Can you believe it's already 2014 (well almost,we still have an hour and a half to go here in FL) I was browsing our page and never realized how much we posted since we started just a few months ago. From recipes to memories, we've had it all, and are so excited for what's coming for 2014! 1 25 DAYS OF COOKIES DAY 5
0 Comments
It seemed like I was watching the ball drop and it was 2013 and now already we are looking at 2014. I'm sure like last year it will be a year of discoveries and a year of changes. Maybe this year I will actually follow through with some of those resolutions I said I was going to do last year. lol I do have a lot of ideas with my Ebay business and also with my Etsy business plus I want to start blogging a lot more frequently. Along with organizing and eating healthier. Ok I'm tired and overwhelmed already! (J/K)
I have found in the past this was my weakness. I try to do everything at once and do get myself overwhelmed so this year I will take one day at a time and if I fall behind or slip up it's ok just move on...With that said we were working on a project before Christmas and finally finished it last night. We made Happiness Helper bags. These are bags we filled and are going to hand them out to the homeless. So many times we see people on the corners who just need something to cheer them up. My family and I have worked a lot with the homeless and you would be amazed at how just the smallest of things will put a smile on their face. We are starting with 25 bags and when we see someone on a corner who needs cheering up well we have got something to give them.Happiness Helpers! Along with that since the weather is getting colder I also have gloves to give out. You would be surprised how many of the guys who sell the newspapers appreciated those! We do what we can with what we can but just to see one smile is worth it! Maybe you can make some happiness helper bags.You can use your own idea on what to put in them. Maybe you can get a deal on some things someone else can use. :) This is what we bought to assemble them. we do have some items left but we can use those next round. One box of gallon size storage bags 50 Styrofoam cups we put 2 in each bag. 1 container of powdered creamer that we separated into 25 little bags 1 jar of coffee that we separated into 25 little bags 1 box 100 ct sugar packs (4 in each cup) 25 plastic spoons 2 boxes of Cascadian farms Granola cereal which I mixed with a container of raisins and made a granola mix then separated into 25 bags. 5 packs of 5 razors 5 packs of 8 ct tissues 3 packs of 10 combs 2 packs of 40 ct wipes (2 each) 3 packs of 10 ct toothbrushes 1 box of 100 band-aids (4 each) 1 pack of 100 safety pins (4 each) 1 card with Hubby's name & number (He is a Pastor) Sometimes you just need someone to talk too. I then printed out some smiley stickers and affixed it to the front of the bag and voila Happiness Helper bags. Hopefully we can do this at least once a month. I also want to get some Hershey's hugs and make little you look like you could use a hug bags. Thank you Kathy McKelvey for that wonderful idea :) So here is a picture of what we made time to get busy and hand them out..till we meet again..Mama Carol On The 12th Day Of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me: Pinwheel Sugar Cookies These are such fun little cookies and can be make in whatever color you want. Green & Red for Christmas? Pink and white for valentines? Tyedye? Rainbow? Do whatever you can come up with!
Pink Pinwheel Sugar CookiesYield: About 4 dozen cookies Prep Time: 6 hours (includes refrigeration) Cook Time: 11 min Ingredients:3 cups all-purpose flour Directions:In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition, then add the vanilla. Turn the mixer off. Add the flour and then beat just until combined. Remove the dough and separate it into two equal pieces. Shape one piece of the dough into an 8-inch square, wrap it securely in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge. (This will be the white portion of the cookies.) Return the remaining piece of dough to the stand mixer bowl, and with the mixer on "low," add in the red food coloring, drop by drop, until it reaches your desired pink color. Remove the pink dough, shape it into an 8-inch square, wrap it securely in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut each square in half to form two rectangles. Wrap half of each color of dough in plastic wrap and return it to the fridge. Place the white dough in between two pieces of wax paper and roll it into a rectangle about 1/8-inch thick. Roll out the pink dough between two separate pieces of wax paper until it is a rectangle about 1/8-inch thick. Peel the top layer of wax paper off of the white dough and then peel the wax paper off one side of the pink dough and use the other side to transfer the pink dough on top of the white dough. Very lightly roll the two layers together. Starting at the shorter end of the rectangle, roll the dough as tightly as possible into a log. Repeat the rolling and stacking process with the remaining dough in the fridge. Wrap the logs in wax paper and then plastic wrap and refrigerate them for 1 hour. Remove the dough logs and roll them on the counter several times so they don't develop a flat side. Unwrap the dough logs and place the sprinkles in a large, shallow dish. Roll the dough logs in the sprinkles until they are completely coated. Re-wrap the dough logs in wax paper and plastic and refrigerate them for 4 more hours. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350ºF and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the fridge and slice each log into 1/4-inch rounds. Place the rounds about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets, as the cookies will expand when baked. Bake the cookies for 9 to 11 minutes until pale golden, and then transfer them to a rack to cool completely. On The 11th Day Of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me: Melting Snowman Cookies Remember the sugar cookie recipe? We're gonna use that to make these adorable cookies!
Melting Snowman Cookiesadded by Angela Gray Serves: depends on youIngredients 1) your favorite sugar cookie dough 2) bag large marshmallows 3) various icing colors for decorating 4) white icingDirections1. Roll out sugar cookies onto a lightly floured surface until 1/3-1/2 inch thick. Cut out with a large round cookie cutter . Bake according to directions and cool completely. *Buy them or slice and bake them !2. •Once the cookies are cool, load them up with the cookie icing and spread it around with the back of a spoon, let some dribble over the edge for a "puddle" look. * I prefer to stick the marshmallow on at this point, it tends to stick easier.3. •Spray a microwave safe plate with cooking spray, and place marshmallows on the plate. Set the microwave for 30 seconds, but watch the marshmallows as they cook. Stop the microwave as soon as the marshmallows start to get puffy, do not let them double in size4. •Spray your fingers with cooking spray or grease them up with shortening, and carefully pull the marshmallows off, by the base, and set them on top of the frosted cookies. You may push in the tops very gently. You may need to use a little icing on the bottom of the marshmallow to get it to stick if icing is to dry. •Then just decorate as you'd like with the Wilton frosting, or your own homemade frosting! I was pleasantly surprised at how yummy the Betty Crocker cookie icing was! Very surprised !5. ***Ingredients for Homemade Cookie Frosting *This dries hard and shiny, very pretty and easy to store. This frosting layers well just make sure and let the base coat dry VERY thoroughly first. (It takes a full 8 hours or overnight to dry entirely. I wait 1 hour in between base coat and decorating them, then let them dry overnight) While base coat is drying tint remaining icing into different colors. (The amount of icing you will need depends on the amount of cookies you decide to bake/or buy. ***This recipe will ice about a dozen cookies. 1 cup confectioners' sugar 2 teaspoons milk 2 teaspoons light corn syrup 1/4 teaspoon almond extract or your favorite assorted food coloring Directions In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup. Be patient and get it the right consistency, it should drip slightly off of cookies. But for decorating it should be stiffer and you will have to adjust it with more powdered sugar. This is easy, no big deal.6. If you don't want to bother with the above Icing Step, no problem, Betty Crocker and Wilton both make a powdered icing base that you can whip up in minutes. Then use decorators frosting in the little tubes or cookie decorating pens.7. * Tip* Add your favorite extract flavoring to your favorite cookie dough mix. Makes them taste like homemade. You can also add lemon and/or orange rind with orange or lemon extract. So yummy ! Thanks to Angela Gray over at justapinch.com for this step by step recipe! On The 10th Day Of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me: Basic Sugar Cookies Sugar cookies have to be the easiest and most versatile cookies to bake. There are so many things you can do with them to take them from plain old sugar cookies to something that's WOW! Over the next few days I'll be sharing those ideas with you.
Makes 18 cookies| Hands-On Time: | Total Time: Ingredients
Directions
Thanks to realsimple.com On The 9th Day Of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me: Delicious & Chewy GingerbreadOK. OK. I know we've been almost 10 days of cookies without this favorite,so here it is! These come out a bit softer and chewier then a ginger snap. You can change the spices a bit to your tastes but these are awesome as is!
Recipe makes 2 1/2 dozen
Directions
THANKS TO ALLRECIPES.COM For this awesome & delicious cookie! On The 8th Day Of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me: Kid Friendly Cake Mix Cookies This recipe gets rave reviews both from the kids and parents. They are easy to have kids help make and they taste wonderful! Give em a try! Super thanks to http://theinspiration-network.com for this wonderful recipe!
The ingredients:
You will also need a cookie pan with a Sil-Pat or parchment paper and colored sugar. Next you are going to roll your dough into balls about the size of a walnut. (Mason Jar Mama Edit: if dough is too sticky,treat as drop cookies and simply drop onto pan and sprinkle with sugar) Next you dip the top of your dough ball into the colored sugar. Place cookie balls dipped in colored sugar on the pan/silpat. Cook in a 350 degree oven for 9-13 minuets. Take them out of the oven. Leave them on the pan and while they are still hot press a Kiss into the middle of each cookie. Of course parents should do this as the pan and cookies are very hot. Let them cool on the pan. When the chocolate is cool it will hold its shape ON THE 7TH DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME: Super Easy BiscottiNeed a cookie to pair with that home made hot chocolate? Or maybe something to add a touch of home made to that teas of the world gift basket you are working on? What a fantastic gift for your child's teachers!
INGREDIENTS
COOK'S NOTE: The dough can be sticky, so lightly flour your hands or coat them with cooking spray before shaping it into logs. Making the logs as uniform as possible ensures even baking.Store biscotti in an airtight container, up to 2 days, or freeze, up to 3 months. DIRECTIONS
ON THE 6TH DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME: Sweet SnickerdoodlesThese are one of my favorite cookies! Sweet and chewy with just a hint of spice, Snickerdoodles are the one cookie I think about when I think of Christmas, maybe it's the scent of the cinnamon and sugar together that makes me think of Mr.Clause singing a merry melody while she bakes up a batch of these delicious cookies for Santa to take with him on his long ride around the world on the 24th.
Ingredients 1/2 cup salted butter, softened 1/2 cup vegetable shortening 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar 2 medium eggs 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon fine salt 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon Directions Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine the butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar and the eggs and mix thoroughly with an electric mixer on medium speed until creamy and well combined, 1 to 2 minutes. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt, and stir into the shortening mixture. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon. Shape the dough into 1 1/2-inch balls (1 tablespoon per ball), and roll each ball in the cinnamon-sugar. Arrange the dough balls 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake two sheets at a time until the edges of the cookies are set but the centers are still soft, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through. Transfer the cookies to wire racks for cooling. Repeat with the remaining dough balls. Store in an airtight container. THANKS TO The Food Network for this wonderful recipe! ON THE 5TH DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME: Melt In Your Mouth Snowball Cookies. These make one amazing cookie! Very few ever make it to our gift boxes. Part butter cookie, part heaven they are hard to resist, you can leave out the nuts or even put a Hershey kiss in the middle for a little sweet surprise!
Ingredients
Instructions Step 1 In a bowl, cream butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy Step 2 Measure flour into a bowl (use dipping method) with salt, blend. Add to sugar mixture until just combined. Step 3 Stir in nuts. Step 4 Chill dough for at least an hour. If leaving it overnight, take it out of the fridge and let it sit out for a bit to loosen up before rolling out. Step 5 Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Step 6 Roll dough into 1” balls. Bake on ungreased baking sheets for 10-12 minutes until set but not brown. Step 7 While still warm, roll in confectioner’s sugar. Step 8 Let cool. Roll in sugar again. Thanks to Helen Brown on foodie.com |
Mamas:Mama Carol Recipes:
Like Us:Categories:
All
|