Don't Mess With my Puppy!

image from www.montessaurus.ca/

We took Sally to her second Puppy School class on Saturday, and much like the first class, she was the loudest, most boisterous pup there.

On the flip side, she was also the only pup there that already knows sit, lay down, shake and watch me. Granted, this was our second go at this class because we had to restart the classes; We attended her first class and then missed the next two, making Sally a puppy school delinquent right from the start. But, she is also the only pup in class that reliably, vocally signals when she has to go potty. So take that, you other puppy-parents!

We got lots of those looks from the other puppy-parents each time Sally yelped or whined from boredom and I suppose it resonated somewhere deep within my psyche, because that night I had a dream that we were at puppy school, and all the puppy-parents were pointing at Sally and making fun of her. In my dream they were calling her names and laughing...following her around and harassing her. Not that much unlike a certain football player I can remember from my own high school experience: following me around the hallways "mooooing" and making barnyard animal sounds at me, calling me a cow and a big fat pig...It was horrible and I was pissed! I just wanted to protect Miss. Sally Sue from their cruelty. I knew she was smarter than their little cowardly pups, all nestled up in their parent's laps, afraid to set paws on the floor. Not my Sally Sue! She was raring to go and willing to learn whatever the trainer threw at her.

I don't know if my dream is any indication that Sally will be as much trouble for us as I was for my parents (God, I hope not), or if it means that I identified with her scenario, or if I've simply been using Facebook a bit too much lately and finding all these people from high school has resurfaced some memories that I thought were long since buried, but either way, I know that my protective instinct kicked into high gear, and I triple dog dare anybody to stand in the way of my pup and me now!

Little Debbie's Got Nuthin' on ME!

You know those Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies...the ones that you got in your lunch box when you were a kid. The ones that were all chewy and gooey and full of white, fluffy, sweet-creamy goodness.


Yeah! That's the ones.
I effin' love those things. I mean I could probably eat the whole damned box of them if I was left alone with them and a carton of milk. But the thing is, Little Debbie also makes all sorts of peanut butter yummies, which means with the Wifester's peanut/tree nut allergy it's just too dangerous to try to eat these and hope they didn't come into contact with the equipment that also processed the peanut butter bars, or fudge brownies, or any other potentially life threatening delectable.
For a couple of years I have simply reminisced about the good old days of lapping the cream from between those two soft, chewy cookies. Smushing the middle to get even distribution of the white, fluffy heaven throughout each and every last bite...

And then something amazing happened:
My sister in law gave me a Kitchen Aid mixer!
Best. Present. Ever!
Armed with that I've been experimenting with all sorts of goodies.
I have finally mastered a superb pizza dough and have vowed never again to order from any of these lame-ass "pizza" places around here. Sorry Pizza Hut, Papa John's, and Domino's, but that is NOT pizza.
I even made a few loaves of bread, and one of them actually turned out pretty darned good!
But the best, the most amazing thing... The thing that has me blogging instead of studying has been the Oatmeal Cream Pies, Little Debbie style that I whipped up the other day.
I can't keep my hands out of them!

If you have fond memories of Oatmeal Cream Pies, try this recipe, you won't be sorry! I think these are even better, and they don't have that preservative-filled, chemical taste. Oh, there's a few recipes floating around out there, but I did my usual thing and found a few that were good, combined them, tested and tried and here we go:

For the Cookies:

2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar ( I used light, but I think dark would be good too)
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup molasses ( I didn't have molasses, so I used maple syrup)
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups flour (I even used whole wheat, and they were FABULOUS)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups quick oats

For the Cream Filling:

2 tsp. hot water
1/4 tsp. salt
7 oz. marshmallow cream
1/2 cup shortening (hey, I said they were good, not good for you)
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla


First, heat your oven to 350 degrees. Then, in a large bowl you want to cream your butter, sugars and molasses. Add the vanilla and eggs. Next, add flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon mixing well. Add the oats to the mixture. Now you drop the batter by tablespoon fulls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Be sure to give them each plenty of room to expand, otherwise you'll end up with misshapen cookies. They're still good, but not so pretty. Bake these puppies at 350 for about 10 -12 minutes. You want them to still look moist, and be just starting to brown around the edges. Be sure you don't over cook them, or you'll end up with little crispy wafers.
While those cook, dissolve your salt for the cream filling in a bowl with the hot water. Add the rest of the ingredients for the filling and mix until very fluffy.

When your cookies are cool enough to lift from the sheet without breaking, assemble by adding a dab of cream filling on the bottom of one cookie then placing another cookie on top.

Go ahead...go make em right now!