Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Merry Christmas!


I hope that all of you are having a blessed and joyful Christmas season!  There is so much to be thankful for this year (getting married, buying a house), but that's nothing compared to the coming attraction next year: the arrival of our sweet baby girl in March 2012!  We can't wait :)

Despite my lengthy absence from this blog, good things have been coming out of the oven over the past few months.  The holiday season has always been a busy time for baking, and this year was no exception.  Aside from getting used to working in a new kitchen and home, I also had to contend with competition for kitchen time--something I never had to deal with before marriage!  My husband is pretty handy in the kitchen, and for him Christmas means homemade Christmas candies!  We managed to alternate days working in the kitchen (as well as working ahead and freezing lots of cookies) to make:
  • 15 lbs. of peanut butter fudge
  • many, many batches of pralines
  • divinity
  • 5 batches of rum balls
  • Cajun spiced mixed nuts
  • Cajun firecrackers
  • 24 pints of apple-pear butter
  • 9 dozen cake mix cookies
  • 6 dozen gingerbread boys
  • 8 dozen sugar cookies
  • peppermint bark popcorn
  • peppermint swirl cheesecake
  • peppermint ice cream
...and I'm sure there were other items that got left out.  Aside from a few toys we purchased for the little ones in the family, the bulk of our gifts were homemade Christmas goodies.  It was so much fun, and I'd gladly do it all again next year (or as much as I can possibly do with a 9-month old crawling around the house).

I'm itching to try out the new cookie cutters Santa brought me this year:
Image Source: Oneida

I first saw these cutters on Sugarbelle's site, where she recommends keeping an eye out for them at your local Walgreens.  You can find them for a pretty good price there (the tub is marked "Wow! $10", compared to ordering them online for $19.99), and now that after Christmas sales are in full force I'm sure you can find them for even less!  Sure, I already own Wilton's 101 Cookie Cutter set...but this set has some different shapes that I absolutely love (the angel, cat head, ghost, scalloped round, among others).  The only problem with these cutters?  I'm out of storage space for them!  :)

Did you receive any fun kitchen toys you're just dying to try out?

Photobucket

1 comment: