Caramel Apple Cookies

Gowski ladies, these are the cookies I was talking about this weekend....

Caramel Apple Cookies
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cup flour
2¾ cup old fashioned oats not quick-cooking oatmeal
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
12 oz caramel baking bits [I’ve never seen these in SLC but figure you could also cut up those square caramels]
2 cups granny smith apples

Directions

Step 1:In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar with an electric mixer until the mixture is fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and eggs. Beat until combined.

Step 2:Measure oatmeal into a food processor, and pulse until ground finely. In a medium-sized bowl, stir the oatmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda until combined. Set aside.

Step 3:Peel and finely chop the apple.

Step 4:Using an electric mixer, stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until combined. Stir in the caramel bits and apples. It is fun to save a few of each (the apple and the caramel) for dotting on top of the rolled cookie dough balls.

Step 5:Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour. Roll the cookie dough into golf ball-sized balls. Bake on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet in an oven preheated to 350 degrees F, for 10-12 minutes. The sheet should be placed on the upper middle rack. Cool on the pan for 4 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Note: Dough is best the day of. In time the apples add extra moisture to the dough, causing a wider spread on the baked cookies. Alternatively, you can pre-roll the dough into balls and freeze if you aren't using it all the first day. Place the dough balls on a cookie sheet until solid, and then transfer to a labeled sealable freezer bag. Use within one month. Simply add an extra couple minutes to the baking time since the dough is frozen.

Forgot to mention....

The boys got haircuts last night, so all those curls in today's dandelion picture?  Well, they're gone.  But I promise, he's still cute. :)

Make a Wish!

 

Ok, I'll admit that my wish is for a trouble-free flight to NJ tonight.  We can't WAIT to see Pop, Jan, Aunt Christine & Uncle Doug, Aunt Steph and Uncle Doug, Caitlin, and Lloyd.  Billy has never met his nephew!  It will be a belated happy birthday for Jan and a happy 35th for Bill (on the 20th).  Only wish it were a longer trip!

Avenues Street Fair '09

Last Saturday was the Avenues Street Fair, an annual commnity fair in our neighborhood.  They pick a different East-West street each year (since the north-south streets are on hills), and there are typically 6-8 blocks of local shops, restaurants, food vendors, and music folks represented.  It's great!

We usually have a booth for Continuing Ed (my job), to get the word out to the community about our classes, so I had to go up at 8 am to help set it up.  Ever tried to rush a not-quite-2-year-old through a bowl of cereal? Just give up before you start.  Anyway, Freddy was helpful - in that he didn't get in the way - and when we finished, we caught up with a bunch of friends at the informal children's parade at 9. Trikes, strollers, and backpacks everywhere!  You can't tell from the photo below, but he had a good time dancing to the music, too.  I had to go back to work the booth for a 4-hour shift that afternoon, and had a sitter since Bill was out of town.  It was a good - long, busy day.

Friends

These two will both be big siblings soon - Freddy's friend Samantha's new little brother is due on her birthday the first week of October!  My friend Kelli came over with Samantha to hang out and rest our feet yesterday morning.  A few other friends hosted a fantastic wine and cheese tasting (catered by the local Italian deli, Caputos's) on Saturday night, and Kelli and I - despite not drinking the wine - were on our feet for too long.  So we rested and caught up while the kids played with playdough, fought over toys, and were generally really cute.

Missing Daddy

This is what happens when Daddy goes away...the sunglasses come out, the dancing starts, and Freddy goes pant-less.

 

Just kidding.  Freddy found "his" sunglasses in the car, and I did not put these on for him - he loves them. 

Just a normal Sunday morning in the Gowski household, although we will both be happy when Billy comes home late tonight from his hiking/camping/climbing trip with two friends up in the Wind River Range this weekend.  They left last Friday morning early, and we had a busy Friday and Saturday, followed by a nice mellow Sunday.  It rained a little this evening (for the first time in a while), and we sat on the front steps while Freddy ate his popsicle.  It was pretty idyllic.

 

p.s. - enjoy this funny long hair in these couple of photos.  Freddy gets a haircut on Wednesday!

 

Scary Sailing

Well, there are no photos attached with this post because we didn't pull out the camera one time.  I guess we could have captured the great sunset Sunday evening, but that was possibly the only good thing about our overnight sailing adventure Sunday-Monday.  The advance weather report had been a little dubious - possible showers Sunday morning with a cold front moving in - but the showers never happened, and the afternoon/evening forecast and radar were both clear.  Also, neither one was predicting any substantial wind....

Boy were we in for a surprise!  We headed out of the marina around 4:30 or 5 pm on Sunday, hoping to see the hot air balloon launch from Antelope Island at 8 pm.  Sailed about 5 1/2 miles out and threw an anchor in a decent viewing spot.  It gets shallow near the island, so we were not very near shore but would have been pretty protected if the winds had been from the NW, N.

We got settled, had some dinner, and were enjoying a beautiful evening.  Freddy never falls asleep easily on the boat, so we started getting him settled in bed around 8:30 (I think he finally nodded off around 10).  At 10, the wind started to pick up..and pick up...and pick up...and the boat turned into a bucking bronco.  Seriously.  Billy watched the depthfinder to make sure our anchor didn't shift, and noted the highest winds around 24.5 knots.  Now this might not sound like much to you Virginia residents, but for our little lake, that's unheard of!  Plus, it was coming from the south, so we had no protection.  Neither of us slept - at all.  We debated pulling anchor and trying to head back in the dark, but nixed the idea for fear of Billy falling off while trying to pull anchor (not to mention that the return trip is not well lit and we could easily have run aground).  So we sucked it up.  I lost my dinner over the side at about 1 am.  It was awesome.  At least Freddy managed to sleep fairly well through the evening. 

The next morning, we expected it to be calm, as it usually is here in the morning, but the wind had shifted and there were actual whitecaps on the water!  Also something that NEVER happens on the lake here.  The salt content and "heavy water" keeps any swells usually very gentle without any breaking.  So we were still tossing and turning, and we decided to just pull anchor and get the heck back to the marina.

Just when you thought everything was going to be ok...I was at the helm while Billy was down below playing with Freddy, and I wasn't paying attention to the depth finder.  Mistake.  Turns out that huge reef that's to the left of the marina is bigger than I thought, and I misjudged how close we were to the real channel...and ran us aground on the reef.  Billy tried valiantly to sail/motor us off, but we stuck fast.  After about 40 minutes of trying, we decided to call for help...and no one answered the marina phone.  And I couldn't get through on the VHF radio.  LUCKILY, Billy had one bar left on his cell phone (mine was dead), and we finally called 911 when we couldn't get through to anyone.  Yikes!  There's a first for everything, I guess.  We finally heard back from the harbormaster, who said he'd be there in 15 to tow us off the reef and got there 40 min. later.  In the meanwhile, all the rocking finally got to Freddy and he lost his breakfast (twice), on our newly-recovered cushions.  Sweet.

So...luckily Dave the harbormaster was able to pull us off (with some ribbing, since we bought the boat from him and it 'broke his heart' to pull it off the reef).  We sailed/motored back in and got off the boat as fast as possible.  Amazingly, Freddy held it together (well, except for the throwing up) the entire time.  The same can't be said for his mother, but at least I can say I have learned some lessons!  The harbormaster said the front that moved in and stalled over the lake surprised everyone, so at least we know we couldn't have prevented it.  But we'll think twice about early September overnights in the future.

Here's to our next trip! :)