Tag Archives: cookies

Special Sauce

cookiesI was reading Gini Dietrich’s new book and in it she says that even if you give someone your recipe, they will never be able to make it like you do. She was using a cooking analogy for why it’s okay to let people know how you do your business but it’s really true.

I am known all over the world for My Cookies (a.k.a. Lauri’s Cookies). I give the recipe out freely and it’s a really precise recipe. And, yet, I still get people asking if I left something out or changed it so no one could make them like I do. The answer to that is no. Because you will never be able to make them like I do so I don’t have to. ๐Ÿ™‚

Back when we lived in Clearwater, the Tampa Tribune interviewed me. I gave them the recipe for my cookies and for my Kahlua Fudge Poundcake (which is extremely photogenic, by the way). Being a Rottmayer in the day of phone books, it was hard to hide and when my cookie recipe didn’t turn out, my phone rang off the hook with people wanting to know why.  I give pretty detailed instructions so I couldn’t give them an answer. I could only ask, “Did you follow the recipe exactly?”

In the facebook group for Gini’s book, I left this info about the cookies to confirm what Gini had written. This had Gini  and others ask for the recipe. A quick search of my blog showed that I have NEVER put this recipe here. I couldn’t believe it. So here it is.

My Cookies (a.k.a. Lauri's Cookies)
Yields 3
My famous cookie recipe
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Ingredients
  1. 1 cup Butter; (I mean the real stuff. Land O'Lakes unsalted preferred)
  2. ยฝ cup Light brown sugar (C&H)
  3. ยฝ cup Sugar (C&H)
  4. 1ยฝ tsp Pure vanilla extract; (NOT imitation)
  5. 1 teaspoon Baking soda
  6. 1 Egg
  7. 1.5 cups Gold Medal flour
  8. 2ยฝ cup Old fashioned Quaker Oats; (not the quick sawdust stuff)
  9. 6 ounces Semi-sweet chocolate chips (I prefer Guittard)
Instructions
  1. Melt butter in microwave. Stir in sugars, vanilla and soda and mix well.
  2. Mix in egg. Add flour until smooth. Add oats and chocolate chips.
  3. Drop by scoops onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350* for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on rack until the next sheet comes out of the oven, then remove to rack or platter.
  4. Makes approximately 3ยฝ dozen awesome cookies
Lauri Rottmayer https://www.rottitude.com/
Please let me know if you try them. If it doesn’t work out for you, please don’t call. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Banana Bacon Cookies

When we returned home from Florida, this was waiting for us:

dead_bananas

Dead bananas.

I thought about making banana bread but put it off. Monday night, during #foodiechats, someone started talking about bacon. I wondered what my grandma’s banana cookie recipe would taste like if I put bacon in the mix.

This morning, I dug out the well loved, well used recipe of my grandma’s.

recipe

I cooked up about 6 pieces of chopped bacon.

And baked. They look like they normally do.

cookies

Except these.

rounds

When I went to get the third pan, I found this pan I’d never used and the cookies came out in cute little rounds instead of spreading on the flat cookie sheet.

Do they taste good? Yes! These are good cookies any way you make them. With the bacon, unless you get a bite of bacon, you don’t taste it. The banana taste is predominant. But when you get a piece of bacon, yum! Delish! ๐Ÿ™‚

Girl Scout Cookie Tweetup

Yay! It’s that awesome time of year and this year, I was able to actually find some Girl Scout cookies without having to have them shipped to me like last year.

gscookiestweet

On Saturday, we met up with Cheryl, Ingrid and Madison for a Girl Scout Cookie tweet up at The Phoenix.

#cookieboss

Before Ingrid and Madison got there, I was able to sneak in the Elvis scone that my vacation belly yelled “Get in me!” to. ๐Ÿ™‚

elvis scone

The scone was delicious. Kind of scone-y and muffin-y all at once. It had peanut butter, banana and bacon. Yum!

ย Madison, came wearing a crown, which of course I think every girl needs.

cookies and crowns

We talked about the hashtags to use while tweeting about the Girl Scout cookies.

hastags

And I snagged our favorites.

fav

We got to check out Cheryl’s Google Glass which was cool.

glass

I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout back in the day. Mostly, I was in it because that’s where my friends were and I could wear a cool uniform on the days we had meetings. I never really participated like it’s meant to be participated in.

When I was working for KJRH in 2009, I covered the Girl Scout end of the year banquet and I was so impressed with what today’s Girl Scouts is about. Girls are learning leadership, financial planning, ย and community involvement. I’ve been volunteering with the PR Stars with the Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma and I’m so impressed with how smart, well spoken and confident these girls are. It’s definitely not the Girl Scouts as I remember them.

tweetup

It was a great time as always. I just love those girls and any tweetup involving cookies is a good tweetup. ๐Ÿ™‚

Cookbook Cook Through – Week 3

It was week three of my cookbook cook through challenge and we had some good food!

We both loved Indian food so I chose the Better Butter Chicken to make first. It was really good and even better the second day. I searched high and low to find fenugreek but couldn’t so I ended up leaving it out. I guess I’ll check the Indian grocery to see if they have it. I will make this one again but I think I’ll serve it over riced cauliflower next time.

Better Butter Chicken

We had never had red chard, or any kind of chard, before and I was able to find it at Sprouts. It was pretty! I looked forward to preparing and tasting it. I wasn’t too thrilled with its taste and David didn’t like it at all so I probably won’t make it again.

The second recipe we tried was Nutty Cookies. One of the problems we always have when eating clean is that David misses his “fun food”. He has started bringing me recipes which I help him out by making but have been truly awful. The last one, The Life Changing Loaf of Bread was just, um, awful.

nutty cookies

So anyway, this cookie recipe looked like it would be far and away better than the bread recipe. Although it was a little involved, it wasn’t difficult and we ate the cookies for breakfast. They were good! I will for sure make them again.

Next week I’ve decided to try the Frittata for All and Baked Curry Cauliflower. Yum! ๐Ÿ™‚

National Girl Scout Cookie Day!

Today is National Girl Scout Cookie Day! I love Girl Scout Cookies and I know you do, too.

I was a Girl Scout back in the day. But I wasn’t a real Girl Scout. I was a troop hopper and was known for having the shortest Girl Scout uniform in school. But today’s Girl Scouts are quite an impressive group.

Back in 2009 when I was kicking off BartlesvilleLive.com (now defunct) for KJRH, I covered the end of year awards program for the Bartlesville Girl Scouts. I was SO impressed with how Girl Scouting had changed since I was young.

Girl Scouts today are taught about financial responsibility and managing money. That is what the cookie sales are really all about even though I’m fairly sure the Samoa was made just for me. ๐Ÿ˜‰

This year, the Girl Scouts have made it easy for you to find their cookies if they don’t find you. ย They have a cookie finder app for iPhone!

This app is worth it just for the cute video at the beginning. It got me all choked up. And please tell me that the skills these girls are talking about are not important to the girls of today. Even the girls of yesterday.

So download the app, locate yourself some cookies and celebrate National Girl Scout Cookie Day with me.

These will go into the freezer.

Have you ever eaten them frozen? ๐Ÿ™‚

Baby shower!

I had so much fun preparing for Aniston’s baby shower! Nikki asked me if I could design the invitation first and then the thank you cards. Her sister and mom had decided on a pale pink and leopard theme so I went with it.

I love the way both items turned out!

I asked if there was anything I could bring and Nikki said I could bring anything. Her family knows me well enough to know that I major in sweet treats. ย It was really fun to scour Pinterest and the Internet to come up with ideas for what to make.

In the end, I decided on chocolate and pink popcorn

Pink chocolate covered Oreos

Pretzel snacks

(Super easy and delicious! Place pretzels on waxed paper line baking pan, top with Hershey kisses, place in 170 degree oven for 6 minutes, push M&Ms into the tops.)

Candy skewers

Cookies that I painted and bagged with matching thank you notes attached for people to take home

and strawberry cream cheese jelly bellies.

I also labeled water bottles to go along with the theme.

Of course it was overkill but I haven’t figured out how to make “just enough”. I didn’t want anyone who was there not to get something because there wasn’t enough.

They brought a cute cake!

There were lots of presents.

Lyndzee came.

bringing the chair she re-covered for Nikki.

It was great and I really loved watching Nikki’s face when she opened the gifts Iย hadย made for Aniston.

The Chucks

and the little Rott-I-Tude outfit.

I made a wall hanging for her bedroom, too, but I need to get a photo of it when it’s hanging on the wall in her nursery for full effect. ๐Ÿ™‚

Lyndzee brought me my Christmas present she made for me which I adore!

I’m so excited to be Glammie. ๐Ÿ™‚

Who’s got the muffin?

Yesterday as we prepared to leave cold and snowy Lincoln, NE we stopped to get some gas and something to eat to tide us over until we got someplace where a real restaurant was open.

It was early. And did I mention cold? Yep, it was 6 degrees.

Holy cow!

While David filled up the car (with the motor running) I ran in to grab us something to eat. Such a freezing cold morning made me throw all caution to the wind and get a package of Grandma’s Peanut Butter cookies for myself. I love those. I got David a banana nut muffin.

As we pulled away from the gas station, I realized that I couldn’t find my glasses case. I just got my cool Ray Bans and was so freaked out that I may have lost them while loading the car up. So as I searched around my seat (it was so dark!) David slowly made his way back to the hotel.

I found them! They had slid to the side of my seat. Whew!

It was pretty warm in the car by this time so I took my coat off and prepared for our 9 hour trip.

OMG! Where’s my phone?!?!

David stopped again. I grabbed my coat and sure enough my phone was still in the pocket. Whew!

We drove on towards Little Rock in the cold morning, sun rising.

It seemed like a good time for cookies and a muffin but the muffin, which had been in my lap, was no where to be found!

I looked everywhere but it was so dark, I couldn’t find it.

Uh oh.

David was good about it, though. ย He said he’d get something the next time we stopped.

As we neared Little Rock late in the afternoon, we stopped for more gas. I grabbed my coat out of the back seat and there it was!

Woo hoo! I found it! ๐Ÿ™‚

I still have no clue how the muffin got in the back seat. I must have been searching for my glasses so fast and furiously I was throwing things. LOL! ๐Ÿ™‚

Cookies for breakfast

I love cookies. Cookies of all types. It doesn’t matter if I bake them myself or buy them or even (sometimes) if they are stale. ๐Ÿ™‚

I especially love foreign cookies. When we go to a new country, I always make a point of going to the local grocery store and checking out the cookie selection.

When I was young, my grandma used to eat Gingersnaps for breakfast. I thought that was so cool and decided right then that when I am a grandma, cookies will be my daily breakfast fare. I wish one of those boys would hurry up and grammify me! ๐Ÿ˜‰

So here we are in Fiji. We arrived around 8 a.m. on Saturday and went to eat breakfast while they were getting our room ready. Standard British fare on the buffet: eggs, beans, fruit and toast. For the princely sum of $36 Figi dollars or approximately $19 US dollars.

I’m cheap. There was no way I was going to pay that much for food I don’t really care for. I’m really more of a protein shake for breakfast kind of gal. I told David I would have cookies for breakfast. Practice for being a grandma. ๐Ÿ˜‰

The vast array of cookies available here is WONDERFUL! And, the best news is, I can get a whole package of tasty cookies for less than $1 US dollar! Yummy.

Given that you are out of your own house and at the mercy of a hotel restaurant to be fed, cookies are probably no worse for me than eggs, beans and bacon. Right? And they are so much more fun.

Cost effective, tasty and a perfect partner for coffee, I think cookies are the ultimate vacation breakfast.

Cookies For the Win! ๐Ÿ™‚