Sickie Sickie, Gnar Gnar [sic], Or Compost Cookies and Dog Biscuits, by Cristyn.

You may be wondering where the crew of old Dillywheats has been. Well, my friends, we have been transitioning from a bicontinental blog to a tristate blog. Slowly but surely, we will all be living in the great U.S. of A., albeit spread out across the country. Part One of this transition involved moving Lil out to Utah. By car. Let me repeat that. Lillian and I spent no less than a cumulative 24-30 hours in a rented Ford Explorer that was stuffed to the gills with all Lil’s worldly possessions. By the time we made it to Boulder, CO, a good 16-18 hours into the trip (about 12 of which felt like they were spent in Nebraska), it was clear to me that Lil and I would be lifelong friends, namely because we were not at each others’ throats. Needless to say, after nearly a day of driving, we were a bit slap happy, a bit exhausted, and a LOT hungry. Enter Lillian’s friend John. In addition to putting us up for the night, he was kind enough to have brats and veggie burgers and grilled corn and PBRs waiting for us upon our empty-handed arrival. Oh, he also has the cutest black lab pup, Toby, that I have ever seen. Anyways. This post is in their honor. (Don’t worry, we also mailed the fellas the fruits of this post’s labor.)

Now. This was my first trip out West EVER. This means I was basically utterly blown away by just about everything; my first glimpse of the real Rockies was sort of life changing.

(I had assumed the foothills we were seeing approaching Boulder were the “mountains” I had heard so much about. THIS WAS FALSE. THERE WERE MORE, BETTER MOUNTAINS TO BE SEEN.) Anyways, in addition to breathtaking views, I had the additional pleasure of climbing some crags tucked away in these amazing canyons. Canyons! And mountains! And foothills! And while our plan was to climb virtually every one of the limited hours I was spending in Utah, after about 4 straight days of hiking, scrambling, climbing (cracks!! slabs!!) at a higher altitude than I have ever encountered, we were a little spent.

Thus, my last day in Salt Lake City was devoted to my second favorite past time—BAKING. This seemed like the best idea ever. Until I turned the oven on and the apartment began to feel like a sauna…was this uncomfortable? Yes. A deal breaker? No. So I persevered.

Moving along. I decided that since these were “gift baked goods” I would explore beyond my vegan cookie repertoire. The options seemed endless…it was like a whole new world. (Don’t get me wrong, I love being vegan. But there are just some things that you cannot make vegan substitutes for…”LIL SHOULD I MAKE JOHN BACON COOKIES??!”) Anyways, since John is getting his PhD in Environmental Science and is all about composting and saving water and all that jazz, I made him some “compost cookies,” which as far as I can tell just means they have a lot of random ingredients. Nevertheless, it seemed apropos. Since Toby is a dog, I made him dog biscuits.

For the cookies I basically followed this recipe with a few adjustments. The measurements are a bit unconventional due to halving it. And while the list of ingredients may seem intimidating… just remember, you can add/subtract pretty much any of the fixin’s. Here are the ingredients I used for John’s Sickie Sickie Compost Cookies:

I forgot to draw the pretzels. SORRY.

1/2 C butter, softened

1/2 C sugar

1/3 C brown sugar, packed

1/2 Tbs light corn syrup

1 large egg

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 C + 2 Tbs AP flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C chocolate chips

1/4 C graham cracker crumbs (I crushed up some of Annie’s Honey Bunny graham crackers. Sorry bunnies.)

2 Tbs oats

1 C potato chips, crushed

1/2 C pretzels, crushed

Handful dried cranberries

Here comes the hard part. Cream together the butter and sugars and corn syrup. Not so hard if you have some sort of a mixer. But if you don’t…it can present more of a challenge. However, totally still doable! You just might get your biceps/triceps workout in for the day! Add the egg and vanilla and continue to mix/beat. (According to the recipe you MUST beat this for 7 to 8 minutes. Since my arm was about to fall off after about 3, I stopped then. Things turned out just fine according to my taste testers.) Next dump in all the fixin’s!

Mix til everything is just incorporated. Scoop by heaping tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet leaving plenty of space for them to spread out. Then stick them in the fridge/freezer. The recipe was also very, very adamant about this part. Based on the claim that the “cookies will NOT bake right” if you omit this chilling stage, I bit the bullet and stuck them in the freezer for about an hour. [BUT WAIT! What are you supposed to do for the whole HOUR those are in the freezer?! You could make some dog biscuits! Skip ahead my friend!] Since we could only locate one small cookie sheet in the newly inhabited apartment, I stuck the portioned batter onto a sheet of tinfoil in the freezer and then popped 4 at a time onto the baking sheet.

Bake those suckers at 375°F for about 15 minutes. The edges will be a beautiful, light brown and the middle should still be nice and golden.

Moving right along! Since I wouldn’t want you to get bored while you are waiting for your compost cookies, here is another recipe to keep you busy. Alternatively, you could listen to this song on repeat. [Side note: WHY IS THIS SONG SO SHORT. HEY, THE LUMINEERS, GIVE ME MORE.] I listened to this WHILE baking more. See, I know how to multitask. Sadly, this recipe is not intended for human consumption (although based on the ingredient list, it is completely and utterly edible. Had it not been for the inclusion of eggs…I would have totally tried one. It probably just would taste like a peanut butter cracker.) Anyways! I basically followed this recipe, halving it (it still made 13 bone shaped biscuits), and omitting the vanilla because that just seemed plain weird. Here are the ingredients you will need for Gnar Gnar Dog Biscuits!

1/4 C water

1/4 C oil

1 egg

2 Tbs peanut butter

1 C flour

1/4 C cornmeal

1/4 C oats

Blend the wet ingredients together with a fork. Mix in the dry ingredients to form a stiff dough. Now you can either roll the dough out and use cookie cutters, cut it into squares, triangles, circles, etc. I mean, they are for dogs… so they probably don’t care what they look like. I recommend doing whatever is easiest for you and requires the least amount of clean up. I formed walnut sized balls of dough into little bones, because it made me happy. They looked cute.

Bake at 400°F, on a lightly oiled cookie sheet for about 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and let them cool/dry out in the oven. They will continue to bake a bit more, so make sure they don’t burn. You want them hard and dog-biscuit-like, but not charred. That’s it!

So, while it may be a day (or like 10) late, I think it bears repeating… THANKS, JOHN, FOR YOUR AWESOME WESTERN HOSPITALITY. TOBY TOO.

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