Random Thoughts of Chris Tilley

My kids wanted to make cookies today which is always fun. They love to help and it they get to learn some new skills like measuring and following instructions. They measure the ingredients and add them to the bowl then put the blobs of dough on the cookie sheet.

The kids love these ones and they are the favorite of my wife. I like the spice and tend to do 'heaping' on the spice measures. The Corn Flakes add a wonderful crunch. These go fast in my house so I always make a triple batch.

Cornflake Cookies
Preheat oven to 350

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup margerine
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp backing powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cloves
• 1 1/2 cups Corn Flakes

Instructions

• Cream the margarine and both sugars
• Beat in egg and vanilla
• Mix together all dry ingredients except the Corn Flakes
• Add margarine mixture and beat
• Add the Corn Flakes and beat just enough to incorporate
• Drop by spoonfulls onto a cookie sheet
• Bake in a 350 oven for 10-12 minutes

This book talks about the authors one year of living the hundred mile diet. Basically the rules they set for themselves was to only eat things that were grown within a 100 miles of their home. Their blog goes into more on the rules and the problems they faced.

The basic premise is that buying locally is better for the environment in that you avoid the Co2 emissions. Wondering what these would be I did some research. First I found from a number of DOT sites that a truck averages hauling 59 tons 1 mile per gallon of diesel. At 2000 lbs/tom that equals 118,000 lb miles. Consuming one gallon of diesel produces 22.384 lbs of CO2. That works out to .00019 lbs of CO2 per lb of cargo per mile traveled. On my last trip to grocery store I bought three produce items and they all came from California. So that is 1400 miles and about 1/4 lb of CO2 per lb of produce that I bought.

So the challenge is to cook a main course using only ingredients bought with in 100 miles of where you live. Read the blog to understand the complexity of that rule. Submit to admin AT domain name (chris-tilley.com). You blog entry should include the recipe and the source of the ingredients. Please also submit the blog entry to 'Is My Blog Burning' The scoring will based on creativity, appearance, taste and comments made on my blog or on 'Is My Blog Burning'.

• Your name.
• A link to your blog entry.
• An image of the dish. (i'll resize them as needed)
• Closing Date is April 30 2008