Drop Sugar Cookies - baked in 6 minutes and low fat, too.

Have you noticed how a lot of bloggers are trying to be the next food blogging star? How they are trying really hard to get followers by doing give-aways and stuff like that?


It's real easy to fall in that trap. I was in that trap for like a few weeks. I was like, I gotta post at least two times every week if people are gonna "follow me" and I gotta take really good photos so that my photos don't get rejected on foodgawker and tastespotting... And I gotta do give-aways. How do I do that? Do I gotta buy stuff myself for that? How do I get someone to sponsor that? And then, I just sort of wondered why I was doing that - why I got caught up in that snare? Because for me it is a snare. It was taking me away from my family and my personal goals.


So, you know how I cured myself of this idol worship? I stopped following so many other food bloggers. And I started on a personal project. I've been reading this book called Fascination Womanhood - it's really interesting. 


It has opened my mind to a whole new world... a world where I don't necessarily think about myself - but I think about appreciating others... especially my husband.  I like this new me and where I'm going. 

 I'd like to write a whole book review about it, but if you see the Amazon reviews - they are plenty accurate... at least the positive ones. The people who give one or two stars are simply not humble enough to see through the trees. 


Because you can't change people... you can only change yourself!


That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to be the best me I can be. That's also why I love Personal Progress. By the way, I've heard you can now do Personal Progress online... that's so cool. You can even send your project proposals to your Young Women leader online. I love how the Church is so hip and up on things Internet related. Has anyone seen this Young Woman video 195 dresses? It's so cool. The LDS.org Youth page is really good. My husband is also hooked on the youtube Mormon Channel - Our People section. They are all very inspiring. 

Okay, here is the video. My husband helped me figure out how to imbed the video here:



I love technology... but not as much as you (Mark)... 


But even though, I will not be the next food blogging star... I will share this - because this is my blog and I can blog what I want... and afterall, the main goal of my blog originally was to be my online recipe box so to speak... here is what I did with the kids recently... it was fun and it was one of the first times when I let them roll out the dough and cut out the cookies and Ella even got to eat cookie dough a few times - she's fast - I tried to stop her but I wasn't fast enough... anyway, I took a video of it and I hope to be able to post that eventually - when I learn how to edit the video and put all the pieces together. 


For now, still photos:

Here, I tried to catch Ella before she shoved some dough in her mouth... I was too late... she chomped it down fast!

 Dang- my kids are so cute! Is such pride in my kids a sin ;)

Ella with the rolling pin... I realize this is a fuzzy photo - kids are difficult to get crisp pictures of.

Patty cake - this is Kailea - she really likes making these cookies, and I like it that I'm starting to loosen up and let the kids have fun baking and making a mess as you can see and I didn't freak out about it either :)

The final cookies - these only take 6 minutes to bake! And they are low fat, too. 

Drop Sugar Cookies
Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies
<-- Slightly adapted from this cookbook that my Mom bought me years and years ago. (Just look how cheap it is to buy used, you only gotta pay shipping!)


1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla (I also like to play around with the flavors, sometimes a bit less vanilla and add in lemon or almond extract - b/c I don't use frosting)
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup milk

1. Heat oven to 400-F degrees. [Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper]
2. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda, set aside.
3. Combine oil, sugar and flavorings in bowl of food processor. Add egg. Beat at medium speed until blended. Using dough hook, add in flour mixture and beat until looks crumbly. Add milk and continue beating until good dough ball. Take out and place into plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use. Keeps quite a while in the fridge - last time I waited almost two weeks before using it up and it was fine.
4. Now, the original recipe calls them drop sugar cookies, which means you can drop by teaspoonfuls and bake as is, but I like to refrigerate the dough, then roll out on floured surface for rolled sugar cookies - and have fun with the kids cutting out with any shape imaginable. You can also roll the dough into a log - wrap in plastic, refrigerate or freeze then slice and bake as follows.
5. Or with oven pre-heated to 400-F degrees bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until just barely brown. (Avoid overbaking). Remove to cooling rack.

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