The insanity finally comes to an end!

So as I may have mentioned a time or two, all of our Christmas gifts this year were handmade. I do enjoy holiday cooking and baking, but this year I took it to 11. Luckily we have been trapped in our house for the past 2 weeks because of the snow, but it still was a lot of planning and long hours in front of the stove.

We put together gift baskets with a stocking for each person cross stitched by yours truly. Then a multitude of baked goods and other stuff to eat. So essentially in the past month we have made enormous batches of the following.....

Peanut butter cookies
cranberry orange cookies
cinnamon chip cookies
penuche (walnut fudge)
baklava
peanut brittle
almond roca
hard candy
chex mix
Kahlua
bailey's Irish cream
incredible pasta sauce
fresh homemade pasta (made by my awesome husband)

It only comes once a year and I do love to do it, but boy I am glad when it is over :)

Volume 3 ...candy making

My family has this tradition of making hard candy at Christmas time. It started with my Grandma making it years ago and has been a tradition that we are trying to resurrect. We have been doing it the past 7 or 8 years traditionally. It's just something that is so much more fun with a big mess (figuratively and literally) of people to help with all the jobs involved. It even has jobs that the littlest kids can help with. It is very messy though.

We all got together on Sunday afternoon to make some up. A good time was had by all. Of course with all the nutty activities this weekend, we sort of spent our time and dashed out of there with a cloud of powdered sugar in our wake. We got some great pictures though. I love that my kids will have the same fun memories of this that I had growing up.

Mmmm. Doughnuts.

So I got this hankering the other day for doughnuts. I was just too lazy to load up all the kids and run down to the store, so I found a recipe and made them myself. It really was not all that hard. Just sort of messy. Sunshine and I made doughnut holes (mainly because I didn't feel like rolling out the dough and using cutters) . They were no Krispy Kreme, but they were every bit as good as what you would get from Safeway. That and we had fun making them.

Here's the recipe if you feel so inspired.

Doughnut holes

4 Cups Bisquick
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp nutmeg
about 1 1/3 cups cold water


Preheat a deep pan on the stove top to 375-400 (I used a candy thermometer to judge) with about 4 inches of oil. (I used canola)

Mix all dry ingredients together in the mixer and slowly add enough cold water to form a stiff dough. (I threw in a little flour just so I could work with the dough without it sticking to my hands) Roll dough into balls about the size of walnuts. Drop balls a few at a time into hot oil and fry until golden brown. (about 2 or 3 minutes). Drain on a paper towel. While they are still hot and a little moist from the oil I rolled them in a cinnamon and sugar mixture to coat them but you could also do powdered sugar.

And voila!! Awesomeness on your counter top!

Also this is something that has many little jobs so you can get kids involved.

Sunshine was my cinnamon / sugar duster. She did a great job.

The end product. From start to finish this took about an hour and a half. But do beware....this makes a huge mess in the kitchen. But it was worth every bite.

Step aside Martha Stuart

So this week I have gotten this wild hair to cook.

There is something about cold weather that gives me the itch.

Sunshine and I made up some Halloween cut out cookies. She is really getting into this cooking thing.




Then this weekend I got a big box of tomatoes, some fresh herbs and garlic and decided I was going to make up a ton of pasta sauce and can it.

And I did. It was lovely.



I also made up a batch of fresh pesto, applesauce bread and I am currently drying a gad of bananas.

What comes next you may ask? Only time will tell.

Somebody help me. I may have a problem
:)

Whoops.

So I got these little Hershey kiss type candies that aren't so much chocolate, but pumpkin spice flavor. They are delightful and I highly recommend them. But I had this great thought to make up some shortbread cookies and put them in the center. In my head they sounded delicious.

So I found a good shortbread recipe and off I went to create the greatest cookie that was ever made. Little did I really think this through because I made them, baked them and it was not until I pulled the pan out of the oven that I cracked myself up and realized that I had just made a pan of nipple cookies.


Clearly I didn't really think it though or recognize it's likeness until I pulled them out of the oven. But I had myself a little laugh and then sent my husband a picture with no story attached to it. Just the picture. His first response was...what the heck are you doing?!! I then explained what I had done and we had a giggle about it.



If you are wondering, they were really good too. To eat I mean.

Making cookies with Sunshine

So it has been rainy and crummy all afternoon and really cold all of a sudden. It felt like a good cookie making day. Sunshine has been under my feet most of the day trying to "help me". So I decided I would let her help me make up some cookies. I had a mean craving for some peanut butter cookies, so that is what we made.

She pulled out her little Tupperware bake set (shameless I know) and made a batch all by herself.

 

I helped her with the mixer only because it has 2 speeds. Warp speed and Mach 5. It is a nice mixer, but it would tear a finger off if given the chance.Although she didn't seem to mind not being able to use it so long as she got to lick the beaters.

 

She couldn't handle just putting them in and walking away. She proudly watched her batch and see her little criss cross cookies cook.

 

Then just when watching the cookies bake in the oven got boring, she took on the thrilling job of making sure the timer was working. Turns out it is.

 

Nothing too thrilling, just a little slice of my life today.

Distrubiting all those cookies

Today we had the big job of putting all those thousands of cookies that I made the other day, and making up gift plates for all of our neighbors. We don't really have the friendliest neighborhood, but I guess it only takes one person to reach out and maybe if nothing else we can get to know them. I mean we've only lived here 7 years. If not now, then when?

So the kids and I made up these monstrous goodie plates and walked around the neighborhood hitting all of our neighbors. Some weren't home, but we'll get them tomorrow. It felt pretty good doing something nice for no particular reason other than I just felt like doing some baking. Random acts of kindness are always awesome like that :)

Christmas cookie time!!!

There may be something seriously wrong with me. Every year i go overboard on the holiday baking. But this year I think I out did myself.

I have been baking cookies around the clock for the past 3 days. I have made 9 different types of cookies and 2 different gingerbread muffins. What is funny about all of this is, I am not really baking for anyone in particular. We don't really eat this stuff and nobody requested it or anything. I just got a wild hair. It seems like everybody else was doing it this time of year, so i thought I'd join in. Silly as it is, I totally blame peer pressure. So just to clarify here...I made literally close to 1000 cookies for no real reason other that it seemed like a good idea.

Just in case they come and haul me away, I made sure to document my madness in case some of you may not believe me