Hand in the Cookie Jar

It’s best to have rules for small children, else they will rule you. They thrive when they know what to expect from you, and what can be expected from them.

One of our rules was to ask permission to get food out of the pantry or kitchen . . . and especially for access to the cookie jar. (I for one, DID stay home and bake cookies :)

When my middle child was about three years old, my husband and I were in the den reading, and our son came into the room with two cookies in his hands. He said to me in his little boy voice, “Look Mommy! I brought you a cookie!” I thought to myself, “How sweet!” and took the cookie he gave me and started to eat it, while he went merrily down the hall to his room munching on the other one.

A few minutes later . . . I realized I’d been HAD! He snuck one over on me, by offering me a treat as he was doing a snatch-and-grab. To this day, I don’t know if he planned it, or just did it out of instinct. As a grown young man, he is sweet and generous, but he also knows how to get what he wants.

I can’t help but think of that story when I think about today’s government. They offer us all kinds of goodies to keep us from seeing that they are robbing the cookie jar . . . and the pantry . . . and the grocery store . . . and the grain silos . . . and the seed store . . .

U.S. Debt Clock

Keep your eyes open, and your pocketbook locked up! There’s no such thing as a free lunch (or cookie :)

BUT, here’s a free cookie recipe!



Mom’s Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup salted butter (two sticks)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 ½ cups flour
Secret ingredient: (½ cup oat bran)
2 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (12 oz.)

Nuts are optional (unlike in real life :)

Bake at 375 for about 9 minutes

Soften butter. Mix in sugars and vanilla. Stir in eggs, then salt and soda. Stir in oat bran and then ½ cup of flour at a time, stirring until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls on un-greased cookie sheets. Bake about 9 minutes. Take off the pan and cool on cookie racks.

The oat bran gives them a slight oatmeal-cookie taste.

This recipe was perfected at high altitude (7,000) feet, so it may need to be adjusted slightly for sea level.