Christmas Parties

Wednesday last week was the culmination of days of baking and weeks of planning in a massive amount of Christmas parties!  I baked close to ten dozen cookies (and decorated them all) and missed Small Fry's Christmas concert (no worries I went last year and the parents went this year) so I could decorated a gingerbread house for my mom's office dessert competition!

Did I mention they were all on the same day?

Did I also mention that I'm a perfectionist and no one else can touch my cookies?!

Yes well.

Here are all the gingerbread men.  Dad needed six sets of six for his office cookie exchange and I needed some for my office Christmas party.

At this stage I had made the dough, cut out the cookies, made the frosting, and outlined the cookies.  I also added a cute little scarf.  Then I just had to fill in the cookies with their respective frostings.  Have I mentioned how much I appreciate having an outlined cookie to decorate?  It's a pain in the buttocks but I can fill that cookie full of tons of icing and it doesn't cascade off the cookie like a waterfall!  So not only do you get a thicker layer of frosting, you also get a pretty cookie ;)

Here's the beginning of the gingerbread house.  I've never made a gingerbread house before so let's just say I used A LOT of frosting to "decorate" (cover my mistakes).  Here I've cut out the walls and the steeple and the front is cooling and waiting to be cut out.  I cut the shapes after the cookie had baked because that meant straighter and flatter edges.

Here are the sugar cookies!  Not outlined our decorated.  I'm slacking I'll admit it.

Alright, here the sugar cookies, or should I say santa cookies, are halfway decorated.  Squeeze bottles are SOOOO much less messy than using a spoon for frosting btw.  And they're super cheap at craft stores.

Oh and don't you just love my nativity?!  It's my favorite because the emotion Mary is showing is so realistic to new moms :)  It makes me realize that even though the Holy Family was pretty much the holiest family ever they were still human and the love of a mother for her new baby and the love of a father for his wife and new baby is universal.

And now . . . THE BIG REVEAL!

Days upon DAYS of frosting coolies till my hands cramped have finally paid off!

Here are the finished products :)

The santa cookies!

Aren't they just adorable?!  Is santa supposed to be adorable?
(I used the same hard frosting I used to outline the cookie to make the texture in the hat.  Just start squeezing and plopping frosting all over to make it look 3-D).

Now the gingerbread men!

I used a powdered sugar and water icing for the brown body because that makes the cookie the softest and then used the harder meringue frosting for the red and green scarves.  They were delicious!


And the piece de resistance!
My gingerbread spanish church! (mom's office theme was a Southwestern Christmas)

I totally blew the competition away to win best themed cake! (there was cake inside holding up the walls . . . don't tell).

I also don't think many people entered/took it too seriously . . . but it was a competition and I had and idea and by golly I was gonna try and make the best possible entry!

The roof is my favorite part :)

So Merry Christmas Eve everyone!  I'm off to go to the gym so I can fit in my Christmas dress for mass tonight ;)

Condensed Thanksgiving

Now I know that it's Christmas in two days but I was looking through the photos on the camera and I saw these fun ones from Thanksgiving so I thought I'd post a random photo montage of that holiday real fast.

Although I guess it won't be a montage because I'll be talking through it.  So montages have voice overs?

Oh well, here goes!

Here's our turkey getting all ready to be roasted!

Dad  actually bought brussel sprouts from Trader Joe's on the stalk.  They were kinda cool.  Medium Well thought so too ;) 

The beginning of our cranberry sauce.  We baked it in the oven this year which was different but it tasted quite yummy!  I just think the colors of this picture are gorgeous!

Our gorgeous table-scape designed by yours truly ;)

I love my velvet pumpkins.  Like really, REALLY love them.  I don't know why, but they speak to me :)

Our plates.  Quite the colorful array.

And now to end things off with dessert and our cute platter turkey :)

And there, in two seconds was our Thanksgiving!  Happy almost Christmas!

Holiday Cooking Vent Session

So I know these aren't the traditional holiday cookies you're used to seeing this time of year.  You know, the pale yellow, icing topped confections?  Or the dark brown, spicy, iced wonders?  Or the colorful mouthfuls of butter?  Well I'm rebelling in this cookie post.  I'm not posting a SINGLE picture of those!  Because.  Just because . . . I felt like it . . .

Well also I have an insane weekend of cookie making ahead of me.  And when I say insane I mean insane.  Here's the email I sent to Medium Well yesterday venting about my cookie marathon:

Dad needs four dozen cookies for a cookie exchange (I'm making gingerbread men) and then he needs 2 dozen for the Christmas party (sugar cookie santas) both on Dec 19th (wednesday).  Then mom needs a cake for her office cake contest and I'm planning on making a gingerbread Spanish style church (bc their theme is a southwest Christmas) with cake in the middle (to hold it up) also on Wednesday the 19th.  I'm having a Christmas party at work and I've offered to make some dessert for that (I don't know what I'm making for it yet though, prob not cookies! lol) but that party is . . . you guessed it, Wednesday the 19th.  Oh and Dad is also going to go to his old office for their holiday party this Friday and wants to bring sugar cookies.
Sooooo.  I need to bake two batches of sugar cookies (that will make 48) and two batches of gingerbread cookies (that will make 60) so I can decorate them in stages and be finished by Monday night so they have time to dry and I can bag them up on Tuesday to send to work with dad on Wednesday.  I also need to bake a third batch of gingerbread in the shape of the church so I'll have time to decorate those walls, put the pieces together, and let it harden before mom has to take it to work on Wednesday. 
Plan:
1. make sugar cookie dough (twice)
1a. put dough in fridge
2. using same bowl, make gingerbread dough (three times)
2a. put dough in fridge
3.  take out sugar cookie dough and bake
4.  take out (2) gingerbread dough and bake cookies
5.  cut out walls and roofs and bake
6.  commandeer the basement ping pong table as a staging area for cookies.
7.  make three batches of stiff frosting and store in air tight containers until cookies are cool enough (and I have energy enough) to decorate.
8. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Did my sister who is taking a final this morning really need to worry about my cookie craziness?  Probably not, but I didn't make her read the email!  It was just there in case she wanted to peruse the interworkings of my weekend plans (in which she will probably feature).

So, because my mind is shutting down whenever I think of a Christmas cookie and all the work it will entail, I'm devoting this post to cookies I made a few weeks ago.  Macarons!  NOT Macaroons, MACARONS!

 Macaroons are crescent shaped cookies dusted in powdered sugar.  Macarons are light, airy almond cookie sandwiches.  I had a random craving for macarons one day and decided to make them. 
(whenever I have a random craving I normally move mountains to make sure I can make that recipe that night.  Let's not dwell on the fact that by the time I've finished making the recipe I'm too mentally exhausted to even enjoy the fruits of my labor . . . )

Thing is, I've never actually EATEN a macaron that I haven't made. 
Wow, that sentence didn't make much sense did it?
Let me re-phrase.  I've made macarons twice and I've eaten the macarons I've made but I've never eaten a macaron that someone else has made.  So I'm not giving a recipe since I'm not sure I even made these things correctly.  I don't want to say what I did and have someone make them the way I said and be like Blech!  What was she thinking?!?!  This is the worst French inspired cookie in the whole world!  All the Frenchmen/women of years past are rolling in their graves!  French pastry chefs everywhere are having a moment of silence to mourn the atrocity of my lack of pastry skills!

So if it's not perfect, you can't blame me! 

Lol I thought they tasted fine btw. 

So here's how I made them.  The recipe is pretty easy, it calls for sugar, almond meal (I tried to food-process my own almonds when I tried this recipe in college because I had them and didn't want to go to the store for almond meal.  It turned out ok but was a bit chunkier than was strictly acceptable . . . ), and egg whites.  Now the egg whites are tricky.  Every recipe I've seen calls for the egg whites to sit out on the counter for days.  As in up to a week.  These French people take their food a wee bit too seriously.  You know I bet that someone years ago just forgot to put their eggs back in the fridge and decided to make cookies with them anyway and got an ok result so, to save face, they told everyone they MEANT to do that and if you don't do that your cookies won't be as awesome. 
In other words, I didn't do that. 
Call me a germaphobe but the thought of leaving raw eggs on the counter for days makes me squeamish and I start having visions of my last bout with food poisoning (not pretty).  Maybe it's necessary?  Like I said I haven't tried a real macaron so I'm not an expert.  I did let my eggs sit out and get to room temperature.  That's gotta count for something.
Anyway, you then beat the eggs and fold in the almond meal and sugar and such and I added food coloring because that's the way I've always seen them made.  I put the mixture (it will be runny, not resembling a dough at all) into a pastry bag and plopped circles down on parchment paper lined baking sheets. 

And I let them sit for an hour.  This is a step I actually followed because it made sense that the tops have to harden so it can create a nice shell. 

Then I baked them and they pouffed up!  I was so proud of myself!

Now you have to let them cool COMPLETELY.  Like for an hour at least.  I get impatient and want to pop them off immediately but they will stick to the paper and it will not be pretty.  They are ready to come off when you can tap them with your finger and they move. 

Now to make the sandwich part of the cookie.

Normally you would make a chocolate ganache (I personally think that white chocolate ganache would taste delicious) but who has time for that!  So instead, I went with the closest thing to ready-made ganache that I wanted to eat . . . .Nutella!  Just stick a spoon in the nutella jar and instead of eating it straight off the spoon like you normally would, spread it on the flat side of one macaron and add another macaron to the other side to create a sandwich.

Tada!  Pretty as a picture!  Magazine worthy scrumtiousness! 

Btw, has anyone ever noticed that your food looks better the closer the camera is to the food?  A whole plate of cookies? not as cool as half a cookie at an angle (at least in my opinion).

Winter Memories

It's the end of the semester for those still in college and it's also December.  With all of the fb posts about graduating and going home for the holidays i was reminiscing about manhattan and thought I'd share one memory that happened more than I wish it had. (my mind wanders randomly at lunch time, can you tell?)
Let me set the scene.  It's December (or January or February).  It's recently snowed so the roads in my apartment complex have been plowed but the roads in the neighborhood between my apartment complex and campus have not been plowed.  Since the neighborhood is between a busy campus and a busy apartment complex, the unplowed snow is pretty packed.  It also hasn't melted because it's still below 30 degrees outside.  Or if it has melted, it has since refrozen and is now ice masquerading as snow.   Fun.
Back to setting the scene.
I've woken up and realized that I'm going to be a wee bit late for class if I don't kick it into high gear.  I've also realized that the class I'm going to be late for is the one taught by a crotchety old grandpa of a teacher who we all adore but who thinks the day starts at 5am and if we're late will ridicule us to no end.  Sooooo I've got to book it.
Getting ready goes something like this:  roll out of bed, throw on yoga pants and a shirt, fly down the stupid steep spiral staircase to the bathroom, brush teeth, brush hair, put hair in pony tail, swipe on foundation blush and mascara, run back up the spiral staircase of death to grab socks, boots and cell phone, run back down stairs, tuck yoga pants into boots, put on fleece jacket, put on winter jacket, put on scarf, put on gloves, try to put on hat but realize you have to take out your pony tail first or it will look weird, take off gloves, take out pony tail, put on hat, throw books into back pack while gloves are off, put gloves back on, grab keys and run out the door. 
And that's not even the fun part.
I never drive to school because it was faster to walk because parking was disgusting, especially in the winter time.  I'd have to park as far away as my apartment so I might as well just save time and walk.
Well on mornings like this I didn't have time to walk.  When I said run out the door I literally meant run.  Run out the door, down the road (less slippery than the sidewalk), cut across the complex by the tower, dodge the mail truck delivering stuff to the office, cross the street into the neighborhood and switch from running to a modified skating/shuffling motion on the ice packed snow that doesn't require picking your feet up.  By the end of the road I'm getting pretty toasty.  Not only do I have a bunch of layers of clothing on, but I'm also running, and carrying a bunch of books and binders.  So off come the hat and gloves.
Cross the street on to campus.  Cut through the tennis courts by my old dorm, cut through the parking lot of my old dorm.  By now I've lost the hat, gloves, scarf, and winter jacket (taking articles of clothes off while running and juggling a backpack on icy sidewalks should be an Olympic sport so I could win and go to Olympic village and make babies with my pick of the hot athletes!  Just kidding.  Kinda).  ANYWAY!  In my now semi-summery clothing choices, breathing hard, I decide not to risk sliding on the tile in the engineering complex and detour around it outside.  Then it's up the stairs, through the door, and into my seat right as the bell rings.  Where I unceremoniously drop all my outerwear on the floor, roll up my sleeves as far as they will go, and fan myself vigorously.  My classmates would give me weird looks because I was sweating and looked like a mess in the middle of the winter. 
Oooooh the memories. 
Happy almost Friday!

<3 B

Healthier Yummy Pumpkin Pie

Finally, FINALLY I'm able to figure this picture thing out.  I have to take pictures, transfer them from the camera to the home computer to edit, transfer the edited pictures to a flash drive, upload the pictures from the flash drive to my laptop, upload the pictures to google+, and FINALLY upload the pictures to the blog.  And since my laptop is inordinately slow, it takes about three tries to upload the pictures to google+ and you can only upload a few pictures at a time.  But hey, at least I found something that works!  FINALLY!  Goodness.

So here is the recipe I was trying to share before all this craziness ensued, healthy pumpkin pie.  That's literally what the recipe is called, Healthy Pumpkin Pie.

This recipe is out of the Libby's Pumpkin book.  Remember years and years ago, before the internet, when recipes were written on notecards, found in cookbooks, and found in little recipe books like this one?  Ah the good old days.

Funny thing is that this is the only pumpkin pie we've ever made so I don't know if "unhealthy" pumpkin pie would taste any better.  All I know is that it tastes good, is really easy to put together, and doesn't make that many dishes, which is always important when you're baking all day and getting every bowl in the house dirty.

So here it is:

Ingredients you will need are
1 can of pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just pumpkin.  I use Libby's)
12 ounces fat free evaporated milk (less than a regular can)
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger
2/3 cup sugar
and pie dough for a 9" pie pan (I made mine ahead)

Side note, DO NOT forget the sugar!  Last year I forgot the sugar.  I know, I'm hanging my head in shame still.  It was the first year in I think ever that we ever had family over for Thanksgiving (we live too far away) and I messed up the pie.  Thankfully we had two other pies so all was not lost.  Still, bad memories.

Anyway, first separate the egg whites.  They don't look like much of anything do they?  Kind of just a yellowish sheen.  Note to self, egg whites don't photograph well.

Next beat the egg whites.  No need to break out the mixer or a whisk, just use a fork and beat the egg whites till there are bubbles.

Now open the can of pumpkin.

Scoop out the orange yumminess.  You can make your own pureed pumpkin but I didn't.  Libby's pumpkin is pretty good.

Plop.

Now open the fat free evaporated skim milk.  But first do as the can tells you.

Shake well.

NOW you can open the can.

Then DO NOT pour in the whole can, only pour in 12 ounces.  I almost got carried away and poured the whole can in but saved myself from that disaster. Whew.

Add the salt,

And the cinnamon,

And the ginger,

And the cloves.

Now add the sugar!
I took a picture of myself adding the sugar,

And I took a picture of the bowl after I added the sugar.  Just to prove to myself that I had indeed added the sugar this year!

Now just mix all the ingredients together.  Simple as that.  Put all the ingredients in one bowl and mix together.  Easy peasy.  You're welcome.

Before you roll out the pie crust you have to clean off the counter (groan).

Before I poured the filling in the crust I decided to add vanilla.Vanilla makes everything better.  Ssssh don't tell.

Vanilla?  What vanilla?  You didn't see anything .

Now flour the cleared off surface and roll out the dough.

Ta da.

I don't measure the exact diameter, I just roll out a circle and place the pie pan on top of it to see if the circle is big enough.  And it is.  I'm awesome.

I would like to take this time to address the misconception that getting a pie crust from the counter to the pie dish is difficult.  It's not and I'll show you how I do it.

First fold the circle in half.

Then fold it in half again.

Now move the folded crust into the pie pan.  Since it's folded it's easier to pick up and it won't rip.  Also the point creates a perfect way to place the pie crust exactly in the center of the pan.  No guessing and dropping.

Now just unfold.  First one way.

Then the next way.  If the crust does while unfolding just squish is back together.  There is enough butter in the crust to stick together no matter what so no worries.

Now trim the excess dough (try not to eat all the extra dough, trust me the results will leave you hating your jeans) and crimp the edges.  I would also like to ask you to please not make fun of my crimped edges.  They are not spectacular.  It's not like there was a class on crust crimping in college, and if there was I wouldn't have had time to take it.  So there.

Just pour the filling into the crust.  I'm using a pie pan that is too big for the amount of filling I have.  We have another pie pan but it is too small so the way I think of it is if I use the bigger pie pan I get more crust.  When I put it that way there is no debate, too big pie pan it is.

I like my crust to be baked but to still be very pale so I wrap the entire pan in foil making sure to leave the filling uncovered.
Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.  Then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean.
(see why I wrapped the edges with foil?  The pie bakes for over an hour!)

Finally lift the pie out of the pie pan and place on the awesome cake pedestal you have because you got this adorable little turkey decoration for the cake pedestal and you wanted to serve the pumpkin pie on a festive platter.  Nevermind that pie served on a cake pedestal is a little weird.

Happy Holidays from my turkey to yours!