Virtual Running Date No. 35: COOKIES!

Hello Crushers!

If today was a virtual running date, I'd tell you that today's post is going to be short and sweet. There is a lot going on because it's MOVING WEEK! We close on our house on Friday, so we can go back to having our own space and Mom and Dad can kick us out of their house. As nice as it has been to be close to family for the past month, it's really time for all of us to enjoy each other a little farther away. Ha!

Anyway, here is a quick recap of the weekend in photos:

I took Steve to see "A Christmas Carol", which is his favorite Christmas story (besides the Bible).
He loved it!

Three baking/mixing stations going on at once!

All the baking supplies!

Halfway done!

A blurry shot of me with some of the cookies.

12 of 15 kinds of cookies we made! Some were still in the oven.

Mom mom used to make Christmas cookies with her mom and grandma. We have been marathon cookie baking with mom and Grandma since I can remember. You can start rolling dough into 1-inch balls at a pretty young age! Now that it's just Mom, my sister and I making them, it was kind of like Grandma and Great-Grandma were watching us from heaven and approving (or disproving - the peanut butter kisses went awry) of all the baking.

Next year, we'll have an 8-month-old baby girl who I'm sure will love to watch her mommy, grandma and auntie as they mix and roll out 1000 cookies. We might even let her have one!

Christmas Cookies with Links

Hi Crushers,
As you may know from an earlier blog posting, Steve and I are using our Advent Calendar to count down to Christmas with #24daysoftogetherness that I saw on Tina's blog, Carrots N Cake. One of the days this past week was "share your favorite Christmas memory". I told Steve about how we all took my sister's Big Bird themed Big Wheels three-wheeler out for a spin in the snow when she was six. We both talked about our favorite gifts (his: VHS Wrestling game, mine: Cabbage Patch Doll), caroling, Christmas Eve church services with candles, and family time.

I forgot to tell him about Christmas cookie baking with Grandma K, Mom, my sister Lisa and I all crammed in my Grandma's kitchen. This was the same home that Mom grew up in, so there were probably 10,000 cookies baked in this kitchen over the years. This is where we learned kitchen time management, how to grease a cookie sheet, the correct size of a dough ball to roll, how to crush pecans and almonds, and above all that you are not allowed to lick the chocolate or sugar off your fingers before you are done! By the time we finished making candies and cookies, we probably had inhaled a cup of powdered sugar each, but it was so much fun!

This year, we all took turns making cookies with Mom and Dad in their kitchen. If I could nominate my mom as a kitchen crush for only one reason, she would win for most organized. Seriously. She organizes us all by what cookies we need to bake, who has the patience to roll out all the dough balls or dip them in chocolate and what ingredients everyone needs to buy. She's like the general of cookie organization. When other people are freaking out on trying to figure out when to put things in the oven so they all come out at the same time, I am not because my mom taught me that one. Virtual High Five, Mom!

We always say that, "We don't need to bake so many cookies this year", and yet we still make 13 different kinds! Here they are with links to the recipes (if I could find them).
1. Scottish Shortbread (we melt chocolate on top of ours)
2. Spritz Cookies
3. Molasses Cookies
4. Grandma M's sugar cookies (It's a secret, but this one is pretty darn close. We double this recipe since they melt in your mouth!)
5. Sugar Cookie cut outs (use the dough recipe from my blog post here)
6. Peanut Butter Balls
7. Ting-a-lings (some people call them chocolate haystacks)
8. Raspberry thumbprints
9. Rosettes (my dad is the pro at these)
10. Peppermint Bark
11.Cherry Chocolate Nougats - sorry all, but I cannot find this recipe online!
12. Pecan Fingers - from one of my favorite bloggers!
13. Chocolate-dipped Angel Macaroons (use the recipe for Angel Macaroons from this post here and if you dip one half in chocolate and sprinkle with some ground almonds it kind of tastes like an Almond Joy).

Please note that all of these recipes are actually handwritten on sheets of paper or down on note cards in careful cursive writing. I am supplying the links to the recipes that are the closest to what we made. Also note, we are cookie crazy, and make most of these as double batches so we all go home with at least 4-5 tins of cookies.

Pfew... That was a lot of cookies! I think I need a glass of milk now.

How about you? What are your favorites? Did we miss any?

UPDATE: Here are photos of all the cookies except the Peppermint Bark.

Cookie Contest Entry: Cranberry Pecan Swirls

I was never able to wait for a cookie to cool the whole way
before "taste testing".

Now that my cookies have been submitted to the office of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, I feel like I can share my recipe. Not that I think any of you would steal my recipe, but since I can't change what I submitted any more I can give you the best version of this recipe.

(There were three versions total... My husband ate a lot of cookies!)

For a bit of background, I wanted to enter an original recipe in the Localicious category. You can read all about it in my previous post here about my grandma and cookies. If you don't want to look back (although you should because my grandma is awesome), here's the short story version: You must use at least one locally grown or produced ingredient that isn't butter. Since Wisconsin is "The Dairy State", everyone could have counted butter as their local product. My Wisconsin ingredient choices are cranberries and honey. They worked really well together, and I feel like I've got tons of antioxidants flying around my body since I've also eaten a lot of these cookies. Plus, I snacked on cranberries as I was baking.

NOTE: The cookie dough is very firm, so you should probably use a stand mixer if you can. Otherwise, be prepared to invest in a new hand mixer. I burned out TWO of them in three batches! Granted, one of them was really old and wimpy, but it tried it's hardest. See Pulled Pork and Prayers for my hand mixer menace confession.

The recipe that I submitted doesn't have quite so much (barely any) fun tips or pictures, so you're in for a treat! Tips are quoted/indented.

Holiday Cookie Contest – Localicious Category Entry

Cranberry Pecan Swirls – Original Recipe

Dough Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened

1 ½ cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tsp baking powder

3 ½ cups all purpose flour

Filling Ingredients:

2 cups whole Wisconsin cranberries

1 cup crushed pecans

3 tbsp Wisconsin honey (available at State Fair!)

1 tbsp orange zest (about one orange)

Directions:

In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese with a mixer until fluffy.

Tip: If you need to, you can pop the butter in the microwave for 10 seconds. Make sure the butter doesn't melt otherwise it's too hot for the egg. If it starts cooking the egg, then you get this weird scrambled egg consistency which is gross and you'll have to start over. 

Beat in sugar and then the vanilla and egg. Add baking powder and salt. Mix in flour 1 cup or ½ cup at a time so it doesn’t fly out of the bowl. Cover the bowl and chill in the fridge for at least two hours (overnight is fine).

Tip: I chilled mine overnight because I didn't have enough time to wait for this and keep baking all in one night. If you're doing marathon cookie baking during the day, you can totally wait.

While dough is chilling, crush Wisconsin cranberries and pecans in a food processor or blender until you have a barely-chunky paste. Mix in Wisconsin honey and orange zest. Cover and refrigerate until dough is ready.

Tip: Since honey is kind of a pain in the neck to scoop out without getting all sticky, it's actually easier to use your fingers than a plastic/silicone scraper. Just make sure you washed your hands well!

Using a rolling pin, roll out half of the chilled dough between two sheets of wax paper. Try and keep it in a rectangular shape.

Tip: You still may want to sprinkle some flour on the wax paper so it isn't all sticky. Otherwise, you swear at the dough when it sticks to your rolling pin, and we all know that there's no swearing in the kitchen.

See how the dough stuck to the wax paper on the lower right-hand side? Ugh.

When it is about 1/8-1/4 inch thick, spread half of the filling in a thin layer over the dough. Either using your hands or by pulling up the bottom sheet of wax paper, roll the dough over until you have a long roll of dough. Wrap in wax paper and pinch ends shut. Repeat this process with the other half of the dough and filling. Refrigerate at least one hour for easy cutting.

It's not quite a rectangle, but that's about as close as you need
to get for an even roll. Approx 11" x 14"

Tip: I put the two rolls next to each other and put some plastic wrap around the ends. I set them on a cookie sheet so they wouldn't roll out of the fridge or anything. I've seen some people even put them in two cups open-end to open-end so it's like a big capsule of dough so you don't have a flat side. However, I didn't care too much if one side of the dough was going to be a bit flat. They still taste good!

Preheat oven to 375. Cut chilled roll of dough into slices no thicker than ½ inch. Place on non-stick cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown and the middle is firm. Makes 3-4 dozen cookies.

Thank you to my test market: Husband, Mom, Dad, Grandparents, Co-Workers and Friends!

Kitchen Mischief review - what actually got done?

Friday night I was all set to get a long list of things done. Well, it didn't get done, or it didn't all get done in one night.

For review, here is the list that was:

Here is my to-do list:
1. Go to grocery (stick to list)
2. Go to Michael's (find coupons)
3. Make dinner and freeze half
4. Make dough and put in fridge
5. Clean bathroom
6. Should probably vacuum too...
7. Make cookie filling and bake.
8. Paint and glue and glitter and then vacuum.
9. Pour glass of wine and fall in heap on couch.


Due to a stop at my parents' house (and getting to eat dinner with them), I got a late start on the list. Over the whole weekend, this is what actually got accomplished:
1. Go to grocery (stuck to the list almost the whole way)
2. Go to Michael's (used coupons, but decided my project was a little over my head, so I bought different supplies which took me a long time to find)
3. Made delicious meals on Saturday and Sunday instead of Friday night (see: free dinner at Mom and Dad's house)
4. Made dough (there was some swearing involved when I dropped a half cup of flour on the floor) and put in fridge.
5. Cleaned bathroom on Sunday (even with the grout brush!)
6. Husband vacuumed for me!
7. Made two kinds of cookie filling. Discovered that the cookie dough had the wrong butter:flour ratio (this is why you should never swear in the kitchen - especially when cooking because the food will take revenge), so I took one of the fillings and made thumbprint cookies instead. Rats. Need to start over, but got to have cookies to share with friends all weekend long!
8. No crafting was accomplished.
9. Drank a way-less-classy beer.
10. Re-made dough thanks to consultation with mom and a trip to the store for floor cleaner and more butter (cleaning up spilled flour can be a messy job). Cleaned floor while new dough was in the fridge.
11. Volunteered at a Haunted House Fundraiser and scared the beejees out of people for four hours on Saturday night.
12. FINALLY got the dough to roll out, filled and back in the fridge.

Helpful tips to conquer a big list:
1. Write it down!
2. Be flexible.
3. When rolling out dough, either use a nice flat surface covered with a dusting of flour or roll dough between two sheets of wax paper. Worked like a charm!

Kitchen Mischief

Tonight my husband is out scouting some more football games, so I have the house to myself. I am planning a few craft projects for Christmas this year, as well as, for my sister's wedding gift. This means that once I'm a good girl and clean the bathroom and finish grocery shopping, cookies and crafting is going to happen!

Here is my to-do list:
1. Go to grocery (stick to list)
2. Go to Michael's (find coupons)
3. Make dinner and freeze half
4. Make dough and put in fridge
5. Clean bathroom
6. Should probably vacuum too...
7. Make cookie filling and bake.
8. Paint and glue and glitter and then vacuum.
9. Pour glass of wine and fall in heap on couch.

Happy Friday!

Cookie Crush - Contest Coming Soon!

The annual Holiday Cookie Contest is coming up in our local newspaper, and I am thinking that this is my year to enter. I've got less than a month to come up with a recipe either adapted or original. I think I want to enter the "Localicious" category where you need to use products from Wisconsin (not counting butter).

I decided to check out what the top Wisconsin crops are to give me some inspiration. Besides dairy products, they are: corn (human food and livestock food), soybeans, potatoes, and cranberries. Apples and cherries are also grown in Wisconsin, but didn't come in at the top. I knew most of these thanks to my years of working at the Wisconsin State Fair, but I don't think I could make a cookie with potatoes. I'm thinking cranberries would be the way to go.

After checking the products list and reading the rules of the contest, my first thought was, "I need to raid Grandma's recipes" for some advice. For about 20 years, since the time I was old enough to be trusted to not lick my fingers between every chocolate-dipped peanut butter truffle I rolled (about 5-years-old) until a few years back when Grandma had a few strokes and lost most of her vision, we have made Christmas cookies at Grandma's house. Grandma is one of my kitchen crushes.

During the Great Depression, my young adult grandmother and her two sisters took jobs to help support their family. My great-grandpa died when the girls were small children (one great aunt was a newborn), so they depended on taking in boarders and other family members to help pay the bills. My Grandma, a college graduate despite financial hardship, became the head telephone operator in  Watertown, located in southern central Wisconsin. Her mother continued to keep house while Grandma and her sisters worked.

In 1942, halfway through World War II, Grandma and Grandpa got married. As a "career woman", Grandma didn't know how to do many common household chores. One family story tells about how as a newlywed, she starched Grandpa's boxer shorts so much that he could barely get them on! So, at 26-years-old, Grandma learned how to cook and bake, and became quite the domestic goddess. She could whip together a dinner party without trouble, and collected cookbooks from around the country until Grandpa claimed she could not possibly fit one more in their house.

Now at 96-years-old, Grandma doesn't cook anymore. Mom makes almost all of their meals. Like I said, Grandma had a number of strokes and has lost her vision almost completely. She still dreams of cooking and often wakes up from her afternoon nap wondering if they are having the lamb chops she baked in her sleep for dinner. Her dreams are so vivid she tells Grandpa (also 96) that she can smell them cooling in the kitchen.

I can describe to her any meal I make by giving her a detailed list of ingredients and description of how I made it. She will close her eyes and mentally walk through every step of the process. She's a tough judge. There's been a few times where she'll ask why I did a certain step or suggest that I maybe not make that meal again. On the plus side, she is spot-on with her suggestions. Grandma even gave me the idea the first meal I made for my husband while we were dating (stuffed pork chops).

Grandma still enjoys the Christmas cookies that we make and has her favorites (meringues and pecan fingers). Most of them are her recipes after all. We've switched baking in her kitchen to Mom's. Although she's not there commanding the kitchen in person, she's there in our minds when we ask, "Will she like this?" or "This is how Grandma did it." We even use her ancient nut chopper and Sunbeam stand mixer. Some things you just don't mess with.

I guess I'll have to make some test cookies up and bring them over for her to see if they get her approval for contest submission!

How about you? Do you have any family favorite cookies? Do you have any tips for submitting recipes for contests?