Molasses Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4c butter

1c brown sugar

1 egg

1/4c molasses

2c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground ginger

White granulated sugar for coating

 

1. Beat sugar and butter together until creamed

2. Add egg and molasses, beat

3. Add dry ingredients and mix well

4. Roll out logs of dough about 1″ in diameter and wrap in plastic wrap

5. Refrigerate overnight

6. Preheat oven to 350F

7. Cut dough into 1/4″ slices and coat with sugar

8. Bake 10-12 min

White Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Ingredients:

1 pkg almond bark style white chocolate

3oz Bakers white chocolate

1/2 lb small pretzels

If desired: seedless sunflower seeds

1. In a double boiler, on low, melt the almond bark and white chocolate together.

2. In small batches, coat the pretzels – lift out with a fork and tap excess coating back into the double boiler

3. Place on wax paper to cool

4. After all pretzels have been coated, pour seedless sunflower seeds into remaining coating and drop by spoonful onto wax paper to cool

Lukken Waffles (Belgian Cookies)

Last year, I made pizzelles – but, they were more like bread and less like cookies.  This year I found a lukken recipe – they turned out more like my grandma’s “Belgian cookies”. However, this is definitely a “cookie level: expert” job.  Making these takes a steady hand, patience, and an openness to a lack of perfection.  These cookies come off the press floppy and tear very easily.  However, they quickly dry stiff and are full of buttery sugary goodness.

The original recipe called for whiskey, but I substituted vanilla.  Also, the cookies shown in the picture contain a mistake – I was in a rush when making the dough and forgot to double the flour (I only used 3.67 cups).  So, they ended up extremely fragile (but still very crisp and yummy).  Next year, I’ll fix the flour issue and see how that alters the outcome.  I may end up using only 5 cups of flour to up the crispness.  Definitely a recipe to experiment with!

I used the PizzellePro brand of iron from QVC.

Ingredients:

2c butter

6 eggs

2tbsp vanilla

2 1/3c brown sugar

2 1/4c white sugar

6c flour

1/2 tsp salt

1. Beat sugar and butter together until creamed
2. Add eggs and vanilla, beat
3. Add dry ingredients and mix well
4. Roll out logs of dough about 1″ in diameter and wrap in plastic wrap
5. Refrigerate overnight
6. Warm the iron
7. Slice small section of dough and cook in iron (the exact amount will require experimentation for the particular iron you have)
8. Remove cooked waffles with a small spatula and cool – they will firm up as they cool

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/4c brown sugar (firmly packed)

1c butter

1tsp vanilla

2 large eggs

2c flour

6tbsp unsweetened dark cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

2/3c dark chocolate chips

For dipping:

Bowl of granulated sugar

Bowl of powdered sugar

1. Beat together brown sugar, butter, and vanilla until creamed

2. Beat in eggs

3. Add dry ingredients and then chocolate chips and mix well

4. Roll dough into logs, 1 1/2 inches in diameter, wrap each log in plastic wrap

5. Refrigerate dough logs overnight

6. Preheat oven to 350F

7. Slice dough into 1/4 inch slices

8. Coat each slice completely in granulated sugar and then powdered sugar (do not skip the granulated sugar step or the cookies will not “crackle”)

9. Bake 10-12 minutes

Recipe adapted from a Crisco brand recipe

Facing the post-Thanksgiving massive holiday to-do list

I’m an organized person.  Not a neat and tidy uber-clean person, but organized.  One of those people who makes lists of lists.  Color coded and dated lists.  Lists that aren’t procrastination – I get the items finished and checked off.  I’m motivated by checking items off lists.

But, even as an organized person, I have a secret to confess – I dread the day after Thanksgiving.  It’s not the shopping – that’s all done and stashed (accomplished online, of course).  It’s because the day after Thanksgiving is when all of my holiday and end of fall term/start of spring term lists are programmed to start alerting.  “Assemble lab kits”, “Inventory cookie baking ingredient spreadsheet”, “Program course updates – spring (sublist: 87 tasks)”, and on and on.  Since I take a school “computer break” from Christmas to New Years, and since I have a far-flung cookie-loving family, the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is my marathon.  It’s exhausting, but being organized helps. Sort of.  Some days I wonder if I might not be better off not seeing the massive day after Thanksgiving lists?  But, I try to look at it as a delayed gratification kind of thing.  If I get my list done before Christmas, then I know that I’ll have fall classes done, spring classes ready to go, and cookies to eat by Christmas Day.

Through the years, I’ve come up with some tips and tricks to accomplish what is important to me and my family – and to cut the things that aren’t.

1. We don’t do many gifts. I pick up little things here or there, but I don’t stress over what to get for whom. I have a huge family – most people get cookies.

2. Cookies. The list takes days to bake. I have no idea how many dozen I make – certainly more than I could estimate off the top of my head.  I am cutting back this year on the cookies and ramping up on the white chocolate covered pretzels – they are usually the first to get pounced on. (Side note: if I could buy the cookies, I totally would – can’t, peanut allergies, don’t trust anyone else to make cookies.  Plus, it’s something my grandma did, and she’s no longer here to do it).

3. I make lists for the next year as soon as a finish a project each year. The lists are programmed to alert the day after Thanksgiving the next year. As I said above, it’s overwhelming to see them all pop up – but at least I know I won’t forget something – and, I’ll get the sense of accomplishment that comes with marking things off a list.  I make lists of things like which cookies were the last to go from the plate (eliminate them from the line up) and who has which favorites.  I track cookie ingredients and recipes on Excel to make it easy to adjust batch sizes and to consolidate ingredients for a shopping list.  This year I’ve also started to use Trello to track my tasks.  Trello lets me color code task cards and either give each card a due date, or not.  Trello allows me to drag and drop and/or copy cards from list to list so that I can make a working copy without disrupting my original master copy list.  It allows multiple boards, each holding multiple lists with multiple cards per list.  Trello has allowed me to consolidate my holiday and school prep/grading lists from OneNote and Wunderlist to just Trello.  Anything that combines the functionality of two apps into one is a winner for me.  Plus, it’s universally accessible (phone, web).  I’m still faced with a massive list, but at least it’s one that’s both pretty and functional.

And, the things I don’t do?

1. I very rarely do holiday cards. If people want to know how my year went, there is Facebook. Or, they can email me and ask.  One year I sent out holiday cards June 1st (start of summer vacation – my “new year”).  That was a hit – lots of good feedback on that, but that was before Facebook was a thing.

2. I don’t put up a tree. We have a small pre-lit shrub somewhere we put on a table. Our kids are 20-somethings now so the tree isn’t really a must-do.  Plus, the kids still live at home (with all their stuff) so there isn’t actually room anywhere for a tree.

3. I don’t worry about cooking traditions. On Thanksgiving this week our “poultry and potatoes” meal was chicken tenders and fries. Christmas will be pizza (actually, the Papa Murphy’s folks tell me Dec 24th is one of their busiest days of the year so we may be on tradition there).

For me, the holidays are a time of family and faith.  I’ve learned as I age that it’s not about the obligations, or the turkey or the tree, it’s about spending time with the ones you love and relaxing.  The holidays don’t have to match the Norman Rockwell pictures to be valid experiences.

Now, on to that to-do list…

Sugar Cut-out Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
Powdered sugar (for icing)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine butter and sugar in mixer and mix on medium until creamy.
Mix in egg and vanilla.
In separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder.
Add flour mixture to mixer by spoonfuls.
Roll out and cut as desired.
Bake approximately 15 minutes (I always rotate cookies half time on bottom rack and half time on top rack so the bottom and top of the cookie bake evenly).
Icing: slowly add water by the teaspoon to powdered sugar until desired spreading consistency is reached