Stress Busting with Oatmeal Scotchies and Project STIR

I bake when life gets stressful. My family can usually tell when I’m under more stress than usual because there are cookies in the house.  Lots of cookies.  

There is a zen to baking: quietly collecting the ingredients, the steady purr of my prized Kitchen maid mixer, and naturally the smell of comfort food. Baking melts my stressful thoughts and unwinds the knots in my shoulders. Cookie making soothes me from start to finish.

My love of baking was a legacy gift from my Grammie.  Grammie brought kindness, comfort, and cookies to many folks over the years.  I remember watching her bake in her tiny Texas kitchen and “helping” by tasting cookies fresh out of the oven to tell her if they were good (they always were).

Memories of Grammie are an essential ingredient to my stress reduction in the kitchen.

My blogger buddy Sarah Shotts is on a mission to rekindle family recipes through Project STIR. Sarah is a young person with a wise soul and a creative eye We met at the Arkansas Blogger Conference and connected through our mutual appreciation of the family/food connection.  Project STIR is a series of documentary films capturing the universal language of love in the family kitchen. The films will take place in kitchens around the world and will tell the stories of Abuelitas, Nans & Mothers passing on their heirloom recipes to the next generation. I am one of Sarah's “Project Stir Ambassadors” promoting the project through social media.  I was eager to participate because of my support of family time, comfort food, and creativity.

In my warming Oklahoma kitchen Grammie and I still connect over her hand written baking recipes even though she passed away many years ago.  My stress busting in the kitchen this week is creating Grammie’s Oatmeal Scotchies – aka “Scotchies.” My family loves this recipe because it is sweet and savory.  Perfect for a fall day. The insider giggle is that I looked all over for this recipe and delighted to find it in her spiral notebook, only later to learn that she copied it from the Nestle Toll House Butterscotch Morsels bag!

Grammie's Oatmeal Scotchies

1 Cup Flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 Cup softened butter
3/4 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla

3 Cups Quick Oats (we like Quaker)
12 oz package of Nestle Tollhouse Butterscotch morsels (!)

Preheat Oven to 375 degrees

In small bowl mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon- set aside. In large bowl beat brown and white sugars, eggs, and vanilla "until fluffy." Gradually add in flour mix from small bowl.Stir in oatmeal and morsels by hand.  Drop by rounded spoonful of dough onto greased cookie sheet.Bake for 7-8 minutes. 

Yum. 

This month my blog focus is on managing stress.From process to product baking has potential for reducing stress for you with the added bonus of creating opportunities to share the love and comfort (cookies) with others.  I hope this inspires you to explore creative ways to cope with stress in your life.  For more information about Project STIR please click on the link you will be treated to a morsel of Sarah's talent for videography and I promise you will feel the love. If you share Sarah’s passion for rekindling family recipes please support her mission with a donation or by spreading the word (word of mouth, Facebook shares, etc. . . .)  

Caring is sharing- how about a cookie?  

Creativity in the Kitchen: Time to make " the sauce"

"The Sauce"

My destiny to serve authentic sauce on top of pasta was sealed when I said yes to Sal Marotta’s proposal of marriage. Marottas do not do bottled or (gasp) canned marinara. My soon-to-be mother-in-law Emily offered a lesson in the sauce before the wedding.  I was an eager student. I had tasted the sauce. It was thick, rich, dark red, and memorable.

To this day the sauce is my only true claim to culinary skills. 

Making the sauce is not about the recipe. It is about the experience.  I learned that a layered rich sauce must begin at the start, with the starter.  The starter is the heart of the sauce.  It is the legacy of all the sauces that have come before . . . it is stored in the freezer.  Sal’s Great Aunt Julia had rows and rows of starter in her freezer.  She called it her “blood bank.” My Sal’s grandfather, Grandpa Sal, brought the idea of starter sauce to America from Sicily when he immigrated. Grandpa Sal had a full kitchen in his garage so he could cook the sauce with more space and ventilation without getting nagged about the mess.  He taught Emily (another non-Italian who needed the secrets), and Emily taught me.  It took us all day in the kitchen and much wine for the recipe as well as the lesson itself.

Great Aunt Julia

On the day of my lesson Sal’s mom confidently taught me how to cook the sausage, onions, garlic, and then to brown the paste- incorporating all the flavors.  All the while the heart of the sauce sat patiently slow warming on a separate stove top coil.  Side by side we layered the flavors by combining starter and paste, wine and herbs. By evening I learned the Marotta stories, was advised against putting oregano in the meatballs (it is mutinous and can cause loud Italian fighting), and more than anything that the sauce was a legacy. I was part of the family and trusted to carry the tradition forward.

It has been thirty years since my lesson. I now have my own tradition of warming the starter in early September. I spend the day browning the paste and incorporating the new sauce to make a batch that will last us throughout the fall and winter, leaving a little extra starter for next year.  So far I have taught my oldest daughter the process, who has added a playlist to her cooking, and expect someday my youngest will ask for her turn in the kitchen with me.

Because everyone knows you can’t feed an Italian family properly without the sauce.

The inspiration for this post came when I met a remarkable person named Sarah Shotts at the Arkansas Women’s Bloggers Conference last month.  As soon as she told me about her dream to record “heirloom recipes” across the world I knew I found a friend. If you or someone you know has a passion for family, food, and film please visit her Kickstarter “Project STIR.”