I love the cookie dough scooper. I think I forgot to mention that on the Oatmeal Scotchies entry. I love it!
LV redeemed a coupon I gave him last Christmas as a gift, so we have more cookies. I think my idea of baking every week (it started as a goal for Fridays) really will go on and on way past the holidays.
By special request, I made more cupcakes. This time I thought the frosting should be green. And the batter should be pink.
After making this sandwich for myself (LV had regular burgers later), I've decided the best way to clean the Foreman grill is to use a piece of bread. So good.
We had a lot to do on Christmas Eve. I'm kind of surprised there were so many stores open... The main goal for me was to get two batches of chocolate cookies made for part of a gift set. LV was able to pick up a cookie dough scooper for me the day before. I *love* the scooper. Love it.
Scrappy would be with her mom on Christmas, so we tried to make a bigger deal about Christmas Eve dinner than we have in the past. This is another gigantic chicken cutlet with broccoli and homemade biscuits.
Then Scrappy and LV made sugar cookies using the Jiffy mix. LV and I had the same thought when we first tasted the finished product: This tasted like a corn muffin... I guess now we know that the fastest sugar cookies are definitely not the best sugar cookies.
And then we waited for Santa.
After we ran out of brownies, I wanted more. In my head, though, I was picturing something more like chocolate wafers--thin and crispy. Way back in 2007, Scrappy and I tried to make Oreos. I thought I would take that recipe (box of cake mix minus essential liquids), make better cookies, and then maybe make a peanut butter frosting. I ended up with a crying baby and my hands coated in super-sticky dough.
Rather than fight to roll out 100 tiny balls of dough (I don't remember it being such a pain the last time), I tried first dropping the dough in rounded teaspoons (but it stuck to the spoon) and then using a cookie press (but it wouldn't break away and the baby started crying again, so I just made one long ribbon on a cookie sheet to deal with later).
They ended up being really tasty.
I feel like I ate LV's birthday cake all by myself, so I made a motion to make cupcakes for the "let's cut a cake for Scrappy" non-party birthday celebration. I added food coloring to the tub of vanilla frosting and told LV, "You know everyone is going to ask what flavor the purple are." He shook his head. Then Scrappy saw the tray and told her dad I made strawberry cupcakes. He laughed.
We bought a bunch of cake mixes. The first set--yellow cake with vanilla frosting--was for LV's birthday. I tried to even out the cake to look less homemade by shaving off the top where it bubbles up like a big mushroom, but homemade looks homemade.
Crunchy peanut butter is what I always say we should buy. But at the beginning of November, I bought the twin pack of creamy. I knew I was going to make peanut butter cookies. When I asked LV which were better--the soft peanut butter cookie base or the crunchier chocolate base (from last year)--he said they couldn't be compared. I think I liked the chocolate base's texture more, but mmm... Peanut butter.
The past two years, I think I've made the pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. This year I decided to make the pie when I had the time (as determined by the baby). I think it turned out well. The crust could have been flakier.
Trying to get away from cookies, I made muffins today. Oatmeal, raisins, walnuts and some other stuff that sounded like it would make for a good breakfast treat...
I've been eating Halloween candy non-stop for three weeks. It was time for something new. So I made chocolate chip cookies.
