Holiday Baking!

Only 2 weeks until Christmas and I'm itching to start baking.  I'm not the best cook, but I LOVE to bake. 

3 years ago we were in the middle of a kitchen renovation.  We'd bought my mom's house and we were re-doing most of it.  For some reason I can't remember now we started the kitchen demo in December.  We were on a major time crunch.  I was hosting Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas morning brunch...we had to be done on time!!  Thankfully I had the foresight to make some Christmas cookie dough ahead of time.  I remember our kitchen was half done and there I was--baking cookies while David and the guy that was helping him were shimming the cabinets after installing them.  We didn't have counter tops yet, our sink wasn't hooked up,  I had to dig my cookie sheets out of storage...but by golly I was going to have homemade cookies for Christmas!  All I needed was the stove to be plugged in and functional and my premade dough! 

Despite all the chaos that year, the baking part was stress free.  So every year since I've tried to get a few batches of cookie dough in the freezer ahead of time, and then a day or two before Christmas I bake them up.  It's wonderful.  I love to give cookies as gifts to teachers, coaches, neighbors, etc.  So I tend to bake a lot of cookies, and it's so nice to just pull them out of the freezer and place on a cookie sheet. 

This year I'm starting today.  I'm going to make Raspberry Pinwheels.  I got the recipe out of a cookie magazine that my mother-in-law had at her house and I LOVE them.  Everyone does.  They're a big hit.

 

Raspberry Pinwheels

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam

3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

Cream butter and sugar

Beat in egg and vanilla

Add flour and baking powder.  Mix well.
*if it's a little dry add some water 1 tsp at a time*

Roll out dough into a 12 inch square

Spread dough with jam and sprinkle with nuts. 

Roll up tightly jelly roll style and wrap in plastic wrap. 

Chill for 2 hours. 

Unwrap dough and slice into 1/4 inch slices. 

Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 for 9-11 minutes or until edges are golden brown.  Makes 3 dozen. 

Other cookies I'm planning on making this years are:

Peanut butter blossoms

Chinese Almond

"snowballs"

spritz cookies

fudge

and, of course, sugar cookies that we decorate together. 

Anderson loves to help me.  His "job" is running the mixer.  I have a big stand mixer and he likes to add the ingredients and then turn it on.  He also is the taster after they're done! 

I love sharing recipes.  What cookies do you make for the holidays?

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Well it has certainly been a while! 

We've just been unpacking and unpacking and unpacking...nothing terribly exciting to write about.  It has, however, opened my eyes to just how much STUFF we have.  I am really good about getting rid of stuff...and we still have STUFF!  I detest clutter, rarely hang on to things on the off chance we might need it someday, and I like for everything to have a place.  If it doesn't, it's gone.  So I am really surprised how much we have accumulated in our 8 years of marriage.  A lot of it is baby gear/clothes, and I am hanging on to that just in case we have another baby.  I also have a lot of glassware/china/serving pieces that were passed down to me from my grandparents and other family.  But as to what everything else is and how we ended up with so much...I'm stumped!  As we have unpacked we've gone through things and have started quite the garage sale pile...Spring can't come fast enough!! 

We don't have anything up on the walls yet, but we have started decorating for Christmas.  Anderson was so excited.  (Although I think he might have been more excited about the egg nog--delivered special by Grandpa Jerry this weekend.  They only make the kind we like in Ithaca, NY, so we put in a special request!)  He had a great time pulling the ornaments out of boxes and oohing and aahing as he put them on the tree.  It was very cute. 

My dad and stepmom visited this weekend.  We went to the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland--I would recommend this place to everyone!!  It was a ton of fun for everyone.  We were there for about 5 hours and still didn't see it all.  It was all hands on, so Anderson had a great time, and the adults learned stuff too!! 

I'm starting to get some things crossed off my Christmas To Do List.  It's different this year--I don't feel stressed yet!  I think it's because we don't know many (any) people here yet, so I don't feel pulled in a million different directions.  Plus I'm not working at the moment.  It's been a welcome break, in a way, to not have anything to do...ever!  LOL  I'm sure it will get old soon, but this is my least stressy holiday season in a while.  I have my list of presents that I need to buy and wrap, some cookies to make...and that's pretty much it. 

See...nothing too exciting.  Hope everyone has a great holiday.  We're heading to NY at some point to see everyone, and Anderson is so excited to see his friends (me too!)  I'm sure I'll have more to write about then. 

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