Last Day of School Treats

Here's the recipe girls, enjoy!!!

Tropical Blondies

from Michelle Wooderson 5/08

½ cup butter or margarine
½ cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon coconut extract
1 teaspoon pineapple juice
6 oz white chocolate chips
6 oz semi sweet chocolate chips
½ cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
½ -3/4 cup coconut

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and shortening. Gradually add sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg; mix well. Combine flour, soda and salt; add to creamed mixture. Blend in extracts and pineapple juice. Stir in white and chocolate chips, coconut and nuts. Cover and chill 1 hour. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls about 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet, or spread into 10 x 15 cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes for cookies or 20-22 minutes for bar cookies...until lightly browned. Note: For my bar cookies, I did not chill the dough first and they turned out just fine. Enjoy!

Today is the LAST DAY of school for my girls (we start mid August). The girls are very excited and so am I! But don't think that I'm not going to enjoy my last day of *freedom* at home by myself today. I'm going to put away my birthday finds from yesterday and enjoy the day by myself......thank you for all the birthday wishes too!!

So I dropped treats off after school yesterday for all of the girls' teachers. There were about 11 of them that the girls wanted to bring goodies for. Many times I get asked by my friends (who call themselves *slacker moms*).......*how do you get all of this so organized and to school on time AND it looks so cute?*. Well there is a method to the madness and it's really quite simple. It's all about pre-planning and breaking little tasks into steps. I'll show you what I did for these cute treat sacks. So here's help for all of the *slacker moms* who can never quite get it together...you can do it!!

First, plan what you want to do. I knew I wanted to bring a simple treat for the teachers for the last day of school. So I made a list of the number of teachers and what type of cookie I might want to make. Nooooo, I don't just get up at 5am on the day I want to bring treats, I plan it all out. I am NOT a 5am kind of gal. I made up this list while sitting at a softball practice.
Then I decided what my packaging would be. I wanted to keep it simple because I knew the wrapper would be trashed, most likely. So I set out to make 13 treat sacks. I chose to use the Papertrey glassine sacks. I have used these types of little goodie sacks for years and I just love them! Now you can get them in smaller quantities from Papertrey. I also decided to make a simple but gourmet looking label to attach to the sack. I created my label from Papertrey's Holiday Treats stamp set and then mounted them on Spellbinder's oval rectangles. Paper and ribbon are Summer Sunrise colors from PT. I made these labels up about a week ago...took about 30 minutes.
Here's a closeup of the labels. I wanted to use a bright, sunny color...thinking of summer time, sunshine, etc. When I work on projects to use for another day, I set them aside in little baskets or boxes. This old box was a junk store find. I set this on a shelf, away from my work space. Little tip....only work on one project at a time. Clean up when you're done and put away all your supplies. Then start on the next project.
Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. I baked my cookies. Check out these yummy morslets of heaven! I so badly wanted the recipe for some Blondies that I saw on a Bobby Flay throw down. The recipe wasn't listed on the Food Network site though, must be a secret recipe of the other contestants. So I concocted my own........I call them Tropical Blondies. Packed full of white and dark chocolate chips, coconut, macadamia nuts, coconut extract and a smidgen of pineapple juice. I can share the recipe if anyone wants it......I have to write it all down before I forget.
So then I cut my Tropical Blondies into HUGE rectangles so that each teacher would get a nice sized cookie. I stored them in a Tupperware container to keep them soft and fresh til Monday. The girls and Eric kept nibbling on my treats so I had to make a second batch to appease them. My mom was a taste tester too and insisted on the recipe.....a *keeper* as Eric says!
Then yesterday afternoon, I got out my already prepared supplies and assembled my treat sacks. I simply added a cookie to each treat sack, punched a hole, added the ribbon, and attached a label with one SU! dimensional to each sack. Easy peasy and I was done!! Don't they look all gourmet like???

I nestled all my treats into one of those expensive Longaberger baskets that I lovingly purchased oh so many years ago......before I had kids.......when I had money to spend on other things than softball shoes, field trips and lunch bills. And then yesterday afternoon I was off like Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Grandmother's house. I took the treats to school, the girls handed them out and the teacher's were nearly drooling at the sight of my goody basket.....they know the good stuff is coming when they see me carrying a basket!! Soooooooo, another good school year comes to an end. Summer here we come!!!!!!!! I'm off to enjoy a cup of coffee.......all by myself......maybe with a leftover Tropical Blondie........ahhhhhhhhhh, one last day of freedom!!