Lemons and Hurricanes and Mrs. Fields Cookies

So...that lovely hurricane Isaac we had come through about a month ago took down some pecan branches...took down a plum tree that never made too many plums...and took down our lemon tree. :( The lemon tree was loaded with fruit this year. The mean old storm pushed it halfway over onto our fence in the dog pen.

Sigh.

So last weekend was my first "free" weekend home from school. I canned 11 quarts of juice then and didn't even make a dent on the tree. This weekend I did I did 9 more quarts. Yesterday, I picked and juiced them and stuck it in the fridge, as I had cookies to bake. :) 20 quarts of juice = 40 gallons of lemonade.

As I type this, I'm waiting for the lemon juice to come to a boil so I can jar and process it. Canning lemon juice is easy, and the recipe works for all citrus juices.

Canning Lemon (citrus) Juice
Juice your lemons.
Bring the juice to a low boil.
Once it's there, put it in your jars with 1/4" head space.
BWB pints and quarts 5 minutes.

It's that simple. There's lots of ways to juice lemons, but I'm partial to my mom's electric juicer thing. You put the lemon half on it, push down and the thing turns and juices the lemon. I've tried the peel-cook-down-in-a-pot thing, and it just didn't work as well for me.

This is our juicer. He's old, but I love him.

Lemonade
2 cups lemon juice
2 cups sugar (or up to 1 3/4 cups Splenda and 1/4 cup sugar)
Add water to make 1 gallon of lemonade.
Add more juice if you like it tarter or more sugar if you like it sweeter.

Mrs. Fields Cookies
2 C softened butter
2 C white sugar
2 C packed brown sugar
4 eggs
2 T vanilla extract
5 C rolled oats (measure, then pulverize)
2 C all purpose flour
1 t salt
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
8 oz Hershey milk chocolate bar, grated
24 oz semisweet chocolate chips
3 C chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375*.
Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
Cream butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla until very smooth and fluffy.
Add grated Hershey bar and mix well.
In separate, very large bowl, mix flour, ground oatmeal, salt, baking powder, baking soda.
Stir butter mixture into flour mixture. Blend well.
Add chocolate chips and pecans.
Stir until blended. Hands may work better than spatula/spoon.
Shape into golf-ball sized cookies and place 2" apart on greased sheets.
Bake 6-8 minutes. You do not want to over bake these.

This makes a large batch. Like, very, very large. I made a half batch yesterday (slightly smaller than golf ball sized) and had about 130 cookies.