No Excuses

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and enjoyed spending it however it turned out for you. We had a great time, and Maiby especially enjoyed being able to spend two days at each grandparent's house last week.

No Christmas card this year, though, and I have no excuses (although a good one could be that we never did get a family picture taken). Better luck next time!

Enjoy your New Year's celebrations!

Eggnog-Frosted Nutmeg Sugar Cookies

These cookies are delicious! They are a great complement to any holiday party - the spices give them just a hint of traditional holiday treats. Sorry, no picture; I don't want to find the camera and put it on the computer.

2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 c butter, soft
1 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 Tbls eggnog
3 1/4 c flour

Beat butter in large bowl with mixer 30 seconds. add sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Beat until combined, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat in egg, eggnog, and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour. Divde dough in half. Cover and chill 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375. On a lightly floured surface, roll out one of the dough portions to 1/4" thick. Cut with a cookie cutter. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are firm and bottoms are slightly browned. Transfer to wire rack to cool. Repeat with remaining dough. Spread with Eggnog Icing (recipe below). If desired, sprinkle with coarse sugar. Makes about 24 (but I ended up with 41).

ICING:
In a medium bowl, stir together 3 cups powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Stir in enough eggnog (or milk) to make an icing of spreading consistency.

An End to the Cookie Parties

Tomorrow, Wednesday, will be our final cookie party. Come on over at 315 to try a recipe that uses Egg Nog...should be tasty!

Latest Cookie Recipes & Tree Pics

Today's cookies were Christmas Sandies. They turned out pretty good. I sent them with James to his test tonight, and they were all eaten, so I guess that's a good sign. Another good sign is there are no eggs, so if you're pregnant, you can taste the dough without any fear!

1 c butter, softened
1/2 c powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
1 c finely chopped dried cranberries (use a food processor, and I would cut this down to 3/4 or 1/2 cup)
2 tsp finely shredded lemon peel
white, red, and green nonpareils

Preheat oven to 350. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Beat butter with a mixer on medium to high for 30 seconds. Add powdered sugar. Beat until combined, scraping bowl. Beat in vanilla. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in berries, lemon peel, and any remaining flour.

Shape mixture into 1/2-, 3/4-, or 1-inch balls. Roll dough in non pareils. Arrange balls 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheets.

Bake 10 minutes for 1/2" balls, 13 for 3/4" balls, and 15 for 1" balls (although mine were 1" and I only baked them for 13 minutes, but my oven runs hot), until bottoms are light brown. Transfer to wire racks and let cool.

Ooey, Gooey, Chewy S'more Bars - these were delicious! I think they would have been a little softer at the end if I would have used the 9x13 pan as suggested, but it was in the dishwasher, so I improvised with 2 smaller pans, so my crust was a little thinner that it would have been.

3/4 c butter, softened
1 1/2 c packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c quick oats
1 c graham cracker crumbs
2 1/2 c mini marshmallows
1 1/4 c semisweet or milk chocolate chunks (I used both types of chips)

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 13x9 pan with foil that extends over the edges of the pan. In a large bowl, beat butter on med speed for 30 seconds. Beat in brown sugar until combined, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Beat in flour. Stir in oats and cracker crumbs.

Reserve 1 c of the oat mixture. Spread remaining oat into pan (use back of large wet spoon). Bake about 15 minutes until lightly browned. Sprinkle marshmallows evenly over warm crust. Top with chocolate chunks. Dot remaning oat mixture over chocolate and mallows.

Bake about 20 mins more until top is lightly browned. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Using edges of foil, lift uncut bars out of hte pan. Cut into bars. Here's the finished product before cutting:

And just for good measure, here is Maiby and James putting her special ornament on the tree.

Free Bed

If anyone in the Moscow area is looking for a toddler bed, we are giving ours away...it is a blue race car bed and includes a mattress and a Winnie the Pooh sheet/comforter if you want it as well. We will be putting it up on craigslist next week, but we figured if we knew anyone that wanted it, you can have dibs.

Cookie Party

So we took down our desktop to make room for the Christmas tree, and with James' schedule being extra busy and school is ending, it's a little more difficult to find time to use his computer, so I haven't posted last week's recipe yet. But I have a couple minutes right now to let you know that this week's party will be on Wednesday at 315 again. We will try out Christmas Sandies, and I will post both recipes together before Sunday.

Picture with Santa

Walmart is doing their free pictures with Santa again this year! I think today is the last day, at least for the Moscow Walmart...just go before they are done (I think it's at 5) and head back to the restroom area. Your kids can talk to Santa and then get their picture taken and you can pick the finished picture up later.