I did that too???

Since moving to Texas I have pretty much played down my ability to cook among my friends.  So here is my admission... yes, I can bake and cook.  I still can stay without any uncertainty that I can not grill anything to safe my life though.  Unless they liked charred food.  Or as I call it... CayJenn.

So why did I feel the need to break that silence this Christmas with a bunch of random cooking techniques and skill that my friends would think I probably paid someone to do?  I'm still wondering the answer to that question...

I did cheat a little with the cookies we made.  I figured that since the candies were all pinterest inspired gems.  I could afford to go the quick route on the cookies...  except for one.  The Snowman Nutter Butter cookie.  THe moment I saw the cookie, I knew Jasmine would be allllll over the decorating.  So my part was simple, right?  Ice the Nutter Butters...well... that assumes I'm coordinated.  Here's were we got our recipe: My Pretty Purse 

Super easy recipe.  I used a fork to manipulate the nutter butter in the almond bark.  For the life of me, I could not find black icing anywhere...so instead I used Brown.  Close enough...

If I could have changed anything... It would have been to wait a little bit longer to set the tic tac's and M & M's in.  

Since I was in the Almond Bark mood, I figured I would attempt the santa hat mix as well.  This one... was a total and utter failure.  I have no idea how they made those hats look so awesome... but me... I really sat back and looked at the mess in my kitchen and was determined to try to make it work.  It just didn't.  heehee.  Well at least i can laugh about it now.  That night, however... wasn't such a tee hee moment.  Here is where I got my recipe from:  Cookies and Cups

So right off... I realized I didn't have enough vanilla almond bark because I used so much on the above cookie.  So instead I used chocolate almond bark.  Maybe that's where the difference lies?  

Here are the bugles...covered in muck.  Looking...like yuck.  We waited for them to dry, them I gave Jasmine a few options on how she wanted to decorate her hats.

Re-dipping them was brutal... I can't even believe I'm posting these honestly...  

Here's the mix pre chocolate bath

Really, when you put it all in your mouth and tasted it - it wasn't bad.  It just looked bad all mixed together and NOTHING like the pics on the blog.  So this one was a failure on my part.  And really it was no cooking at all, that's the funny part.

School starts back tomorrow and i'm back to work...ugh.  I miss not working and being able to do creative things like this.   Tomorrow I'll blog about my adventures in bundt cakes.  Funny story behind that one too...

Ta ta for now!