Rainbow Cookies

My son's preschool class has a cooking lesson every other week or so.  A few weeks ago, they made rainbow cookies.  He's been asking to make rainbow cookies or cupcakes at home ever since.  But then I'd offer to make them with him, and he was not interested.  That changed today though!  He started off saying he wanted rainbow cupcakes, but changed his mind and decided that cookies were the way to go.  We started off with Alton Brown's sugar cookie recipe.  This is our go-to recipe for sugar cookies.  The only thing I usually change about it is to add a bit of vanilla or almond extract.  I wanted to make sure I had enough dough to make six colors for the cookies, so I made a double batch of dough.

I divided the dough into six roughly equal portions, and scrounged around the kitchen for bowls.  I came up one short, so purple was mixed on a small plate instead.

I rolled each color out, using copious amounts of powdered sugar so the dough wouldn't stick to the rolling pin or parchment paper.  I think this step would have gone more smoothly if I'd actually let the dough rest in the fridge for 1-2 hours, instead of the half hour it was in there.  My boys vehemently disagree, and think any delay in rolling out the dough is silly.  They may or may not be sort of impatient when it comes to baking.  

We stacked the sheets as we rolled each color out.

There was some disagreement as to the order.  My older son insisted that blue comes before green, not after. I countered with ROY G BIV, and he thought I was silly and still wrong, but let me have my way.  He then helpfully pointed out that real rainbows have two purple colors, not just one.  Smart kid.

Once I had the layers all stacked, I lightly rolled them out all together, as I was worried the stack was too thick to roll into a log.  Once rolled out -- this helpfully smashed the layers together a bit too -- we carefully rolled into a cookie dough log.

Then the log went back into the fridge.  Cue more groaning from the boys.  I cleaned up around the kitchen while the boys ate the scraps of dough from the color mixing bowls.  Powdered sugar makes a terrible mess, and I've been trying to clean up after my baking more quickly so as not to exasperate my husband. I gave into the boys' harassment after half an hour or so, and got ready to put the first batch in the oven.

The slicing would have been easier if I'd waited until the dough was colder.  I put the dough log back into the fridge between batches, and it was easier to slice each time.  As it was, I had to clean off the knife blade after every slice.  I was a bit disappointed in the spiral of colors in the raw dough.  The colors ran into each other a bit more than I wanted them too.  When they came out of the oven though, they looked great!

I think the addition of the coloring gel, plus the almond extract, made the dough a bit stickier than it otherwise would be.  I didn't want to add flour out of fear that it would make the dough too tough though.  When we make these cookies without the extra color, they hardly spread at all -- a real positive when trying for different shapes with cookie cutters.  These cookies spread a lot.

The boys are thrilled with them though, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when I told them they had to eat dinner before having cookies.

One week until the half-marathon

The Dallas Rock-n-roll half marathon is next weekend!  I am really not ready.  I went for my long run this morning, aiming to do at least ten miles, and hoping to go twelve.  I made it just under 4.  My knee is giving me problems, and I was not wearing the right clothes.  Today was actually the first warm day I've been running this year, and I wore some running shorts that I haven't worn since before I was pregnant with the fat little rabbit.  Big mistake.  The skin on the inside of my thighs is so very chaffed, it isn't funny.  So I wimped out, and came home.  After the kids are in bed tonight, I'll go out again, and do another 4 miles, then try to fit in 4 more tomorrow.  I think for the race next weekend, I'll plan on doing a run 4 miles, walk 2-3 minutes, run again sort of thing.  I really need to find a way to fit in runs in the middle of the week, or get over my hatred for the elliptical.  Training just by doing long runs on the weekend clearly is not sufficient.

Cinnamon pull apart bread

I've been wanting to make cinnamon pull apart bread since reading this post from Smitten Kitchen.  I made the cheddar beer mustard pull apart bread a few weeks ago, and it was delicious.  This morning I decided to give the cinnamon sugar recipe she linked to a try.  Yum.  Next time I won't use quite as much sugar as the recipe calls for though.  A good quarter of the mixture ended up on the cutting board during the stacking process anyway, and it was plenty sweet.

I didn't get it out of the oven until after lunch time though.  My younger son refused to eat his lunch today, and we told him no dessert or snacks if he didn't eat lunch.  He agreed that was fine.  About half an hour later, this was ready.  When he learned that we really weren't going to let him have any, he was very sad.  He promises to eat his dinner tonight so he can have some then.

Countdown to half marathon

I received a registration confirmation sheet in my e-mail yesterday for the Dallas Rock-n-Roll half marathon.  I'm getting excited, but worried too!  When I signed us up, I thought I'd have enough time to train to try to get to a 10 min/mile pace.  Yes, I am slow, and 10 min/mile is pretty fast for me!  I wanted to have a decent chance of being able to keep up with my husband though.  I haven't been training as much as I should though, so seeing the expected finish time of 2:10 gave me a big laugh yesterday.  I can start off with that pace, but I doubt I'll even tie my time in my first half marathon.  My husband tore his quad muscle playing adult rec soccer last weekend, so he's not sure he'll be able to run at all.  I'm still glad I signed up for this one, and will enjoy the race, even if I have to walk part of it!

A trampoline park opened sort of near us, and has fitness classes on Wednesday nights for $10.  Kids under 7 can jump for free during the class, so I think I am going to start going.  May be a nice fun way to sneak some exercise in during the week.  Oh, who am I kidding.  I just think it looks fun.

Book #7

Book #7 was Kate Elliott's In the Ruins.  I am enjoying the series, but am uncertain how the author is going to manage to wrap up the story in one more book.  Also, Hugh is just a despicable bad guy.  The existence of his character actively decreases my enjoyment of the books.  I know the bad guy has a role to play in most books, but I really want Hugh to fall off a cliff.  I don't even find him to be an interesting bad character - just evil.

Baked Brie and the Last of the Curtains

I love baked brie.  But I have a secret - I hate the rind on brie.  I can't make myself eat it.  When I order baked brie at a restaurant, I am careful to eat around the rind.  A few months ago, I tried making baked brie at home.  I carefully cut off the rind, arranged the gooey cheesy insides on sheets of puff pastry, and added dried fruit and honey.  It was a disaster.  A tasty disaster, but a disaster nonetheless.  The gooey goodness that is melted brie melted right out of the puff pastry layers I had tried to trap it in.  I did some looking on Google, sure that someone else must hate the rind as much as I do, but the internet consensus seemed to be that I would have to get over my dislike of the rind.  No way.  I had to try again.  This time, rather than making mini squares, I kept the puff pastry sheet whole, intending on wrapping the edges up around the cheese, leaving no room for it to escape.  I scooped the cheese out of the icky rind,  and added some chopped dried cherries and honey.

I wrapped it all up, and put it in the oven, hoping for the best!

20 or so minutes later, and success!  All of the gooey melty goodness that is baked brie, and it all stayed in the puff pastry.  It is possible to make a baked brie without the rind.

I finished the fat little rabbit's curtains several weeks ago, but did not have any rings to hang them up.  I finally remembered I needed them while I was at Target.  Her other nickname is "bug-bug" so I thought the print was appropriate.  And yes, I know they need to be ironed.  

Six point something miles and book #6

My husband and I had Monday off of work, but school was still in session, so we enjoyed a nice adults only day!  My husband suggested we take our long run together, as we were visiting relatives over the weekend and had not had a chance to run.  He promised to stay in the same general area as me, but he runs a good 2-3 minutes per mile faster than me!  I lost him soon after we entered the park.  I was running faster than I usually do though!  I usually start at around a 10 minute mile, but by mile 2, am inching closer to the 11 minute mile pace.  Monday I was still at a sub 10 minute mile through three or so miles.  My husband had lapped me, and started running next to me for a few minutes.  Suddenly it felt like the earth tilted under me, and my vision was swimming.  I stopped to walk until it cleared.  I think I just hadn't had enough to drink all weekend (Houston tap water sucks).  We also had plans to go for Mexican or barbeque after our run, and I skipped breakfast to save room!  Bad idea, I guess.  Anyway, I walked for a hundred yards or so, then started running again, albeit much more slowly!  I think I terrified my husband though, as he stuck with me for the next three miles.  We were back in the main part of the park by then, and I stopped to use the restrooms.  I sent my husband on to finish his run, and started a run/walk rotation around one of the smaller ponds until he was done.  I got in around 2 miles.  So not the ten I had planned, but better than nothing!

We went to Houston to visit my grandmother-in-law.  She thought our boys might enjoy the Houston Children's Museum, and she was right!  When we lived in Boston, our boys had a membership to the children's museum, and we went fairly often. We haven't really found a good replacement in Dallas yet.  The Houston museum was awesome!  It had one of the multi-story climbing platforms, which I know our oldest son had missed from Boston.  The rules said you had to be at least five years old to climb though, so our youngest boy could not climb (although there were plenty of people blatantly ignoring the rule).  There was also a really awesome room called the Invention Convention.  There were stations for kids to make rockets, lego cars, and wind sails.  I loved watching the kids' imaginations at work.

I finished Catching Fire on our trip, and bought Mockingjay when we went grocery shopping Monday.  I finished it during my lunch break today.  I am very glad I read the series.  I felt the ending was a bit rushed, and though the resolution of the Gale vs. Peeta situation could have been fleshed out a bit more.  Overall, a very enjoyable series though.  I am looking forward to the movie next month.