Friday Cookies

Some of you may remember several years ago when 

we tested recipes for holiday cookies.

We have decided to start it again, and I'm disappointed that

I can't find my magazine that we used a few years ago, since

there were plenty of recipes that we hadn't tried yet.

So I've been using pinterest, of course.

I will try to remember to take pictures in the future, but no promises.

The first one we tried is

Cran Pistachio Cookies

The recipe I found called for a Betty Crocker sugar

cookie mix, but when we made them last week I tried using my

favorite sugar cookie recipe. I also followed the advice of some of the comments

and didn't use quite as many nuts.

And they turned out great.

Try them!

2/3 c shortening

3/4 c sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

4 tsp milk

2 c flour

1 small box pistachio pudding mix

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

 1/2 c roasted, salted pistachio nuts - chopped

1/2 c dried cranberries - chopped (I didn't chop)

Cream the shortening, sugar, & vanilla.  Add the egg and milk and mix well.

Combine the dry ingredients and then mix together.  Finally,

add the nuts and cranberries.

Bake at 375 for 7-10 minutes.

The flavor we tried yesterday is

Chocolate Dipped Molasses Cookie

Also delicious.

1 1/2 c butter

2 c brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 c molasses

4 1/2 c flour

4 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

white sugar for rolling the dough (I used about 1/2 c)

2 bags white chocolate chips (I only used one & didn't dip them all)

Cream butter & sugar.  Add eggs & molasses.  Mix dry ingredients together then 

slowly mix into the wet.  Roll into 1-2" balls, and roll in white sugar.  Bake 

on parchment paper-lined pans at 375 for 10-12 minutes.  

Melt chocolate in double boiler & dip half a cookie into it.  Place on

wax paper to dry. 

Both of these recipes can be found on

The Girl Who Ate Everything blog,

labled as 12 Days of Christmas cookies.

And of course we will be trying more and if the cookies are good,
I'll post a copy of the recipe here.

It's About TIme & Halloween

I have not been interested in blogging for months.

It was a task to convince myself to write the last post, and it's

been this long before I've really thought about posting another.

I don't know why that is.

I even stopped reading blogs, even though I love, love, love

to read the blog posts of my friends and see what you are up to.

And I missed a lot, which makes me sad.

But I can't go back and change my actions.

We've had a lot going on around here since summer, even though there

are so many days that it doesn't feel like it.

But I'm not feeling well today, so it's a lazy day and perfect to get

back to blogging, right?

And I'm going to start small.

The girls, of course, wanted to be princesses for Halloween.

And they, of course, wanted to be pink and purple princesses.

So I headed to the fabric store and bought fleece, since it was on sale

and I thought it'd be nice and warm for a costume.

I bought two yards of each color & had plenty of fabric, so these dresses

were $8 a piece, and then I'll probably make some new winter hats with the rest.

 I just used some elastic and felt from my fabric stash to make the crowns, after

finding a great tutorial and pattern online somewhere.

 The boys were all going to be grandpas, and we were going to cut Sour Cream's 

hair into a grandpa style (shave the top bald), but I never made it to

the thrift store to find him or daddy a sweater for their costume, so I ended up

improvising.  He wore his jeans, plaid coat, winter hat, and I made a quick

felt axe so he could be a lumberjack.

I tried putting some makeup on his face to give him a goatee, but he resisted

and it looked like a bunch of gunk, so I wiped it off and we were out the door.

And the baby, of course, hated his outfit.  But he was warm

and it was in our costume box.