Leprechaun Cookies (and the next part of my move)

So, here I am, in my new office/library in my new apartment.  There's no desk, no table, just two book shelves, my printers, and a butt-load of boxes.  Oh fun.

Today is St. Patrick's Day!  Who is St. Patrick?  No one knows!  No..I'm just kidding.  He was the patron Saint of Ireland.  If you want to know more, History.com has the skinny for you. 

People tend, as I have observed, to celebrate the holiday in two ways.  One, which I don't really have a taste for, is getting drunk.  The other, is turning everything around them green.  Ok, I can do the later.  I have to admit, I'm not wearing green right now, but I'll get to it before I leave the house.  I do, however, have a plate full of green cookies that we've dubbed Leprechaun Cookies.  (Actually, it started as a joke between my partner and I as Leprechaun S@#T because of how they look right out of the oven, but that wouldn't be very Proper, now would it?!)

I'm going to do the cookies first since the next chapter of my story is kind of gross and you may want to skip it.  (it involves us all getting sick)

Leprechaun Cookies

 This was a spur of the moment sort of thing.  I wanted to do something for St. Patrick's day since I missed Valentines day.  But I honestly didn't know what to do!  After pondering over it for some time, I made up my mind on what I would do. 

Remember when I mentioned having too much candy in the house and every time I make an effort to get rid of it, more shows up?  Well, we have this giant bag of Jolly Ranchers that Kana's father gave to her on her birthday.  We hardly touched them and the darned bag has and still is just sitting there, not being eaten.  I decided to incorporate some of these candies into a cookie.  This not only gets rid of a few hand-fulls of candy, but also gets Caleb involved (because whenever the mortar and pestle come out, he loves to get his hands on it). 

What you will need for the cookies:

• 1 C crushed green and blue Jolly Ranchers 
• 1 1/4 C of white granulated sugar
• 1 C butter
• 3 egg yolks
• green food coloring
• 2 1/2 C all purpose flour
• 1 Tsp baking soda
• 1/2 Tsp cream of tartar

What you will need for the icing:

•  3 C confectioners sugar
• 1/4 C water
• 1 Tbsp light corn syrup
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• green food coloring

 What to do:

1. If you haven't already, crush up your jolly ranchers.  You will want a cup of the pieces, not whole jolly ranchers.  I used 35 blue and green ones and crushed them with a mortar and pestle.  Try to get small pieces and shards.  Don't grind it into a powder (although, some will become powder, that's fine.  Put the powder in too)  nor do you want big chunks (when they melt they ooze out of the cookie, so the smaller the pieces, the more candy you keep in). 

2. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

3.Cream together the butter and sugar.

4. Whisk your egg yolks and then add it to the mixer.

5. Add about 3 drops of green food coloring.

6. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and cream of tar tar.

7. Gradually add the dry stuff to the mixer and set it to stir.  Stir only until completely mixed.

8. Remove bowl from  mixer and then add your JollyRanchers.  Mix this with your hands.  It's a very crumbly dough.  Just kind of squish the shards into it.  Be careful because some pieces may be sharp. 

9.  Form into balls just smaller than ping-pong balls and place on a lined cookie sheet 2 inches apart.  Pop them in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.

10. After 10 minutes, check on your cookies.  If they've puffed up nicely and the tops have cracked, pull them out and allow to cool.  Let all of your cookies cool completely before starting on the icing.  Once the candy has cooled, you can break off the rough edges for a nicer looking cookie.

11. Once the cookies have cooled, you can  either eat them, or put some of this yummy icing on them.  Simply mix all of the icing ingredients together in a large sauce pan and heat over a low flame until the candy thermometer reads 110 F.

12.  Then, pick up your cookie with a large fork and hold it over your sauce pan.  Spoon the icing over the cookie until you are happy with the coating.  Let drip until it stops and then transfer to your plate so the icing can harden.  Tada!! Leprechaun S@#T... er.. I mean, cookies.  

 Ok, now back to my story:

We had finished up with the lease, and were very excited to move!  I called my family to tell them the good news.  Earlier, when I had spoken with my father, he had said he'd be glad to help me move.  My mother and brother live in Texas, so they couldn't do much, but my father, who would be coming from New Jersey, was only four hours away.  So, when I told him it was official, he made the offer to come down either the following weekend or the week after.  Naturally, I wanted to move ASAP, so I arranged to have him come down that weekend. 

Well, Thursday rolled around and we decided to move some stuff in Kana's car.  (My car was in the shop and would continue to be in there for two weeks.  Why?  I never got a straight answer from the mechanic)  We got Caleb's TV moved and a few other things.  We also had to do some major cleaning.  The place wasn't too too bad, but carpets needed to be cleaned, so did windows and baseboards.  I still haven't cleaned all of the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen. 

Look at how dirty that window was before Kana scraped it clean!

It was some time in the late evening when things went sour.  Caleb had been complaining about not feeling well, but he tends to do that a lot when he's forced to do something other than play video games, so we only payed minimal attention to his whining.  Besides, he was doing fine watching movies on his TV in his new room while we were in the master bedroom, cleaning things up.  Then all of a sudden, we hear, "Mooom? I don't feel good."  And then the carpet was ruined.  We quickly made it to his side, helping him to the bathroom since the only bucket we had here was occupied by cleaning water.  We did our best to comfort him, but it kept coming.  The poor child couldn't stop vomiting for several minutes. 

Finally, it died down long enough to clean him and the carpet up and get the bucket emptied in case there were more upchucks (which there were...many many times)  We asked if he wanted to go home, but he said he didn't feel well enough to go(even though it's literally a 26 second drive from our new apartment to the old).  So, we wrapped him up in a few blankets, put on the Wiggles on his TV and let him rest for a while.  I called off work the next day so I could be with him while he recuperated.

He slept for a few hours, waking up now and again to dry heave and then fall back out.  We couldn't stay the night, though.  There were no blankets for Kana and I nor food or anything else for that matter. With a bit of a struggle, we got him bundled up, out the door, and to the old apartment where we all crashed from exhaustion. 

The next day wasn't awful (at least not until night time).  Caleb got sick only a few times.  We slept in.  Kana went to work.  I set him up with some chicken noodle soup and some water and then took him to the doctors.  The doc said he probably just had a stomach virus and to just keep him hydrated, not worrying about food.  He recommended Gatorade.  So we went out to get Gatorade, checked out a few stores and he was doing just fine.  I offered to take him to get a new stuffed animal since he was doing so well.

We went to the store and he quickly headed over to the basket of stuffed toys and dug around for a few seconds while I lingered at the kitchenware only a few yards away.  Then I heard a familiar sound.  It was the tone of his voice when he called out, "mom.." 

Luckily it only hit the floor and the stuffed animals were spared.  Luckily, as well, the staff was very kind and patient while we cleaned up the mess.  While we cleaned, he found his new friend from the basket and we left...quickly. Later, when Kana got home, we all went out mattress shopping and picked out new beds for all of us.  We even had it arranged to have Caleb's bed delivered the next day.  Our Queen sized bed would have to wait till next Saturday, so we went out and bought an air mattress for us to sleep on for the week.

The rest of the afternoon went without incident.  Thank goodness. 

Of course, later in the evening, it hit -me-.  Oh - my - god.  It was awful.  I suddenly had a new respect for Caleb after experiencing it and thinking back on how well he handled it.  I didn't handle it well at all.  Of course, I never do. I have a tendency to get incredible panic attacks when I'm feeling woozy, intoxicated, etc etc..(which is why I don't drink).  I had a really bad one and ended up on the floor.  When Kana came to help me, I somehow managed to kick her in the head while getting up, ran through the old apartment, hit the wall and collapsed.  It was a very long night.  I had to take off work again.

The next morning, after having taken care of me all night, poor Kana got sick as well.  We became a household of plague victims.  I called my dad and warned him to stay away.  Saturday was a sick day.  Sunday was a sick day.  Honestly, it took us almost the rest of the week to feel better. 

Anyway, that's it for this chapter.  Next chapter I'll be talking about Metro Mattress and my struggle to get my new bed. Happy St. Patrick's Day!