This year’s Super Bowl was the first time that Nick took a serious interest in the game.  Asking tons of questions.  Rooting the Giants on.  Hanging on with the rest of us for that last touchdown in the final seconds of the game.  Madeline, seriously partied out from the weekend, made it to just before the halftime show before she fell asleep.  She tried to hang on as long as she could, but the poor thing was spent.

The next morning, when we were getting ready to leave the house, she asked, “Mommy, I forget.  Did the Giants win or the Papers?”  She is too cute for words.

So when I was catching up on my celebrity gossip the other day, and spied this recipe for Eli Manning’s favorite childhood cookie on People magazine’s web site, it was pretty much a given that we should make it.  How better to support our local team?

When I saw the cookies in the oven as the timer dinged, I might have been slightly cursing Eli and his favorite childhood cookie.  The batter spreads a ridiculous amount.  The cookies wouldn’t come up from the foil.  As Madeline would say, “Darn it.”

But with the remaining batter, I added a bit more flour, used cooking spray on the foil before dropping the batter onto it, and kept the cookies smaller.  Much smaller.  The subsequent trays were a better success.  They still spread tons, but I was able to get some 30 cookies out of it, and all (especially the ingredients I just used) was not lost.

The recipe originally comes from Loukoumi’s Celebrity Cookbook, and the proceeds of the cookbook benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Chefs for Humanity.

The kids had a few of the cookies after their dinner last night and proclaimed them delicious, so all was right with the world.  And Eli Manning’s favorite childhood cookie.

February 7, 2012 – Bonus Photos

I don’t know how she got so grown-up all the sudden, looking every bit the just-days-away-from-being-four that she is. After dinner, we broke out paper and pencils and worked on practicing her letters and spelling. Madeline is going to be a tough cookie once she officially starts school because she is a major perfectionist. Her brother is very much about the “good enough,” whereas she will erase and rewrite a letter three or six times just to get it perfect.

This is what she was working so hard on. Can you see it?

So proud. So very proud. I gently convinced her school to teach her how to spell Madeline, as opposed to going the Maddie route, which is what they had started doing. You know, because Maddie isn’t her name. It’s a nickname. I have no problem with people calling her Maddie, nor does she, but firmly believe that when it comes to learning how to spell and write your name, it should be the proper given name. Basics, you know. Now she calls Maddie her “other name.”

Eli Manning’s Lace Cookies

Ingredients
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 tbsp. flour (I used a bit more)
2 cups white sugar
½ tsp. salt
2 sticks melted butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla

Instructions: