Tasty Thursday: Paul's Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

My Dad passed away 3 years ago, about a week before his birthday, which is today.  Every year since then on his birthday  I have made his cookies to honor his memory. I also make them for our Christmas Eve visit to his grave. And of course whenever I feel like eating some.

He spent a lot of time perfecting this cookie recipe over the years. We in my family think this is a really fantastic classic chocolate chip cookie.
Big, thick, sometimes somewhat doughy bakery style cookies are all the rage right now, made with a ball of dough the size of a baseball.
These cookies are not those cookies. These are lightly crispy, and golden on the outside and chewy on the inside.
I thought I had put this recipe on here already but apparently not.
Every time I post about these cookies elsewhere, I get requests for the recipe.
So here it is.

Paul’s Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Paul Bartholomew)

Preheat oven to 350

Cream together:

 4 eggs

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups white sugar 

1 ½ cups shortening

Slowly mix in:

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

4 cups flour (put in ½ cup at a time)

1 TBSP vanilla

Add 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Roll into walnut size balls. Place on un-greased cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake @ 350 for 10-12 minutes. Cookies will be just light golden around the edges and may look slightly raw in the middle when it’s time to take them out. Cool on the cookie sheet. Makes about 4 to 6 dozen cookies.

Life goes on...

Time for another (brief) yearly update.
I made it a year working at the quilt shop, but for a lot of reasons, my husband and I decided it was time for me to take a break from working away from home. The plan is to still teach classes for them. That has been kind of a mess though. 3 classes scheduled since I left and none of them actually taught. I have another one scheduled in October. Hopefully that one will be successful.

Another year older..

Wow! It has been a year since my last post! Crazy!
 A lot has changed around here.
I got another job this summer, in addition to going back to work at the ballpark. One of my local fabric/sewing shops was hiring and wonder of wonders, they took me on. I still have a lot to learn about the many sewing machines that we sell as part of my job. But for the most part I am enjoying the people and the fabric and projects that come with the job.
I taught a class, have made a few shop samples, sold one sewing machine, cut hundreds of pieces of fabric, folded miles of Minky and generally had a good time.
You can see pretty much all my projects on Instagram where you can find me @amyjodubya.

A treat for Summer's End

Summer has come to a close and Farmer's market peaches leaving making way for fall veggies.

To use some of the last of the peaches, here is a slightly updated-by-me version of Dreamy Peach Pie by The Pampered Chef.

Dreamy Peach Pie – adapted from The Pampered Chef® 6-8 medium peaches, sliced ½” – 1” thick or 2 large cans of peach slices* 1 cup cold milk 1 package (3.4oz) vanilla instant pudding 1 container (8oz) whipped topping, thawed (extra creamy is really good) or 2-3 cups sweetened whipped cream ½ tsp ground cinnamon (optional) 8 honey graham crackers 3 tbsp sugar ¼ cup butter, melted Preheat oven to 350. Finely crush graham crackers in plastic bag with rolling pin to yield 1 ¼ cup crumbs. Combine crumbs and sugar in 1 QT bowl. Stir in melted butter. Press into bottom and up sides of 9” pie plate to form crust. Bake 10 minutes. Cool Completely. In 1 quart bowl, whisk pudding into milk. Stir until mixture begins to thicken. Fold into whipped topping. Spread about 1/3 of pudding mixture onto bottom of crust. Top with half the peach slices and sprinkle with half the cinnamon; repeat. Top with remaining pudding mixture. Chill at least 4 hours. To serve, slice into wedges. *You may want to slice the canned slices a little thinner. Sweetened Whipping Cream Beat heavy cream and sugar in chilled bowl on high speed until stiff For 1 cup whipped cream: ½ cup heavy cream + 1 TBSP sugar For 1 ½ cups whipped cream: ¾ cup heavy cream + 2 TBSP sugar For 2 1/3 cups whipped cream: 1 cup heavy cream + 3 TBSP sugar For 4 3/4 cups whipped cream: 2 cups  heavy cream + 6 TBSP sugar

Feels

It felt like a blog post day. It has been ages since the last time and that was a re-post. We have had some serious ups and downs this year and writing has not been appealing to me. This is not a happy post but it is an honest one.


My sweet dad passed away in March and while I am dealing with it, I have days where I don't want to face anything or anyone. My depression has worsened over the last few weeks to the point where I will be calling my doctor this morning to see about anti-depressants and counseling. It is affecting my kids and my marriage.

I try to do things that make me happy, like sew and stamp and read, although the last one is probably not the best since I stay in bed and hide with my book. Doing those works okay when I get going. But then there is the stopping to deal with life. Taking my spouse to and from his bus, kids to and from school and activities, my own work and church responsibilities. It gets overwhelming pretty fast.
I find myself on the verge of tears frequently. Like right now.

Cheater Cherry Cobbler

Cherry Dump Cake AKA Cheater Cherry Cobbler - We needed a warm and yummy treat on this cold and rainy day. #dessert #easydessert

A photo posted by @amyjodubya on Apr 14, 2016 at 4:19pm PDT

Cherry Dump Cake (Easy Cobbler) 

1 box white or yellow cake mix 
1 cube butter, Very cold (melted does not work as well, but you could do that if you like.) 
2-3 cans cherry pie filling 

Heat oven to 375ºF.
Pour Cherry filling into a 9”x13” baking pan.
Spread cake mix evenly over pie filling. (Lumps are fine.)
Chop butter into small pieces and sprinkle over the cake mix.
Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Cool until just warm. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
* Alternatively, use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the cake mix, then dump over the cherries.

March Along Progress

We are a little over halfway through the month, and since weekly check-ins for March Along have not happened, a halfway point check-in seemed like a good idea.

I did very well for the first 2 weeks, but week 3 I got very busy with life. Between kids events, job interview, church stuff, school volunteering, doctor appointments, dance lessons and then getting sick with the Flu (I think), I was just tired out! Sewing did not appeal.

I am still sick, so I think today I will just read my newest Block magazine for my 15 minutes.

Here are some of my efforts this month.

Pieces cut for making a "Farm Girl Vintage" quilt block.

First round of fabric choices for the quilt pattern test.

Squares cut for quilt pattern test. The light where I sew is not good for photographs. See the photo below for truer colors.

Scraps from the quilt pattern test. They look very different in this light. It is pretty true to the real colors.

Diaper clutch made for a neighbor of my mom's.

Shirt appliqued with a little shamrock for St. Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick's Day outfit with a  rosette on the headband  and an appliqued shamrock on the shirt.

2 of 6 rosettes made for St. Patrick's Day. These went to teachers to pin on their shirts.

Drawstring bag made to carry a camping sleep-mat. Later it will house my yoga mat.

Throwback - when I was a kid, I took clogging lessons. I have recently started taking them again with my sister. It is quite fun and funny. We laugh a lot!

 

Hello!

Hello and welcome back to me! Haha!
 Blogging is not on my radar at the moment. Instagram (follow me) and Facebook are my connections to family and friends these days.
But, March is here TOMORROW! How did that happen?
In March, I join in with the Scientific Quilter to "March Along" and sew for 15 minutes every day. Which means the blog is going to get a little bit of action for weekly check-ins.

I have a couple of goals for this March.
 1- Learn to load my mom's quilting frame so I can get going on finishing some tops I have.
 2- Work sashing and cornerstone blocks for my Thangles Buck a Block quilt.

Not much but it should be enough to fill my 15 minutes a day.

Feel free to March Along too!

Personal Update

I thought it might be time for another update, since it has been a few months.
We took a trip to Utah this summer for a family reunion over the 4th of July holiday.
When we got back home, my husband suggested that maybe it was time for a change. He proposed moving up to Utah to be near my family. He was fairly certain he could get a job in the Lehi area (Silicon Slopes as they are calling it).
After prayerful consideration, it felt like the right thing to do. Telling the kids was hard. Our older 2 had made good friends and went to really good schools. There were a lot of tears and refusals to move. Eventually they all came around more or less.
 We gave our 30 day notice on the house we were renting and started the house and job hunt in Utah.
We packed up and headed to Utah on Sunday the 23rd of August. We arrive Monday at my parents house and stayed with them for a few days while we found a house. We had planned on living up in North Utah County but none of the home we looked at felt right. A last ditch hunt in Spanish Fork, where most of my family lives (and was not even on our list of cities), brought us to a great little house that we were able to rent.
Triston went back to CA to finish out his job there, and I got us settled and got the kids into school.
He spent about 2 weeks away and then came back on the 12th of September. We were all very happy to have him back.
He started his new job yesterday and so far so good.
It has been nice being by family and the transition for me was easier since this is my hometown and I more or less know where everything is, even though the town has grown tremendously since I last lived here. Had we moved farther north, it would have been more difficult.

I have sewn a little bit and made a few cards since we have been here. It is really nice that I have space in this house to leave my sewing machine set up.
 We still have tons of stuff boxed up and various useful items are still missing, so I try to spend a little time each week unpacking and sorting.
Today though, after a quick snooze, I think I will be cutting fabric for a pouch class I am taking with my daughter and mom at a local quilt show in Payson on Saturday. We cut my daughter's fabric first, so she is set.

I think that is all for now. Have a  great day!

Catch up from February and March 2015

This year has been a busy one and a rough one. Personal issues, a really bad school year for my kindergartner, family life in general, and lots of extra curricular responsibilities have overwhelmed my ability to write and post anything significant. Perhaps the coming months will be different. I am going to make an effort to make them so.

As I have said in recent posts, Instagram, Facebook and a little bit of Twitter and Flickr have been where my sharing has happened.

So once again the next few posts will be summary posts of the last few months as far as my crafting goes.

Papercrafts:
I have thoroughly enjoyed having access to my rather large rubber stamp collection and have made a handful of cards for various occasions and people. Almost all of them are "cased" cards, meaning I copied a layout or color combo or both to create them.

I also made these for the ladies I visit teach for St. Patrick's Day



Sewing
This first one was a test bag for Schlosser Designs. You can find the pattern for purchase here: Chopsticks Tote (link no longer valid.)

I made this and then filled it with crochet hooks, yarn and instruction books for our Young Women's Camp fundraiser silent auction.

 

 I spent a day playing with my Hex n More ruler from Jaybird Quilts and this beautiful fabric I won a while back. I only got as far as cutting a few blocks worth.

 I also made some more Personal Progress book folders for the incoming 12-year-olds.

I worked on quilting the robot quilt, trying to get it finished up before the baby turned 2.  I quilted the pink and yellow using some of the decorative stitches on my Brother machine.

 

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Pinwheels on the Playground

I am entering this baby quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy, at http://amyscreativeside.com.
You can find information about the Festival HERE.
I am entering in the Original Designs category. Voting opens next week and if you like my quilt I would love to get your vote!

About the quilt:

A WIP that lasted almost 2 years (first fabrics purchased 8/12/13) is finally complete. It took longer than that if you count the first top made for this baby when we though it was a boy.

 I designed this one myself. I knew I wanted to do pinwheels and it had to have robots because our husbands worked for a robotics company so that was kind of a running joke amongst the wives. It was called the robot quilt through most of it's creation. I re-named it Pinwheels on the Playground.

I found Funbots by Anne Kelle for Robert Kaufman to use for the focus fabric. The pink is Remix Polka Dots Pink also by Anne Kelle. The background is Kona White. The yellow is 2 different polka dot fabrics, one of which, the small dot, I no longer have the selvage for so I can't tell you what it is. The large dot is Fashion Plate by Barbara Jones for Henry Glass. I had to use 2 different yellows, because when I was doing the math, I miscalculated and when I went to get more, it was gone, so I had to substitute.






The backing fabric was very different from what I planned but I really love it. It is from the "Glamping" line by Mary Jane Butters for Moda. (side note: I love her Milk Cow Kitchen line!)



I used my home sewing machine to do the quilting. I did free motion in the white areas with a few hidden messages and used decorative stitches to do the yellow and pink areas and also to attach the binding to the front. I did a bias binding since this is going to be a very used quilt (I hope). (I used Gene Black's Bias Binding Tutorial for cutting the strips.) I always have trouble meeting the ends of my binding so I used  Pam's tutorial and got through it with only 1 seam rip. I have learned not to trim until I fold it back up to see if it is right. :)

I am super pleased with how it came out and both the mom and the little girl LOVED it!

 

Pinwheels on the Playground baby quilt

A WIP that lasted almost 2 years (first fabrics purchased 8/12/13) is finally complete. It took longer than that if you count the first top made for this baby. It is in the wash as I type and I will deliver it this afternoon.

I designed this one myself. I knew I wanted to do pinwheels and it had to have robots because our husbands worked for a robotics company so that was kind of a running joke amongst the wives. It was called the robot quilt through most of it's creation. I recently came up with Pinwheels on the Playground.
I found Funbots by Anne Kelle for Robert Kaufman to use for the focus fabric. The pink is Remix Polka Dots Pink also by Anne Kelle. The background is Kona White. The yellow is 2 different polka dot fabrics, one of which, the small dot, I no longer have the selvage for so I can't tell you what it is. The large dot is Fashion Plate by Barbara Jones for Henry Glass. I had to use 2 different yellows, because when I was doing the math, I miscalculated and when I went to get more, it was gone, so I had to substitute.

The backing fabric was very different from what I planned but I really love it. It is from the "Glamping" line by Mary Jane Butters for Moda. (side note: I love her Milk Cow Kitchen line!)

I used my newish Brother machine to do the quilting. I did free motion in the white areas with a few hidden messages and used decorative stitches to do the yellow and pink areas and also to attach the binding to the front. I did a bias binding since this is going to be a very used quilt (I hope). (I used Gene Black's Bias Binding Tutorial for cutting the strips.) I always have trouble meeting the ends of my binding and I used to use Pam's tutorial but the pictures aren't showing up. I was still able to use her directions though and got through it with only 1 seam rip. I have learned not to trim until I fold it back up to see if it is right. :)

I am super happy to have this done and even more happy to be able to deliver it.


 

Some crafting catch up

I have done a little crafting lately, both sewing and paper crafting. Now that my home is more livable, I feel okay spending more time on my hobbies.

I have been using Instagram a lot to share project I have been working on. I forget to post things on Flickr these days.

December:

I wanted to make a gift for my fabulous Grandma for Christmas. I thought the Open Wide zipper bag from Noodlehead would be perfect since she travels a lot. She also likes southwest stuff and I had some fabric I bought a while back that was just right.



Then I could not find my toiletry bag when I was packing so I took a moment (ha!) and made one for myself, in a larger size. I love it!

While in Utah, I made a port pillow. My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in November. He was getting chemo and radiation in December and had a port* in his chest. They can be very uncomfortable, especially when wearing a seat belt. My dad apparently frequently removed his seat belt when going to his appointments because of this. I found a couple of tutorials (here and here) for port pillows and made him one (as well as a couple more to donate to the chemo center). He used it while I was there and told me it helped.
These are made with charm squares and finish up about 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".



I also finished the baby quilt that our Young Women had tied for a baby in our ward. I had made the top a while ago. I donated it to the group along with binding. They tied it at church one Sunday during their lesson. Then I brought it to my mom's during Christmas break to trim and bind it.

 



 January:
More cord wraps. Some really big ones for extension cords and some regular ones for regular cords and a couple of short ones for my earbuds and charging cords.


February:
 Valentines!
I have been following a Stampin' Up! gal on YouTube, Wendy Cranford and she made a really cute little candy bar pocket for a valentine. I made one like hers which was not great, and then went my own way a bit with them color-wise.


Blue for my boys.

 
Pink for my girls, some teachers and the gals I Visit Teach.

 And throughout January and February I have been alternating quilting on the robot baby quilt and piecing this Trip Around the World quilt I started at a historical textiles class given by Leah Zieber at Fat Quarters Quilt Shop. I used fabrics from a fat quarter stack I had of Tidbits by Kari Ramsay for Henry Glass.  It was really hard to do the strips. I could not keep them straight, even using my walking foot and marking my machine with a tape guide and pinning the heck out of them and starching the heck out of them.
That said, I still like how it turned out. Very pretty.

 And that is my 3 month summary!
Have a great day!

 * Implantable ports or port-a-cath. A catheter connected to a port is surgically inserted (tunneled) under the skin of the chest, or sometimes the upper arm, by a surgeon or radiologist. You will receive either local anesthesia or be consciously sedated. Unlike the other two types of catheters, a port sits entirely underneath the skin. You may be able to see and/or feel a small bump in your chest or arm, but you won’t see the tip of the catheter outside the body. Before each “access” or needle insertion, the skin over the port may be numbed using a cream. When treatment is given, the skin is cleansed and a special needle is inserted through the skin into the rubber seal. This allows blood to be drawn or treatment to be given into the catheter that is connected to the port. (http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/how-cancer-treated/chemotherapy/catheters-and-ports-cancer-treatment)