Tough Cookies for Tough Times

For the last weekend before Christmas, let's have some good old-fashioned cookies from The Household Searchlight Recipe Book (compiled and edited by Ida Migliario, Harriet W. Allard, Zorada Z. Titus, and Irene Westbrook, copyright 1931, from the 1936 eighth printing).  For a festive occasion like Christmas, the cookies might reflect popular holiday flavors.

With the double work of rolling out the cookies, PLUS making the filling and filling them, I can't imagine Mince-Meat Cookies were super-popular most of the year. They probably made a nice showpiece for trays of goodies shared with family and friends.

Most of the cookies are more of a way to easily add calories to meals and use up leftovers. What if you were making a popcorn garland for the tree and had more left than you could easily eat right away?

If you had leftover egg whites from some rich and yolky creation, they could be pressed into service with the popcorn to make Popcorn Macaroons.

If, on the other hand, you had leftover dried fruit from making fruitcakes...

Popcorn Fruit Cookies would help use up that last bit that didn't get cake-ified. . 

And if your leftovers were just regular, non-festive leftovers, well...

There's always Cottage Cheese Cookies. (I know those probably sound revolting to most people, but I've always got a soft spot for cottage cheese. It's got some of the tang of cream cheese.) This recipe doesn't even call for eggs, so it can really help out if you're out of just about everything.

And finally, how about something with a hint of red for Santa?

Yep! Better hope Santa likes Raisin Catsup Cookies, or you might get reindeer poop on the Christmas tree skirt! I'm sure this recipe will have some believers. Catsup is loaded with sugar and often warm spices like cloves, plus acid for the baking soda to react with. And raisins are a fine dried fruit, not wrinkly rabbit turds. Whatever.

I can champion Cottage Cheese Cookies and maybe you see Raisin Catsup Cookies as a perfectly reasonable idea. The important thing is this: We defend the idea of the cookies without actually wasting ingredients on them. Groceries are hard enough to come by this year! Make the traditional cookies your family actually wants, and let these recipes remind you how good we've got it, even in a tough year.