Jamie Farrell's Blog, page 32

Drink Up, Me Hearties!

 

In honor of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, everyone with Jack Sparrow on their Fantasy Boyfriend League team gets fifty extra points.

Some day, I promise, I will finally do justice to my contemporary pirate treasure hunt story. Until then, I’ll continue to dream about Jack.

A Frazzled Mom’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheat

You know those nights when you’re on Weight Watchers and your kids are beating one another and the baby’s teething and your bathtub is full of laundry waiting to be folded and your husband has all the wine hidden somewhere because, “there’s not a good place to store it in the new house,” so even if you wanted to escape in the tub with a good book and some liquid amnesia, you can’t, and then your husband looks at the screaming children, and then he looks at frazzled, end-of-your-rope you, and says something like, “I could really go for a cookie now,” and then all you can think about are cookies?

 

 

Yeah. We had one of those nights recently.

My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe in the whole wide world is the Cooks Illustrated recipe. But it calls for doing crazy, time-consuming, dirty-dish-making things like browning butter and whipping the butter and sugars and eggs (one of which is separated, by the way) by hand for three iterations, and… Yeah.

Not happening on a weeknight around here.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not my favorite cookie recipe because I feel all special and chef-life after doing the cooking acrobatics required to produce those perfect little gems of a cookie. I mean, the cookie is GOOD. And when you have the time, it’s totally worthwhile, and not all that much work.

But I needed a balance between orgasmic cookie and all-night-in-the-kitchen.

So, fake chemistry to the rescue. And rather than bore you with the science, I’ll just tell you what I did.

Step One: Grab your nearest bag of chocolate chips and gather all the ingredients for the recipe on the back, substituting brown sugar for regular sugar and adding almond extract beside the vanilla.

Step Two: Melt the butter. Brown it if you have time, otherwise the microwave works.

Step Three: Combine the butter and brown sugar (bonus points if you use half light, half dark) and whip it in your mixer for a good long bit. Seriously, do a few dishes while your mixer does its job. (This is the chemistry part working, sort ot.) (This is also the part that’s going to make your cookies taste like you’ve put caramel in them.)

Step Four: Add the eggs, vanilla, and a splash of almond extract (Jamie’s special treat there), and whip it some more. Do a few more dishes. Give the kids a bath. Come running when the husband yells, “Honey? Did you forget you’re making cookies? The mixer’s smoking!” Seriously, who can hear a mixer over the children yelling after they smack each other in the face with sopping wet washcloths?

Step Five: Turn the children over to the husband. Add your flour, salt, baking powder/soda to the sugar-butter-egg-vanilla-almond mix. Then probably add another half-cup to cup of flour so your cookies don’t just spread all over the whole pan in one flat mess, unless you want to stick the dough in the fridge for a while, which isn’t fast, but may work well if you suddenly have to referee a sumo pajama match (“I SAID GET THE KIDS INTO THEIR PAJAMAS, NOT PLAY WITH NAKED CHILDREN”) and nurse the baby and then remember you haven’t preheated the oven or fixed lunches for tomorrow yet.

Also? Don’t forget the chocolate chips. Unless you have those special individuals in your house who don’t like chocolate. (FYI, those guys are totally worth marrying, because they give you their chocolate. Win-win, people. Win-win.)

Step Six: Scoop out the cookies and bake as directed.

Step Seven: Calculate the Weight Watchers point values.

Step Eight: Forget what you learned in step seven.

Step Nine: Repeat steps seven and eight until Step Eight becomes a willful forgetfulness, which will probably coincide with the timer going off.

Step Ten: You did set a timer, right?

Step Eleven: Cool and eat the cookies.

Step Twelve: Hide the leftovers from your demon spawn children.

Step Thirteen: Also hide the dirty dishes.

Are they the perfect masterpieces that the Cooks Illustrated cookies are? No. But do they hit the spot and make you feel like a gourmet cookie-baker?

Oh, yeah.

What’s your favorite cookie?

Because Every Monday Should Start With A Giggle

I dare you to watch this and not smile.

Doesn’t that make Monday morning better?

In other news, Southern Fried Blues is now on iBooks, and the trade paperback is on sale at Amazon. (I don’t know how long the discount will last – that’s at Amazon’s discretion.) And if you missed it over the weekend, check out this awesome review over on Gonna Need More Books!

What Not to Say to the Mother of Your Children

“When the boys and I were at the zoo today, we saw a chimpanzee that looked like Buttercup.”

 

 

 

Okay, I suppose I see the resemblance to my baby girl. She does like to grab her feet like that.

Well played, dear husband of mine. Well played. I suppose I won’t hide your bacon this time.

 

In other news, this was a crazy busy exciting week for my writer friends and their books! If you’re looking for a weekend read, here’s a quick round-up of some new books to check out:

Tracy March’s new contemporary romance, Tempted in the Tropics is here! I loved Tracy’s The Practice Proposal, and Tempted in the Tropics is waiting for me on my iPad. Tracy’s also giving away a $100 gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble to celebrate – check it out here if you’re interested!

Thanks to everyone who visited me at Cynthia Eden’s blog on Tuesday. Her next romantic suspense, Mine To Keep, the follow-up to Mine To Take (which hit the NYT list!), comes out next week. Cynthia is always a fabulous read!

And I had a blast celebrating with New York Times best-seller Katie Reus at her Facebook launch party for her new book, Protecting His Witness. If you love romantic suspense, check it out!

One final itty bitty mention – Amazon has the trade paperback version of Southern Fried Blues on sale!! I don’t know how long this will last, so if you want a copy, grab it quick!

Weekend’s coming. Know what that means? More fantasy football, more fantasy boyfriends. See you next week!

A Frazzled Yankee Mom’s Guide To Homemade Southern Biscuits

Welcome to my biscuit cheat sheet. Today, we’ll be discussing making quick biscuits from scratch. But first, you all have to swear not to tell Jackson’s momma. You swear? Promise? Pinky promise?

Okay.

Moving right along.

Step one:

Preheat your oven, then toss all your dry ingredients and your butter or crisco or bacon grease into the food processor. Blend. Then add your milk or your water or your buttermilk and process until you get a ball of dough.

**This works best if your food processor bowl doesn’t have leaks. Just FYI. Also, this should take about seven minutes. Maybe a mite bit longer if your oven takes a while to heat.

Step two:

Dump the dough on a floured surface and use your hands to press it into a rectangle. Skip the rolling pin. If your family wants pretty, blue-ribbon-winning, state-fair-quality biscuits, they can make ‘em their own darn selves. We’re going for speed and efficiency here, people. If it takes you more than a minute to press that dough flat, you’re taking too long.

**Unless you’re baking biscuits for thirty, in which case one or five of them better get over there and help you press that dough down.

Step three (and this is the super-secret magic part):

Slice the rectangle into smaller rectangles.

That’s right. Forget the round cookie-cutter and those last two biscuits that rise all uneven and lumpy-looking because of the dough getting folded over six times. You can even use a serrated plastic knife to cut them if you’re living out of an incomplete kitchen while movers hold your good knives hostage on a moving truck three hours away.

**Note that using a serrated knife will increase the time to cut your biscuits from ten seconds to about two minutes. Also note that this situation may or may not be based on a true story.

Step four:

Bake for ten to twelve minutes.

If you’re counting, that’s about twenty minutes from grabbing your flour to pulling your biscuits from the oven.

And just like your mom used to tell you when she handed you the broken Oreo while your sister got the full cookie, it doesn’t matter how it looks, because it all tastes the same.

But this way, you might actually have time for a shower between biscuits for breakfast and the bus coming to pick up the kids.

Stay tuned. This frazzled Yankee mom might tackle sweet tea next.

An Ode to Bacon

After last week’s discovery of this bacon costume, I’ve had bacon on my mind.

No, wait.

I have bacon on my mind pretty much all the time. I mean, it’s bacon. How do you spell yummy? B-A-C-O-N.

 

In fact, in honor of bacon, today’s pick for my Fantasy Boyfriend League team is Kevin Bacon.

(Duh, right?)

He’s my official BF. (That’s Bacon Fryer. Though technically it could be boyfriend too. My Bacon Fryer Boy Friend? BFBF?) And he’ll be wearing this shirt while he’s frying my bacon. (Literally. Because I’m not so sure I’d want someone to figuratively fry my bacon. That sounds… unpleasant.)

And while we’re frying our bacon, we’ll probably say a quick prayer to Saint Anthony the Abbott, whom some consider to be the patron saint of bacon. (Let’s just go with it. Sounds good, right? And isn’t that Facebook page the best thing since sliced bacon?!)

So now that we’re in a good bacon mood, let’s get the bad poetry going. I’ll start. You finish in the comments, okay? Bonus Fantasy Boyfriend League points to anyone who makes me a bacon haiku.

Oh bacon, oh bacon, how do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

I love your sweet meaty scent when you’re frying on my stove.

I love you when you’re baked in the shape of a rose.

And I love you all the more when I sniff you with my nose.

I love the crisp of your strip when you crunch between my teeth.

I love the grease on my fingers that said I had a good eat.

I love you when you’re partnered with eggs and toast and even with sweets.

I love bacon, yes I do. I love bacon, how about you?

Fantasy Boyfriends, NFL Monday Giggle Edition

So you’re all thinking about who you want on your team for our Fantasy Boyfriend League, right? I’m totally adding as MC (that’s Man Chef) to my team. Apparently he bakes good pies. I wonder if he took my tutorial?

While you’re making your picks, the hubby found something yesterday to put you in the right frame of mind. It’s an oldie, but that pregnant cow line makes me giggle so hard every time.

Enjoy!

Forget Fantasy Football. Let’s Make A Fantasy Boyfriend League.

Image courtesy sxc.hu

I know lots of women enjoy football. I do, too. Especially on a big screen with lots of zoomed-in action on those football pants. And I can even follow the rules of the game most of the time. (I didn’t date a football player in high school for nothing, people!) But when it comes to this whole fantasy football thing, I’m worthless. I don’t know the football players’ names, I don’t know their stats, their teams, their positions, or which ones are dating pop stars. (My status as a pop culture ignoramus is a topic for another day.)

So this year, while everyone’s picking their fantasy football teams, I propose a fantasy boyfriend team. Less because I have any hope of knowing all the smart, sexy, attractive men about to be tossed out as “team players” (wink, wink), but more because, hello, excuse to google hot guys! Plus, the rules are a lot simpler to understand.

And since there’s that whole fantasy element to my fantasy boyfriend league, I propose the following positions on each team (complete with abbreviations, just like they do in sports!).

LF: Laundry Folder

BR: Back Rubber

DD: Dish Doer

LM: Lawn Mower

FM: Funny Man

CB: Child Bather

FB: Flower Bringer

CG: Chocolate Gifter

DP: Date Planner

ASR: All-Star Romantic

IS: Itch Scratcher

The Rules:

1. List your team in the comments below. Trash-talking phrases such as “Hugh Jackman can mow my lawn anytime,” “Penalty on  Bradley Cooper. He’s just not pulling the weight the team needs from a DP this week!” and “My Mark Harmon can out-romance your Benedict Cumberbatch any day,”  are highly encouraged. As is correcting me on which fantasy boyfriend would never let you down as a date planner.

2. You don’t have to use every position, and you can make up your own positions too. (Interpret as you will.) You can also use fictional celebrities, such as book and TV heroes, on your team.

3. Points will be accumulated based on the popularity and positivity of the celebrity in question. So Ben Affleck would’ve scored positive points for being named the next Batman, but the whole internet outcry over it was a total fumble, so he’d be a wash for the week. (Hey! Look at me quoting pop culture! I’m learning already.) Or points are awarded just for creativity in arguing why points should be awarded. (Book characters get mega points from me.)

3.b. As I’m terrible with pop culture, I’ll rely on all of you to help with the scoring. (Seriously, the Ben Affleck thing is an anomaly.)

4. You can change your team anytime you want to. (Fantasy Boyfriend League is heavy on the fantasy part.)

5. Someone artsy is encouraged to make a Fantasy Boyfriend League badge. They get fifty extra points. (Especially if they incorporate Jackson into the badge.)

6. The game will continue indefinitely, with random prizes awarded randomly and indiscriminately by anyone wishing to award a prize for any random and indiscriminate reason.

7. But really, we all win, because a) hot guys, and b) fantasies. Who can argue with that?

So. Who wants to play? Educate me on pop culture and bring me your best fantasy boyfriends. It’s win-win, people. Win-win.

Southern Fried Blues – The Hollywood Edition

So maybe it’s not Hollywood quality, but here’s a little Southern Fried Fun for today:

Thanks to all of you for a fabulous launch weekend! I’ve been so touched and humbled by all the sweet messages and positive reviews and all the word of mouth you’ve all been generating! You all are amazing, and I’m so blessed to have each and every one of you in my life. Thank you again!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Peach Madness

After our epic journey to Georgia for the world’s best peaches, we’ve been enjoying the fruits of our travels. Step one was peach pie.

Step two: The Cobbler.

We picked up a recipe book from the Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, Georgia, several years back, and it has the most amazing cobbler recipe in it.

The basics: Melt a metric Southern ton of butter in a baking dish, pour in a sugar-flour-baking powder-salt-milk batter (which will sink under the butter), then top the butter and the batter with sugared peaches and put the whole darn thing in the oven.

Then this fabulously cool chemistry thing happens – the batter will rise through the butter and peaches as the cobbler bakes, which puts the most amazing fluffy-light, cake-like cobbler topping between a layer of creamy peach pie filling and a layer of caramelized peach juice.

HEAVEN.

But with a great peach cobbler recipe comes great responsibility.

Friends don’t let friends overdo the baking powder.

Don’t do what I did. Don’t underestimate the power of the baking powder. Remember, only you can prevent peach cobbler overflows.

Don’t leave me hanging here. What’s your best kitchen disaster story?