Last Minute Card Idea & Christmas Cookies

 Wednesday morning, right before I left for work, Glenn asked me for a Christmas card.  He accidentally gave all our cards to Margie so we didn't have anymore.  So I improvised.  I started with a blank card.  Then I grabbed a card that someone sent us last week, cut off the cover, and glued it onto the blank card.  Voila!  A new card!

 My sister wanted to see photos of the finished cookies.  I didn't take as many as I usually do but I did snap a few after they were wrapped & ready to deliver.  These are the kiss pies.

 Here are the toffee squares.  Cookies are really hard to photograph through plastic wrap!

And this is how we delivered them this year.  Not very fancy.

Christmas Cookies

The unbaked Kiss Pies.

Today we're delivering our Christmas cookies.  We didn't bake as many this year as in the past.  Well, Jordy probably did if you count all the ones she took to school.  I tried some new recipes this year & saw LOTS more that I wanted to try so I'm making this post to keep up with all of them so I can come back & try them later.  Hopefully before next Christmas!

These are the ones I made:
Kiss Pies from Picky Palete  (Pretty & easy, but more time consuming than I thought.)
Toffee Bars from The Pioneer Woman (These were soooooo fast & easy.  And delicious.)

These are the ones I want to try:
Candy Dipped Peanut Butter Ritz Sandwiches, kevin & amanda {blog} (Made these before, but used chocolate.)
Brownie Covered Oreos, Picky Palate (Think I'll try these with Candy Cane Jo-Jos!)
Pine Bark, Paula Deen (a girl at work makes this for us every year. Mmmmmmm....)

Unbaked candy recipes:
Layered Peppermint Crunch Bark, Recipe Girl
Easy Chocolate Pretzel Bits, Recipe Shoebox (Angie makes these.... sooooooo good!!!)

Other goodies to try:
Candied Pecans, kevin & amanda {blog}
Lots of last minute recipes here, Picky Palate

I'm running out of time now but I'll be adding to this list!  I may even mark it on the side column so I can find it easily.  Then I'm making a directory of cupcakes that we want to try!

Molasses Cookie & Our Guests Are Here!

Mmmmmmmmm....... our house smells good right now. Jordann had a friend over & finished baking the cookie dough.


Grandma & Grandpa made it here this afternoon -- after a non-stop flight from Dallas to SF. They did a little site-seeing before getting to our house a little after Jo & I made it home. I think G'pa is eating one of the cookies here while sitting behind our little Halloween candy vignette.
I think my candy display is disturbing Jo...
Our door has also been decorated. Jo drew this frame a few weeks ago & it has held several famous paintings so far -- Mona Lisa, George Washington (sorry I didn't get pictures of these.) Jo wanted to make a picture for Halloween but Glenn said we should celebrate Reformation Day instead. So he drew a picture of Martin Luther. I wonder who came by & added the horns? Hmmmmmm......

Sunday

Here's Glenn's contribution to the cookie exchange. He came home from church last night and wanted cookies. Jo & I had just finished cooking dinner and cleaning up the kitchen and didn't offer to make any so he went into the kitchen and made some himself. I don't remember when was the last time he did that! Or if he's ever done that... with cookies anyway. He usually makes pies around the holidays. He just got the cookbook out and found a recipe that sounded good and made them. It was a recipe that I'd never heard of -- Wow Cookies. And they did make us say, "Wow!

I made this little guy yesterday, too. I found everything at thrift stores except the florist tape. Someone, I think it might have been Heidi, wanted to see my Scrabble collage so here it is along with some Christmas decorations. The collage was hanging downstairs until we painted. I moved it upstairs to the little corner table in the hall and it just never made it back downstairs. In fact, if you look closely at all the pictures taken in our house you'll see that we haven't hung ANYTHING back on the walls yet!

Notice the Santa on the upper left. Isn't that weird. I bought it because it was so unusual (and only 50c) -- I guess no one else wanted it. Now, what you've all been waiting for... sneak peeks at Christmas presents. he he he

I should take more of these. They remind me of those super close up photos we used to see in that game magazine.

Now I'm off to crochet some more.

Friday's Cookies

Can you believe it? Our first holiday party is tonight -- my office party. It's at the home of one of the doctors. I'll let you know how it goes.

The picture above shows one of our favorite Christmas cookies, Candy Cane Cookie from the Betty Crocker Cookie Book. I LOVED this cookbook growing up and ordered a copy from me on Ebay. My sister posted the recipe on her blog. She's also blogged recipes & photos for Ginger Molasses & Chocolate Chip cookies. Along with a photo of (one of) the cutest nephews in the world licking beaters! :-)


Heather has the recipe for Pecan Tassies on her blog. I checked and it's pretty close to mine. But mine has 2 T melted butter in the filling and more pecans. I've used less when I was just trying to use up the pecans I already had, but of course it's better with MORE pecans!

I'm ready for some rain. Cold, rainy weather always gets me in the mood to bake. It's been cool in the mornings & evenings but sunny and warm during the day. We really need some rain. It's way too dry here.

Pumpkin Pie Tarts

Not quite a cookie, but I usually include some of these in my cookie plates. They're good to make when you make a pumpkin pie and have some filling left over. The lady that told me how to make these says to use whatever recipe you usually use for crust (for me that's the box of Pillsbury!) and whatever recipe you usually use for pie filling. If you don't already have a favorite pie crust recipe I've included one below. For the filling we just use the recipe on the can of pumpkin. Lauren made these last week.

Pumpkin Pie Tart Cookies

2 c all-purpose flour

1 t salt

2/3 c shortening

6 - 7 T cold water

Mix together the flour & salt. Cut in the shortening until the pieces are the size of small peas.

Slowly mix in the water, 1 Tablespoon at a time until all the dough is moistened. Use a small scoop (I use my Pampered Chef) and place a ball of dough in each cup of a mini-muffin pan. Press dough up the sides of the cup. (I use my Pampered Chef tart press for this -- it's something small you can order when you feel like you should order something from someone's party! lol...) Fill each cup with filling of your choice. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Glenn's leaving and taking my laptop with him so gotta sign off for the day.... Hopefully I'll be bake tomorrow with another recipe.

Thankful for... Cookies!

We started our holiday baking yesterday.  Lauren's senior club is having a bake sale today after school so she made a pumpkin pie and tarts.  We got our homemade cookbook out that we've filled with our favorite recipes over the years.  I was thinking how much fun it would be to have a cookie exchange.  But I live in a very small townhouse with not much parking space and most of you couldn't drive out to California to come.  So... I'm going to have a "virtual cookie exchange"!  I'm still trying to figure out Mister Linky so everyone that wants to participate can include links to their blogs or websites and post recipes and photos of their cookies, too.

I think the date will be Tuesday, December 4.  I'll even have another giveaway... maybe a box of cookies?  No, cookies don't last that long around here!  :-)

So today I'm thankful for time spent together with my family -- baking!  And here's another blogger who's giving thanks this month -- There's No Place Like Home.