My “Good Thing”

Martha

Call me Martha instead of Betty today. I discovered this little trick I want to share with you. Sometimes, when I want to add veggies to a dish, I either don’t have fresh spinach on hand or I don’t want to use an entire frozen package. So I invented

SPINACH CUBES!

This amount is the perfect portion to add to soups or top a pizza or calzone. Just soften up the cube of frozen spinach and cut into cubes. Store in a plastic container in the freezer until you need it again. It’s a good thing.

Popcorn Chronicals

We went to the movies yesterday. We don’t do it very often because it typically requires a small loan, but this time we were lucky. We got the matinee price…SCORE! For $5 each, we watched The Adjustment Bureau. It’s not like you think it’s going to be (more religious undertones than governmental, as I was expecting). It’s good and makes for a good date movie. There’s enough action for the guys and enough love story for the girls. The ending is a little predictable and could have been a lot stronger to match up to the rest of the film. What I’m getting around to is that we also shared popcorn and a drink.

This morning I wake up to read that a large popcorn is calorically equal to 3 Big Macs. Holy cow! Thankfully, we didn’t eat the whole thing.

We eat popcorn quite a bit around here. I typically make it in the Whirley Pop.

Whirley Pop

I keep white and yellow popping corn on hand. We season with melted butter and powdered popcorn seasonings like white cheddar and kettle corn.

I also have a box of this on hand from my mom. It’s quite tasty as well, and I love that it’s my namesake. I drew a unibrow on the Frida-looking lady on the box.

Pop Pop!

The boys LOVE popcorn. Tucker does flips, and Oscar waits patiently for his next piece.

This is blurry because he'll bite your fingers off!

Milk and Cookies

A couple of years ago for Christmas, my mom gave me this little jewel. It’s a cookie compendium. One of our favorite recipes is the one for chocolate chip cookies from Neiman Marcus.

COOKIES *nom nom nom*

This cookie has it all. It’s chewy. And crunchy. And delish!

There’s a funny story behind it, too.

The recipe

A mom and her daughter were having a snack at a Neiman Marcus cafe. The cookies they were enjoying were delightful, and the mom asked for the recipe. The server said, “Sure, but we have to charge two-fifty for it.”

The mom got home and checked her credit card receipt. The store had charged $250, not $2.50, for the recipe. She vowed to share it with everyone to get her money’s worth. Who knows if the story is true, but it’s still fun (and delicious).

Milk and Cookies

Preheat the oven to 375.

Ingredients List

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 cups (8 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips (or more to taste)*

Beat the butter and sugar together, and add the egg and vanilla.

Sift together the remaining dry ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix in the chocolate chips.

Drop by the spoonful onto a greased baking sheet (or use parchment paper). Bake for 8-10 minutes.

I use a disher to drop the dough (1.5 teaspoon or 1 tablespoon, depending on desired size). The ones shown above are the smaller size.

*It also calls for 1 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder, which I leave out because Mr. J doesn’t like coffee.