I Feel a Baking Frenzy Coming On

I did a lot of baking for Thanksgiving but only whipped up one batch of Russian Tea Cakes so I'm feeling a little lop-sided for December.  My friend at work, Tara, brought her famous Cardamom Bars to work yesterday. They are not the prettiest cookie bar on the plate but you shouldn't let looks fool you. I only ate two. I probably won't be making this delicious creation because it's Tara trademark cookie and I know she loves the adoration she receives for making them.  I have my own trademark cookies and if the stars line up right, I'll spend all day baking them on Sunday.

I love to give baked goods to my friends. When I lived in Fairbanks in my 20's and early 30's, my sister and I used to get together on a Saturday in mid-December and we'd start early in the morning with bags of flour & sugar, pounds of butter and a couple bottles of wine (definitely not cooking wine!) and we'd bake all day and get a little, shall we say, sloshed! We made fudge, sugar cookies, pressed cookies, and little green mints to round off our Christmas plates. After getting everything baked and cooled, we'd spread it all out on the table and assemble plates of cookies to give to friends and family. Each of us had a list of how many plates we needed and nothing gave us greater joy than to delivery them to each friend. We usually ended up with about 20 plates each. 

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I started another blog the same time as this one but I haven't paid much attention to it. It's called What's Cooking and I hope to store my most favorite recipes there so I can share them with you. I am not all that adventurous when it comes to cooking. I tend to stick with my favorites and I guess that's because there are memories attached to my favorite recipes.

Grandma Palmer (Chris' grandmother aka Johanna) gave me this recipe for Ginger Snaps and I haven't found a better one. I usually only make them around Christmas time but they fly off the plate as fast as any old chocolate cookie.  Another favorite is Mom's Sugar Cookies which is a recipe I watched my wonderful mother-in-law, Adelle, make time after time but I know it was also handed-down from Grandma Palmer. It is much like a short-bread cookie in that it melts in your mouth. It's a simple recipe and totally right up there as one of my favorites. I also recommend for anyone who loves Caramel Corn to try this recipe. It's so easy to make caramel corn that you might not ever buy the overpriced stuff again.  Gene can make himself sick on it because once you start eating it, you won't want to stop. I have made it for my dad a couple of times and reports are that he loves it, too.

Of course, December would not be complete if I didn't make at least one batch of fudge. I use the recipe on the back of the jar of creamy marshmellow. And, because of the over abundance of walnuts I have in my cupboard this year (lucky me), I'll be adding nuts. Walnuts don't keep all that well so I want to get them used up.  I've tried making sugared walnuts before but I don't really like them.  Maybe I'll have to go on a quest for a good sugared walnut recipe. 

Well, today is Friday and the firm I work for is taking us on a wine tasting tour in a limo today. I've been looking forward to taking some different shots with my camera ~ hope I have some good lighting.  I'm having soup for lunch because they tell me there will be heavy hors d'oeuvres, heavy on the heavy!. I'm wearing my loose slacks today!

Happy Friday!  love, susan