Baking in Chicago with my Sister

I took a long weekend and went to Chicago to visit my sister and her growing family. Her second child, a boy, is 6 weeks old and was as amazing as newborns are supposed to be.

To welcome this beautiful boy to the world, I baked the boots off his momma's kitchen. We made three, yes THREE, batches of my "signature" chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and one HUGE  batch of the Old Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies. 

This was a small, staged sampling. Rest assured there were about a million more cookies than I've shown you. There are also small containers of chocolate chip oatmeal cookie dough stashed in her freezer for future use: 

Then we made artisan bread, which didn't look exactly like this but will when my sister figures out the optimal setting for her oven: 

She has a baking-with-yeast phobia, so I walked her through the basics of making the simple dough, letting it rise, then letting it rise/rest/relax again, then baking it in a hot oven with steam. That's all that stands between you and delicious homemade bread, BTW. We opened early Christmas presents the night before I left, and not surprisingly I gave her her own copy of the book -- now we both have copies since she gave me mine for Christmas last year. 

The chocolate chip oatmeal cookies served a very noble purpose on Monday afternoon. Shortly after I left for the airport, her heat quit working on a day that was predicted to peak at 18 degrees. She called her heating guy and told him he'd get cookies if he bumped her to the top of his list. He arrived within the hour and fixed her right up!  Not only are these cookies tasty, they make great currency too!