These are wonderful little butter cookies!
RECIPE
1 Cup Butter (2 sticks)
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 Egg Yolks
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
2 1/4 Cups Flour
Food coloring (optional)
Chocolate chips, lemon curd, sprinkles (optional)
Cookie Press
Preheat oven 350ºf degrees.
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla and egg yolks (and food coloring). Mix together. Sift flour and salt and add to butter mixture. Mix thoroughly (start slowly or you will have a cloud of flour!)
Dough is sticky. Place in cookie press. Squeeze shapes onto Silpat baking mat and cookie sheet. Add sprinkles or chocolate chips. If using lemon curd, making an indentation in middle of cookie. Add a small dollop of lemon curd.
Bake cookies on middle rack for 10-12 minutes until edges are lightly golden.
Now, try to only eat 1!
I love baking Christmas cookies. I go through at least 15lbs of butter by the end of December...
The first cookies I ever learned to bake are Pecan Puffs. Yes, they may look like Mexican wedding cookies, but they are far more delicate and just so yummy to eat!
Recipe
1 Stick Butter
2 Tablespoon Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Cup Flour
1 Cup Pecans (ground after measuring)
Sifted Powdered Sugar (in a separate large bowl)
Preheat oven to 300ºf degrees.
Cream butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Add flour and pecans. Mix thoroughly.
Place dough in fridge until firm. Roll dough into 1" balls. I use a Silpat baking mat on a cookie sheet, but if you don't have one, use parchment paper. Place dough balls about 1/2" apart. Place cookie sheet on a rack in the middle of the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
Cool cookies. Place small batches of cookies in the bowl of powdered sugar. Roll cookies until completely coated.
Enjoy!
My parents loved Halloween; especially my Father. He would design my outfits and Mom would design my sister's.
I am permanently scarred by some of my costumes...
Case in point:
1. We were living in Kenner, LA while Dad was getting his masters degree (after 3 tours in Vietnam, the Army sent Dad to Tulane). Laura was this adorable angel; I was a Viking princess. All night people would hum Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries" to me or ask where was my "trusty steed"...<sigh>
2. This goes down as the worst costume idea Dad decided upon...think of the time period...post Tet Offensive...the war is going badly...and my Dad puts me in black pajamas with a Montagnard hat...Yup, I was Charlie. I love how much Mom tried to jazz it up with sequin bands. Laura was this adorable bunny rabbit; she would hop up to each house, turn around wiggle her fuzzy tail and get handfuls of candy. Me? Oh, I got the usual "Hey, Charlie!" and maybe 1 piece of candy...I felt just like the Charlie Brown Halloween special: "I got a candy apple! I got chocolate! What did you get Charlie Brown? "I got a rock." <sigh>
3. And the last time I let Dad design my outfit. Dad had spent time in Jordan and brought back several Keffiyehs. Yup, that's me, a 12 year old girl; looking like a young Arab man....post OPEC Oil Embargo. Look how cute Laura looks as Raggedy Ann! I can't remember how many times I was called a boy and all the snarky comments that followed...<sigh>
For politically correct purposes I shall decline to show/discuss the other 2 outfits: Aunt Jemima Yes, a toddler dressed as Aunt Jemima in Ft. Benning, GA during the Civil Rights movement), and the white sheet ghost outfit (looked like a mini KKK...in 1960s Columbus, GA)...
I swear, I think my parents were trying to have me killed...
I love, love, love Pinterest!
Saw some decoupaged pumpkins and this is my version:
I painted a dollar store pumpkin and some faux leaves ASCP white. Tore up my old English Lit book; cut up some left over burlap ribbon; gathered some sticks and small branches from the yard. I soaked the pages in watered down coffee, then let them dry; tore the pages into small strips, dipped them in mod podge/water mixture and placed the strips all over the pumpkin...making sure to overlap the strips. While the pumpkin was drying, I cut up pieces of the branch for the pumpkin stem; applied Elmers glue to the pieces and leaves then rolled all of them in Martha Stewart glass glitter. Before I assembled everything, I sprayed the pumpkin with Mod Podge sealer. Then I went to town with a hot glue gun...et finis!
