Homemade Fortune Cookies

Homemade fortune cookies! I got the recipe online and gave it a go. 

The ingredients are: 

2 egg whites

 1/2 cup flour

 1/2 cup sugar

 2 tbsp water

 1 tsp almond extract 

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1) Place egg whites in a bowl and beat with electric mixer on medium speed until very frothy, almost soft peaks.

2) Add flour

3) Add sugar, almond, and vanilla then mix.

4) Stir in 2 tablespoons of water to thin batter.

The thin, watered down batter

5) Using an un-greased baking pan place 1 tablespoon of batter on pan. 

6) Working from the center in a circular motion, spread the batter into a 5 inch circle

7) Bake until edges are lightly browned. Mine baked for 3 and a half minutes.

8) Working quickly, remove cookie from pan with a very thin spatula. Flip the cookie over and place slip of paper on top.

9) Bring sides up and pinch together. I had a bit of a hard time doing this step. The cookie was very hot. I ended up using two spoons to hold the cookies down and press them together.

10) Next bend cookie over the edge of a cup. The whole process of forming the cookie should take about 10 seconds. Once formed place cookies in a muffin tin to help them keep their shape while cooling.

and there you have it! These would work really well for little gifts. Make special fortunes inside and then box them up in a Chinese take-out box. 

Tie Dyed Cookies + New Sugar Cookie Recipe

I got the idea to try out these cookies from a blog I follow. I also got a homemade, sugar cookie recipe from the same site. I read such good things about this recipe, I decided to try it out instead of using dough from a mix. It felt a little dry and made the steps of making these cookies hard to make successful. However, the boys who are visiting have eaten them up in no time... so at least they still taste good.

Here is the recipe if you want to give it a go:

1 cup of softened butter

1 and 1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

2 and 3/4 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour and baking powder; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. 

I'm not used to dough looking/feeling this dry.

Okay, so after I made the dough, I separated the dough into sections and used Wilton's gel coloring to make a rainbow of colors.  This wasn't easy because of the dough being the texture that it was. 

Next, I cut the dough into about one inch sections. 

Then I took four sections of different colors and put them together. 

The dough is supposed to be squeezed together and then be rolled between the palms of your hands into a long, snake-like shape. It's then meant to be rolled up into a spiral. Because of how my dough turned out, this step didn't really work very well. Half way through I just ended up making cookies with four different colored sections rather than tie dyed cookies. 

Before baking

So my cookies turned out like this: 

After baking

After baking: Spirals and sectioned cookies

Because my cookies didn't turn out looking all that smooth, I iced them and put rainbow sprinkles on them to assist in masking the flaws.

I'm curious about trying this sugar cookie recipe again. Any suggestions or thoughts on why it turned out this way? Or ideas on how to make it more moist or something?

Saint Patricks Day In Savannah (Juan and Jacob too)

So, we made it through our first Saint Patrick's Day here in Savannah! We had heard to get to the parade by 8 am so we could have a place to see along the parade route. The parade started at 10 am. Miguel and I slept in so didn't get down town till around 9:30... we had to park on Islands Expressway and walk at least two miles to the parade route. And we were carrying lots of beer, subway sandwiches, and the dog. Emma did really well. She was sort of overwhelmed, but she did really great! She got loads of attention because she was extra cute in her St. Patty's bandanna. We met up with some of our friends at one of the squares (the square where they filmed Forest Gump). The parade didn't get to us till around 11:30. It's a long parade! It lasted four hours. 

Cute Saint Patrick's Day puppy!

It was a really beautiful day! 

During the beginning of the parade... when I was actually interested. 

Here you can sort of get an idea of how crowded the squares were. It felt a lot like a tailgate to me. These people with tents got downtown very early to save their spots. 

Bathrooms had super long lines... however, we found a special, secret porta potty. Here, Miguel is explaining the importance of such bathroom. 

After a long day in the sun, we went back home to the islands, and Emma, Miguel and I all climbed into our bed and took a long nap. 

Friday morning Miguel and I took Emma to the dog park. It wasn't busy at all. I guess people were still sleeping in or waking up to bad hangovers. Emma played with her friends Abby (a sweet 6 year old black lab) and Ardsley (a large, four month old chesapeake bay) and got some energy out. Later, Miguel and I went to a friend's house and cooked out. We met up with my brother-in-law, Juan, who came to visit from Greenville, SC for the weekend. Our friend, Jacob, came down from Atlanta too. We enjoyed time with friends. My favorite time of the night was sitting up on the porch, smoking cigars, and watching the sun go down. Afterwards, I went home to take the dog out and hang out until the boys needed a ride back home. 

We cooked wings, brats, dogs, ribs, and burgers. Then our friend, Jason, pulled out this steak to grill. Ha. It was 14 oz!

Twins!

Saturday morning we all slept in a bit and made a yummy breakfast of pancakes, sausage, bacon, and eggs. The boys spent the day at the beach. I stayed home and let the boys do their thing and made tie dyed cookies (blog post to come later). After a day at the beach we headed over to one of our favorite restaurants, Bonna Bella Yacht Club. The sand gnats were awful! The wait was also really long, but we had a good time entertaining ourselves playing corn hole and drinking beer and $3 margaritas and snacking on fresh raw oysters. We saw the sun go down and the beautiful moon come up. All of us, minus one, got fish tacos...yum!

Bonna Bella

Raw oysters

Miguel owned the hook and ring game...

Fish tacos... 

Yum!

We're back home from dinner at Bonna Bella right now... the boys are sitting here sipping on Glenlivet deciding whether or not to go downtown. Crossing my fingers they stay here... I don't want to play taxi driver tonight. =) But either way, it's been a fun weekend. It's great to have good friends and family come visit!