Death by Chocolate Cookie, or Death by a Chocolate Cookie

Today I started out fine.  I pulled my stick of butter out to make Baker’s Death By Chocolate Cookie that hubby has been drooling for since last week.   This was as I was going through about 10 years worth of recipe clippings to decide as to what to keep and what to throw away.  (If you think I am kidding, I am not)  I am the world’s number One recipe hoarder.  Anything I like or think I might like I rip, tear, beg and pry out of cold dead hands.  It is a really odd hobby.

Anyway, hubby sees this recipe and goes a little nuts.....so I said today I would make the cookies (since yesterday I got chastised pretty good for not having done them) but I found I have every Baker’s chocolate except the one I need.  I am so dern frustrated.

So frustrated I decide to take that room where I still have boxes of those recipes and start cleaning, and cleaning and cleaning.   Ok, he’s gonna take one whiff of the stale doggie air and say where are my cookies!  “But, look honey!  See what I have accomplished today!”

What I have “accomplished” is to wreck not just one room, but two rooms and a hallway!  Cleaning dusting, finding stuff for the church rummage sale and Ebay.  No difference to that nose of his, nooooooooo.  What he will do is pout and mention his lack of chocolate cookies, with nuts of course.

Actually, he is a peach of a guy and doesn’t ask for much, except home made cookies.  He was very spoiled by mom (my Mom in Love!) to have home made treats all the time.  My mom’s idea of dessert was a chocolate pudding mix put into a Keebler graham cracker crust and Cool Whip.  We were not dessert people.  So, when we married and he had these expectations I was a bit surprised.  After all I was of the generation of “I am woman hear me roar”.  When it comes to him I more of a mewer.

At Christmas I will make batches and batches of different cookies for friends and I always freeze some for him.  He eats them through the year.  Sometimes he just gets a yen and then there is the rub.....

So, tomorrow I will go shopping and buy what I need to make cookies.  Today I took out my frustrations, making more of a mess than anything else.  And, if he should ask about those Baker’s One Bowl Death By Chocolate Cookies tonight (and com’on he will) I will tell him to check out my blog..

Meantime for those of you who DO have the ingredients here is the recipe.

BAKER’S ONE BOWL
DEATH BY CHOCOLATE COOKIE

Prep 15 min
Bake 12 min

2 pgs. (16 squares) Baker’s Semi-sweet Baking Chocolate, Divided
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup of butter or margarine (I like unsalted)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp. Baking powder
2 cups chopped nuts (gotta have nuts!)

Heat oven to 350.
Coarsely chop 8 squares (1 package) of the chocolate, set aside.
Microwave remaining 8 squares of chocolate in large microwaveable bowl HIGH for 1-2 minutes.  Stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.  Stir in sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla.  Stir in flour and baking powder.  Stir in reserved chopped chocolate and nuts.  Drop by 1/4 cupfuls (yeah cupfuls) onto ungreased cookie sheet
BAKE 12-13 minutes or until cookies are puffed and feel set to the touch.
Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minutes.  Transfer to wire rack and cool completely.  Makes about 1-1/2 dozen cookies.


And for fabulous other recipes from Baker’s go here http://www.kraftbrands.com/bakerschocolate/home.aspx and you too can drool!

A Heart Full of Holes

A thought came to me today.... I have not just a Holy heart but a heart full of holes.

We lost our 14 year old dog about a week ago.  It was a sad situation, but in my heart I have known that we always have given our fur babies the best in life.  The best medical care, the bestest love!  But, yet there is a hole in my heart named Cuddles right now.

Life is sort of like this.  We go through, being born with a whole heart full waiting to be filled by the love of a parent, who teaches us to fill our own heart.  Then life begins to take little heart shape pieces out.  For each loss, for each hurt we, in our humanness begin to live with a heart full of pieces that have been removed by sadness, grief, hurt and suffering.  Yet we go on. 

A funny thing about the heart, it hurts, but it goes on.  After a while we learn to live with the holes and sometimes even find things to help heal and fill them.  But, that is not to say that these heart holes still don’t remain.

Yesterday a dear man from our church passed to be with the Lord.  I am sure his family has large gapping holes to deal with.  He was the kind of guy who you could not forget.  His smile was contagious his courage impressive.  But, yesterday his own heart was fully healed and created whole again by the absolute recreation and reconciliation with God.

I do not compare the love of an animal to the love of a human.  I am just stating the human condition as I see it, feel it.

I take comfort in that someday my heart will be made fully whole and lifted into absolute glowing, for an eternity no less.  All those pieces that have been carried to the other side, will be united in me in wholeness and glory.

As we come into Holy week I have a chance to remind myself that, this is but a human vessel, and that it is the love that goes on.  The remembrances I have will hold me until I can once again be united with those whom I have lost, and have taken a part of my heart with them.  Reunited in love and in wholeness because of a sacrifice made over 2000 years ago.

Sometimes it is hard to get your head wrapped around this.  But, there are things, emotions, that cannot be denied and cannot be fully understood and comprehended until the moment of reconciliation.  I am not to really fully understand, only to hold faith that all that I believe is.

My favorite bible verse is Hebrews 11:1  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I cannot see my soul, yet I know that it is there.  I cannot see the hurts, yet I know that they are there.  I cannot see Jesus, but I know he is there.

In the journey of life we learn to cope and if we are lucky we find ourselves partnered in faith to sustain us.  It is there, we need only accept it.  Our journey may be long, it may be short.  It may be filled with a heart full of holes, with scars and healing.  The heart can find peace, but it will only find full rest and restitution at the feet of our Holy One.

So is my heart whole?  Yes and no.  No because suffering can leave it’s mark and yes because at the same time it is protected and reassured through my belief that someone holds me in eternity.

I guess I hadn’t started to be so theological in the beginning of this post, but today as I wait on information on services of my dear church friend it came to me ......

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