never really introduced her to Sarah Palin… I think she would have seen through her in a second!) Lilia had a super cool David Bowie t-shirt when she was a baby… but when I would put her in it, I felt guilty… she didn’t know David Bowie yet, and given her tastes (Pete Seeger or Christmas music, 24-7), she probably wouldn’t like him (yet… I will give her time!).

Anyway, she is now almost four, and she understands the meaning of “Say Nice Things” and “A Smile is Good”… she doesn’t quite get what “I am the Future” means (I asked her… “are you the future?” and she said “No!”). And she is old enough to pick out her own clothes from the drawer, so she can pick out whatever she wants to wear (not that she does that everyday).

I did take some pictures of her in her “Say Nice Things” shirt yesterday.

I asked her to pout in this one:

Finally, a smile with her hair back so you can see the shirt:

And what I feared actually did happen– we were having spaghetti for dinner last night, and I worried that she would get sauce all over her new light pink shirt. I rolled up her sleeves and gave her a napkin; Joe suggested she just take the shirt off. That suggestion didn’t fly– she growled, “I WANT TO SAY NICE THINGS!”  I think the irony was lost on her.

But the scariest and saddest story in Food, Inc. was about the woman who became a food safety advocate after her two year old son died from e. coli in a hamburger. There have been a lot of stories about unsafe food– bagged spinach, peanut butter, hamburgers, tomatoes– and I was always thankful that we hadn’t bought anything involved in a recall. But one of those news stories did effect us, back in May 2007.

I was looking at my journal, and found these entries:
Thursday, May 24, 2007:
…Lilia ate chicken & noodles from my soup, some meatball, and some spring roll. And all of her Veggie Booty (her favorite snack). She was eating non-stop, it was adorable.
Sunday, May 27, 2007:
Lilia will be 15 months tomorrow! And she has her first tummy bug ever. It hit yesterday– she was super lethargic. And then she woke up in the middle of the night BURNING UP. Her fever (underarm) was only 101.7, so not too bad. I don’t have any pain relievers/fever reducers– they expired last year– so I just nursed her, gave her water, and crossed my fingers. Then she started with the Big D, which so far has not been TOO bad. She’s been mopey and clingy (to me), but is currently making her dad read ALL of her favorite books to her. So I’m hopeful this won’t last too long. Although Dr. Sears explains that intestines are slow-healing, so it could linger. Oh, this morning her temperature was 100.5. Much more reasonable.
Monday, May 28, 2007:
Saturday, it was hot, and we didn’t go out until late afternoon. We went for a little hike in Fairmount Park, and Lilia did not seem to be having any fun. I chalked it up to tiredness and the heat. We had to stop at 2 CVSes and the grocery store, and she was very tired looking– Joe said, She seems sick. Well, of course, she WAS sick.

Today, Lilia seemed better in the morning, and our pal M came over to hang out. Unfortunately, Lilia is not all better. I hope we don’t all catch it.
Aww, she just woke up with a cry, but is drifting back to sleep. Her eyes are purple from being tired and sick. I’m so glad we are still nursing, or she’d be starving!

Thursday, May 31, 2007:

Lilia is getting better. Still clingy and not quite eating a ton, but she’s definitely improving. She’s been waking up in the night crying though. That is not fun. Especially because nothing helps

June 28, 2007:
Robert’s Veggie Booty is recalled

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
–

So… it dawned on me… Lilia’s favorite snack food was recalled for salmonella. Lilia ate it before she got sick (not just the one day I posted about– she ate it constantly). I had been worried that we all would catch it, but we never did. It was never confirmed that she had salmonella, but her symptoms, combined with the fact that we never got sick, seem to indicate that she did have it.

She had an allergy to dairy when she was little, so I couldn’t give her goldfish or anything with milk in it. I didn’t feel bad giving Veggie Booty to her. I know it was just a snack food, but it had green stuff in it– veggies- and a little bit of calcium. I personally didn’t really like it, so I didn’t eat it. I couldn’t buy it at Trader Joe’s– they sold Pirate’s Booty, but not Veggie Booty, and I didn’t realize why until later– the green veggie powder has stuff from China, and TJ’s has a policy not to sell items from China. And that green veggie powder from China was the source of the salmonella!

If Lilia had any sort of compromised immune system, she could have been much sicker. I don’t even see Veggie Booty listed on Robert’s Gourmet’s website anymore, so maybe they don’t make it? I wasn’t sure if I should contact anyone about Lilia’s case. In August, 2007, I did email Robert’s to let them know they might want to add another case to their list.
They emailed back and told me to fill out a claim form for medical costs reimbursement. We didn’t have any medical costs– just an increased cost of diapers for a few days, and a few days of a holiday weekend spent tending to our sick girl–so I did not fill out the form. I found an article, about a family suing– there little boy had to be hospitalized.
This is the kind of stuff that makes me feel helpless. I know that I can never ever buy something from Robert’s Gourmet again… but how can I make sure that it isn’t going to happen with another snack we get? With the peanut butter scare, we know that it just isn’t China’s fault, so avoiding all things from China won’t solve the problem.

I decided to check out the joke books in the children’s section, and found this one:
What Do You Hear When Cows Sing?: And Other Silly Riddles
So… do you know? Do you know? What do you hear when cows sing??
Moosic, of course!

Well, now Lilia is practicing her joke telling, and always trying to come up with new ones. Here’s her latest:

Where does a dog park his car?

In a Barking Space!

In case you were wondering how a three (almost four) year old can write her own jokes, I will explain the process…

We were driving up the hill home, and I said aloud, “I hope there is a parking space in front of the house.” Lilia sees two dogs waiting to cross the street, and blurts out, “Barking Space” and cracks up. Barking Space! So then I came up with the “Where does a dog park his car?” bit, based on her punchline.

Sadly, there was not a barking (nor a parking) space in front of our house.

We pulled out the camping mats while cleaning the other day… and Lilia first created an animal slide with one, and then turned it into a jumper’s paradise. She’d fling herself off the couch and jump… Thump onto the mat. I kept thinking… if something bad happens, will this make us bad parents? Even if something bad doesn’t happen… does this make us bad parents? Just last week, she stood on top of the toilet seat to brush her teeth… I thought, that’s not really safe, but I didn’t stop her… and boom, down she went, hitting the tub. And before that, while I was rushing around getting ready to go to an appointment, Lilia sat down with her craft scissors (at least they were kids’ craft scissors), and snipped her stuffed animals’ fur. Wait, is this okay to admit on my blog? I promise, she won’t do it again.