One of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season is bake. This year, to save some money, I decided to put together cookie tins for friends and family instead of buying gifts for everyone. I began by looking through my favorite recipe book, Company's Coming, Cookies by Jean Pare 1988. I love this cook book because it has pictures of all the cookies and allows me to easily pick a selection that I know will visually present well. 

This year I made eight different kinds of cookies:

1. Prize Shortbread
2. Peanut Butter Cookies
3. Macaroons
4. Chocolate Ice Box Cookies
5. Granola Snacks
6. Palmiers
7. Lemon Cookies
8. Coffee Finger

 

All were a big hit and turned out great.

As you can see I didn't do many traditional Christmas cookies.  I prefer baking a wide range of cookies when I'm baking for gifts because you never know what your friends will like best.  You can do the same thing for your friends and family with any cookies you choose.  Get out your favorite cook book or start searching the web for great recipe ideas. 

Tags: Great Recipes

Nothing beats Halloween!  Fall colours, costumes, pumpkin seeds and an excuse to get creative!  This year I had fun carving pumpkins with my husband and baking bread and pumpkin seeds.

       

Carving is always fun however, if you're like me, you have fun carving but you're not the best at developing your own pumpkin face.  In the past, as a child, I loved making up a good scary pumpkin face, now I prefer finding a pattern or stencil that I like and copying it. 

There's lots of sites that provide free stencils and that's where we got our pumpkin faces.  I think my preference of using somebody else's design is because I'm not the best at visualizing negative space.  Your typical, cut out the eyes, nose, and mouth of a pumpkin (like my husband's) is simple to visualize.  Using light and dark differently like my little monster face provides many more options of detail which my mind just can't invent on it's own.  Some sites to visit for free pumpkin stencils are:
www.ehow.com/halloween/templates.html
www.dltk-holidays.com/halloween/mpatterns.htm
www.pumpkinmasters.com/free_patterns_main.asp

My pumpkin bread had mixed reviews. Some friends loved it, some wouldn't even try it.  If you're going to tackle this egg free bread recipe it's important to remember that this is not a sweet bread.  This is a normal bread. It is not light and fluffy, it's quite dense and moist and it tastes like regular bread with hints of pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. I enjoyed it, but will only make it once a year. 

Visit www.ehow.com/how_2138243_bake-egg-free-pumpkin-bread.html for the recipe. 
(I sneaked in a little sugar, used less oil and more pumpkin) Enjoy!

Don't forget about pumpkin seeds, they're delicious!
Wash them, let dry, toss in cooking oil, salt and bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes turning half way through.
Watch out, they'll be gone in a day!

        

Tags: Great Recipes, Other Crafts