Angioedema

Last week, the night before my husband's work Christmas party I was busy baking for the event.  I tried a recipe for thumbprint cookies that called for the cookies to be rolled in walnuts before baking.  My son absolutely LOVES thumbprint cookies so he gleefully asked for one as soon as the first batch came out of the oven.  Little did I know that the walnuts in the cookies would cause this (his lips are not normally that large)....

Now, I lecture about angioedema (drug induced), but have honestly never seen it first hand until my son's lips swelled up to the size of a Muppet character's after eating that tiny amount of walnuts.  Thankfully, we had antihistamines and an oral steroid at our house so I was able to dose him appropriately and his lips were normal again by the next morning.

After that scare I began searching for a yummy thumbprint cookie recipe that did not contain nuts.  The recipe I used 2 years ago did not have nuts but the cookies did not hold together well and were a bit too crumbly.  My sweet boy was so sad that he couldn't have any more of the batch I made for the party and I felt so sorry for him.  Below is the recipe I tried today and the cookies turned out wonderfully (not crumbly & uniform shape!).

Thumbprint Cookies
1 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 egg yolks (reserve whites)
jelly (I use strawberry)

Cream butter, sugar, eggs, & vanilla.  Add salt & flour.  When dough is formed, roll into balls and dip into egg whites (slightly beaten).  Place on a cookie sheet and press thumb to make an indent.  Fill with jelly (it takes very little) and bake at 350 for 15 mins.

My son enjoyed them today with no allergic reaction - just smiles and yummy noises.  Now that's what a mom likes to see and hear! :)

I also tried a roast chicken today for the first time.  It turned out really well and was surprisingly easy to fix!  Below is what I did - I haven't repeated it yet, but will likely make this more often b/c buying a whole chicken is WAY cheaper than buying breasts, and one chicken will easily feed our family multiple times.

Roast Chicken
1 chicken (sans neck & giblets)
2 TBS butter
Salt & Pepper
Olive oil
fresh rosemary & sage
onion, potatoes, parsnips, carrots (you can use pretty much any veggies you like)

Rinse chicken and pat try.  Rub butter both on and under the skin and liberally (very liberally) salt & pepper (go easier on the pepper than on the salt).  Place part of the onion, several springs of rosemary, & sage leaves in the chicken cavity.  Place chicken breast side up, tuck wings under bird and either tie legs on top or tuck legs into skin so that they remain on top of the bird while cooking (this is what I did since then you don't need any cooking twine).  Chop up vegetables and arrange around chicken in roasting pan.  Drizzle veggies minimally with olive oil and then salt/pepper the vegetables.  Roast at 425 for 1-1.5 hours (until thickest part of breast is at least 165 degrees).  Wait about 10 minutes before removing chicken to cutting board & carving.

Enjoy! :)