Now We’re Cooking With Gas: Butterscotch Oaties

 

We had a bit of excitement at our house last night. We had a gas leak. The gas company came this morning to dig up the street and our front yard and then drill a hole through our foundation to add a new line. Murphy thought this was the best day ever – constant excitement out in the front yard and a man who kept coming inside to pet him (luckily he loved dogs). Murphy went back and forth between the front window where he sat barking on his “throne” (my ottoman that I haven’t used in 3 years since he claimed it as his own as soon as he was big enough to get on it) and the back door when the Gas Man came in to check on something in the basement and say “hi” to the dog. I have a feeling Murphy was jealous that I let strangers dig a big hole in the front yard and he always gets yelled at for doing the same thing in the back yard. 

I was a little concerned, however, when one of the men who arrived to fix the gas leak walked around to investigate the yard with a lit cigarette in his mouth. Sadly, I’m not kidding. I considered grabbing my valuables, packing up the dog and the chinchilla (yes, I have a chinchilla too, I’ll talk more about him in another post), throwing it all in the car and driving far away before he blew up my house. But I trusted that he knew what he was doing and he wouldn’t willingly blow himself up. Thankfully, I was right.

The ground hasn’t frozen yet, but today was one of the coldest of the season so it wasn’t pleasant sitting in a house with no heat and windows open to air out the smell of gas as they reconnected the line. So as soon as the holes were filled in, the gas was back on and my toes had thawed out, I decided it was time to watch the first Christmas movie of the season and make cookies!

Butterscotch Oaties aren’t a traditional Christmas cookie, but they’re easy to make and a nice treat on a cold, dreary winter afternoon. I recommend making the batter into balls (about one inch thick) and lightly pressing them onto the cookie sheet. They cooked better when they were a little thicker. If they’re too thin, they become kind of lacey when they bake and break apart. 

While Murphy was passed out recovering from a busy day of barking, I turned on the Christmas lights, sat on the couch with a warm cookie and watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (one of my favorites). Despite the early morning drama, it was a great start to the Christmas season.