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| This veery Christmas-y house belongs to a nearby neighbor. It's not on our way home, but our kids still want to drive next to it every single night! Ah, Christmas. |
I haven't blogged in a while, but that was partly due to events out of my control...I had a Very Crazy Week, and then our internet was out for several days. Sad face. But all that's in the past now, so it's time to get caught up! I'll probably knock out several short posts over the next several days, including our family 2011 Christmas letter ('cause I'm cheap like that; don't check your mailbox!). However, I have a lot of other holiday (and birthday) stuff to cover first. So, without further ado...
Shortly after my last blog post, I had to "go dark" for a while--mostly because I was in the kitchen, baking a
lot of sweet treats for many many people. A few friends have asked for recipes, so I'm posting a bunch of pictures here in the hopes that they can identify the cookies involved and send me requests. So here are a few of the things I made (not including your "standard" stuff like fudge). Also, I realize these pictures are not the greatest...sorry. I have been pretty rushed the last couple of weeks, and I don't work for
Our Best Bites, so what can ya do??
First were these terrific cookies (admittedly, they don't
look gorgeous, but trust me--they're great!). These are butter cookies with a cranberry-pecan-brown sugar "swirl" pinwheeled inside. Oh yeah, and there's orange rind in the cookie dough, which makes it just a bit tart. Sooo good.
Another holiday standard at the Barrett home are the peanut butter blossoms--although I think I made these cookies too big! The poor Hershey's Kiss seems a little lost inside all that cookie. Well, I have more Kisses left over--oh, darn, time to make more cookies!!
Here's another "cookie" I've been making for the last few years; it's a peppermint meringue. There are only four or five total ingredients, but it still takes kind of a long time to put them together (plus two hours to bake!). However, it's worth it! I
love the flavor; it's like taking a bite into a soft cloud of peppermint. Mmm...
I also make jam thumbprints every year as well; I find them a nice nutty alternative to some overly sweet cookies (even if the jam might make them a little messy). I didn't have any walnuts left (my usual nut with these cookies), so I used a combination of peanuts and pecans, and they tasted great! (The jam is my homemade raspberry jam)
Here's a new cookie I tried this year (I
finally got brave enough to use food coloring!). It's mainly a three-layered sugar cookie, but the pink "chunks" are actually ground-up maraschino cherries! I thought they looked very pretty, but I found the flavor milder than I'd hoped for. I'm trying to think of ways I could heighten the cherry flavor; maybe more almond extract? Maybe try a bit more sugar next time? It'll come to me, I know it! At any rate, I definitely want to try them again next year. And (by way of experiment), these cookies taste
very good dipped in hot cocoa!
So, long story short, I made
lots of cookies. And I have enough raw materials left over that I can see myself making a few more batches in the weeks to come (my kids have three weeks off of school for the Christmas holiday; I've got to fill the time
somehow!!). The vast majority of these goodies, however, were sent out to family & friends--including several very talented piano students I know...
That's right, I had my semiannual piano recital on December 10th, at our church building. I'm now teaching seven students, which has been a lot of additional work but which has also been very rewarding. They are all very sweet, very talented, and (as you can see above) very cute!! After playing, there was great applause and much rejoicing (especially by me, since I had been stressing about putting this together), and then everyone went to the kitchen & ate a bunch of yummy goodies. Because that (among other things) is what Christmas is all about.
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