Texas Ranger Cookies

I'm sharing another treasured cookie recipe again today. I'm sorry if I'm saturating you with cookie recipes. I think this is the last one, but it's a family favorite and I don't want to leave it out. I think I found this one in a cookbook probably about 25 years ago and it has stood the test of time. 

I haven't made them in a while, but DH has been on the go a lot lately. Since the ranch sold, this place has been absorbed into a larger ranching conglomeration comprising of numerous ranches and everyone gets pulled from their homebase and gathers to help on all the other ranches during Spring and Fall Cow Works. In the last 12 days, we worked 2 days here, 8 days on the other ranches, and 1 day helping neighbors. It's a 3 hour drive to one of the places and a good hour to any of the others so DH is spending lots of time behind the wheel and I generally send him with a tumbler of hot coffee, a protein shake, a banana, and a few cookies and this cookie is really good with coffee.

 Texas Ranger Cookies

1 C butter, softened

1 C sugar

1 C brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla 

2 C flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 C oats - quick or old fashioned 

2 C Rice Crispies

1 C coconut

*Cream sugars and shortening. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Blend into creamed mixture. Stir in oats, cereal, and coconut. Scoop onto parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake for 12-14 minutes at 350°. In a previous post, someone asked a question about how many cookies that particular recipe made. Answer: I have no idea. I'm sorry, I just don't ever count them, but this time I kept that in mind and I got 62 cookies from this batch. Hopefully some of them will make it to into the freezer.

Tea Towels

Honestly, who thinks about tea towels / flour sack towels? But for some reason, I really like a GOOD tea towel. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and I don't have a dishwasher and finding a really good tea towel is a little thing that brings me joy. 

I found this one at Target probably 5 or 6 years ago and I bought all they had - they are nice and big.

And I like these I found online a few years ago here 

So I ordered a few more from them recently. They are nice and thick, but smaller than the originals and smaller than I like, but they are pretty. 

But, when we were first married, my MIL gave me a set of Day of the Week western ones and I kept them tucked away in a drawer for years because they were too lovely to use. They are my favorite. I finally started using them and after 30 years, I am down to one that is still in good shape

She's made a lot of these through the years and she's made a set for each of the kids, but she no longer does any sewing or handwork and it makes me so sad. She's 85 and I don't think she's made anything for about 5 years, making the things she HAS made even more treasured.

She DID give me the patterns for the western set so I guess the torch has been passed, but I'm dragging my feet because I don't think I can make them as neatly as she did. These are the big (28x28), heavy tea towels that are hard to find anymore, and I found some online a few years ago and ordered a set.

On a recent visit, I was telling her how much I have loved the ones she made. She disappeared for a little while and came back with a sack from a shoe store and gifted me the contents

They are the last set she made and they are lovely! 

See, look at one from the back!

Again, I am tempted to stash them away or I almost want to cut them apart and frame them to preserve her handwork, but I think I will begin to use them gently. They will bring me joy when they cover my bread bowl as the dough rises or the Butterhorn Rolls that are a treasured family recipe. Fresh bread and  hand stitched tea towels are a happy combination. And I think it's time I pull out those patterns and start stitching.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

 I was trying to compile a different cookie post and realized I haven't shared this favorite. I don't know where I found this one - I just have a note on my recipe card that says 2006. It's not from a friend or I would have noted that so it's probably from Taste of Home.

We've got a farrier / friend coming by today to shoe a few horses so he gets these today. Least I can do is treat him to cookies for the drive home. DH has always shod his own horses, but he had a colt fall with him a few weeks ago and I suggested he call Olin. DH will be 62 in December and we don't heal as quickly as we did when we were 20...or 30...or 40...or even 50. I was surprised when he acquiesced.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 C unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 C packed brown sugar

1/2 C sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 C peanut butter

2 eggs

1  1/2 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 C flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 C chocolate chips

*Preheat oven to 350°. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Cream butter, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and peanut butter in a large bowl. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine flour and baking soda - mix into batter to form dough. Stir in chocolate chips. Scoop out onto cookie sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes.

                        

                                

The last time I made these, I handed them out to the County Road Grader. He looked so surprised and said, "You MADE these? For ME"? LOL...yes, sir...I did. Cookies are so easy to make and they're a pretty nice way to brighten someone's day.

A New Look at the Stash

 I haven't had a single minute to sew this month. I've been trying to bind a baby quilt for about 6 weeks now. LOL. 

But there were miscellaneous piles of this and that teetering on shelves and counters in my sewing room and I knew it was time to put things back in order. Occasionally, I will pick up fat quarter bundles or Layer Cakes - especially when they are on sale - recently, I stumbled upon some Love You S'more Layer Cakes for $15.00!!

But I keep most of my stash corralled in bins - mostly by color, although I keep Christmas, Western, Floral, 30's, Novelty, Plaids, and Reproduction prints in their own bins. I have lots of smaller bins I keep stacked behind a quilt ladder for individual collections I want to keep together like my Songbook fabrics, Bramble Patch, fabrics for another Americana Quilt, solid fabrics, ginghams, some strips, and just various projects

One of my favorite things to do is to rifle through my bins and pull fabrics for the current project. Here's a typical bin

Recently, I thought I'd fold things differently in this bin. It took some time, but I think I'm really going to like this new way of storing my fabrics

A few days later I tackled the pinks and purples

And later, the reds

My greens were about to stage a mutiny:

Proof I really don't need any more fabric - these bins are stuffed

Blacks and grays are up next and I need to pick up another bin for low volume prints. 

My blues and browns are in larger, deeper bins so this won't work for those, but one of these days I hope to have a few more of the Sam's metal industrial shelves and matching bins that are not as deep in order to fold those too. Hmmm...I may just look for a shallow tote that fits into deeper ones and have 2 layers. The shallow tote would be easy to lift out to access the lower layer...

I'm not even sewing these days, but I'm hoping this will help me use more of what I have when I do get back to sewing because sorting through all of it made me realize that I really DO love what I have and I have more than enough!