Hello dear Readers! It has been so long since I have posted. I have been in a slump and have just started to emerge from it. I have been so busy chrocheting Christmas gifts for my family. Money is very tight this year. Or should I say lack of money is a problem this year. I have been making a lot of my gifts. Because I am a nightowl and do not go to bed until two or three a.m. I have plenty of time to crochet. Besides I cannot watch TV unless I am crocheting because I would be sound asleep in 15 minutes!! Boy, this is not an advantage of getting older. I hate to fall asleep watching TV. I am so cranky when I wake up and then I can't fall asleep for hours. Do you know what I mean? Am I the only one who has this problem? Tell me I'm not, PLEASE!!
One of the greatest inventions of the decade is the DVR. Or as known as the digital video recorder. Or some people know it as TIVO. This is such a wonderful device. Once you learn how to use it correctly. Now I can record all my wonderful TV shows, watch them without viewing the commercials and always have something good to watch. I just love, love, love it!
Now this week I have started baking my Christmas Cookies. Tonight hubby and I made cutout
butter sugar cookies in assorted holiday shapes and colored sprinkles. These are time consuming but not difficult. The secret to rolling out great cookies is to use a pastry cloth and a stocking on the rolling pin. And keep both well floured. Sugar cookies must be rolled out very very thin. When I roll out the dough, I gently pat it with my fingertips. It should barely leave an impression in the dough. Then I know it is thin enough. This year I used parchment paper on my cookie sheets. What a wonderful time-saving thing. The cookie sheets stay clean, you don't have to grease them and the cookies just slide right off the paper. My husband in charge of decorating and baking the cookies. He is in love with parchment paper. We also make Moravian ginger cookies. These must be rolled out paper thin or they will not taste right. I think these are my favorite cookies. So good with a cup of tea!!! The spicy molasses rich dough is so good. I had to stop eating the raw dough it was so good. The cookies bake up very thin and crunchy. I like them better than regular gingerbread cookies. We always make the cutout cookies first because they are so labor intensive. If we didn't make them first they would not get made. Laziness sets in - LOL. The next type we make are the thumbprint cookies with raspberry jam and pecans and the Butterballs. The thumbprints are messy to make because you have to dip them in egg whites and roll them in finely chopped nuts. But they are soooooooo good. We make about 25 different kinds of cookies and they are all doubled or tripled to make 5 - 10 dozen each. That's a whole lotta cookies! Yes indeed.
And I only use butter - real butter in my cookies. The only cookies I use shortening in is my ginger cookies because you cannot taste the butter with the molasses and spices. We give cookies as Christmas gifts to family and friends and Randy brings a giant tray to work on Christmas eve. They last about 2 hours there and then they are history. I love nuts too. And I use pecans, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pineoli nuts by the ton. But it only happens once a year and some of the recipes are not made any other time of the year. One of these days I am going to write a cookie cookbook with all my favorites. If you would like any recipes just leave me a comment and I will get it to you.
