Snickerdoodles!

Okay, I know this list is evolving from what I wrote out yesterday, but that’s how it works, right?  I was paging through my Betty Crocker cookbook and found a recipe for chocolate crinkles and mixed the dough before I realized that it had to chill three hours before baking.

Gah!

So, I mixed up the next recipe instead,  you can find it here. 

My only additions were that I was out of shortening, which meant I did a little bit of research, I found I could just  substitue butter.  According to all recipes reviews, these cookies should be baked for ONLY eight minutes to ensure proper texture and consistency.

And are they EVER good. These were a favorite of Eric’s growing up and while I think a few different kinds may now take top honors, he still managed to find room for a couple after dinner. :o)

This is a saga.

For some reason, I got the idea in my head that I would try to make twelve varieties of cookies for Christmas and it could turn into this cute, bloggy “12 Cookies of Christmas” thing.  I wanted to incorporate some cookies that reflected my and Eric’s heritage and I found recipe here for Norwegian wreath cookies.  The process seemed simple enough, calling to roll the dough into snakes and them forming them into wreath shapes. I  thought this would be a perfect project for Emily and I because everyone can make playdough snakes.

Well….most people can if they’re not using this shitty dough.

I make the dough as the reciep called for and I noticed it’s dry. Bone dry, man.  Freaking arid desert dry.  I give up with the mixer and try forming the dough with my hands and only have slightly more luck.  And when it came time to have Emily help form the dough?  Forget about it. It was a nightmare.  It took, get this, two minutes per cookie, to get a reasonable round shape.  Argh. Horrible.  I actually threw the last 1/4 of the dough away because I could FEEL my blood pressure going up as I tried to make them.

Waste of an evening, but here they are

Next up, Norwegian Kringla.  Possibly I’m crazy.  Who knows.

…spiced pumpkin softies from Woman’s Day. You can find the recipe here

Overall, these are pretty good. I skipped the pumpkin pie spice and just added some similar spices of my one (1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cloves). Emily gave them a thumbs up and the baby and the dog liked them too. Oh, and if you drop them onto your cookie sheet you have to flatten them.

Mine looked nowhere NEAR like the one’s in my Woman’s Day (there’s were tiny and very flat and round). Mine were big and sort of ….bumpy? The recipe claimed to make 60 cookies and I made 48 so I didn’t grossly over do the size.

I also used a pastry bag to pipe on the icing. It was easier, IMO, then trying to spread a dollop on each cookie.

Chicken Risotto with Veggies

This started as a throw together meal that has turned into one of our favorites. It’s easy to make, doesn’t take a lot of cooking time and is pretty nutritious too. It’s a neat toss it all together kind of thing and you can use what you have on hand. This is what ours usually looks like

ingredients:
1/2c chopped onion
1 clove of garlic
olive oil
1 and 1/3 c risotto
4 c chicken broth
1 to 2 cups of cooked, chopped chicken
frozen veggies (we like the green giant mixes that have the sauce in them. They add a lot of flavor with a little effort).

Start by drizzling your olive oil in your pan and sauteeing yor garlic and onion. This is a skip-able step and I do skip it sometimes because Emily’s not all that fond of onion. After your veggies start to soften, stir in your risotto and let it get sort of toast brown.

After it gets toasty brown, dump in your chicken broth and bring it to a boil Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook it for 15 minutes.

Add in your frozen veggies, give it a good stir and cover it up again stirring frequently for 5 to 7 minutes.

Stir in your precooked chicken and serve.

I like to serve this with garlic bread and I don’t worry about extra veggies because it’s all in there. :o)