the mini series continues!! This week’s participants are Melissa and JW from Littlefriendsofprintmaking, my screenprint super heroes and I’m thrilled, they agreed to take part in this :D

website: www.thelittlefriendsofprintmaking.com

flickr: www.flickr.com/littlefriends

Hi, our names are…. JW & Melissa Buchanan

When we were kids… JW lived in the country and Melissa lived in the city.

Today… was our day off. We went to the post office and to the movies. The snow is finally melted but now everything is grimy and mucky. We tried to take a shortcut through a baseball field and sunk ankle-deep into the infield dirt.

When we’re stuck in a project… we go on a bike ride.

We want to learn… to speak Spanish! We had an exhibition in Mexico City and could only understand a third of what people were saying to us. It was like being in a silent movie, and just like silent movies it was totally boring and slightly frustrating. We’re going to come back rolling our “R”s and conjugating our verbs and shock Mexico!

Spending time with each other …makes us happy

this is my recipe for…. Molasses Cookies (extra-spicy). This might seem complicated but the smell alone is probably worth it. If you don’t like to eat spicy things just halve the ginger.

¾ cup vegetable shortening

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 large egg

¼ cup dark molasses

1½ tablespoons grated fresh ginger

2¼ cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 cup coarsely chopped crystallized or candied ginger

½ cup white nonpareils

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Set two racks, one high and one low, in the oven. Blend the shortening, brown sugar, egg, molasses, and fresh ginger. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and ground ginger. Stir in the chopped crystallized ginger and blend into the wet mixture until just combined. Using your hands, form the dough into 1½ inch balls. Dip the cookie tops into a bowl of nonpareils and place them on a baking sheet with a Silpat mat, about 1½ inches apart. Bake one sheet at a time on the lower oven rack for 6 minutes. Rotate the cookie sheet and bake on the upper oven rack for 7 minutes more. Set the cookies out to cool.