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!

Christmas 2011 - The Cooking Extravaganza!

First of all... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

It's my family's tradition to make holiday cookie boxes for all our friends and those who help us on the day to day, week to week or month to month...

My grandma started them with my mom, my mom continued with me, and now I am handing the tradition to my daughter.

This year of course Pinterest had a HUUUUGE factor in the goodies we decided to make in our packages.  My pics of each as well as links to the original bloggers are all provided.  I will say their pics are going to be WAAAY better than mine... but at least you can see what it will look like not stylized... :)

So first I made a list of all the "stuff" we were going to need to make the goodies.  Here's the arsenal:

So the first one we tackled was the pretzel and kisses and M&M's. Totally repinned over and over and over again.... and like 7 different varieties... Here's the blog we pulled ours off of:  House on Hilltop

We went the easy route and I wasn't able to find circle pretzels:

I think in total this one took us 10 minutes to complete and in all honesty...I've made it a few more times since this initial batch...  It was SUPER yummy to take into the movie theater and an easy snack for new years.

Next we made an english toffee that was not a pinterest item, but one that was given to me by my friends grandmother.  Super easy recipe -

2 Sticks of butter
1 cup of Sugar
2 Hershey Bars
Chopped nuts of your choice

Consistently stir butter and sugar about 10 minutes until its a caramel color - over medium high heat.

On a cookie sheet spray non stick spray (I do this even on my non stick pans) sprinkle 3/4's of your chopped nuts on the pan.  Once the butter and sugar has changed color, pour it over the chopped nuts on your pan. Melt hershey bars.  I do this on a double broiler, some people like to microwave... your choice.  Coat the toffee with the chocolate and sprinkle the remaining nuts. Let cool and crack into pieces!

Next up!  Christmas Crack.  Another repinned item I saw many times over.  We got ours from here: The Girl Who Ate Everything

Jasmine loved this one.  So easy!

Jasmine felt this looked too much like the english toffee we made, so she wanted to add some "Jazz":

That's it for now.  New post tomorrow with more competed foodie recipes! :)