Lisa, dear Lisa

Pin It Oh, lovely, fair Lisa!

Oh Lisa, who commented and voted on my "Pick the Best o'the Boonies" contest.

Oh, Lisa, who follows many blogs of other Sonlighters!

The only person who voted whose Sonlight username I cannot figure out.

You won the drawing - the Big Bison himself picked your name out of the bowl that contained every name of every person who voted.

But I can't tell you, because I can't figure out which Lisa you are from your comment.

Can you help me, and send me a private message over at Sonlight, so that I can tell you what your MAJOR AWARD is???? And get it in the mail to you?

Please?

Congratulations, by the way!!! I think you're going to love your prize!!!!

Best o' the Boonies: Funniest

Pin It As the year draws to a close, I like to take a few moments to think back over what's happened during the past year, and as I was doing that the other day, I had my blog to help me out! What a great tool! My highs, my lows, my calamaties, my triumphs, all are reflected here in these posts.

But some of you haven't been following this blog all year long, and may have missed some of the more entertaining gems. So, if you're up for reading a little more, I'd like to ask as many of you as possible to vote for your favorite post. Today's category is funniest, and I'm going to leave it up for a few days, and hope to get as many votes as possible. Vote by leaving me a comment.

And if you leave me a comment, I will enter your name in a drawing for a PRIZE I have to give away. I guarantee you, it is a REALLY GOOD prize, almost as good as a MAJOR AWARD, that you will love with your whole heart and soul, and brag about to all your friends. So you definitely want to enter to win.



Here are today's nominees for funniest post, and I have made each title into a link. So choose your favorite, and vote by leaving me a comment with the name of your favorite. Make an informed choice by reading them all again, if you possibly can. I had forgotten how funny some of these are.

Here are the entries in chronological order:


The Bunnies, Mr. Billy, and Mr. Billie's Beagles (January)

Vanity Fair (August)

Susan in the Boonies and The World's Sexiest Man (November)

Cookie Contest Queen (December)

I am also open to write-ins for your favorite funniest post, in case I left something out that you loved.

Vote for your favorite in this category, and in a few days, I'll have another category for you to vote on.

Oh, boy!!! Let the comments/voting begin!!!!!!!!

Over 10,000 Served!

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I've reached a little landmark and just wanted you to know about it. This year, my "little engine that could" blog has had over 10,00 views. It matters not in the least that about 5,000 of those were done by me, checking to see if anyone was actually coming to read what I had written. Well, I may never beat McDonald's in regard to their number of customers served, but my blog is free, and their burgers aren't, so I do have that working for me. So there! And if I can call myself a Cookie Contest Queen when not another soul was competing against me, (see my last blog post) I can certainly trumpet 10,000 views of my blog, no matter who was doing the viewing.

In celebration of this fact, and because a few of y'all have been bugging me about this, I feel I owe my readers the recipe for the second cookie contest that I won where I actually competed against someone. The recipe is called Chocolate Caramel Treasures. It's more involved (read this as: more work) than the Raspberry Shortbread, but it has the "wow" factor in terms of appearance. You see these cookies, and if you love chocolate and caramel, you must have one. I got this recipe from the recently deceased (and much mourned in MY heart) Gourmet Magazine, Christmas of 1999. Beautiful to behold and delicious to eat are my





Chocolate Caramel Treasures

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1/2 cup finely chopped hazelnuts


for Caramel Filling
10 plain caramels, unwrapped
2 tablespoons heavy cream


for Chocolate Drizzle
3 ounces fine-quality semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened) finely chopped


Directions

1. Beat together butter, sugar, yolk, milk, and vanilla with an electric mixer until blended well. Sift in flour, cocoa, and salt and beat on low speed until mixture forms a dough. Chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 350 F.

3. Roll scant tablespoons of dough into balls, then coat with egg white, letting excess drip off, and roll in nuts to coat. Arrange balls, as coated, 1 1/2 inches apart on greased baking sheets and press your thumb into center of balls to flatten, leaving a depression. Bake in batches in middle of oven until puffed slightly but centers are soft, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately press centers of cookies again (we used handle end of a wooden spoon). Transfer to racks to cool.

Make filling while cookies cool

Heat caramels and cream in a small saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until melted and mixture is smooth. Spoon into centers of cookies and cool completely.

Make chocolate drizzle one hour before serving

Melt chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring until smooth. Cool to warm and pour into a heavy-duty sealable plastic bag. Seal bag and snip 1 corner to form a small hole. Drizzle chocolate over the cookies and let stand until set, about 30 minutes. Makes about 2 and a half dozen.

Cookie Contest Queen

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I can't believe I haven't told this story on my self yet.

No, honestly, I really can't believe it.

For today's post, I will once again take off the mask, and reveal a bit more about the depths of my own depravity. Whatever. You might as well know. It's not like most of you haven't figured it out, anyway. I occasionally struggle a wee bit with the whole pride issue. (Please, if you know me, STOP clutching your guts and laughing hysterically. I am gifted and talented in the art of understatement. I know this.)

But I make mention of this character deficit in myself with the almost certain knowledge that most of you share my struggle. So with that tiny, tattered bit of consolation, I attempt to comfort myself.

It all started when my dear husband, the Big Bison, drug me out here to the Boonies to live amongst the wildlife about 4 years ago. We were kinda diggin' the idea of small town life, and so when we saw in our teeny local newspaper that there would be a cookie contest in conjunction with the lighting of the Christmas tree at the local library, we thought, "What fun! We can join in with the citizens of our new small town home town, and welcome in the holiday season!!!"

Now, I've won a pie contest or two or three in my time, and so obviously, I know how to work my oven. So, I thought, "Maybe I should bake cookies, and see how I fare in this contest! It's bound to be a fairly small pool of contestants. I might stand a chance of winning or placing, and it would be a fun way to meet some neighbors, too." So, I baked my cookies the morning of the contest, rushed them the 15 minute drive down the hill to town and dropped them off by the 3:00 PM deadline. While dropping them off, I took a look at the cookies dropped off by another contestant. These cookies looked like they were straight out of a bakery. Perfect in every detail, and expertly decorated. Mine tasted good, I knew, but I wasn't sure they had the visual appeal of these other beautiful cookies. It might come down to taste vs. appearance, and if hers tasted as good as they looked, I was a sure loser, I thought. Thoughtfully, I drove up the hill to fix dinner for my family. The lighting of the tree ceremony started at 7:00 that night, and it was my understanding that it would be accompanied by the community choir singing carols, and the announcement of the winner of the cookie contest.

It was a miserably cold and drizzly night, and we drove down the hill for the event, but arrived about 7:05. The Charlie Brown Christmas tree in front of our little bitty log cabin library stood shivering in the cold, wet mist, already lit, so we missed that....bummer. But I mean, really, it was kind of a sad little tree, so there wasn't much "Wow" factor involved in the loss of watching a string of lights get plugged in. All the folks who had turned out for the event, (my guess would be around a hundred or a hundred and fifty) were huddled on the porch of the log cabin library, blowing smoke from their noses and mouths and feeling their hair frizz or flatten, depending on their own hair issues. The choir was finishing, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", so it seemed to me that this had been a pretty much "take no prisoners" kind of ceremony. It was all over except the cookie munchin' in other words, and people were lining up to do that.

They invited the crowd to line up and partake from the platters of cookies on the tables on the porch, and everyone was filling their plates and napkins as fast as they could. Because we were at the end of the line, all my cookies were long gone by the time my kids got there, but that was OK, I could make more at home. Still, no one was saying anything about who had won the contest. I ran into a neighbor I knew who greeted me warmly and said how glad she was that I had come for the little party. I thanked her, and asked her, "Um...have they already announced who won the cookie contest?" She nodded and said yes, she believed they had, but she hadn't heard the name. I asked her if she would mind going inside and asking the librarian who had won, and she said, "Sure! No problem! Hang on just a minute!" She made her way through the cookie crunching crowd, and into the library, where I saw her lean over the desk and speak to the librarian. She turned around, looked for me, and raised both arms in a victory salute, like Richard Nixon leaving Washington, D.C. for the last time before boarding Air Force One after the Watergate debacle. (This image was chosen for foreshadowing purposes, and to instill a feeling of foreboding. Remember that.)

Yes, indeed. I had won the contest. I was the reigning Cookie Queen of my little 'burg. My body clothed itself in chill bumps. The individual hairs of my remarkably frizzy head of hair (it was unbelievably misty and wet outside)puffed themselves up a little bit more with pride. I straightened my spine, (since I couldn't at that moment straighten my hair) and said, "Well! I won the cookie contest!" and wrapped myself in the joyous deliciousness of the moment.

We had errands to run in town that night, and so we hurried on our way. The next morning, the phone rang, and it was the librarian: "Susan! I was wondering if you would like to come down to the library and pick up your prize? We have a couple of things for you to choose from." "OK! Sure! I can come right down!" I responded.

"Hunh..."I thought, as I got ready to leave and drive to the library. "A couple of things to choose from. That's odd. Oh, well. Who knew there was a prize??? How fun is that!"

I entered the library and began to chat with the librarian. She said, "Congratulations, and welcome to -----ville!" (our town's name). I thanked her, and laughed and said, "Wow! Is this some kind of joke you play on new people who move to your town to help us feel welcome?" She smiled at me, a kind of funny little smile, and said, "You know, you get your name put on this plaque that hangs here in the library." And I thought, whoa! How cool is that!!! I'm immortalized for posterity someplace! And then I said, "You know, I saw that other beautiful platter of cookies when I walked in, and I really wasn't sure my cookies could compete with cookies as nice as those."

"Oh, yes," she said. "Those would be Mary Jo's." (The names have been changed here to protect the talented, but you get my drift) "Yes, she has won the contest every year for five or six years now." My chest, at this point, continues to swell with pride, as she continued her story. "Yes, she has won so many years in a row, that everyone else has dropped out - no one else even enters the contest anymore. But Mary Jo started working at the library this year, so she recused herself from participating."

Silence fell in the room, as I began to consider the implications of what she was saying, combined with the somewhat surprising fact that I had been offered a choice of prizes.

"So.....are you saying that I am the only person who entered the contest???"


She smiled brightly at me, and nodded her head.


How the mighty. are. fallen.

So, having said that.....

Here's my award winning recipe for Raspberry Shortbread.

This recipe comes from the 1999 edition of Southern Living, and despite my story, it really is a winner.

P.S. Two years later, I decided to enter the contest again. And THAT time, from a whole host of other participants, I won again. My name is now inscribed TWICE for posterity on the -----ville library Cookie Contest Plaque. Victory is mine!!!!!



Raspberry Shortbread

Yield: 6 dozen
Ingredients

* 1 cup butter, softened
* 2/3 cup sugar
* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 (10-ounce) jar seedless raspberry jam, divided
* 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
* 3 1/2 tablespoons water
* 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Preparation

Beat butter and sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour, beating at low speed until blended. Divide dough into 6 equal portions; roll each portion into a 12- x 1-inch strip. Place strips on lightly greased baking sheets.

Make a 1/2-inch-wide by 1/4-inch-deep indentation down center of each strip using the handle of a wooden spoon. Spoon half of jam evenly into indentations.

Bake at 350° for 15 minutes. Remove from oven; spoon remaining jam into indentations. Bake 5 more minutes or until lightly browned.

Whisk together powdered sugar, water, and extract; drizzle over warm shortbread. Cut each strip diagonally into 1-inch slices. Cool in pans on wire racks.