Dude Martha (my son who just turned 12) is now in middle school. This quarter he is taking Home and Careers. I have fond memories of Home and Careers, or Home Ec as we called it then (which I took at the very same middle school, only then it was junior high!). We baked and cooked lots of things and I still have the recipes for many of them. We also sewed a quilted cover for a bread basket – in the shape of a chicken. My mother still has it, actually.

Home and Careers is a little more varied these days. They make them take career assessments and try to focus on other home related chores outside the kitchen as well, but they do still get to cook and bake and they also have to sew a little pillow this year.

Dude Martha has always had some talent in the kitchen, so this class should be a breeze for him. The teacher is giving them extra credit if they bring in a note from home saying they baked or cooked something themselves. Although the quarter just started a week ago, Dude Martha is all over the chance for extra credit and asked if he could make cookies. We got out the Martha Stewart Cookies book and he chose Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies. Now, if it had been me, I would have obviously chosen something with chocolate! He went to the kitchen and got to work. I was called in a few times for questions (“it says coarse salt – what do I do?” and “is this butter soft enough?”) but other than he did the whole thing himself.

I did help a little when he was mixing and the dough would not come together. Even though he softened the butter, there were still some hard chunks and the dough was very sandy and not holding together. I performed a magic trick I’ve recently started doing, which I want to share with you. Somehow in this cold winter weather, my butter seems to do this a lot. So I just stick the mixing bowl in the preheating oven for a minute or two. When I pull it out, the butter has softened completely and it all comes together nicely.

These cookies were really, really good. They are crunchy, chewy, and sweet with just a hint of lemon. They are quickly disappearing. Thumbs up on the cookies and for Dude Martha!