This Thrilling Life

I was all set to blog today about the unexpected and fabulous snow day we had here yesterday.... until I sat down to think about it and realized that, in fact, there was nothing even remotely exciting about it. Actually, while we're being honest, I've been exceedingly boring all week. (I really had you going with that title though, didn't I?!) In my defense, yesterday was really less a "snow day" and more a "snow afternoon" -- I didn't even get to leave work until 3:00. But those two extra hours were certainly better than nothing, and I was thankful to get out before the roads got too terrible. Once I made it home, I washed some dishes, cleaned up a little bit, and cuddled up on the couch with my favorite feline to watch some TV and take a nap. That's right, I'm a champion of the early evening nap... and so is Toby. Like mother, like son:

I did finally rouse myself around 9:00 and felt the need for some productivity to make up for my lazy evening, so I did what I always do when that urge kicks in: I baked. I've had a box of cornflakes just sitting around since making sweet potatoes for Christmas (another of my favorite recipes!), and I knew exactly how I wanted to use them up -- a batch of delicious cornflake cookies! One of my mom's old recipes, these odd-sounding delicacies were my very favorite growing up. She baked them all the time -- to cheer me up, to send in my summer camp care packages, and she even shipped them off to me when I was in college. There is nothing better than ripping open a box from home and seeing tupperware full of these babies. The other great thing? They are also incredibly simple to make: pretty standard ingredients (if you have cornflakes and coconut) and quick to mix up. Our recipe is a little different than most you'd find floating around the internet, so here are the specifics:

Cornflake Cookies

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup flake coconut
4 cups cornflakes

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease cookie sheets well.  Cream butter and sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla and beat in.  Sift dry ingredients together and cream into butter-sugar mixture.  Add coconut and cornflakes.  Cornflakes will break up when you use the mixer. [I don't have a kitchen-aid mixer (I asked for one for Christmas and my mom snorted with laughter. True story. Something about needing kitchen basics before luxuries. Humph.) and I had no trouble mixing all of this by hand. I typically cream/mix everything by hand when I'm baking, and this was one of the easier recipes to do manually.]  Drop by spoonful onto cookie sheet.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  Remove promptly from cookie sheets.  Makes 75 (small cookies). [I didn't actually make that many last night, but mine were pretty big. I probably got about 40 out of it.]

One important note: these guys spread waaaay out in the oven. Make sure to leave plenty of space between them so they have room to flatten.

I was so focused on eating cooling and storing the cookies after they came out of the oven that I completely forgot to take any pictures of them. You're just going to have to trust me on this: they are pure soft golden-brown heaven.

And that, my friends, was as thrilling as it got around these parts yesterday.

   Love,

    Meg