Holiday Cookies 2008

Well, I have achieved almost-complete cookie delivery this fine December 24th with reserved tins for some people we’ll see after Christmas day. This here is one baking mama who is going to run out of cookies this year (unlike last year). Then, last night, one of my neighbors delivered cookies to us. IT ROCKED being on the other end of cookie delivery.

I had only one unappreciative person this year and I’ll be honest, it ruined my whole day. We went home that night and I was all morose and I got out a small plate of a wide variety of cookies and hubby announced: I liked that cookie and I liked that cookie and I liked that  cookie and I liked that cookie and I liked that cookie. Hubby is the best.

The next day we went to a party for the Association of State Employees with Disabilities and the cookies were oohed and ahhhhed over and I was asked for a tour of the platter and my ego was sufficiently soothed. We decided some people suck and some people are cool and some people are never getting cookies again. Like, they can bite me they’re never biting into one of my cookies again.

This is what I made this year:

• Brownies (double batch) – these were my specialty before the macaroons. I bake a mean brownie, a variation from a recipe I got out of  Mary Emma Showalter’s Mennonite Community Cookbook – the cookbook of the town I grew up in, the book being a Master’s thesis from the local Eastern Mennonite University.
• Lemon bars (double batch. I’ve finally  nailed how much lemon juice and extract to put in these. Every year I put in more and every year it is not enough but this year they were downright tart and very good.)
• Lace cookies (double batch) – these are my brother’s favorites and they are a PAIN IN THE ASS but very, very tasty.
• Chocolate oatmeal no bakes (double batch) – I made truly terrible no-bakes until very recently. They were so bad hubby announced I could stop making them for him, he wouldn’t be eating them any longer. But I have prevailed! With an awesome no-bake recipe I developed myself (bowing now). (OK, maybe they still have a little too  much sugar in them. Hubby still won’t eat them.)
• Swedish wedding cookies (quadruple batch). I’ve also heard these called Mexican wedding cookies and Russian tea cakes and a few other things. Doesn’t take much cultural savoir faire to figure out that flour, butter and sugar taste good together.
• Magic bars (double batch). Who doesn’t like a magic bar?
• Toll house bars (1 jelly roll pan). Eh, I prefer the cookies myself but I was trying to cut down on how many actual cookies I baked and go more with bar cookies when possible.
• Buckeyes (quadruple batch).
• World-famous chocolate dipped macaroons (double batch). This is my signature cookie. I recommend that if you ever have one of my macaroons and don’t like it that you smile politely and compliment me. I’m not kidding. I am not even kidding.
• Tingalings (peanuts and chow mein n0oodles held together by melted chocolate). Y’know how there are “bar foods” like mozarella sticks with ranch sauce and potato skins? I consider tingalings saloon cookies. They are just such a guy thing. Last year hubby asked for them and I prioritized them so far down the list I ran out of chocolate before I could make them. I did not make that rude error again. He is really enjoying these as well [I hid a few for once the holidays are all and completely finished so he can have a little surprise].
• Chocolate-dipped biscotti (home-made almond orange biscotti. I used to think that biscotti was only made in exotic fancy industrial kitchens and then a few years ago Seafarer made biscotti and casually handed me a piece in line at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and I was all, “You made these?” and she was all, “Sure” so I now I, too make biscotti).
• Chocolate covered cherries (the easy kind of a recipe I made up myself after reading “real” recipes that looked like a true pain in the ass. they pretty much suck.)
• Chocolate covered pineapple. I’m only making enough of these for me this year. I made them last year and they were great but I was the only person I knew of who thought so.
• 4 packages of chocolate-dipped Oreos in dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate and purple chocolate all drizzled with a different color chocolate. I take great pride and joy in my Oreos.

And once again, I did all my own dishes and we didn’t eat out on any of the nights I baked. This is a point of almost silly personal pride. Cookies are my gifts to my friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, the businesses we work with all year long, strangers who need a pick-me-up and I do it myself. All of it myself.

Here’s last year’s cookies.