My turn to try!

SWIG cookies!  MMMMMMmmmmmm. 

My husband, Jack, and I were driving home from seeing our daughter and her family in Salt Lake City last week and we stopped at Swig in St. George.  Actually we were TOLD to stop at Swig.  My BFF Melissa said she wanted some cookies so why didn't we just swing by.  She'd had them and said they were absolutely DELICIOUS.  I put the address into my Waze app and it led us right to one of their locations.  We drove into the parking lot and saw that there were two lines, so we got behind the longer line, figuring it was the one for ordering.  There was a sign listing some of their items, but it really didn't give us much information.  They specialize in different kinds of drinks (I still don't know what a "dirty Diet Coke" is...) and some goodies. 

If you are on Pinterest, you've heard of their sugar cookies.  Everyone seems to have a copycat recipe pinned.  Big, thick sugar cookies with light pink icing.  They also have some other cookie flavors.  My husband, never one to say no to a chocolate chip, ordered chocolate chip but I wanted the famous one.  We ordered a dozen (that qualified us for one free) and handed over $20.  My husband asked where we pick them up and yelled, "this is our first time here!"  He's always saying embarrassing things like that....  We drove around the other side of the little food hut, to the other window, and picked up our cookies.  We didn't have to wait very long.  The girl inside handed over a brown cardboard bakery box.  It was really quite heavy and cool to the touch.  I lifted the lid and inside were these big, cold cookies, stacked up, each on their own individual square of parchment paper.   The chocolate chip cookies looked fine, but I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into one of those pink-topped beauties.  So. Good.  Dense, cool, chewy, not too sweet.  So THIS is what everyone has been raving about!  I get it, I get it.

So, of course, I had to try my hand at making some.  I went to Pinterest and sorted through the different recipes that have been pinned and settled on this one from nobiggie.net.  I don't know if any of these are exactly the recipe, but I think they're close enough.  I would have to live in St. George or Provo (apparently there is a location there, as well) to do a thorough job of taste testing.  It is really a good thing I don't live closer or I'd weigh even more than I do. 

So I followed the recipe, and this is what I came out with (I forgot to take a pic until I was half-way done). 

The dough, as all have said, is not sticky.  It feels very light and buttery.  I rolled them into balls.  Golf ball size.  The real Swig cookies are much larger.

Then I dipped my glass in a combo of a couple of tablespoons of sugar and about a teaspoon of salt before pressing the balls down.  You can see above that I didn't make beautiful balls.  But it didn't matter because they got smooshed anyway.

 

This is what they looked like after they all got smooshed.  Mmm.  That little bit of salt in the sugar mix that clings around the edges is soooo good.

 



Here are some after they are baked.  See the nice crumbly edges?  This is a different batch than the ones above.  I found that if you don't rush to get them on the baking sheet, but let the dough sit in the bowl on the counter for awhile, the dough will get those crumbly-looking edges.

 

Then I made the icing, following the recipe.  This may be the trickiest part.  All of the recipes tell you to add powdered sugar and milk until you are satisfied with the texture and consistency.  What do I know!?!  Some of the photos make the icing appear very smooth and thin.  Some show it a little thicker.  Give me some definitive measurements, people!  I wanted them to be able to stand up to being sent through the mail which would mean a little bit of stacking.  So I made my icing a little thicker than some others did.  Again, I am too far away from Utah to do quality control!

 

I let them sit out a little and get a bit of a harder top on the frosting before I packed them up.  Each one got their mandatory parchment square to rest on.

 

Well, Sis, I hope they get to Berkeley in one piece!  If not, I'll bet the crumbs will still be delicious...

 

 

 

 

ICAD....what's that???

I was on Bloglovin' and saw a blog post about an ICAD challenge.  What is that?, I thought.  I googled it and was led to this post on the Yellow Daisy Art website.  Apparently, it is the Index-Card-a-Day Challenge.  Sounds like fun to me!  Kind of cool.  The best part is that it says the motto is "there's no catching up."  Just start where you are.  I am hoping it will help me get my creative juices flowing.  So....I'm on my way to target to purchase index cards.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Time to SPICE things up...

Melissa and I did a really GREAT Pinterest project for Christmas.  I didn't post it because we didn't want people to know what we were giving them as gifts!  I just ran across the photos today and thought I'd put this up.

I saw a great pin showing little clear Christmas bulbs filled with dip mix.  I thought to myself, "EVERYONE loves a little dip..."  So, we decided to make them!  I shopped at Smart and Final, as well as a local Hispanic foods market to get the dry ingredients.  Let me tell you, spices aren't all that cheap!  But since I got such a large quantity, it didn't end up costing more than a dollar or two for each mix.  We multiplied the each recipe by 24. Don't the spices look look beautiful?  You can get the recipes here.

After we mixed them all, we decided to put them into little cellophane bags, staple the bags shut and then staple a cute topper on them. 

 I printed out the headers in color, on cardstock, trying to match the design to the feeling of the dip.  Dips have feelings????  Guess so.  Here are the finished products.  Don't they look cute?

We've heard from lots of our friends.  They seem to like them.  I know I do.

I Did It!

Suzan Strong Dunbar, Valedictorian Finalist...

I graduated from Santa Ana College on June 5th.  My degree is in Liberal Arts, because I could never choose just one thing!  4.0 GPA.  Never thought this would be me.

I went back to school in 2006 (you realize it is now 2015) to take a metalsmithing class for jewelry making.  I had researched which colleges in California had such a program and Santa Ana College was one of the few.  I figured I'd take a few classes, maybe get a certificate in jewelry making.  When I applied, the jewelry making class was already full, so I took a Survey of Humanities class, which was mostly online but had several class meetings to take the tests.  I was HOOKED.  I fell in love with Santa Ana College--the campus, the staff, the students.  I passed no less than five schools on my drive down there.  But that didn't matter.  Here I am, nearly nine years later, preparing to move into the next phase and get my Bachelor's degree in Applied Management (sort of like Organizational Leadership).  I eventually took that metalsmithing class and learned a lot.  Then they cancelled the jewelry program.

After the ceremony, Jack, my mom and our friend, Pat went out to dinner.

Pretty fun to celebrate.

I am giving myself four years to complete the B.S.  See you in 2019!

Down Two

So, since I forgot to push the PUBLISH button on the last post, I can give you a report of what/how I've been doing with my eating for the past 7 weeks.  Well......as of today, I'm down 2 lbs.  Mind you, I've been down as many as 5.5 lbs, but today, my weight puts me at 2 lbs.  What can I say....???  Better than being UP 2 lbs????  Yeah, right.

My biggest problem is that I'm a celebration eater and, let me tell you, there are lots of things in life to celebrate!!!!  The weekend, the start of a new week, MANY birthdays and holidays, a night out with my girlies, walked around the block, home alone, finished a project, lost a pound, discovered a new ice cream flavor.... you get the idea.

The good news is that I have made a commitment to journal my food no matter what.  So, those 3000 calorie days are well documented (I'm only supposed to eat 1630 per day).  I think this makes me feel a little bit more in control of my food consumption.

No photo to show a difference until I'm down 10.  You may never see me again.  Ha!  I'm sure there will be many more celebrations which will call for photos.  In fact, my next blog is guaranteed to have a celebration included.