Don't Say I Didn't Warn You!

Recently I finally got my hands on enough rhubarb to make my annual rhubarb cookies. I mentioned them on Facebook and immediately people commented that they had never heard of rhubarb cookies before, and they asked for the recipe.

Well, I have given out this recipe many times but I do so with reluctance as I usually get a complaint later that it didn't turn out. It didn't turn out because people think they know what they are doing and don't follow the recipe. This recipe has to be followed if you want any kind of success. Do what it says, in the order it says to do it, Don't skip things. Be prepared to start the night before you plan to bake. If, by chance you end up with not enough liquid in the cooking pot after draining the required amount off, add just enough back into the pot to keep the rhubarb from sticking. You don't want this saucy. The rhubarb can be steamed, instead of stewed.. Be sure not to overcook it as you want it tender but still firm enough to be able to stir it into the dough.

Here's the recipe. Good luck.  I'd be happy to hear of your success!

                                                        Rhubarb Cookies

1/2 cup margarine                                          
1 cup brown sugar                                          
1 egg                                                         
1 cup cooked rhubarb, drained ***                
2 cups flour                                                     
1/4 tsp salt                                                         
1 tsp baking soda                                           
1 tsp nutmeg                                                  
1 tsp cinnamon                                                  
1/2 tsp ground cloves                                    
1 cup raisins          

*** Note:  It is important to cook the rhubarb as follows:
Slice 4 cups of rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces.
Toss with 1/2 cup of sugar.
Let steep overnight. Pour off 3/4 of a cup of the liquid and cook the rhubarb in the remaining juice, just until tender but still holding it's shape (less than 5 minutes).
The rhubarb is then ready to use in this recipe, or others, eat as is, or freeze.                                          

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the egg and beat until light
Stir in rhubarb.
Stir the flour, salt, baking soda and spices together.
Stir the dry ingredients into the rhubarb mixture until the are blended.
Fold in raisins.
Drop the batter by tablespoons onto a greased sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart.
Bake at 350F for 12 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges.

Old Dog, New Tricks

My grandsons love it when I bake something for dessert, so when I came across a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie, I decided that sounded like a good treat for them.  I mentioned it to them and they got excited, and were all ready to help me make it.  But I was missing the main ingredient....the chocolate chips....so they had to wait until I got some.

I picked some up on my next trip to the store, and since the kids were coming back the next day, I decided to do some baking.  I turned the oven on to preheat while I followed the recipe, but when I went to pop it in the oven there was no heat.  My hubby checked the fuses, and then found the switch had burned out.  He had replaced that once before, but this time there were no replacements to be found as the stove was 40 years old.  The pie went into the freezer.

Well, I now have a new stove, with a self cleaning oven.  It even has the convection feature.  The boys will be back tonight for supper, so I took the pie out of the freezer last night to thaw, and popped it in the oven this morning at 5:30am.  I thought I'd have it cooked before the hydro rates change. As there was still someone sleeping I decided to bake the usual way, as I don't know if the convection fan makes a noise or not, and really, I wanted to see if I actually needed it.  I set the timer on the stove, and also set the timer for a couple of minutes earlier on my tablet, since I was planning to read on it elsewhere. 

When the timer went off I was already back in the kitchen.  I pushed the Stop button on the stove, but it kept beeping.  It took several seconds for me to realize it was the tablet timer that was beeping.  I shut that off, but figured I'd already disturbed the one remaining sleeping body in the house by then.  Moments later the stove timer also went off.  Why didn't the Stop button put an end to that, I wondered. I finally hit the Timer button and all was quiet again. You have to realize that I'm not used to these digital settings.  My 40 year old stove had easy to use dials!

I checked the pie, by inserting a knife in the middle.  If it comes out clean the pie is done.  Theknife wasn't clean, but then, the pie was cold from being in the fridge overnight so it's logical that it would need a bit more time.  I gave it another 5 minutes.  Then another 5, and then 10, before I finally noticed that the oven indicator light was no longer lit.  When I had pushed the Stop button, I had turned off the heat in the oven instead of the timer.

I removed the pie, preheated the oven and put the pie back in for a couple more tries.  It finally was finally cooked by 7:50am, so I didn't save any electricity.  It also made a mess of the oven. I'm not sure how as it didn't actually boil over, if you examine the crust.  I expected the smoke detector to go off as the spills really smoked as they cooked onto the bottom of my nice new clean oven. Normally I use a pie ring when I'm baking fruit pies, but I wasn't expecting a mess this time. I opened the windows to let the smoke out and was very glad that the temperature had dropped dramatically since yesterday.
 I asked a lot of questions about self cleaning ovens before I bought one.  People said they don't find they have to actually turn on the self cleaner often, as they just wipe the stove out when there is a spill.  Well, this spill will not simply wipe out.  I tried that.  I even tried the srubby side of a sponge and then a metal pot scrubber, but none of those cleaned up the mess. I'm wishing already it wasn't a self cleaning oven, as a little squirt of Easy Off would take care of that spill, no problem.  I'm apparently going to be using the self cleaner a whole lot sooner than expected and probably a whole lot more often than the people I've been speaking to.  Normally I'd be worried about baking this mess on even more with the dinner I have planned, but since the self cleaner is going to incinerate it anyway, I guess that's not a concern. 

I guess I'll learn how to use this new fangled gadget sooner or later but I can't say that I'm off to a good start.

Trend Micro Update

I have been using Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security for a month now It has generated a monthly report, to let me know what it has been able to prevent.  In the past month it has apparently blocked 9 Web Threats and terminated 1 Unauthorized Change.  It has also eliminated well over a hundred cookies I didn't set up.  It left the good ones though, and I was still able to be recognized by all my favorite sites.  This report can easily be expanded to see exactly what has been eliminated.

This morning I decided to finally do the System Tune up. I had been putting that off as I wasn't sure just what it would change.  But I see it created a Restore Point, so if I find things don't work as they should, I can always put the computer back into the state it was before it got tuned up. 

Well, the tune up freed up 4.07GB of space.  That's a lot, and I'm impressed.  But it also got rid of what I consider to be my good cookies.  I find I now have to log in to the many sites I go to that require a password, as the system no longer automatically recognizes me. I hope I can remember all my passwords, or I'll have to have those sites e-mail them to me.  Once I'm in, of course, their system will remember me again....until the next tune up anyway.  Trend Micro lets you schedule that for once a month, but I'm not sure I'll allow that yet. 

Another thing I notice is that I now have to type in the URL's I go to on a regular basis.  I have not had to do that in a long time, as Internet Explorer 8 remembers those for you, and auto finishes the web address. Well, I'll have those all reestablished soon too, as I do tend to go to many of the same sites day after day. 

One wonders though, since I now see the green highlighted go ahead and click links quite clearly, how I managed to hit so many possible web threats.  Well, okay, so I get a lot of newsletters with links and yes, I enter a fair number of contests, and.....okay so I admit I did hit a few of those grey links as well as the green ones. I did see some links highlighted in red, and avoided those though.  One has to wonder how much trouble I got into before I had Trend Micro to protect me!

I am a BzzAgent and this has been an update on my original blog posting on this product.  If you should happen to want to try Trend Micro Titanium yourself, use the discount code "BZZ30"