It's the little things in life

Almost exactly two years ago, Don built me a little shelving unit to store gallon jugs of bulk staples: oatmeal, brown sugar, whole wheat flour, tea, pasta, raisins, etc.

I was making some oatmeal-raisin cookies for the neighborhood potluck last week. As I always do, I pulled the necessary jugs of ingredients from this shelving unit and placed them on the table until needed.

And it occurred to me how much I took for granted this extremely useful piece of furniture. What a blessing to have a woodworking husband who can make such needed items.

This inspired me to look around the house and realize that everything -- with the exception of a sofa and loveseat we bought new in 2004 -- is either a second-hand purchase or handmade by my talented husband. The result is eclectic and unpolished -- and yet it somehow represents us very well.

After all, we're kind of eclectic and unpolished too.

Oatmeal-raisin cookies

I decided to make cookies a couple weeks ago, and Younger Daughter plugged for oatmeal-raisin. I hadn't made those in while, so I agreed.

I use a favorite recipe found in this book:

These cookies are nice and moist and I've been very pleased with the recipe.

I double the recipe, and the resulting dough is too much for my largest mixing bowl; so I use two mixing bowls and just put a single recipe in each bowl. Here are the dry ingredients (except flour):

Wet ingredients:

Salt, baking soda, vanilla, cinnamon.

One bowl mixed, one not (yet).

Now the flour. It's too hard to mix if I add the flour earlier.

Last of all, raisins.

These cookies take vigilance while in the oven. A minute too long, and they're too crisp for my taste. A minute too little, and they're not quite cooked. The recipe says 8 to 10 minutes baking; I set my kitchen timer at 8 minutes at first, but usually I'm satisfied at 9 minutes. Everyone's oven will be different.

A delicious treat anytime.