gingerbread men

My Aunt Kim is known for her gingerbread cookie recipe and thanks to the dozens she brings to Christmas every year, these cookies have been my Christmas morning breakfast for as long as I can remember. This is a great recipe that rolls out nicely and the flavor is superb. They are gracing my Christmas tree branches this year as all decorations are edible.

GINGERBREAD MEN
Yield: 3 dozen

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups molasses
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2/3 cup cold water
1/3 cup butter, softened
6 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS
In a large mixing bowl, combine first 4 ingredients and mix thoroughly. Mix dry ingredients together in another large bowl and slowly add to wet mixture until dough comes together. Chill dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling out. Roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness and cut shapes with gingerbread man cookie cutter. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

gifting goodies

I'm working on a project that involves gifts from the kitchen. There has been a lot of brainstorming and a lot of shopping for just the right details to make the ideas come together perfectly. Yesterday I was hit with a heavy dose of holiday cheer in none other than The Container Store. If there is one near you...you should go. They have an amazing selection of products to gift goodies in. Everything is very reasonably priced as well. I came home with my fair share of the store (seen above) and even more ideas for foodie gifts. My ideas are underwraps for now, but check out a few of my favorite ideas this season here.
Another splurge yesterday was this very essential shimmering sugar and luster pearls at Williams Sonoma. They don't have them listed on their website, but if you walk in the store, you must take a peek. They have every color under the sun and the shimmering sugar comes in silver, gold, and white. They are reasonably priced at $5.00 and will make cookie decorating so much fun. The luster pearls will become buttons on my gingerbread men within the hour. Off to make my men of ginger...

yum sugar: cookies

I had a great time working on a cookie project for Yum Sugar. My mission was to come up with a versatile cookie dough that could be transformed into all sorts of holiday cookies. Having a go-to basic butter cookie dough for the holidays can be a huge time saver when your baking is in full swing (along with everything else!). This butter cookie dough recipe can be transformed into a variety of sweet treats for special occasions, gifts, and holiday traditions. With a few tweaks to the basic recipe, you will have an assortment of cookies that taste nothing like one another. It’s also easy to improvise your own creations. Adding a little bit of this or eliminating a little bit of that works perfectly with this recipe. Go here for all of the festive recipes.


Basic Butter Cookie Dough transforms into:
*Apricot Almond Thumbprints
*Cinnamon Sugar Drop Cookies
*Chocolate Coconut Butter Balls
*Cranberry Almond Oatmeal Cookies
*Peppermint Sugar Spritz Cookies

what a week

I'm so thrilled that December has finally rolled around. Like so many, it truly is my favorite time of the year. If only December could be 60 days instead of 31...As much as I enjoy the holidays, there just never seems to be enough time to enjoy them to their fullest. I already feel behind and it's only December 2nd!The family was in town last week and we enjoyed an amazing parade view from Robby's office followed by Thanksgiving dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in the city. (GASP!) No, I did not cook Thanksgiving dinner this year and I still feel bad about it. It's like I've committed a sin as a food lover! My family had already celebrated a homemade Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks earlier and we wanted to take advantage of every minute they had in the city. It also didn't seem very logistical when we don't own a table to eat our Thanksgiving dinner at. Oh well. I was sure that there would have been some unique novelty-like feeling about eating out on the most beloved food holiday of the year. I'm glad that we did it once, but let's just say that I've already been dreaming about what our Thanksgiving table will look like in 2010. Hopefully we'll own a table by then. (and have somewhere to put it!)I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and that your turkey's were moist, mashed potatoes were fluffy, and pie crusts were flaky and golden brown. I did manage to make the cranberry salad that we snacked on throughout their stay. To kick off December, I want to post a few gifts ideas that I think would be perfect for those food lovers that you love most.I can't get over how great these food notepads are. The packaging that these babies come in really seals the deal. Originally I found these for $41.00 each! Thanks to Kelli's tip, find them here for only $2.17 a piece. Merry Christmas to me!How much fun would the grocery store be when you've jotted your items down in this good looking notepad. Each list is perforated so you can rip it right off without those ragged edges.Messy eaters in your house? A napkin has never looked so good tucked into the collar of your shirt. Currently sold out...these would be an easy project to make on your own.

That's all for today...but stay tuned this week. I'll be posting some easy holiday recipes, homemade food gift ideas and ideas for decorating your Christmas tree with goodies that come from your kitchen.

Spiced Pumpkin Shake

I have cleared the grocery store shelves of their canned pumpkin over the past few days. Did you hear that there is a shortage??? Everything from shakes to waffles to creme brulee is sitting in my fridge and it's all orange. I'll post the recipes over the next couple days. This might be my favorite of them all!

SPICED PUMPKIN SHAKE

Yield: 2 servings

INGREDIENTS
1/3 cup canned pumpkin

2 T brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon vanilla*

1/4 cup whole milk
2 cups vanilla bean ice cream
½ cup gingersnap or graham cracker cookies, crushed & divided

*vanilla bean paste preferred

DIRECTIONS

Place 2 glasses in freezer to chill.

Combine all ingredients excluding ¼ cup of the cookies in blender and blend thoroughly. When completely blended, top each serving with remaining gingersnap cookies.

thank you

Thank you! Thank you! for all of the pumpkin ideas. (keep em comin') This lovely Pumpkin Risotto was a success last night right around 11:00pm. I cheated and used orzo instead of arborio rice, but the flavors and textures came together just right. One more round of testing and I'll post the recipe. I think this would be a lovely side dish on Turkey Day. There are currently 4 pretty pumpkin creme brulees baking away in my oven. If they taste as good as they look, we are in good shape folks.
In non-pumpkin news, I popped into Williams Sonoma today and first longed for my once 40% discount, and then fell in love with this ever so sweet kids cookie/cupcake decorating kit. Let the Christmas wishlisting begin.