A couple years ago my in-laws were about to celebrate their 50 years of marriage. They are quiet people and had no expectation of any kind of party in their behalf. A few days after they celebrated the 49th anniversary their children began to talk……we needed to have a party!

Knowing our family and knowing my husbands parents the only thing that had to be included in the party was family and friends. We didn’t need fancy decorations or a catered dinner, we just needed to give them an evening

Last saturday we had a family reunion. It’s my husbands family, actually I guess it’s his fathers family. The reunion has had many starts and stops over the years, very hit and miss, but this generation seems to be taking it a bit more seriously, we’ve actually had 2 in a row!

We hold the reunion every other year, sometimes we go somewhere and sometimes we hold it at a family members home. This year my father in law and my sister in law, (hereinafter referred to as my sister) organized the

Cookies tend to switch texture upon storing soft cookies get hard and crisp cookies get soft. Here are a few tips to keep them stored at peak freshness.

Allow cookies and bars to cool completely before storing. Cut crisp bar cookies while slightly warm allow icing on cookies to completely dry before storing

Store soft and crisp cookies in separate airtight containers. If stored together, the moisture from the soft cookies will soften the crisp cookies and they will lose their crunchy texture

The following are some pointers and ideas for solving the most common problems when baking cookies and bars. These pointers are mostly for the novice baker but serve as good reminders for all of us.

Cookies spread too much:

1 Always place cookies on a cool baking sheet

2 Replace part of the butter in the recipe with shortening

3 If using margarine, check label and make sure it contains 80% vegetable oil

Cookies don’t spread enough

1 Use all butter instead of shortening or margarine

2

I took the day off work the other day to experiment with making mini pies with my daughters. We’re having a party later this year and we would like to serve pie, however whole pies don’t serve very many and slices of pie require plates and forks and can be messy. So mini pies it was!

We spent the afternoon experimenting with flavors, we should have tried different sizes. We spent the afternoon in conversation and cooperation. We spent a pleasant day tasting and talking and planning and just

Refrigerate bar cookies briefly after cooling to make the slicing easier.

Cookies can be frozen up to 6 months in the freezer if wrapped in aluminum foil or in a zipper lock plastic bag

To prevent cookies from darkening too much on the bottom, use shiny aluminum cookie sheets. Or double the pans, stacking the pan with the cookies on it on top of another cookies sheet. this slows down the process and results in more even baking. If you must use a dark baking sheet, reduce the oven temperature