Soft gingersnaps

Generally, I'm not a fan of gingersnaps. They get stale quickly and within a day or so go from tasty cookie to something with which you could bludgeon a robber.  At least that's how I felt until I found this little gem of a recipe. They are soft, delicious and as close to perfect as a cookie gets. I took these to my office holiday party and received RAVE reviews.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Additional sugar

Using a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar. If you don't have stand mixer, you can use a hand mixer, but be mindful that this batter gets very heavy and thick and might burn out an old or less powerful hand mixer. Add eggs, one by one, beating well after each addition. Beat in molasses.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt and nutmeg; gradually add to creamed mixture.

Refrigerate the dough for one hour.  Roll into one inch balls. Roll each ball in sugar. Place two inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 8 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for two minutes before moving to cooling racks.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Everywhere you go...

And we did go everywhere, or at least it felt like it.

After spending a couple hours on the phone with Delta over Sunday and Monday getting my cancelled flight rebooked we were finally off to Michigan on leg one of our three leg Christmas journey.  Ben arrived in Michigan on his original flight on Monday morning around 11:30.  My rebooked flight landed me in Michigan at about 10:00 pm on Monday night.  First stop? Pizza House of course (Ben had already hit Panchero's for lunch).  It's probably ridiculous, but our first stop everytime we make it to Ann Arbor is to indulge in some of the college comfort foods we know and love. 

Finished up some Christmas shopping on Tuesday before we packed up and headed to the west side of the state to visit with Ben's dad and his wife.  We had a lovely dinner, complete with a yummy salad weighted down with goat cheese and a bottle of cab. Having spent the evening chatting and catching up we decided we needed more time and came back the next morning for breakfast.  Ben's dad's wife is a great cook and served up perfect, flaky biscuits with homemade jams and sugared bacon.  I really didn't know you could make bacon better, but you can, you really, really can!

The rest of Wednesday was spent wrapping presents back at my parents house, hanging out and playing games with my brother and his friends.  Thursday, Christmas Eve day, dawned early as we piled in the car again, this time to drive to Sarnia to pick up two of our favorite people, Alyce and Dave.  We didn't get a lot of time with them, but an hour in the car and the same over lunch were happy times.  These are some of our dearest friends and it was so good to see them, even if it was a short visit.

The rest of our day was spent with me doing deep breathing exercises in an effort not to beat my father, who refuses, no matter how easy I make it for him, to do his Christmas shopping for my mom until Christmas Eve.  After late afternoon stops at Best Buy, Target, and Bed, Bath and Beyond we finally finished and headed home to prepare for the onslaught of greek relatives.  Fast forward three hours and Ben is in the basement drinking whiskey with my godfather while good-naturedly tolerating the kooky ramblings of my aging uncles, my brother is trying to shelter his new girlfriend from the same and I'm running around plying everyone with booze to ensure the evening doesn't devolve into an opportunity for "the airing of grievances."  All in all, it was a nice night filled with family, food and lots of laughter.  Here are a few highlights.

My parents' god-daughter Sara ripping into the Hannah Montana Movie Ben and I got her (save your comments Hannah Montana haters, I don't like it either, but when that's the only affordable item on the Christmas list, you've got to run with it)

(My Aunt Voula, Dad and Tom - you can NEVER get everyone looking at the camera.  Oh and Tom's face is priceless, I think he's laughing at some less than helpful suggestion offered by my godfather)

(Helping Tom refresh his swing dancing skills)

Christmas morning came VERY early.  Like 515AM.  This was my mom's request to ensure we had a chance to do Christmas morning together before Ben and I jetted off to South Carolina to spend Christmas with his mom, uncle and siblings.  Still bleary eyed opening our gifts from my parents, Ben and I received two kitchen items we've had our eyes on for some time, a KitchenAid Blender and a KitchenAid ProLine 6-Quart Stand Mixer.  Being the huge cooking dorks that we are, we were thrilled with these incredibly generous gifts and can't wait to test them out (product reviews promised!).  But better than getting gifts at Christmas to me, is giving them.  So while we opened ours, we also got to see my parents and brother opening the things I had so much fun selecting!  I was really glad to see my brother liked the watch we'd picked out as this kid has EVERYTHING and we were really at a loss as to what to get him.  Fast forward 30 minutes and, unlike when we were kids, the wrapping paper is all bagged up and, much like when we were kids, Tom is taking inventory of his haul for the year and both he and my dad are decked out in their new MSU (Sorry Wolverines!) snuggies.  All in all, a really nice (and very early) Christmas morning had by all.

While it would have been lovely to stay put and not have to brave the icy roads of the morning, we wanted to make sure we spent some time with Ben's mom and siblings too.  So we packed everything up that would fit into our bags and headed out to the airport with my dad as our chaffeur.  After more hang ups with Delta we were able to flout our miles and get into the preferred security line allowing us to make our 9AM flight to Charleston.  The rest of our Christmas tale in Charleston will have to wait for another post as the pics from Ben's uncle have not arrived yet!

Weekend Wonderland

Probably because I spend so much time closeted inside the confines of an office, I cherish my weekends.  Even if I am working at home, at least I'm home, comfy with Ben and my kitties.  And best of all, I can break up work work with house work and fun things too. Here's a little peek at my crafty project from this weekend, channeling my holiday spirit!

This is my wreath.  I am too cheap and like doing crafty things too much to spend a lot of money on a fancy wreath.  So bought a cheapy for $2.99 and added the rest of the accessories myself.  What I didn't realize when I was placing all the pretty blue ribbon is that I inadvertently made a Chanukah wreath.  I love that without meaning too, my wreath is representing more than one holiday tradition (even if only in color!). 

Aunt Leona's Sugar Cookies

My childhood memories don't come any more treasured than standing on a chair at the counter in my grandma's kitchen stirring up a batch of my Aunt Leona's (my grandma's sister's) sugar cookies.  This was usually followed by my grandma's reminder that we had to wait for them to sit in the refrigerator overnight before we could bake them.  Alas, they aren't for the child who loves instantaneous gratification (who me?!?) but they were always so good that I forgot to be bothered about it most of the time.  If you'd like to make a memory of your own with these, here's the recipe!

1 cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2+ cups of flour (recipe actually called for 2 and 1/4 cups, but typically I don't need all of it and usually leave the last 1/4 cup out)

Mix it all together. Seriously, just throw it in a bowl and mix.  No order, no wet then dry, just dump and mix.  Refrigerate overnight.  Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Make into 1" diameter balls, roll in sugar and drop of cookie sheet.  Press with a fork to flatten slightly.   Bake for approximately 8 minutes until golden! Enjoy!!

Christmas Cookies Episode 1 - Snowstorms

Beat 1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar and 1 stick butter until fluffy, then beat in 1 egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Whisk 1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder, 3/4 teaspoon salt and 3/4 teaspoon baking soda; stir into the butter mixture. Slowly add 1 1/2 cups flour, I recommend you add this last ingredient slowly because you may not need all the flour.  My first batch I only used 1 cup and they were perfect.  Chill 30 minutes, then roll into balls and bake 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

It's Beginning to Look at Lot Like Christmas!

Since we generally travel for the holidays and our week away from home this Christmas grants no exception, I waste no time getting the tree up for maximum enjoyment and, as Ben points out, maximizing our holiday carbon footprint.  My environmentally conscious friends forgive me, but I love our tree.  Really, I love any tree.

Our Thanksgiving meal went off without a hitch, including the best free-range, locally raised (for you Al!) little bird ever to cross my oven (it's all in the brine!). Nicole, Ben and I feasted on all the trimmings including yukon gold potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce and my family's bread stuffing cooked both inside the bird (my fav!!) and in a dish for those of you who don't like to think about your stuffing having been in the turkey's behind (we'll add a shout out to Boxy here!). Ended our delicious day with homemade pumpkin pie and hand whipped cream. Yum!

After the requisite 45 minutes of laying around complaining about just how full we were and whether we might be stretching the limits of the human stomach, we cleaned up the kitchen, packed up the leftovers and commenced with Operation Christmas Tree!  With such a small condo we had to give up the 8' wonder that once adorned our Lincoln Park apartment in Chicago and settle for a smaller six footer.  But with all the loving holiday touches it still warms my heart as much as its grander cousin did.  And the bonus? Two less feet of tree to reassemble when the cat inevitably knocks it over.