Holiday Sweets

It's not Christmas without cookies....so cookies we shall have.

So far we have coconut macaroons, oatmeal scotchies and chocolate shortbread.  I made the macaroons last week, I'm surprised that they've lasted this long.  (there's also been brownies and birthday cake in the house so that's probably why)  I spied a bag of butterscotch chips at Walmart last week and they made me nostalgic for the oatmeal scotchies that my mother used to make.  They came out pretty well, too.  Well, two thirds of them came out perfect and the other third were a bit crisp.  The chocolate shortbread was a new recipe from a cookbook that we received from Brian's brother, John and his wife, Patricia.  (They also sent a cookie press....how did they know that I've always wanted one!!!)  I also made dough for snickerdoodles but was overcome by fatigue and back pain to actually bake them.  Rule #1 in baking:  know your damn limitations!  Rule #2 in baking (in my world, anyway) wear something more supportive than slippers, you crazy lady!  Tonight's baking will be playing with the cookie press, in sneakers.  :)

Christmas Week Dinners

Two dinners worth commenting on this week:  Cheesy Southwest Meatloaf and Barbecue Chicken Pizza.  Both recipes are from our standby favorite that we just call "Simple," by America's Test Kitchen.  I say "simple" because it's in the title, I'm drawing a blank on the rest of it.

First, the meatloaf:

served with mashed potatoes and mixed veggies

Lots of good flavor!  Definitely some kick, which is fine with us.  I also liked how there were individual "patties" instead of one big loaf.  Plus the recipe had a great tip for canned chipotle en adobo.  Usually Brian doesn't like to buy cans of this because it's wasteful.  But the freezer tip of putting them in individual cups and freezing, then stacking individually in a bag for future use:  genius!  

Barbecue Chicken Pizza:

complete with lime-cilantro sour cream

This was OK.  Not terrible, because there was a lot of good flavors happening here.  The problem was the dough.  Who knew that pizza dough fresh as the grocery store is precious and tough to find two days before Christmas??  Brian had to settle on whole wheat, which baked up kind of like a cracker.  Won't stop us from trying again sometime.  

Holiday Baking, Days Three and Four

Did a ton of baking this weekend.  Gingerbread cookies (which aren't as easy to cut out as sugar cookie doug), pecan sables and another batch of macaroons.  I'm doing something a little different with this latest batch of macaroons....dipping them in melted dark chocolate.  I will also make another batch of fudge.....some has been given away as Brian had a work party that needed treats, but we ate a bit of it.  I think I've discovered the reason why I haven't made it in the past few years!

We have houseguests this weekend, my friend Maureen and her boyfriend, Sky.  Maureen LOVES our chocolate Rollo cookies so I am saving them for when she is here.  Maybe we'll even bake them together.

I think the 2013 baking is complete.  Minus the decorating that I will do with the boys tonight.  

One thing I need to remember for next year:  keep some healthy snacks around for noshing while baking cookies instead of nibbling on the product.  Yeah.....that'll be a good thing next year.

Holiday Baking, Day Two

The kids had early release from school on Tuesday due to the impending snowstorm.  Snowstorms ALWAYS make me feel like baking!  So there was homemade fudge, which I haven't made in a few years.  Not sure why I stopped but I'm glad I made it this year.  Also, there were snickerdoodles and coconut macaroons.  I'm the snickerdoodle fan in the house, and Brian adores the macaroons.  My parents are huge fans of coconut macaroons as well, so I got them done before they came over for my birthday on Thursday.  I sent a half-dozen home as "medicine" with them, as my Dad has a bad back right now.

This year I'm going back on something that I've said before, and I've embraced box mix.  I was searching for cream of tartar in the grocery store, when I passed the prepackaged bags of Betty Crocker snickerdoodle mix.  It got me to thinking....the only thing that I use cream of tartar for is to make snickerdoodles, and though I love them, I really only make them at Christmas.  So I brought home two of them and didn't look back.  And today?  A tube of ready-made gingerbread cookie dough came home with me from the grocery store.  It doesn't make them any less homemade, and the snickerdoodles tasted good.  Plus they took a lot less time.  I'm happy about it, I wish I could've convinced my purist Cookie Self years ago that this is OK!

Holiday Baking: Day One

Today's Baking:

Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies

I've used Alton Brown's recipe for these cookies for years, it's truly the best based on both taste and technique.  This is a really good episode of "Good Eats and worth catching.

I made up the dough yesterday and put it in the fridge for the obligatory  "2-4 hour chill."  And to be honest....I forgot about them.  Until I was walking around Target this afternoon, trying to finish up the last of the Christmas shopping.  No matter, the cookie dough just needed to be worked a little before getting rolled out and cut with holiday cookie cutters.

Decorating never happens same-day, as these need to cool.  Next up.....snickerdoodles or coconut macaroons.....but not today!  My mood will decide which one we'll be making.

Christmas Eve Dinner

We broke out of our norm and instead of having spaghetti for dinner, we roasted a chicken.  And it was excellent.  :)

Potato side dish:  originally was going to be a crockpot potato recipe so no oven space was needed.  Then I saw that the recipe took 10-12 hours to cook!  No way!  (Yes...that was on low, and I didn't feel like experimenting on Christmas eve with the crockpot on high.)  Instead we roasted red potatoes with garlic, then topped with cheese and bacon.  What's not to love?

The more "Chopped" we watch, the more we try to cook like they do on the show.  And Brian has a lot more success with that most of the time than I do.  Well, the green bean side dish was a HUGE success!  We blanched the green beans, and then I sauteed them in bacon fat, and tossed in onion, brown sugar and pecans.  They were delish.  :)  And yes....bacon fat.  It's Christmas Eve dinner....go big or go home!

Holiday Dessert Time

It was my brother and SIL's turn to host Christmas, so we got to bring dessert.  Brian really outshone himself this year!

 Chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes....incredible!  Looked labor-intensive though.

 This is a Christmas Cake with Tutti-Frutti filling.  Almonds, maraschino cherries, coconut...what's not to love?  Plus that hand-painted Christmas tree rocks, especially with the chocolate chip trunk.

And it's just not the holidays without biscotti.  I love these things....but have no control over how many I want to eat!  

Oh, and MY contribution?

Rocky Road fudge.  Marshmallow and walnut, to be precise.  I hadn't made fudge in many years, and this was so good!

Holiday Prep

Some of the things that have come out of my kitchen in the past week:

Cookies, Cookies and Cookies.  Over the years we've cut down on the number of different kinds, usually choosing 4-6 types.  These fall into the "It's Just Not Christmas Without..." category:  coconut macaroons, old-fashioned sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, Rollo cookies and biscotti.  No biscotti yet, but everything else has been baked, one kind a night in the past week.  No power outage is gonna stop us, either.  :)

Fudge.  I haven't made fudge in about five years...and now I remember why.  It's because I love it so damn much!  I am bringing Rocky Road fudge to my family's Christmas party tomorrow, and it's heavenly.

Garlic and Chicken "Stew."  This was dinner tonight, and it's one of my all-time favorite meals.  Two heads  (yes, HEADS not cloves) of garlic, chicken parts (tonight we used thighs and breasts) and various other ingredients left to stew in a Dutch oven is such an incredible smell.


Coming up on the horizon:  Christmas eve dinner, which is getting changed up this year from Spaghetti to Roast Chicken.  Christmas morning breakfast....overnight baked french toast.  (In my humble opinion, the best kind)  And we're doing dessert for the family get-together on Christmas Day, and have some great things!

Potluck Party

Last night was the Fourth Annual Hook and Needler Potluck and Holiday Swap!  It was the third year that I hosted, and I really love hosting this party.  Somewhere between 10 and 15 people congregate at my house, bringing food to share and gifts to swap.  We have lots of great food, and gather around my dining room table to knit/crochet, laugh and chat, and swap gifts.  It's low-key and casual, and I love it.

Brian loves it too, because he loves to entertain.  He had some vacation time to burn before the end of the year, so he took a half-day to clean up and make sure that the house was festive, and to make an appetizer:  Buttermilk Chicken Tenders with dipping sauces.  You know us...anything fried is delicious and we don't have it that often.  The sauces were pretty awesome too, fresh peanut sauce, feta and chive and Brian's new favorite, "molasses gravy."  Other foods that were here were chocolate cake shaped like a snowman with a coconut frosting, homemade custard flan (wow!) and authentic Italian Cookies.  Mmmmm.

I don't have any pictures of the event, really.  That's because we were all busy eating and enjoying.  This get-together is always a fabulous way to start of the Holiday Season.  :)

Post-Christmas Cooking

Santa was very good to us this year.  Brian got a full-size food processor!  This is going to make a big difference in our kitchen, as a mini-processor is great but can't do all jobs.  He also got many different spice blends and a bottle of real vanilla extract.  But the coolest gift of all?

A cast-iron enameled dutch oven!!

Dude, this thing weighs a ton!  When "Santa" bought it at Kohl's, (s)he had a four year old boy with him/her and the boy wanted to run off in the parking lot.  Imagine running after that kid with a cast-iron dutch oven in one hand, AND your car is parked at the far end of the lot.  Yep....good times.

The first meal in the Dutch oven:  Mark Bittman's "Chicken and Garlic Stew" from "How to Cook Everything."  One of our favorites, as there's a saying in this house, "there is no such thing as too much garlic!"

It was a very Mark Bittman year in our house.  I got a copy of his "Food Matters:  A Guide to Conscious Eating" for my birthday on December 19th and his "Kitchen Express" book for Christmas.  What can I say, I love the guy's work.  Not quite as much as Brian loves Alton Brown (whose Good Eats:  The Middle Years" was also under the Christmas tree)  but I do love his fresh ingredients and easy preparations.  Brian also got a cookbook from Taste of Home for busy families, that one should be interesting.  

Merry Christmas to All!  A little late, but always welcome.  :)

My Husband, the Butcher

Our family hosts Christmas dinner, which is traditionally a roast beef.  I can still remember how the kitchen used to smell in my grandparent's house, with a roast beef in the oven!  Mmmmmmm....

This year, Brian thought about what we wanted to do, roast-wise.  (this really is more his area of expertise.)  He decided that we should buy a really big roast, figure out how many people we were having and then cut it up into the Christmas roast and some steaks.  Ten NY strip steaks later, we had our Christmas Roast!  And it is a beautiful sight:

We had some of the steak for dinner tonight and it was out-of-this-world!  Can't wait for Saturday!

Chicken and Garlic "Stew"

We have a saying in our house, there is no such thing as too much garlic!  I once wanted to try a restaurant in San Francisco called The Stinking Rose.  They have their own saying..."We Flavor Our Garlic with Food."  We would've made it there too, if it hadn't been for the rotten parking in downtown San Francisco.  Ah well...there's always next time!

I chose this recipe this week from Mark Bittman's "Everything" Cookbook.  I love this book!  Most every recipe in it is very simple to make and really makes whatever the main ingredient shine.  This one was no exception.  Plus, you have to love a meal that you basically stick in a pot and forget about for about an hour.  Ding!  Dinner's done. 

When I first read the recipe though, I incorrectly assumed it was going to be a stew.  Really, it was more of a method of cooking, since there was only half a cup of liquid in the entire thing.  Brian said that it was more like braising, and since he knows about such things from watching countless hours of Food Network I am going to assume he's correct.  The recipe also called for serving it with crusty bread.  Uhm...I realized around 4pm that we didn't have any bread.  So instead we made biscuits.  Bisquick to the rescue!  No biscuit cutter, so Brian improvised using a Christmas ornament cookie cutter.  (Trust Mr. Christmas to add Christmas cheer whenever possible...regardless of the calendar!)

The end result was so fantastic, we didn't even flip through magazines, just ate in almost silence.  This is one for the notebook!

Christmas Eats

Christmas is a magical time.....and that's true for food too.  :)

Christmas Eve was a little low key, with a simple pasta supper.  But we had our tradtional late Christmas Breakfast...a dutch baby!  A dutch baby is essentially an oven pancake, topped with jam, powdered sugar, maply syrup or whatever you like.  I had received a gift of different butters from a friend of mine, so we went with Peach Butter.  Delicious.  :)

Then there were appetizers.....spicy shrimp cocktail and cheese and crackers.  Always good choices. 

Then dinner....oh dinner.  I didn't do too much of the dinner prep this year, Brian really outshone himself in the kitchen!  I prepared the buttered stuffed apples, and he did the rest.  Oh.....and our company helped too.....my cousin and my dad peeled potatoes, my mom put stuff together and so did my aunt.  My mom made a homemade vegetable soup as a starter.  I really like starting Christmas dinner with soup, it just makes it that much more special.  The roast beef came out perfect, with a slightly pink center.  All of the sides were fantastic.  And they all cleaned up after dinner so Preggo Ginny didn't have to do anything except continue to sip her coffee and chat with Auntie Kim!

Then there were lots of unwrapping gifts, followed by dessert.  Chocolate was the main theme, with Kim's brownies and homemade chocolate truffles, my aunt's trifle and a white chocolate and cranberry cheesecake that Mom brought.  By the end of the night if you were hungry it was your own fault.

I'm happy to say that I survived Christmas with gestational diabetes.  I did not feel at all deprived of treats, and my blood sugar numbers, though slightly high, weren't bad at all.  However, now my day of debauchery is over and it's time to start behaving again. 

Now for food-themed Christmas gifts:  I got a new 11 inch frying pan to replace the one that's losing it's nonstick coating.  Brian received Alton Brown's "Good Eats:  Reminiscing the First Six Seasons" book.  It turns out that the jacket cover opens up to a huge movie poster of Alton.....and he wants to frame it and hang it in our kitchen!  We shall see.....Brian also surprised me with a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook called "9x13: The Pan that Can!"  Every single recipe in the book is made in a 9x13 pan, from breakfast to roasts to casseroles and cakes.  That's a pretty neat concept.  I've always liked casseroles but don't have a lot of recipes for them.  So I know what we'll be putting on the menu over the next couple of weeks.  Plus, it wouldn't hurt to have some casseroles for when the baby arrives!

It was a very Merry Christmas in our house, not to mention delicious.  Hope yours was Merry and Delicious, too!

Dinner Plans

We've finally done it, sat down and made the menu for Christmas Dinner.  We're sort of toning it down this year by making things that we really liked for past Christmas dinners.  No real new recipes for Christmas dinner this year.  Dinner will be Alton Brown's Beef Tenderloin, Mashed Potatoes, Wild Rice Pilaf, Gala Stuffed Apples, Roasted Carrots and Sauteed Green Beans.  The best thing is that three or four of these things can be made the day before, and reheated.  And Brian and I are both off tomorrow so that's totally doable.  :)    I can already TASTE everything! 

Speaking of Alton Brown, I was at knitting the other night and somehow a conversation started about our good friend A.B.  (Brian wishes he was a good friend, anyway!)  Turns out one of my knitty friends is also a devoted AB and "Good Eats" fan.  And she's made his brined Thanksgiving Turkey!  Brian's always wanted to try this....but so far we haven't.  We chatted about his 10th anniversary celebration show and both agree that what A.B. describes his show as is as perfect a description as they come:  "my show is like a mix of Julia Child, Mr. Wizard and Monty Python."  Yes!!!

Eggnog Cookies

I'm headed to a Cookie Swap tomorrow night, and I've baked Eggnog Cookies.  I LOVE cookie swaps....maybe next year I'll host one.

I had an Ornament Swap party at my house last week for my knitting group.   Everyone brought either a dessert or an appetizer to share, and one lady brought these delectable Eggnog Cookies.  They were so good, and I thought that they were something different instead of the usual stuff you see at a Cookie Swap.  I baked them last night, and I just ran out of steam before I could frost them.  So tonight it's frosting, and then I'll drizzle them with a little melted chocolate.  I'm craving them already!!

Cookie Time is Here Again!!!

It's that time again.......Christmas Cookies!  I came home from work on Friday and thought it would be a fun activity for Will and I to make some cookies together.  I'll be the first to say that this wasn't one of my "better" ideas!

Let's start with the traditional Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies!  Why those first?  Because the dough has to chill out in the fridge for a while and you can make something else while that occurs.  Though just reading that last sentence, I have to laugh.  Making more cookies while the dough is chilling.....HA HA HA HA HA!!!  What a chore when a toddler is helping!  Will added extra salt, and poured an entire cup of flour onto the kitchen floor.  Luckily, I was able to remove most of the additional salt with the help of a spoon.   By the time we mixed up the dough in the Kitchenaid and put it in the fridge, two hours of chilling put it way past bedtime.  I made the executive decision  to let the dough chill overnight and I would bake the cookies on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning....no go.  Instead, I had a hair appointment and knocked out most of the rest of my Christmas shopping.  (Made record time in Target with getting ALL my gifts and getting checked out in less than an hour, thankyouverymuch!)  I finally got around to cutting out the cookies and baking them Saturday evening in time for Bubby to go to bed.  On to Sunday....

Sunday we had a birthday party to go to about forty miles away.  We had intentions of going out to dinner, but Will fell asleep in the car and there was NO way I was waking him up and taking his grumpy alter-ego into an eating establishment.  It just wouldn't be fair to the other patrons, not to mention terrible for us.  :)  So here we are.....mixing up frosting and decorating cookies at 7pm on Sunday.  And then....cookie-decorating lost out in the toddler popularity contest to the Dora the Explorer Holiday Special!  Ahhh.......I managed to stretch out ONE batch of cookie-making into three days!  Well, I did say that we were cutting back on the baking this year, and it's more enjoyable to stretch it out, right?

Tomorrow....Brian's favorite:  Coconut Macaroons!

(cross-posted at Life in the Carpool Lane.)

December: Snowy and....Balmy?

Last Thursday (Dec 3rd) was a record-breaking 66 degrees!!  We had company for dinner, and decided to abandon our pork chop recipe in favor of barbecue pork chops and potato packets on the grill.  Grilling in December.....ah delicious!  :)  Today, just a couple of days later, it's snowing and we're all about the Greek-Style Shrimp Scampi!  There's nothing like a big plate of pasta on a night like this. (and the lower carb one that I bought, "Dreamfields," actually tastes pretty good and doesn't make me miss regular spaghetti too much)

In the spirit of the season, Will and I are going to a friend's house tomorrow for a cookie-baking playdate.  I can't wait!

The Peach Doesn't Get Away this time....

It happened again! I bought a bunch of peaches to make that pie that I was talking about. I even got some tips from friends on how to keep them from spoiling. Two of them didn't make it, and I ended up being short for the pie. So instead there's a peach cobbler in the oven. I was going to make it peach and raspberry, but the berries got moldy before I could use them, too. (Maybe it's just me!)

The cobbler comes from my favorite cookbook of all time, The Joy of Cooking. I have not made a cobbler in a very long time, but I have to say that they are really, really easy! (Waaayyyyyyy easier than pie. Though I stopped rolling my own piecrust a long time ago, I just get too frustrated. Brian's really good at piecrust, that's why he's in charge of Thanksgiving pies!)

This particular recipe has a biscuit topping instead of a crumb topping. I had never tried making biscuit topping, but I think I like crumb topping better. Crumb is sweeter, while the biscuit topping is more savory. Either way, it still smells awesome as it's baking!



Pitting and slicing, then arranging them into a pan. I'll admit it...a couple of slices didn't make it to the dish. :)

Mixing the biscuit dough. I LOVE my stand mixer, one of the best Christmas presents ever!

Dropping spoonfuls of biscuit dough over the peaches. It doesn't get any easier than this!

The recipe said to bake for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees. I checked it at 35 and decided that that was "golden brown" enough. Any longer and it would've gone from cobbler to "crisp." (Ha ha)

The finished product!

Christmas Dinner....

Christmas Dinner....what a treat!

Holiday Tortellini Soup
Roast Beef
Seafood "Cake Bake"
Stuffed Golden Apples
Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans with Shallots
Butternut Squash
Roasted Carrots with Rosemary and Garlic
Hot Rolls and Butter.


My mom made the soup, it was out of Taste of Home this month. It was tomato, spinach and cheese tortellini, topped with fresh grated Parmesan. The roast beef was a bit underdone, but delicious just the same. Seafood "Cake Bake" is the silly name that Brian came up with when he put two recipes together, one for Seafood Gratin and the other for Crabcakes. Despite the name, it was absolutely delicous. And the veggies this year....roasted carrots with fresh rosemary and garlic! I roasted them the day before and Brian warmed them up in the oven. They were soooo good! And the green beans were just boiled for 4-5 minutes and then sauteed with a little olive oil and chopped shallot. Mmmmm....who knew simplicity could taste so good! The best part was that there were plenty of leftovers to send home with people and still have dinner tonight!!

Dessert was provided by our guests. Mom brought lots of Christmas cookies and a peach kuchen. Brian and Kim brought brownies that my brother had made, as well as more cookies. My aunt and cousin brought a Trader Joe's Chocolate Cheesecake sampler and a chocolate Yule Log. I haven't had any of those yet, but you can't go wrong with chocolate cheesecake!!!

This dinner is definitely worthy of "The Notebook." I keep a notebook of recipes that we've tried and really, really liked. (And yes, I write down the source so there's no plagiarizing.)

Merry Christmas, Everyone!!

Hosting Christmas Dinner

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and since I have the day off, it's the final preparations to host Christmas dinner.

We usually host, so that we can stay home with our son on Christmas Day. Plus, Brian and I both like to cook and entertain, so it works out well.

This year will be eight people all told, the most we've had a sit-down dinner for. We're having a soup course, entree and dessert.

Can't wait to share how it goes and what the menu was!!