Blissfully baking

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and have stuffed themselves with as much Turkey and mashed potatoes as possible!

We had the blessing of having a full house this year with family from my mom’s and my dad’s side over to stay, spending the days watching movies, making snowmen, and playing a few intense games of Candy Land and Catch Phrase. It was fabulously chaotic and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Those of you who know me personally, know that cooking is not my strong suit. Now, I’m not so bad that I can’t make spaghetti or eggs, but you’ll receive a blank stare if you ask me to whip up anything much fancier. But I do like to help in the kitchen around Thanksgiving. In college, my roommates and I used to throw a Thanksgiving/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Christmas celebration and we’d cook Turkey, Ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole…the typical holiday foods. Long story short, I brought back the green bean casserole dish to our Thanksgiving tradition at home thanks to my roommates and it makes me smile and think of them every time.

Yet the kitchen frenzy doesn’t end at Thanksgiving for a lot of us since Christmas sneaks up quickly. And as much as cooking isn’t really my thing – baking is! I’ve taken charge of the Christmas cookies and spend my available evenings in the toasty kitchen working on peanut butter blossoms, thumbprint cookies, snowballs, and press cookies. Occasionally I have to discipline myself to start the dreaded sugar cookies. It’s not that I don’t like making them, but icing them takes me hours! I guess it’s that creative perfectionist side of mine that drives me to make every sugar cookie look a little different and has to be iced just so. So, needless to say, our cookie trays are always somewhat lacking in the sugar cookie department…but snowballs (aka Russian Tea Cakes), now that’s a different story! Those are my kryptonite. But a word of caution, don’t consume without milk…the layers of powdered sugar will get you otherwise 😉 Now to determine what new Christmas cookie recipe to try this year…

What’s one of your favorite holiday treats? Any recipe recommendations I should try?