How did the evening turn out? Pretty good

First of all, I must thank Leslie for two excellent points in her comment on yesterday's post:

One could argue that blogging about it all uses more of the precious commodity (time, not coconut) ... And the mosquitoes would have been out in the mist and (although you probably don't taste like coconut) you would have been eaten if any gardening had happened.

I never even thought of mosquitoes! Now I'm certain I made the right choice; the same choice, incidentally, that I made tonight, as the weather and my mood are much the same as yesterday.

As for the time issue, I was actually thinking about that while I was writing! Yesterday's post was one of those times when writing helped me organize all the randomness that was bouncing around in my head, so I think it was time well spent. But I can't deny, it took a little while to do. An investment, perhaps, in the smoothness of my evening.

And was it smooth, you ask? Well, pretty much so. I did have one slight meltdown when I had an issue with the cookies (mainly because I was so tired), but I pulled myself together and headed it off.

To start at the beginning, I watched a little Doctor Who while performing kitty maintenance with a revolving cast of felines (they trade off the lap, sometimes). Between episodes, I made dinner, and even managed to do some of the dishes once the pasta was in the oven (usually I don't accomplish that, and regret it later). Another episode while eating dinner, and then I started the cookies. They did go pretty well, it's just that the dough was somewhat ... resistant to stirring by the time I was mixing in the oats, Rice Krispies, and coconut. In fact, it didn't want to stick together, and that started to seriously annoy me after a while. They were coming out tasting good, but crumbly around the edges, and it was hard to get it to stay together as I was getting it onto the cookie sheets, and I was on the brink ... but I took a step back, put the rest of the dough in the fridge for another time, and just stopped.

And they do taste good! I stuck raisins in a couple of them, and that was just as good as I thought it would be, so when I work with the rest of the dough, I'll try to get them in, too. They're called Ranger Cookies, and the recipe was in A Taste of Home magazine, which one of my co-workers gets and really likes. I love the meatloaf recipe she gave me, and these cookies are keepers, too.

If only the dough would stick together.

Maybe it will work better cold? Probably not, but I can dream.

Anyway! After I chilled out a bit, I turned to the hockey game just in time for the end, by which I mean I saw about the last three seconds of the game, and then all the whooping and hollering by Detroit, followed by all the Cup-hoisting a girl could ask for. (Unless said girl was a Penguins fan, but of course I'm not.) It was fun to watch. Now, except for the NHL awards next week, and the draft after that, I'll be in hockey-withdrawal until training camp. It's my least favorite part of summer, the hockey-less-ness of it.

Finally, about Amy's cookie-related question:

I am allergic to coconut, so health benefits or not, none of that in THIS house. But I always wonder, because so many yummy-looking recipes contain coconut, can I just omit it without causing something dire to happen within the cookie?

I think with this recipe, you could easily leave out the coconut without changing it much. I'm sure that it's hard to be certain with recipes in general, but there's so much packed into these (shortening, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, oats, Rice Krispies, aaaand coconut*), although I like the coconut, it's not really super-noticeable.

*All of which are still sitting on my kitchen counter, waiting to be put away. The urge to clean up had passed long before I got to the end of the cookie process, or more accurately, before I declared an end to the cookie process.