Peanut Butter Blossoms

These are a must-have on every Christmas Cookie tray. Nothing too fancy or complicated about them, they are super-simple and everyone loves them. I got the recipe from the Hershey's website.

Ingredients:

• 48 HERSHEY'S KISSES Brand Milk Chocolates
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup REESE'S Creamy Peanut Butter
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Granulated sugar

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Remove wrappers from chocolates.

2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 dozen cookies.

Butter Icing

I wanted to find a great icing recipe for my cookies this year, and I came across this one from www.allrecipes.com. It is really easy, pipes well and hardens nicely. I will be using this one again.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons cream
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. In a saucepan, over medium heat, heat cream and butter until butter is melted. Stir in the vanilla and confectioners' sugar. Remove from heat, and beat with an electric mixer until thick and smooth.

Gingerbread Boys & Girls

Gingerbread Cookies are a must at my house. My husband likes very few cookies but this is one that he just loves so I am required to make them every year! I found this recipe on www.allrecipes.com and it was very good. I wish it had a bit more "spice" to it though...next year I will be slightly increasing the amount of the spices. Either way my husband loved them so they are good in my book!

Also, I'm not a confident baker so when it comes to breads/cookies/baked good of any kind I follow the recipe exactly. The only thing I omitted from this recipe was the royal icing. I made my own icing.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup molasses
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 
  
• 1 pound confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 3 egg whites

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the molasses and eggs. Combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour, baking soda, salt, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger; beat into the molasses mixture. Gradually stir in the remaining flour by hand to form a stiff dough.
3. Divide dough into 2 pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. In a medium bowl, sift together confectioners' sugar and cream of tartar. Blend in egg whites. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat for about 5 minutes, or until mixture is thick and stiff. Keep covered with a moist cloth until ready to frost cookies.

Wine of the week

Once again, I fell behind in my wine of the week updates with Thanksgiving last week. Sorry about that!

Yesterday I picked up "Chateau St. Nicholas" because I was just in the Christmas mood and the bottle is cute! However, I have no clue who makes this wine! It says on the back of the bottle that it was bottled by Woodbridge but I really am not sure if that is where it came from. I realized this after I bought it...which weirded me out a little bit but I can't let a bottle of wine go to waste! So I tried it last night. This was a Merlot and was good, but there wasn't anything really special about it. So while the bottle is super cute, it was just a regular merlot and not one that I'd go out and buy again!

Tamale Casserole with Chicken and Onions

As you can see by my blog entries, I'm not a *huge* fan of southwestern/Mexican cuisine. Mainly because more times than not, the food is quite spicy and I absolutely hate spicy food. I don't understand how people can enjoy food while burning their mouths out but I suppose that's neither here nor there. Either way, when I see a recipe that has Mexican qualities but looks like it can be altered to bring down the heat factor, I'm willing to try it in order to keep things fresh in the kitchen. In addition, through my many travels into the southwest for horse shows (I used to show horses back in the day) , I have found that I do indeed like Tamales quite a bit. So when I saw this recipe on the Food alla Puttanesca blog, I thought it would be worth a shot. Oh my, was this fantastic!!!! My husband and I just loved the flavors in this casserole and I especially liked how easy it was to make. I added an onion to the casserole because I thought it would bring a lot of flavor, which it did. While it certainly wasn't the prettiest of dishes (are casseroles ever?) it was absolutely delicious and I will most definitely be making it again and again.

Ingredients
Adapted from Food alla Puttanesca

• 1 cup (4 ounces) preshredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese, divided
• 1/3 cup fat-free milk
• 1/4 cup egg substitute (I used one egg.)
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin (I used about 3/4 tsp)
  
• 1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1 (14 3/4-ounce) can cream-style corn
  
• 1 (8.5-ounce) box corn muffin mix (I used Jiffy)
  
• 1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained (Omitted)
  
• Cooking spray
• 1 (10-ounce) can red enchilada sauce (such as Old El Paso)
• 2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast (I used 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts)
  
• 1/2 cup fat-free sour cream (Omitted because I forgot to buy at the store. Oops.)
• 1 medium onion, chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°.Combine 1/4 cup cheese and next 7 ingredients (through chiles) in a large bowl, stirring just until moist. Pour mixture into a 13 x 9–inch baking dish coated liberally with cooking spray.Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until set. Pierce entire surface liberally with a fork; pour enchilada sauce over top. Top with onions and chicken and bake for 10 minutes to let the onion sweat out and become tender. Then remove casserole from oven, sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup cheese and bake at 400° for 10-15 more minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes. Cut into 8 pieces.

Pierogi Lasagna

When I saw this recipe I knew I had to try and it and blog about it! I found it on the Omnomicon blog and while my pictures are no where near as good as on that blog, I did what I could! This was great as a side to Kielbasa with carmelized onions. I thought the end result was a little bit on the "bland" side, but I blame myself because I think my potatoes were under seasoned. I will use more onions next time as well because i found they got lost in all of the potato and noodle goodness. Also, I wouldn't serve it as a main course or by itself because all those carbs get a little overwhelming. A protein is a must with this dish! Some Grilled Kielbasa is an excellent choice. But all in all, I thought this recipe was a really good take on a pierogi. I will probably make it again!

Ingredients
1 lb lasagna noodles
4 lbs red or white potatoes
1/4 c sour cream (optional)
1/2 c milk
2 c shredded cheddar cheese
3/4 c butter (1.5 sticks) (I used about 3/4 - 1 stick)
1 onion, sliced in rings

Directions
Cook the noodles. Chop potatoes into 1" cubes, place in pot of cold water (enough to cover), and allow to come to a boil. Continue boil until potatoes are soft enough to yield to a fork stab. Drain, mash, blend with a mixer. Toss in the optional sour cream and milk, mix some more. Add salt to taste. Stir in cheddar.

Melt all the butter over medium-high heat, then sautee onion until the rings no longer hold their shape.

Preheat oven to 375. Grease the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish with some of the onion-butter. Lay noodles on the bottom of the dish, then spread the potatoes, a dollop at a time, along the length of each noodle. Once done, smooth the potatoes, then spread about a quarter of the onion on top, and drizzle a small amount of butter as well. Repeat this twice (or more if your dish can accommodate), then top with noodles and the remainder of the onions and butter.

Pop in the oven for 20 minutes. Allow to cool 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Sugar Cookies

If there's one Christmas Cookie that I don't like, it would have to be sugar cookies. I know, I know. What a tragedy. They just aren't my favorite. However, I'm forced to make them every year for my Christmas Cookie tray because my mom and aunt *love* them in a rather unhealthy way. Either way, I'm always looking for a really great recipe for them. So I turned to Good Things Catered because I've yet to be disappointed with a recipe from this great blog, and found "The Most Fabulous Sugar Cookies". And let me tell you, from a girl who doesn't like sugar cookies these were quite good. Am I now a sugar cookie convert? Not really. But I did think these were way better then a "normal" sugar cookie.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. butter
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. powdered sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 Tbsp lemon zest
5 c. flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Powdered sugar, for rolling

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
-Cream butter and sugars in a mixer for 5 minutes.
-Add eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly.
-Add vanilla, almond, and lemon zest.
-Sift in flour, baking powder, and salt a little at a time.
-Do not over mix, this process should take about one minute.
-Chill dough for up to a week in the fridge, or roll out and cut right away.
-Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and bake cookies for 7-8 minutes.
-Wait until cookies are cooled before icing.

I found that this recipe made 30-32 big, thick cookies. Ashlee says 80, so I think it's just the size and thickness of the cookie.

I decorated the cookies with an edge of buttercream, filling of royal icing, and decoration with buttercream.