Holiday Cookies

I realized my blog is a great way to keep a record of what Christmas cookies I tried out this year, and what I thought of them.

The other day I tested this recipe from a Taste of Home cookie cookbook I have - it's for peanut butter chocolate cookies. Oh my!



First of all, these are not bake 'em and eat 'em right away cookies. These take some time. They are a yummy soft peanut butter cookie with a peanut butter cream cheese dollop on the top. Okay, that right there is heaven. In fact, just hand me a bowl of that peanut butter cream cheese mixture...

So, then you dip the bottoms in chocolate - something you can't really see in the picture. The recipe called for melting chocolate chips for this. As I was melting them and noticing it looked like my chocolate was seizing up despite no drops of water anywhere, I remembered reading recently that chocolate chips often don't work for melting. Oh yea... that happened once when I was making chocolate fondue. Note to self: get melting chocolate next time.

Anyway, I added some half and half to the chocolate which solved the problem. The chocolate drizzle for the top was made with cocoa, and that worked well. Of course I am not so talented when it comes to a delicate drizzle. Mike, on the other hand, was channeling his inner Martha Stewart and did nice star-shaped drizzles on the cookies.

My verdict: these are amazing and absolutely worth the effort. (But they're also good without any of the chocolate!).

On Sunday I got it in my head that making some sandwich cookies with raspberry filling would be an interesting thing to try. I found a few recipes, but ultimately decided that I needed to use my mother-in-law's tried-and-true sugar cookie recipe. It's really the best! So I made some dough and tucked it in the fridge.

Yesterday I went through my cookie cutters, found several stars that worked well together, and here is the result:



The girls call them American Girl cookies because they look a bit like the AG logo. I call them Raspberry Stars. These are yummmmy! Definitely will be making these again next Christmas. I was also thinking if I could find two heart cookie cutters that nested well, these would be fun for Valentine's Day...

Like I need more cookies! ;-)

Peppermint Meltaways

It's snowing here in Minnesota - light powdery snow, and we're supposed to get 3-6 inches. It's a nice day to stay inside and bake! I've started the day with these Peppermint Meltaways from Taste of Home's Simple and Delicious magazine. Except that I felt it would be too much peppermint with peppermint icing and candy cane pieces on the top. Mike suggested chocolate frosting (reminiscent of Peppermint Patties, he says), so that's what I did. On the top I sprinkled these Andes' peppermint candy pieces.

Now, I'm not a huge peppermint fan, frankly. It tends to upset my stomach. So I'm not super crazy about the peppermint flavor, but otherwise these are pretty good!

Now I'm on to bake some peanut butter-chocolate cookies. That should be heavenly!

The Tooth Pillow Gang

The one in the front, 2nd from the right, Buttercup made herself! Nice to have a Girl Scout helping since her troop will be selling these. :-)




I can't really take credit for the idea of hanging the pillows - my co-leader is the one who had that idea - thanks, Shelly!

What I'm working on right now....

It's Girl Scout craft fair season and I've committed to make a couple of things for the girls to sell. This is the first creation:





This is the "girl" version, and I'm also making some "boy" ones (sans the pink cheeks - red instead!). These are tooth fairy pillows - on the back of each one is a little pocket for inserting the tooth, and for the Tooth Fairy to leave some money. With the loop they can hang on a doorknob, or a bedside table drawer knob - easier for the Fairy, who surely must have a hard time rummaging under pillows for teeth! When they're done I'll take a picture of the entire collection of little teeth.

Fall

It's been forever since I've blogged. I do have some crafty projects in progress, but nothing I can share at the moment. So, without further ado: pictures from our apple orchard trip this past weekend.

Buttercup, age 12



Daisy, age 8



All of us



Happy fall!

Kirsten's doll quilt is complete!

I'm so happy to finally have this finished. It's pretty basic - I stitched in the ditch to quilt it, nothing fancy. I've never done binding on a quilt before, and it went pretty well. I hand-sewed the binding to the back (is there another way? Please tell me there is!), which didn't do my wrist any favors, but then I also did rather enjoy the stitching process. This was a really good experience, and gave me confidence to quilt and bind a quilt top I made a few years ago. (I haven't started that yet, but soon!) I also need to make a doll quilt for my older daughter's American Girl doll.

Anyway, my youngest daughter is so happy to have a quilt for her Kirsten doll - can't have Kirsten, bundled up in her flannel nightgown, getting cold during these hot August nights, you know! :-)

Introducing... Buttercup!

I decided to feature one of my older daughter's ("Buttercup" as she shall be known in my blog) crafty projects. Wandering through JoAnn one day, Buttercup spotted these flip-flops and decided she just had to do the ribbon flip-flop project thing. She picked out a few ribbons at the store, then raided my ribbon stash, and voila! Cute flip-flops!

Just ignore the dirt on my rug, thanks!