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Spicy Gingerbread Cookies

December 21st, 2010

After many of you asked for the recipe yesterday I figured I’d do a new post with my gingerbread recipe (I have it on my blog from a few years ago). These cookies aren’t you typical gingerbread men/women. If you don’t like spicy things, you will not like this version. This recipe has as least double the spices of most recipes and I always use blackstrap molasses to make the flavor even stronger. If you’re a fan of spicy gingerbread you will really appreciate the flavor in this version.

One of my favorite things about these gingerbread cookies is that they’re not too sweet. If you like your cookies sweeter you can ice them, but I think they’re perfect as is. As with most spicy baked items, they’re twice as good the next day and seem to get better with age. They also keep well compared to a lot of cookies so they make a great option for mailing (I just sent some to a family member in Afghanistan). Bake up some of these and some snickerdoodles and send them to a service member you know, they’ll appreciate the holiday cheer!

MOM’S SPICY GINGERBREAD COOKIES

1 1/2 (or 12 ounces) cups dark molasses *I use blackstrap
1 cup packed dark brown sugar (I use regular sugar)
1/2 cup cold water
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons allspice (freshly ground is best)
4 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Mix molasses, brown sugar, egg, water and butter. Mix in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

Heat oven to 350. Roll dough 1/4 inch thick on floured* board. Cut with floured cookie cutter. Place about 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake until no indentation remains when touched, 10 to 12 minutes; cool. *TIP* If you like chewy cookies use confectioners sugar instead of flour when rolling out your dough

Note: Can roll dough 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter. Place about 1 1/2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake about 15 minutes.

I use all organic ingredients when I make this, since we’re organic eaters. All of my organic spices come from Mountain Rose Herbs, and I get my flour/sugar from a local co-op in big 25 lb bags. This recipe is pretty good for you as far as cookies go, the blackstrap molasses will give you a healthy dose of iron, manganese, copper, potassium, calcium, magnesium, B6 and many more nutrients.

All of the various spices added to the cookies are also super healthy and contain all kinds of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Here are links for the health benefits of the various spices: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and allspice. A lot of these spices actually help your body fight off the colds and flu, what a wonderfully tasty way to do so. If you want to make the recipe even healthier try swapping out some of the flour for white whole wheat flour. I’ve successfully swapped out half of of the flour for freshly ground soft wheat flour.

I was going to do gingerbread cookies as my Friday Favorite this week since they’re my favorite cookie, but I decided to write about them today. I will willingly pass over any other kind of cookie out there for a spicy gingerbread man. Second in line for my favorite cookie is the Date Pinwheel cookie, after that spritz or cookie press cookies, and most things after that I don’t eat because I’m not a big fan. My least favorite cookie has to be butter cookies, perhaps it’s the icing, I’ve never been a fan of them even when I was a kid.

What’s your favorite holiday cookie? second favorite? third?

Simply Delicious Gifts

December 20th, 2010

I have a friend who always tells me, “you can just make me a bunch of these for Christmas” whenever she eats one of my gingerbread cookies (she doesn’t cook or I’d just give her the recipe). I’ve always made her something instead, last year it was a nice tree skirt to match her simple mission decor. This year however, I decided I’d finally do it. She gets one of my calendars of course, but I thought a big box of gingerbread cookies would be a wonderful addition to that gift.

I considered doing a cookie of the month club and making her a batch of different cookies each month throughout the coming year, but then I decided I’d rather just go all out and make her 365 gingerbread cookies – one every day for 2011. I set to work yesterday afternoon, mixing, rolling, cutting, and baking 365 little gingerbread people. I packaged them up in the afternoon. One of my favorite parts of making homemade/handmade gifts is coming up with creative tags.


It’s a simple and practical gift, it only took me a few hours to make, and yet it’s something she’ll enjoy. Not to mention she loves the fact that the gift isn’t anything she feels she needs to keep since she’s not big on having unnecessary things in her home. It’s a win-win, I spend time doing something I enjoy, she gets to enjoy eating all the little gingerbread people she loves so much. There are so many options for practical gifts like soup, home canned jams for the mom that’s too busy to can her own, or some take and bake cinnamon rolls for friends & family to enjoy on Christmas morning.

What would be your idea of the perfect edible gift?

**Recipe for Gingerbread Cookies**

Quote of the Day: Katherine S. White

December 19th, 2010

“From December to March,
there are for many of us three gardens:
the garden outdoors,
the garden of pots and bowls in the house,
and the garden of the mind’s eye.”
Katherine S. White


When I read this quote I just loved it. I thought about my three gardens. The garden outdoors is covered in snow, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is growing. I’ve got hoop houses protecting some greens and I just harvested some beets last week.

The garden indoors thrives all year long, but it’s even more lush in the winter. I have a corner of the basement filled with pots of herbs, fig trees and other tender plants. My living room looks like a greenhouse at the moment, it’s brimming with dwarf citrus and other tropicals as is the floor in front of my sliding glass doors in the dining room. I just bought a beautiful little jade plant at the farmer’s market last week for my dining room table. One of the things I love about indoor plants is that they help keep the air clean. No spending money on air cleaners.



The garden in my mind’s eye thrives after the holidays are over. I’ve been getting seed catalogs in the mail (is it me or do they come earlier every year, soon we’ll be getting them in August). I don’t look at these quite yet, I stow them away for those dark days in January.

I actually enjoy the down time winter offers for the northern gardener. I spend a lot of time during the winter months reading gardening books, learning more about organic gardening and soil buildings, dreaming of new plants while flipping through glossy gardening books and trying to figure out what new and interesting vegetables I’ll be growing this coming season.

How are you three gardens doing?

My Early Gardening Years

December 18th, 2010

My mom was going through a box of photos that she got from my grandma’s house this summer and she came across these photos of me in my early gardening years. I thought you’d enjoy seeing these.

Don’t you just love this stylish gardening outfit! I still get that dirty when working outside and of course I still always wear sandals in the garden. (and my mom still grow amaryllises this lovely every year)

No doubt in the photo below I’m explaining the finer points of proper watering to my older sister. Mr Chiots laughed and said, “You still hold your watering can like that.”

My mom used to let me pick out flowers when we’d go to the greenhouse every spring, I remember choosing some cockscomb one year. I also have fond memories of leafing through seed catalogs to pick out “my vegetables” to grow each year in the edible garden. For some reason they were always blue and they never grew very well, but that never stopped me from picking something blue the next year. That little flowered watering can in the first photo was my favorite, I loved watering with it. I also remember using the old watering can that I currently have on my front porch for holiday decor. Watering must have been my favorite gardening activity as a girl.

Were you a gardener when you were young? Do you remember planting, watering and spending time in the garden?

Friday Favorites + Free Ethel Gloves

December 17th, 2010

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ve most likely heard about my love for Ethel Gloves. If you haven’t heard me talk about how wonderful and comfortable they are, you’ve probably noticed them in my photos, they are truly beautiful gloves. Ethels are the perfect gardening glove, offering a great fit that gives you dexterity while gardening. You can do everything from heavy digging to pulling out teeny tiny seedlings in them.


My Ethel’s get plenty of wear, in the summer they are used a couple hours a day. I’ve already worn through 2 pairs in the last 2 years. I now have a pair of their leather gloves that I’ll be using for the tougher tasks in the garden, like building all those rock walls.

One of my favorite features of Ethel Gloves is their washability. I’m sure all of you gardeners know the pain of gardening gloves that get wet and then are stiff as boards, never again allowing the dexterity that they had when new. This is not the case with Ethel Gloves, they get slightly stiff after getting wet and drying, but all you have to do is throw them in the washer and when you get them out they’re soft as new.

In October I got a pair of the new Ethel Utility Gloves. I’ve never been a fan of rubberized gloves for gardening and I thought they wouldn’t allow the dexterity that regular Ethel’s offer. The dexterity is slightly less, but the warmth is much better, which for us northern gardeners is a huge deal. I used these gloves for all of my fall gardening chores and they were perfect since fall chores here in the North tend to be wet. I also used them when decorating the front of the house for Christmas, which is a task they work beautifully for as well. I now love the utility gloves as much as the Signature Ethel Gloves.

Ethel also is developing an insulated gardening gloves in the works, which I’m testing at the moment. How perfect is this for us Northern gardeners, especially those of us that want to do more winter gardening.

Ethel Gloves make a wonderful Christmas gift for that gardener in your life, I was so excited to receive my first pair from Mr Chiots 2 years ago. Use coupon code: HOLIDAY25 to save 25% off your order. Ethel was kind enough to send me a pair of Traditional Gloves to give away on my blog. Comment below and you’ll be entered in the drawing for a free pair of Ethel Gloves. I’ll announce the winner on next weeks Friday Favorite.

What’s your favorite kind of gardening glove?

UPDATE: Just got a call from the friendly folks at Ethel and they’re going to give away 4 more pairs of gloves in this contest. So now there are 5 pairs in the giveaway…your odds just got much better!

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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