| Thursday, December 15, 2005 |
| blogger Christmas cookie exchange |
The ever bootyful Susie has requested of her constituents to do a blog cookie exchange. Of course, this assignment was due yesterday, but I'm used to being late for the party.
Favorite holiday recipes
My thing to make during the holidays is green bean casserole. I've read that some people have tired of the new old favorite, but not me. I love it. When I first made it about 15 years ago, I substituted cream of chicken for cream of mushroom. Now I use cream of celery. I'd use cream of bon bons, but I don't think they make it anymore.
The green bean casserole is a staple of my family's festivities, loved by all. I believe it was last year that my dad asked me, "Crayonz, why don't use those skinny green beans?" "You mean the french style green beans instead of the cut ones?" I said. "Yeah, I like those a lot better." This year I have 3 giganto cans of French style green beans in my pantry, just for dad. I'll just keep it to myself that I prefer the cut green beans.
Rancito started with a new start-up construction company this fall, and I received a party invitation in the mail from the boss' wife a few weeks ago. The party is a women-only cookie exchange, and Dirty Santa, and bring a clothing of food donation item in the spirit of the holiday season because if you don't you are a heathen.
Did I mention that I have to bring 12 baggies of cookies with 6 cookies apiece? That's 72 cookies, people! I don't bake homemade cookies, I let Toll House do all the work. Break and bake is my motto.
So, thankfully I found www.allrecipes.com a few months ago, and they came to the rescue. Tomorrow evening I will slave away in the kitchen baking 144 cookies (some of them for the party and some for Rancito), and praying to God that I don't burn them or mistakenly bake a refrigerator magnet in one of them. Because you know Miss Lauren will want to help.
So here is my cookie recipe. There are no guarantees, but the reviews were pretty good. By the way, cream of tartar is not in the seafood aisle, but located along with the spices in the baking aisle.
Snickerdoodles
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets. Makes 4 dozen.
Special traditions
My dear blogging friend, Matthew, already tormented me to write a post about this one, but there are some traditions I failed to mention.
Several years ago, I traveled to visit my family in North Dakota during the holidays. I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Mandan for a few days. My aunt was a representative with a Tupperware-esque company called Tastefully Simple. During my stay, she had a party scheduled and invited me along. I remember the hostess wasn't much older than me, and lived in a beautiful new home. She had a huge entertainment center along one wall, and behind each of the glass doors were an assortment of beautiful snow globes.
"Where did you get all of these?" I asked.
She said, "Every Christmas, my mom would give me a snow globe. It was her thing."
I immediately knew that I wanted it to be my thing although I was childless at the time. I wanted my daughter to have a curio full of snow globes that glistened and welcomed newcomers to her home. I wanted her to have globes to play with her children, telling the story of how each came to be.
Lauren's first snow globe she received last year was "Alice in Wonderland." This year it is Snoopy.
Note the lack of gifts under the tree. Hey, I'm not dumb.
Favorite gift to give
Hmmm, if this is referring to something I give each year, I would suppose that would be hugs. I don't really tend to give the same thing each year. That would be, well, odd.
I suppose my favorite gifts to give are those to our nephews. I spoke to my mother-in-law about the crazy chaotic mess we had last year and suggested that we have each child pick out a gift and open one at a time. Last year, I missed it when the boys opened up the Spiderman posters I got them. Hopefully this year will be way less chaotic. Yes, I'm dreaming. Bear with me, here.
What you wear when you don your gay apparel :)
Last year, I braved the after-Thanksgiving sales and took my mom and Lauren to Kohl's. I was a mad woman. I grabbed everything that was marked down to my price range: a quesadilla maker for my friend, Julie, which she absolutely loves, a 5 piece luggage set that I did not need, and a sage holiday sweater that I decided I needed since I had reached defcon-mother status. I don't normally do cutesy holiday sweaters, but this one had snowmen on it, so I suppose it was okay. I wore it in our holiday photo last year. Hopefully, since I will only wear the sweater twice a year, it will get me through another 10 years of holidays and allow me to avoid the devil spawn that is after Thanksgiving shopping.
Argh, there are no visible snowmen in the picture. Sowee. |
| posted by ieatcrayonz @ 12/15/2005 |
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