The Wordsmith's Forge

Today I'm making rosemary-lemon holiday cookies, somewhat inspired by this recipe, but I'm using lemon powder and Maine pine bitters. The dough tastes good, at least. It's currently chilling in the fridge before I attempt to roll it out and cut little evergreen trees. Cutout cookies are not what I do best, but rosemary cookies just deserve that shape.

EDIT 12/22/25 -- The cookies are done! \o/ They turned out quite delicious. The first bite just tastes like sugar cookie, but then the lemon and pine flavors bloom. Rosemary cookies are tricky to balance. Too sweet and they're just sugar cookies, not sweet enough and they taste like crackers; too little rosemary and they're sugar cookies again, too much and it tastes like you're baking with floor wash. But these are perfect.

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Today I made crockpot shrimp boil with potatoes, onion, baby corncobs, and shrimp.  It was okay but not exciting.  The Old Bay seasoning was more heat than flavor, so I used a little of that then added a bay leaf, oregano, and thyme.  An interesting experiment but not worth repeating. 

Parents find Health Star Ratings confusing and unhelpful. We need a better food labelling system (Australia)

Food labels are intended to support healthy choices. But not all labelling schemes are equal.

Australia currently uses a voluntary Health Star Rating system. Food manufacturers can choose to add a star label to their packaging to indicate how it compares to other similar products. Or they can choose not to show a star rating on a product at all.


How satisfied are you with the food labeling option(s) available where you live? If you also buy imported foods, what do you think about labels from other countries?

What kind of traits do you pay attention to in food shopping?  Are they easy to find on labels, harder to find, not listed, or actually forbidden to list?

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Today I made this soup, based on a similar recipe from Stock the Crock page 24. I wanted to write down my version so I don't forget it.

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Today's plan to visit a holiday market got wiped out by copious snow. Again. :( So I'm drowning our sorrows in a batch of Dark Chocolate Brownies with Raspberry Spread.

Today I'm making Lemon Thumbprint Cookies. :D The first filling is Lemon-Elderflower from Berries & Flour and the second is bettergoods Raspberry, Cardamom & Rosehip Fruit Spread.  We've tried the Lemon-Elderflower first and that jam is quite strong.  Thumbprint cookies are the perfect use because there's only about 1/4 teaspoon in each.  On toast it might be overpowering.  Another good use would be thinning it down to glaze for a fruit salad or tart.

Today I'm trying out a new recipe for Banana Banana Bread that I found in All Recipes.  This one uses 5 bananas where my usual one takes 3, and butter instead of oil.  I made half the flour whole wheat.  Partway through I realized there was no other flavoring besides the bananas, so I added a teaspoon of cinnamon.  It will be interesting to see how this turns out.  :D

EDIT 12/5/25 -- This turned out pretty well.  It's a bit prone to falling apart, but may set up more as it cools.  It has quite a strong banana flavor.  I don't think I'll replace my usual recipe, but this certainly works for using up a lot of bananas.

Sunday night I made Sunny Honey Cookies.  These are soft, pillowy cookies almost like a muffin, full of minced candied ginger and sunflower seeds.  :D 

Today I'm baking cinnamon cookies using a crushed cinnamon candy cane and the Candy Cane Cookies recipe (which works with any flavor).

EDIT 11/26/25 -- These turned out well, with a definite cinnamon flavor.  \o/ 

Today we made a smoothie with:

1 cup Pom pomegranate-blueberry juice
1 cup Brown Cow vanilla yogurt
1 banana
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup ice

The result is bright red-violet and on the thin side.  It has a deeper fruit flavor from the pomegranate -- a nice fall smoothie.