Thursday, December 07, 2006

I have gone to the dogs.

Me, the least domestic person I know, the person who vowed to never settle down, has a kid, a cat, a husband, and a knitting blog.

And now I'm posting recipes. Life, as I ever knew it, is over.

Ah well. Maybe another tattoo will cheer me up.


BUZZY'S DATE COOKIES FROM HELL: (Buzzy was my mother's nickname.)
Mix:
1/2 cup butter
2 beaten eggs
1 cup white sugar.

Heat in a good-sized skillet. (I use a #10 cast iron skillet.)

Add an 8 oz package of dates, cut into small pieces.

Cook for five minutes, stirring constantly. Your arm will want to fall off.

Gradually add 1/3 cup of flour, still cooking and stirring until thick, seven to ten minutes. At this point it will look like boiling vomit. You were warned.

Stir in:
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped nuts (I say pecans, she always said walnuts)
2 1/2 cups rice crispies (yes, rice crispies)

Mix it all into a sticky, unholy mess. Keep slightly warm so it doesn't congeal, and roll into small strawberry shapes, using greased hands. It's best to get two or three people at work on that, or you'll wind up with the rest of the gunk solidified in the bottom of the pan.

Roll them in red sugar, and pipe on little green leaves. (Lazy method, roll into balls and cover with colored sprinkles.)

Best eaten at room temperature.


I have no idea where my mother got this recipe (though it may come from her sister, the woman who makes sauce for Swedish meatballs with hot sauce and grape jelly). It's unlike anything else I've ever encountered. But if you have the patience to make it, a few little strawberries tucked into a cookie plate gives it real pizzaz, and you can play 'guess the ingredients' with people for hours.

10 comments:

Bells said...

Oh yum. I think I would very much like to make those!

Question, what is red sugar????

Julie said...

It's just regular granulated sugar, colored red, for the holidays. You can get green too.

Don't you guys have that in Oz?

Bells said...

Apparently not! I'll ask around but I've not seen it. That said, I'm fairly new to baking (just got a decent oven for the first time this year) so I've not explored the possibilities of baking much. Will look around!

I have a six year old neice coming to visit for the weekend. I reckon she'd find this fun!

April said...

Umm. Umm.

That's the most bizarre recipe I've ever seen.

Dates AND rice crispies?

It's not nice to play jokes on your devoted readers, ya know.

debsnm said...

Words escape me - totally NOT my Gramma's recipe, and I'm trying to figure out how strawberries fit into Christmas - but I don't think I'm functioning on all cylinders today.

Anonymous said...

I will leave those to the experts, thank you...but they sound...uhm...weird. (If you look at my profile, you'll see that I"m all for weird...)

Alwen said...

Weird, I am posting Polish menus on my blog today!

I'm told you can color sugar by taking granulated white sugar and mixing food coloring with it. But since I am also known as "Can't Boil Water" Woman, you should probably take that with several salt shakers' worth of salt.

Julie said...

I think the reasoning on the strawberries/Christmas thing is, they're red and green (if you go the whole nine yards and put on the icing leaves). Plus it might be a throwback to marzipan fruit, which is also popular this time of year.

These things are famous among family friends, and no one's had them in close to ten years, because I never made them and Mom didn't after she got sick. If I go to Ohio and word gets out I've got date cookies, I'm going to get mugged.

I am so not making a double batch.

Julie said...

Oh - and the REAL irony? I'm deathly allergic to strawberries. My tongue swells up, I can't breathe, and I get hives.

Anonymous said...

Research that tattoo--I love tats with stories!