Cookies and biscuits and soup, oh my!

Today was a fun day in the kitchen, and when I was finished it was a complete and utter disaster. The good thing is that I have a husband and kids who are quite content to clean up the mess after their tummies are full from the yummy goodness. That's when I sit down, put my feet up and not go back in until it's spotless again. Cause I'm nice like that. Ha!

So what was I up to? Well, first up was my always popular Oatmeal Whatever cookies. Whenever I bring these anywhere, or give them to anyone, they get devoured in minutes. My children are always comparing other cookies to these ones (your cookies are WAY better Mummy! ... aww, thanks kiddos), and know the minute they walk in the door from school that I've baked some. Today was definitely no exception.

My eldest son called me from school today to tell me we won a Pampered Chef cookie tray at a draw they recently had. I zipped down to that school faster than you can say "kaboom", picked up some eggs at the store and came right back home to bake.

The tray worked better than I could have imagined. I am completely sold!

And now for the recipe:

Oatmeal Whatever Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 egg

2 tsp pure vanilla

2 1/2 cups quick cooking oats

1/4 cup coconut

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups of whatever you want (chocolate chips, mini M&Ms, raisins, seeds, nuts etc)

(add some cinnamon or nutmeg if using raisins!)

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Blend in remaining dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. (I often use my hands at this point) Add chocolate chips (etc).

Drop by rounded tsps onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 minutes, cool and enjoy!

Dinner tonight was inspired by two of my friends! I made a Baked Baked Potato Soup which was adapted from Christine's recipe, along with some cheddar biscuits from Jill's blog. I didn't change anything about the biscuits, so I won't repost the recipe, but I'll post the adapted version of the soup. It was delicious and my boys couldn't gobble it up fast enough!

Baked Baked Potato Soup

10 medium potatoes, washed, dried and pierced with a fork

2 tbsp olive oil (divided)

1 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt (divided)

3/4 tsp freshly ground pepper (divided)

1/4 cup butter

4 large cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

3 cups vegetable broth

2 cups water

1 tsp ground sage

2-3 cups grated cheddar cheese

sour cream (dallop for each bowl)

3 green onions, chopped

Preheat oven to 425.

Place the potatoes on a large baking sheet. Mix 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp coarse sea salt and 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper in a small bowl. Brush the olive oil mixture over the potatoes. Put the potatoes in the oven and bake for 45 minutes until they pierce easily with a fork.

Once potatoes are cooked and cooled a bit, heat the butter in a large pot. Once the butter is melted, add the garlic and cook for a minute making sure it doesn't brown. Add the 2 tbsp flour and whisk constantly for 1 minute making a roux. Slowly add 1/2 cup of broth until well blended. Add the remaining stock and water.

Chop 5 of the potatoes into bite sized chunks and add to the pot. Then scoop the white insides out of the other 5 potatoes and add that to the pot as well. Add the sage and stir. Simmer on low.

Coarsely chop the remaining potato peels and place them on the baking sheet you used to cook the potatoes. Drizzle with remaining olive oil, coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake them for about 20-25 minutes until they become crispy little potato skin fries.

While the potato skins are crisping up, take an immersion blender and pulse it a few times to smooth the soup out a bit - leaving some chunks of potatoes in the process.

Once the potato skin chips are ready, place the soup into ramekins, top with grated cheddar and broil for a few minutes until the cheese has melted. Remove them from the oven, add some potato skin chips, a dallop of sour cream, some chopped green onions and salt and pepper, to taste.

Delicious!

In other news, I love taking Tiernan to Tap dance on Monday nights. We drive with the music on full blast while singing, dancing and laughing our heads off. We don't get a whole lot of time alone these days, and I really cherish those moments. Hard to believe he's almost 10. When did that even happen?