Annual Baking Day!!

We had our Annual Baking Day on December 4th and it was a BLAST! I always get really excited when Baking Days comes because in case you weren't aware I love to bake! I'm sure you had no idea from my blog posts but I can never get enough of baking and cooking :-)

Back in the day it used to be all the woman in the family getting together at my Grandparents home and baking up a storm for hours and hours! After speaking to my Grammy she said the most we did one year was 177 dozen cookies!! Crazy right??

Since some family moved to Reno our annual baking day people started to get smaller and smaller. And then my Grandparents sold their home and moved out of town. We no longer (and haven't for a few years) do baking day with all the woman in my family or at my Grammy's house. But that doesn't stop us from doing our own (doesn't stop my cousins either who also continue to carry on this tradition YAY) Baking Day in December. While Mom and I are the only two who bake, my Seester still joins in on the fun and hangs out with us, she even decorates sugar cookies and is happy to sample all the cookies!

Here we are ready to get our bake on at 9 am!!

My Mom made these (requested by Mandy) Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Caramel Bar! These are so yummy!! My work agrees to as I brought in a plate of our cookies and these were devoured!

Next up is a new recipe I tried this year called Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies from Paula Deen. And yes they are as amazing as most of her food LOL!! Totally bad for you but worth it!

Inspired by the chocolate ones we decided to try these with lemon. Now this recipe is super easy to substitute the flavor because you use a cake mix, so my Mom grabbed a lemon cake mix and voila. Instead of Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies, we made Lemon Gooey Butter cookies! These were even BETTER than the chocolate ones. And we've decided they are a recipe to make every year!

Of course we had to have our Peanut Butter Kiss cookies. Mom made these and they are so good!! And you can see in the left corner we also made Party Peppermint Patties (another must have cookie).

I made another new recipe this year and they were Peppermint Meltaways. So easy and so yummy. While I was the only one in the family to really like this these ones they were another favorite at work! They were just loved by my coworkers! In fact I dropped them off Tuesday morning and Wednesday when I came in all of the peppermint ones and the caramel bars were gone!

Here's my goofy dad! He got to hang out with us most of the day and of course sample cookies!

Not only did he sample cookies but he also became a cookie artist! Can you tell what?? Yes you guess it right it's the United States! While at first it was a "What are you doing you weirdo??" it turned into a "Wow that's pretty cool" LOL Props to my Paps for being creative!

Here we are with the finished products! It was such a successful and fun baking day! And we made.............

35.75 dozen cookies. A total of 429 (add a few more for those eaten before we counted)! Considering Mom and I were the only ones who baked I would say it was a SUCCESS!! We had plenty of cookies!!

Here's a list of all the cookies we made that day and the totals of each. I create a "spreadsheet" each year so we can track them and see if we made more or less than the year before!

And of course I'll leave you with some yummy shots of all the cookies I brought home! Underneath the kiss cookies are awesome caramel bars!

These were so good! I made a pretty big plateful for work because not only do I not want a bunch of cookies that I LOVE sitting at our house but my coworkers would be upset if I skipped a year of bringing in cookies. I think they look forward to it :)

With one baking day down I have one left. My girlfriend Alycia and I are starting  a new tradition of our own baking day too! I am so excited to get our bake on and try out ALL new cookie recipes! So keep your eyes posted for a bunch of new cookie recipe posts! They will be coming your way shortly :)

What are some of your holiday traditions?

Mint M&M Cookies

Back when  I went shopping with my girlfriend Alycia I picked up a bag of the Seasonal Mint M&Ms. My favorite type of chocolate is any chocolate with mint so I knew I had to enjoy these!! What did I do with them?? I made Chocolate Chip Cookis with Mint M&Ms of course!!

Who doesn't love homemade chocolate chip cookies?? No one!!

Gather up your typical ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, then a 10 oz bag of Mint M&M's.

Just a close up shot because they are so lovely!

Combine your ingredients just like you would with Chocolate Chip cookies, but then....

ADD IN THE M&M's!! I just love how much more colorful these are going to be than regular chocolate chips!

Now because I felt there was not enough M&M's and I was pretty sure no one would complain about too much chocolate, I dumped in half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips!

YUM! I could eat the entire bowl of batter!

Place on cookie sheet, then place in your oven and as always wait for the sweet cookie aroma to fill your house! Speaking of aroma's sometimes I am super jealous of Chuck! You know how sometimes when you are cooking you just gradually start smelling your food! He gets to come in the front and be hit by the smell in full force! I sometimes want it to slap me in the nose cause I'm sure it's way better LOL!

Are you ready for this?? I bet you are! Check out your final product! A little festive but you also get that warm fuzzy feeling that everyone must feel from homemade chocolate chips! I know that I get that feeling whenever I bite into a homemade chocolate chip cookie!

Since I wanted to be creative one night I thought what better than a cookie sundae?? UMM NOTHING!! So I grabbed a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream, one cookie, some whipped topping, and chocolate syrup! Oh yeah it was so good!!

I love the holidays and the specialty candies. It makes for some pretty awesome desserts! :-)

I highly recommend you run out and pick up a bag of mint M&M's, even if you don't put them in cookies you will want them just to "melt in your mouth"!!

I Think I'm Obsessed............

With mint and chocolate...in fact I know that I'm obsessed!! I tried yet another minty brownie recipe! This time the minty flavor was planted on top instead of in the center!!

Gather up your ingredients: Powdered sugar, Peppermint Extract, green food coloring, sugar, flower, semi sweet baking chocolate, chocolate chips, salt, vanilla, butter, eggs, flour, and milk!

First step melt the chocolate! I again just melted them in the microwave!

Yummy! So creamy!

Next drop in your eggs!

And last but not least your flour, salt, and sugar

Make sure to mix this all together really well!

They recommened lining your 8x8 baking pan with foil and then spraying that foil with baking spray! This will make it easier to remove the brownies from the pan!! And yes it really does!

Pour in the batter then pop it into your oven!

While these were baking I chose to get started on the mint layer of frosting!

Combine your food coloring, extract, and butter.

Mix it all together with confectioners sugar (a.k.a powdered sugar)

Yum isn't that looking really good?

Once you've removed your brownies from the oven make sure to let them cool. I let them cool overnight. Then remove the foil from them, place on a platter or in my case a cutting board.

Spread the minty frosting over the top and then drizzle some chocolate over the top. I actually just used chocolate syrup that you'd use to make chocolate milk or to put on ice cream.

Cut them up and enjoy!

I was actually extremely worried about the brownies because they just didn't seem to be baking all the way but they turned out way better than the frosting!

The frosting turned out like crap. It didn't mix well and for some reason I can NEVER get frosting right. But despite the frosting these were DELISH!! I was suprised at how good the made from scratch brownies turned out!! I will defintiely be making these again but next time I will probably just buy some vanilla frosting and add in the mint!!!

Christmas is Officially Here!!

That's right ladies and gents Christmas has officially arrived at our home!! I was so excited that this year Chuck had the day after Thanksgiving off because that meant we were able to get our tree even earlier! YAY!! The following Sunday we decorated the house and the tree and now our home looks AMAZING! I just love Christmas decorations, I think they can make anything beautiful!

I of course want to share with everyone our awesome decorations so where do I start first?? The tree of course!! This years is a little smaller than last years but Chuck and I both agree it's the perfect size for our place. I would love to have a HUGE tree but unfortunately we don't have the space in the condo for one that size so I guess I'll just be patient until we can buy a bigger place. On my list of requirements will of course be a big window to put the tree in front of and high ceilings so I can get a super tall tree :) But for now here is our gorgeous tree for 2010.

And all lit up! I have been experimenting with my settings on my camera and I thought this shot turned out great. Unfortunately I can't remember what setting it is haha.

Me in my new PJ's from Santa Claus. Each year Santa visits on our Tree Trimming night to bring us new PJ's...the pants are candy canes and then shirt of course has Santa on it :) I also got super cute socks with Reindeer heads on the top but the dogs have already killed one reindeer :-( They are still comfy and warm though!

Here is our mantle. I just completed it the other night because I was waiting on our new stocking holders. I'll have to take another picture with those added and share but for now. We decided to try more themes this year throughout the house and I just love my snowman guys so they took center stage on the mantle. Along with some awesome snowflake tea light holders my Mom bought me. They work perfect with my snowman!

Our "kids" stockings are hung up too!! Each year we buy them a bunch of toys and fill their stockings!!

And my snowglobe collection. Each year Chuck has bought me a snowglobe and I was so excited to display them all together this year! Love our TV stand and its decorating abilities :-)

And here is my new snowglobe!! Isn't he just awesome! He's the biggest one I have yet and told Chuck he's gotta scale down a bit otherwise I will run out of room, but I just LOVE this guy! I love Santa and did not have one where he's the main guy. And this one is just too cute!

Our dining room wall was dedicated to Rudolph Characters!

Chuck's stepmom has bought him these little guys for a few years now and they just fit so perfectly in our shelves!

Last year Chuck bought me Rudolph and it worked since it completed the set. And he lights up and plays Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer so it's even more FUN!!

And our bookcase. We'd love to find another tree candle like that but unfortunately I bought it YEARS ago and can't remember where I picked it up. I found some on ebay but they are smaller versions. But it actually works out great because the little Snowman candle holder is something my Mom bought me and he looks perfect there. With a pine cone candle added the tree and him work great!! And then we got the darling christmas "plaque" from Chuck's Aunt & Uncle. It is a really pretty piece and we wanted to showcase it this year!

And next up is my favorite part (aside from the tree of course). The entryway has been my favorite part of the house since I repainted (well 2nd favorite since nothing gets better than my scrapbook room lol) but we decided to make our entryway table SANTA THEMED!!! We had all the perfect accessories too!

I picked up the Santa Picture from Target one year in their After Christmas Sales, the tea light holder I'm pretty sure my Mom got me, although maybe Chuck bought it for me, I can't remember all I know is that it was given to me by one of them :). Then the little Santa doll I've had for years now and the candy dish I picked up for a buck at the dollar store. My original candy basket got taken to work since it just didn't go well with our home decorations. But isn't this darling? I just love it!

And of course I added some christmas to our downstairs bathroom. Two of my snowglobes that started it all now reside in there.

And of course some cute stockings got hung!

And my favorite Salt & Pepper shakers!! Yes they are salt & pepper shakes but I use them for decoration cause how much cuter can those get?

Then we added just a few items to the kitchen. I didn't get a picture of the baker nutcracker that is by the coffee pot but trust me he's cute! Then the Minnie lights up, moves, and plays music. She came from Chuck's Grandma's (who passed away last year) house so it's nice to have a little piece of her with us. She loved Mickey and Minnie! And then we had one remaining stocking and it fit perfectly on our kitchen wall. 

I picked up another set of bells (or one bell in this case) for our front door. We needed a new one since our old one has almost kicked the bucket.

And last but not least OUR CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN! Now I know it's no longer 26 days until Christmas but at the time we decorated it was!! I love this countdown! I am not sure where I picked it up but it is perfect for the spot we have right by the door! A reminder to Chuck to get his shopping done LOL And also something I get to be excited about every day when I count it down!

I think we are officially done decorating now. Chuck put up the lights outside the other night and thanks to my girlfriend Alycia for her brilliant suggestion of getting a timer for the lights. We no longer have to turn them on and off, not sure why we never thought to get a timer before LOL.

Who else is all set for Christmas? I am hopefully finishing up my shopping soon. The only one left to finish is Chuck and I've got a pretty good game plan for him! I just can't wait to get all the gifts wrapped and under the tree!!

Stainless Steel Dreams!

After an very filling and delicious dinner at my parents house on Thanksgiving we all go home and settle into our food comas! We enjoyed this delicious meal, played some pictionary, had some pie and then said our goodbyes..

Well our temporary good byes :-) My Mom, Sister and I go out at midnight every year now and shop our local outlet mall!! It's always so much fun and we do score some good deals!

This year I'd been eyeballing the advertisements for a new set of pots and pans! Little did I know at midnight I would find them! I was seriously considering getting up and going to JCPenney's at 4 am to purchase a set I saw! But fate had other plans!

We stepped into the Kitchen Appliance store and I began checking out the deals! I scored this set of Stainless Steel Pots & Pans for only $149.99! Can you believe that? Maybe you can considering this wasn't even on sale. But I thought it was a great deal and I wouldn't have to get up at 4am! SCORE!!

Of course when I finally made it home around 2 AM I was way too impatient to wait and open it up in the morning. Chuck was still up so he helped me unpack! I was so excited to use them!

Other than a few items for Chuck I didn't do much else for black friday shopping!

Who else scored some deals?