Holiday Treats

Working freelance means I'm always on a budget and watching what I spend. This lifestyle can be tough around the holidays so I put a little extra effort into homemade gifts for friends and family. This year I've decided to tackle the wonderful world of cookies.  We've had this book, Celebrating Cookies, laying around for ages so I decided to crack it open and give some recipes a try. 

I like planning ahead whenever possible so I've been a bit of a baking fiend over the past week trying out a selection of goodies from Snickerdoodles to Chewy Orange Brownies.  It helps keep the kitchen toasty too which is an added bonus now that the nights are getting colder.
 

One family favorite so far are the "Heart Cookies" reminiscent of the scrumptious Italian cookies I used to buy in Brooklyn bakeries. They're filled with raspberry jam and have a distinctive almond taste... sooo delicious!  To make things festive I used seasonal cookie cutters and dusted them with powered sugar.


The cook book that's been nothing more than an extra dusting spot in past years is now getting loads of attention and I'm pleased my efforts have been such a success.  It's nice to know I'll have something extra special to hand out this year.  Now I just need to figure out how to avoid ganing 100 pounds between now and December 25th. Oy!

Best~

Recipe for Love

One of the fun steps for collecting info for custom blog themes is when customers share some of their favorite links ~ recently one customer shared some wonderful videos she enjoys on YouTube. I don't often get a chance to peruse YouTube, just not enough time, but I happened upon this delightful treat and just had to share.

I enjoyed it not only for it's visual appeal but for it's charming editing and story telling as well.

Enjoy~

While We Wait ~ a recipe

My husband's had some promising leads for work already this week and so we're currently playing the waiting game. To take a break from the stress I like to play in the kitchen sometimes, plus it helps save money and keeps us eating healthy too.

My husband used to have a bit of a weight problem, probably brought on by those 'hearty' farm meals he grew up with and the high school job he held at a local pizzeria. Whatever the case, he's managed to loose a good bit of weight over the past few years and one of his favorite weight loss tools has been my homemade salsa. He loves it because he can eat loads of it with a few tortilla chips and gain little weight.

Here's the recipe which I've created as an image so you can easily click to enlarge and either save it to your computer or print it out.

Personally I can't eat super spicy foods since I had my gallbladder out a few year back, so the basic recipe works great for me. The nice thing is it can be easily altered for hotter taste buds by simply adding more chili powder, garlic, or even a few hot peppers for a really spicy version. During the holidays I like making it look a bit festive by substituting green peppers for red. You can really have some fun playing with the recipe so I hope it brings a little spicy enjoyment to your day!

Enjoy~