Maple-Spice Cookies
1 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup of maple syrup
2 eggs
4 cups unbleached or all purpose white flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger (The dogs go insane for these cookies and their aroma)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
granulated sugar
Preheat oven 350, grease cookie sheets, cream shortening, brown and granulated sugar until fluffy. Beat in the maple syrup and eggs, one at a time.
Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger cinnamon and salt. Add the flour mixture to the shortening mixture a little at a time till blended.
Make sticky balls of dough (it doesn’t really taste good until it’s cooked). Dip them in some sugar. (I didn’t say these were healthy) Place the balls two inches apart on sheet.
Bake for about 12 minutes until golden brown. Let cool on sheet to a minute and that’s it.
The recipe comes from a great little book by Ken Haedrich called Maple Syrup Cookbook.
We test fired the syrup evaporator last weekend, coffee mugs in hand (just like February!). Husband is still tweeking the set up but as usual I was pretty impressed.
How great is it that the wood will be dry this year and so close! Husband built the shed too and the chipmunks are in heaven keeping homes in the nooks and crannies of the wood.
MOUTH-WATERING MAPLE SYRUP RECIPES:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/magical-ways-to-use-maple-syrup-recipes
Middlemay Farm 
LOVE the wood shed! Putting that on my list for future farm projects.
You can’t tell in the picture but the sides are done with a sort of pallet design so there’s good air flow. Also the stain is just apple cider vinegar and steel wool soaked for a few weeks and sprayed on. Pretty cool, I think. My husband is a baseball fan so that’s the beginnings of Boston Ivy up the front.
Oh, yes! They look awesome!
The only cookies the humans and dogs fight over at our house.