Baking with Bellamine & Wendy

It's Bellamine and Wendy here with our Friday post. We didn't post last Friday cause we didn't have a single thing to write about. It's been a very boring time for us cause we have been shut-ins. A shut-in is someone who nevers gets to go outside and play.

For more than a week it rained nearly every day and we even had thunder bumpers. That’s what Robbie, Rudy and Bartholomew call thunder storms. One day when the storm was really bad we couldn't find Oakley cause he was hiding in the bottom of the linen closet cause he doesn't like the thunder. Mom won’t let us outside, even on the porch wearing full rain gear and carrying umbrellas when it rains. She’s afraid well get wet and then get moldy and lumpy or something we’re not even going to guess at. She is one big worry wart so we were stuck inside for days and days with hardly anything to do. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t been busy with her dumb experiment.  

On Wednesday it cleared up for most of the day and we took our camera outside and took some pictures of our bushes that had some pretty flowers before the rain made a mess of things. Maybe Mom is right about going outside in the rain. Just look what happened to some of our pretty flowering bushes. The ones that are out in the open really got messed up.

Almost all of the flowers are on the ground.

The poor little things look pretty sad because they lost most of their flowers. The ones with trees protecting them didn’t get as badly damaged.

There were some really, really big bumble bees in Mom’s herb garden and we tried taking some pictures of them but they kept moving and when we looked at the pictures we couldn’t find them. Mom says they’re as big as humming birds.

Tuesday evening Santa and Mrs. Claus came to our house for Spaghetti Super night and we asked Mom if we could make the dessert. She did some hemming and hawing and finally gave us the go ahead but only after we promised to clean up our mess. You’d think she’d have learned not to ask us to clean up after what happened the last time but apparently not.

Once we got permission to make the dessert we weren't sure what we wanted to make. We got out the recipe box and some cook books and looked for something but couldn’t find a recipe that we could both agree on. Wendy suggested we make up our own recipe. Like an experiment.

We figured we’d make cookies since we’ve made cookies before and they turned out really good. We went to the pantry and started taking ingredients from the shelves. We knew we needed to have sugar in the cookies but couldn’t make up our minds about which kind to use so we brought out two different kinds. We both wanted chocolate chips. Walnuts are always good in cookies and we like coconut too so why not use both? Then we found some pumpkin in the fridge left over from the muffins that Mom made and we thought, why not? It was good in the muffins.

We measured and poured and stirred and whipped and blended and folded and scooped and chopped. Then we dropped spoons full of cookie dough onto the baking sheets and stuck them in the oven.

We had plenty of volunteers when the first batch had cooled. Every bear said they were good. When we asked Mom to try one to see what she thought and she said, “These are wonderful. Where did you find the recipe?”

When we told her it was our own recipe she asked us what we were going to call them and at first we were stumped. They weren’t chocolate chip cookies like Mom makes and they weren’t oatmeal cookies either. We had used some of this and some of that and then we decided that was just as good a name as any so they are our “This & That Cookies”.

After dinner that night we were helping clear the table when Santa said to Mrs. Claus, “See if the girls will give you the recipe for these cookies.”

Talk about being thrilled!! We were smiling ear to ear. Mom gave us one the recipe cards she uses and we wrote down everything we did and gave it to Mrs. Claus when they were ready to leave. We decided that since Santa likes these cookies so much that he wants Mrs. Claus to make them you might want to make them so we’re going to give you the recipe too. If you make them and like the way they turn out let us know. With some positive comments we might get more kitchen time and who knows, maybe someday we’ll have enough recipes that Mom can make them into a book. We can see it now. How about “Cooking with Bellamine & Wendy”? Or maybe something like, “Bellamine & Wendy’s Best Recipes”. We have plenty of time to come up with the perfect title since we’ve only one recipe so far.

This & That Cookies

Place the following in a large bowl…

1 stick softened butter

½ c. softened coconut oil

1 ¼ c. brown sugar, packed

¾ c. granulated sugar

Beat together until creamy. Then add the following and beat until fluffy:

2 large eggs

2 t. vanilla extract

1 c. canned pumpkin

Add the following and mix until thoroughly blended:

1½ c. flour

½ t. baking power

½ t. salt

2 t. cinnamon

Fold in:

3 c. old fashioned rolled oats

1 c. flaked coconut

1 c. chopped walnuts

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Using soup spoons drop spoonful’s on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees F or about 180 degrees C for 14 - 16 minutes. Leave cookies on baking sheets for 2 minutes after removing from oven then transfer to cooling rack or paper toweling. Once completely cooled store in covered container. We suggest storing them in a Snowman cookie jar but that’s just our preference although we wouldn't mind if Mom would get a teddy bear cookie jar. This recipe makes 5 dozen delicious cookies.

Mom has put a photo of us on the side bar and would like to put photos of our bear friends there as well. We already got permission to put a picture of Prudence there and would love to include the rest of our bear friends so let Mom know if it's alright to put your photo there too.

Speaking of bear friends, we'll be seeing many of you at camp after only 42 more sleeps. It won't be long now.

We're going to go visit our friends' blogs now so see ya later.

Hugs,

Bellamine & Wendy