Crazed In the Kitchen: Wholly Half-Assed Valentines Day Cookies   

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Wholly Half-Assed Valentines Day Cookies

It’s important to start holiday traditions early, when your children are young. That way, they’ll have years and years of memories to talk about with each other and their therapists. So, while I’d like to say that we have established some warm and fuzzy holiday traditions for our family, the truth is there’s really only one constant…

We ALWAYS half-ass it. Every holiday, every time.

Like, you won’t see any fun or scary Halloween decorations on our house in October. Last year I finally got my butt to Target and bought a few signs that say “BOO!” which you *might* see if we remember to turn the porch light on.

And, until recently, the only Christmas tree we had was a pathetic two-foot tall fake plant that we set on a table and surrounded with garbage. This year we had a full-size fake tree, which was great because Santa got lazy about wrapping some of the baby’s presents and this happened:
C'mon, Santa. Get your sh*t together.
And St. Patrick’s Day? My kids barely know that it exists.

Needless to say, Valentines Day has been mostly a non-event around here. I always buy little cards for the boys to give out at school, but that’s it. No heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, no trail of paper hearts leading from their bedroom door to the kitchen, no “Love Tree” with heart-shaped leaves bearing messages of love from me to them. All of those things sound pretty awesome, actually, but…come on. WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT STUFF??

So, I felt like Mother of the Freaking Year last week when I decided we should make heart-shaped cookies for Valentines Day, using an easy recipe I found on—where else?—Pinterest.

And let me just say that “recipe” is really stretching the meaning of that word. If you do this right, there is almost no work involved. No mixing, no measuring, no sifting.

(No flavor, either, which is an unfortunate and somewhat important detail that I’ll tell you more about later.)

So how do you make these only sort-of ok cookies? It’s easy!! Just use the leftover pie crust scraps from your annual heart-shaped chocolate Valentines Day pie! Or, if you’re an “efficient” baker like me, use the leftover premade frozen pie crust from the two-pack you bought at Christmas that has been taking up space in your freezer since then. Use cookie cutters to cut out hearts, brush the “cookies” with melted butter, and sprinkle with colored sugar or other fun Valentines-themed decorations.
Hearts and...caterpillars?
We used green sugar, obviously.

Bake them a little too long at 350 degrees, then chisel them off the cookie sheet and let them cool. If you’re angling for a hot Pinterest-worthy photo, use some store-bought white icing to trace your kids’ initials on two of the cookies, then snap a fuzzy pic with your phone. Serve them to your kids, and watch their faces fall in disappointment as you all realize that these are NOT COOKIES, they are over-cooked pieces of crappy pie crust sprinkled with green chemicals. Put them in a zip-lock bag on the counter for a week, then throw them away because no one will eat them.

So. It seems that we have managed to continue our tradition of celebrating holidays in the most half-assed fashion. The good news, I guess, is that my kids are still probably too young to remember this disaster, so I’ll get another chance next year. In the meantime, I’ll just start pinning some fun St. Patrick’s Day ideas…
Never going to happen. (credit: http://christiepepper.com/?s=St.+Patrick%27s+Day)

13 comments:

  1. This is hilarious! At least you're consistent in your half-assedness. Sets the expectations low, right? As soon as you said "pie crust", I knew exactly how shitty these cookies were going to taste, because I've done something similar. Hey, maybe you could save those bricks and use them as leprechaun poop?

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    1. Seriously, I will eat almost ANY cookie and I wouldn't eat these. They were that bad.

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  2. I never enjoyed baking with my girls. (Does that make me a horrible mom?) It is too much work & too messy. But every Friday night, we had "movie night". We would pile out blankets & pillows on the floor, pop popcorn, have Cokes & chocolate & that is the one tradition they always talk about. Even their friends loved to stay the night on Friday night & they always asked, "is it movie night?"

    So even though I don't like baking, I do think it is important to create memories. So keep it up!

    Stopping by from VoiceBoks!

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    1. I love the idea of a movie night--that is a tradition I definitely want to start someday!

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  3. This gave me a good laugh. I love your comment, "...they’ll have years and years of memories to talk about with each other and their therapists." I think about doing little fun things like this for every holiday, but it just doesn't happen consistently. But the ones that do happen, my kids seem to remember fondly. So I guess I'll keep at it!

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    1. I love that attitude--each year I try to make sure we do at least a little *something* for most holidays, and the kids love it no matter what it is!

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  4. This is hilarious! I love your choice of green sugar for the Valentine's Day theme :) Awesome!

    It's great that you're making an effort for the sake of memories. And no matter how these cookies turn out, your kids will definitely think more highly of them than you do. Kids are sweet that way.

    Here's a chocolate chip cookie recipe that never fails and is perfect for those who don't like to bake, cause it's easy and doesn't require and shaping of cutting. They're not thematic, but then again I've never been a fan of themes, with Valentine's being my least favorite :)

    http://www.marthastewart.com/344840/soft-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies

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  5. Ugh...Pinterest always makes it look sooooo pretty. It doesn't matter, though! They'll remember you tried and you guys can laugh about it later!

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  6. Oh gosh, I LOVE this! Your craft expertise sounds a lot like mine. I used to think crafts were essential for raising kids, and kept persevering against all wisdom. One year, we tried making decoupage boxes for some reason I can't remember. My son's words were the death knell to my crafting attempts: "Whenever we do crafts, we end up with this huge mess on the table and one pathetic-looking craft in the middle that's nothing like the picture."
    He was so right! We laughed, and gave up then and there!

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  7. Hahaha, so many cool ideas! Sounds like you have a lot of fun there--making everything humorous! It's so much better that way! Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day are usually huge non-events for us as well! LOL. Have a good one!

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  8. I've overdone the sweet stuff Valentine's and your yummy savoury options had been really appealing.

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  9. ROFL I love it! Sometimes I get the bright idea to try out something "Awesome Mom"-worthy from Pinterest, but it almost always turns out like something from the FAIL files. However, I think the laughs create pretty fun memories...just not tasty ones ;)

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  10. Oooo....green toilet water! Ha! Ha!

    We used to leave a box of Lucky Charms and a Gallon of milk on our neighbors front porch on St. Patrick's morning!

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