Wednesday with Dorie - Lenox Almond Biscotti

The word of the LORD came to me: 

"What do you see, Jeremiah?"  

"I see the branch of an almond tree," I replied. 

The LORD said to me, 

"You have seen correctly, 

for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled." 

Jeremiah 1:11-12 

As usual, I am behind. I meant to make the biscotti yesterday - the proper TWD day, but something came up, and I did not have the time. So today I was determined. Wednesday is also the day for the "Life Group" meeting at our house, so that meant that I would have eaters, and that's always a good thing.

I started out the day trying to straighten up the sitting room on the second floor. I had discovered that when I had asked Annie and Christian to clean the room up, all they had done was shove all the obviously offending objects into the already full closet. And then, after I got that stuff out of the closet I discovered that at some point a great deal of my sewing stuff had been shoved into that closet unbeknownst to me. Things I had really been wondering what happened to them, like the material for the curtains in the back room. And then finally, I discovered boxes of stuff that should have gone to Goodwill, not to the closet.

Well that made for a bit of a mess in the room, but I feel as if I've got a good start on that problem. But I left it in a bit of a mess, though one can now walk into the closet - YES!

It was about 4:30 when I finally got started on the biscotti, as I needed to get the kitchen all cleaned up. Well actually, I got it almost all cleaned up, I tend to lose interest in such endeavors. I got out the cookbook, and the needed ingredients, and as soon as I started the mixer to cream the butter and sugar, Emily heard the noise and came running, saying "Baby try!" She grabbed a chair, shoved it to the mixer area, and climbed up.

I let her push down the creamed butter and sugar, before adding the eggs. I also let her add the eggs, which I placed in a very small bowl for her to us to pour in the eggs, one at a time. She was very conscientious and nothing went astray. We then added the dry ingredients, and she was fine to let me guide her hand as she spooned them in.





We got the dry ingredients all mixed in and I took out the bowl and set it lower, so that Emily could add the nuts. I told her to stir in the nuts.















She carefully sized up the situation and then began to turn the bowl with her left hand as she held the rubber scraper steady with her right hand.









Then Emily got the pan ready to put the dough onto it. She greased the pan a bit so that the parchment would stick.



She did her best to get the dough worked into shape, but she did not like getting her hands so messy. She could hardly wait to get her hands washed.



Final analysis: These were really nice cookies, and I can't wait to make more of them - different flavors just for the fun of it.

"Reality is merely an illusion, 

albeit a very persistent one." 

Albert Einstein