New Cookies

I've been expanding into the gourmet cookie world over at Teefers Treats. This summer I'm going to be in my kitchen developing new cookies.

In celebration of the season I've also launched ice cream inspired cookies. I'd really love some feedback on these. I picked several popular ice cream flavors(14 to be exact) and made them into cookies.

Can't wait to go live with them. (Okay, okay, I can't wait to bake up the first batch and NOMNOM!)

Looking for Guest Bloggers

In an ideal world, we'd all have exactly the support we needed to breastfeed. I wish I'd had more knowledge in my hands when I had my son. This might be a company, but it is DEFINITELY a company that cares. I'm opening up a community portal for parents with a forum and useful links and articles for breastfeeding support. In celebration, I'd like to offer articles written by guest bloggers celebrating breastfeeding. If you're interested in writing a guest blog for Teefers or have a relevant website you want linked on my new website ( http://www.teeferstreats.com ) please contact me at sales@teeferstreats.com. I appreciate all of the support I'm receiving on this and am truly excited to be opening this great knowledge bank for women.

And if you formula feed, don't worry, I love you too and there's a place for you in all this! Stay tuned!

Midnight Snack

So I realized the other night my dad MIGHT be an insomniac. For those of you just tuning in, I live at home with my two children and my parents -- loving, funny, but often completely irrational and illogical people.

Anyway, on Friday nights my daughter goes to spend the night with her grandparents, which means my breast pump and I get to be best friends ALL NIGHT LONG! YAY ME! I go to bed at 11 and when I get up at 2 am, my dad is up, on his computer, probably talking to Brits and other insomniacs.

Guess what he's doing?

Eating cookies. That's right. He's got the bag of double chocolate crevice cookies that my son has dubbed 'rock cookies' (After a week I'll admit they still tasted great but were quite hard on the outside) and h is chowing down while he squints at his shiny interwebz box in the dark living room.

He doesn't realize I'm on to him. Shhh.

You know what I love? Reviews.
And we've had two great ones in two days!

Check out beautiful babywearing mama Jami doing a video review here

And Mama Bargain on her blog, This Mama Loves Her Bargains for a review and a chance to win 2 dozen cookies!

And keep your eyes peeled, I've got more great tales from my kitchen coming up. :)

Bananas For Bananas...Or Not

I'm fairly sure my son just likes to peel bananas. I have now bought six bananas for the purpose of baking with only to have Alexander peel them, take a bite, and throw the rest away. Needless to say, I'm quite angry about this. Every time he finds one of my cleverly hidden bananas and comes to me asking if he can have it, I scream NO! with the futility of someone trying to resist the Borg. He's already peeling it before the Nnnnn is out of my mouth and someone's hit Slo-Mo while I tuck the baby under my arm like a football and swipe at him like a Mother bear going after a cougar.

The last victim fell this morning. I managed to rescue my cub -- er, banana -- just as he was cracking the tip open. I put it up with the intention of baking with it today. Alas, he found it and dumped the peel on the table. While I'm screaming in rage (And trying to chase him down with the baby held awkwardly to my breast still eating) he breaks it in half, crams the bottom half in his mouth, and chucks the top half (that is a little brown at the very tip from being exposed to the air) in the garbage. If he'd done a touchdown dance it wouldn't have surprised me in the least.

He's lucky he's so cute. And bananas are fairly cheap.

Well THAT was a fiasco.

So Wednesday I bought a new cookie scoop. It was like a monkey with a banana. I HAD to make a batch of cookies just to try it. Of course, then my SON had to try it. But the beauty of it was that I NEVER HAD TO PUT MY FINGERS IN COOKIE DOUGH!!!

Yes. That was worth the caps. See, I'm OCD. I wash my hands every 5 seconds when making cookies. I can't stand the stuff on my fingers, and dropping cookie dough onto the pan is definitely messy. Plus, now all my cookies are a uniform size and exactly a serving (For those keeping track, that's a tablespoon, which is 1/8 of a cup. Which is not a lot of cookie, I'm afraid, but we live in a portion confused society....which is a blog for another day.)

Well anyway...I'm excited.

So, I'm making lac cookies with my new cookie scoop. But what do I need 82 cookies for? Seriously, they're good. I will eat them all. By myself. (Point of fact, I am eating the very last one while I type this). So I decide it's a FABULOUS time to get those samples out to the bloggers who are doing reviews. I whip out my sewing machine! I whip out my cotton! I whip out my ruler! I cut out my fabric, sew up the bags, go to stick my cookies in...They're too small. So I cut out a bigger one. Still...too small.
Screw it. I go back to baking. I left my graham dough out too long while I was breastfeeding the baby, and it doesn't want to roll nicely so it takes me forever to cut a dozen cookies. While they're baking I finish the rest of the dough, which is getting more and more resistant every second and I'm getting stressed because the baby has made it very clear it is 9 o'clock and thus her bedtime. I get the second batch of cookies in (the last of which I didn't even bother to roll but just mooshed into a flattish shape with my hand) and wait impatiently for it to finish.
Okay, I'm done, I give up, I throw a dish towel over the second batch that isn't going out as a sample and leave it on the counter. I take my daughter (who is very upset at this point in her high chair) and my son (who is reenacting the aftermath of a hurricane in my living room) to bed.

In the morning, fresh and well rested, I get up and cut an even BIGGER bag. Okay, finally success. Whew.

So, good, it's about noon by now. Determined not to pay $10.70 in shipping per box at USPS for cookies that weigh less than a lb, I head over to Wal Mart and buy some boxes that are a little more appropriate in size. Of course, I have to buy packaging tape too. Of course.

I get to the Post Office and proceed to pack up my cookies into their shipment boxes....only to discover the boxes are bigger than I anticipated and I don't have enough bubble wrap to fill in the spaces. (Which is exactly why I will be shipping with biodegradable packing peanuts from now on.) And of course they don't have any packing peanuts for sale. So I must buy their $3 bubble wrap. Which is, fortunately, juuuust enough to fill up the boxes enough to keep my cookies from (hopefully) breaking on the trip. I hope. So with the bubblewrap and postage, I still have come out less than flat rate priority shipping. But not by much.

Lesson learned. When in doubt.... buy more bubble wrap while you're still at Wal Mart.

Fortunately, the custom sized sample boxes I bought came today. And my packing peanuts will be here some time very soon. So hopefully this will be the last 'OMG what else will go wrong' entry for awhile.

I think I'll finally get around to those low fat chocolate crinkle cookies tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Wednesday Winner

Congratulations to this week's winner, Valerie! :)

Vote now!

All right, my loyal followers. Here's your chance to have a say in my next experiment. Leave a comment below telling me what kind of cookies you want to see in the Etsy store next!

Here's the choices:

Teething cookies --
Banana crescents
Vanilla stars

Low fat --
Chocolate crinkles
Apple spice

Milk boosters--
Maple date roll

Or if you have another suggestion, let me know!

Confess, You Loved Them

The new granola spice cookies I made did not last the afternoon the first time I made them. I single-handedly ate almost the whole batch of cookies. For the record, that's 24 cookies.

My dad has the gall to tell me they're good, but not as good as my lactation cookies, while I'm cramming these things down my gullet. I tell him with crumbs falling out of my mouth 'It's a prototype batch, the next batch will be perfect.'

He scoffs and walks away.

And takes another cookie with him.

Do You Love Free Things?

Of course you do!
Teefers Treats will be giving away gift vouchers every week until the end of june for a free order of cookies(Up to a $10 value).

There's several ways to enter!
Check out totteefers.etsy.com and let me know which tasty treat you like the best and leave a comment!

Want additional entries?

Twitter:
*Follow me on twitter. Leave a comment with your name below!
*Tweet this message:
I'm going to #win #free treats from @totteefers! You could win some too! #clothdiapers #breastfeeding http://tinyurl.com/25jep87
And link your tweet in a comment! You may enter this way daily!

Facebook:
*Like our page on Facebook, leave a comment!
*Share our page, and leave a comment. You can also do this daily!

Winners will be selected every Wednesday, so start entering now!

Madilyn rockin her Thirsties Duo Wrap for Ellen!

Want a deal?

For one week only starting May 17th, order a dozen cookies and get the second dozen free!

Now available from the shop, $0.50 samples! (Just pay a nominal shipping fee).

Broken Dentures,

Ever have one of those days? I had one on Monday. My prototype batch of biscotti was a flop. Way too hard. Not enough egg. It's been lingering on the tea tray where all my experiments and leftovers from orders sits around until somebody risks their waist line (and their taste buds.)
But there's two sad old little biscotti still sitting there, just waiting. My father, you should know, has no teeth. None. I think they pulled the last one when I was 8. You've never wanted to have better dental hygiene after seeing THAT, I can tell you. Not the point. My dad passes over the delicious cherry cordial cookies. And the orange puffs. Passes over the oatmeal lactation cookies even, and those are his favorite. What does he go for? Not the NEW biscotti -- the good, tasty, perfectly light and crunchy biscotti. NO! The old, stale, too hard to begin with biscotti.

And he breaks one of his teeth off his dentures.

Needless to say, he did NOT volunteer to try the graham crackers to make sure they tasted okay. (Which they did. Yum! My TestBaby turned into a cookie monster when offered one.). He comes home the next morning from the dentist and tells me I should call it my $120 biscotti.

I doubt my customers would appreciate the joke.