Slice 'em , bake 'em and eat 'em

By: Sue Doeden , Bemidji Pioneer

It was one of those rare times in my days as a young mother when my infant son was finally taking one of his quick catnaps at the same time his big brother, the kindergartener, was playing by himself, pretending to be a sportscaster announcing a basketball game. This atypical occurrence gave me a little time to bake.

I was just pulling a pan of cookies from the oven when my neighbor stopped by. Her jaw dropped. “You’re baking cookies?” Her voice was filled with incredulousness. “Where’s the mess?”

I’ll admit my kitchen looked quite tidy that day, with not a dirty mixing bowl in sight. That’s because I had pulled slice-and-bake cookie dough from the refrigerator. It wasn’t a cylinder of dough from the grocery store. It was dough I had mixed up one night before I went to bed, rolled into a log, wrapped up and put in the refrigerator until I had time to do some baking. Clean and simple, and just the kind of cookie I needed.

I have been eating “Ice Box” cookies for years. My mom’s best friend, Lois, made the best slice-and-bake cookies in the world. I probably started eating them when I was in first grade. That was when we became neighbors and Lois and my mom became best friends.

I learned to make slice-and-bake cookies when I was in fourth grade. My 4-H group met in the kitchen of our leader, who helped us mix, roll, chill and bake Butterscotch Refrigerator Cookies. I still have the recipe scrawled out in my fourth-grade handwriting on a small index card.

I explained to my friend with the wide eyes that this kind of cookie-baking was my relaxation therapy. All I had to do was pull a log of chilled dough from the refrigerator, slice and bake – fantastically simple. My house smelled like freshly baked homemade cookies, and that’s a formula that can bring peace and happiness to anyone’s day.

I have the card that my mom typed Lois D’s recipe for Ice Box Oatmeal Cookies. At the bottom of the recipe she typed: They are delish! … adding several exclamation points. I’ve added vanilla to the recipe and often add a secret ingredient I learned from famous pastry chef, instructor and cookbook author, Alice Medrich. She stirs a bit of bourbon into cookie dough for mysterious depth of flavor.

The Crunchy Mamacita: My favorite no bake cookie recipe

CRUNCHY : 1. persons who have adjusted or altered their lifestyle for environmental reasons. Crunchy persons tend to be politically strongly left-leaning and may be additionally but not exclusively categorized as vegetarians, vegans, eco-tarians, conservationists, environmentalists, neo-hippies, tree huggers, nature enthusiasts, etc. 2.

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