Becky's Chocolate Crinkles Cookies

These are wonderful, i took them to work last week and everyone loved them!

Ingredients:

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 2 cups white sugar 1/2 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup of almond flour (optional: you can use more white/whole wheat if you don't have) 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:

1.	In a medium bowl, mix together cocoa, white sugar, and vegetable oil. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flours, baking powder, and salt; stir into the cocoa mixture. Cover dough, and chill for at least 4 hours, or put in freezer for 45 mins.
2.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Get hands wet (very important as the dough is sticky!) Roll dough into one inch balls. Coat each ball in confectioners' sugar before placing onto prepared cookie sheets.
3.	Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Take them out right when you think they may need a minute longer. Let stand on the cookie sheet for a minute and they will sink down a little and finish cooking. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Enjoy!

Here it is! The finished curtain!

following a bit of a hiatus, I am back. This winter /holiday season has been full of family, new traditions at Christmas, a slow "parents of preschoolers" new years (i.e. we went to bed before the countdown...sorry) and now getting back into the rhythm of life. I'm doing good. Tonight i almost finished a little project I’ve been working on for a couple weeks... ok that is misleading. I have not been working on it for two weeks. I have been looking at it for 3 weeks, slowing gathering supplies and motivation to actually sit down at my sewing machine and make the girls their new curtains. If you saw them, you would realize that it was more of a "two night" project but, for me, 2-3 weeks is pretty good.

Next week I’m going to be gone for dinner one night. It will be a nice to have a night away from my normal duties, maybe I’ll convince Daryl to cook himself or take the girls out so that i don't have to make dinner either. Isn't it funny how on nights that mothers get "off" we still have to do almost the same work (at the cooking part ...) This Christmas Daryl told me that he is willing to try and learn how to make a couple meals (beyond his current repertoire of .... toast....scrambled eggs... grilled cheese.... tuna/beans/corn/bell pepper stir fry -i know, it sounds weird, but the girls gobble it up and i try to pretend when i walk in the door from work at lunch time that Daryl's concoction is yummy and normal for them to eat ...(i make myself a sandwich on those days) Anyhow, i need to think about how to really encourage this idea of his to make dinner and cultivate this into a wonderful new tradition... "Daddy's Dinner night" or "Daddy's Surprise casserole Night" something fun like that. Unfortunately i know all to well what a little discouragement can do to an idea like this. When Daryl and I first got married he offered to learn how to make 5 dinners. For some stupid reason, i told him that he didn't need to be in my kitchen! Oh naive little wife i was.... what was i thinking! how many times have i kicked myself for turning down his offer... (he has teased me ever since about my lost opportunity and pretty much stayed out of the kitchen) This time around since apparently enough time has passed for my past deflating remarks to drift out of his memory, i'm going to gently seize this opportunity and put some recipes in his path..

More another time….